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VE;^ KARL^ KOCHSeptember 2019 | Rolling Stone | 67
“The World Has Turned and
Left Me Here,” everything
changed. “Rivers was able to
articulate something that up
to that point had been elu-
sive for me,” says Sharp, who
immediately decided to put
all of his energy in service
of Cuomo’s songs, making
plans to move back to L.A. “I
thought, ‘I’m doing this, no
matter what has to be done
to make it happen,’ ” Sharp
says. “ ‘We’re on this journey
together.’ ”
Cuomo was profoundly
affected by Sharp’s enthusi-
asm. “I think Matt called me
and said, ‘You’re a genius. I’m
going to be your bass player.
We’re going to be a band.’
It confirmed all my greatest
hopes for myself. Knowing
he felt so strongly about the
songs was all the confidence
I needed.”
Cuomo also got a boost
from Jennifer Chiba, his “qua-
si-girlfriend” at the time.
After getting dumped twice,
Cuomo was protective of his feelings — and, less sym-
pathetically, “had every hope I was going to be this
huge rock star, and have all these other options for
girlfriend/wife. Still, she was the coolest thing. She
was three years older, the first half-Japanese girl I
met. She turned me on to Flaming Lips and Sebadoh,
and did wonders for my confidence, saying, ‘All the
hipsters are going to think you’re the coolest.’ She’s
like, ‘You’re going to be cuter if you cut your hair.’
That was the first time any girl had said that. Until
then it was always, ‘No, don’t cut your hair.’ ”
Sharp essentially became the band’s manager.
“Rivers had put his trust in me to act as the band’s
consigliere,” says Sharp. “As Tom Hagen to Cuomo’s
Corleone, it was my obligation to try to create an
environment that allowed him to tune out extrane-
ous noise so he could keep the focus squarely on his
writing.” Though he would go on to become a hit
songwriter, Sharp wasn’t really a co-writer in Wee-
zer, but still helped shape their aesthetic, in part
just by spending hours talking with Cuomo. Initially,
the as-yet-unnamed Weezer had some leftover Fuzz
songs in their set list — Cuomo saw them as key to
the group’s sound — but Sharp’s lack of enthusiasm
for them helped push them out. “And I think that’s
where Matt’s head was at, at the time,” recalls Wil-
son. “ ‘Yeah, let’s not be grunge. Let’s be more like
the Beach Boys. But loud.’ ”
Cuomo, who had reverted back to his studious-
ness post-G.I.T., got an offer for a generous scholar-
ship at UC-Berkeley, with a stipend, an apartment,
even a parking space. He gave Sharp a year to get
them a rec ord deal; otherwise he would take Berke-
ley’s offer. Weezer played their first show on March
19th, 1992, a month after forming, on Valentine’s Day.
Cuomo persuaded a club, Raji’s, to let them play —
they ended up on a bill with Keanu Reeves’ then-
band, Dogstar, as a late-night closer.OUT OF THE GARAGE
Left: Weezer recording
the Blue Album in- Recalls drummer
Wilson, “We were
totally nerds. Rivers
was smart enough to
realize, ‘I need to not
look like a nerd.’
I never gave a shit. I
just wanted to play.”
HAIR TODAY
Above: The newly
formed Weezer, 1992
(clockwise from left:
Jason Cropper, Pat
Wilson, Matt Sharp,
and Rivers Cuomo).the effort, workaholic that he is. (When I visit him in
June, he’s spent the morning writing computer code
for fun.)
After Fuzz came Sixty Wrong Sausages, with
Cuomo, Wilson, and Finn on bass, along with a sec-
ond guitarist, a guy named Jason Cropper. Cropper
was, unlike everyone else, a California native, and a
chill, cheerful guy — qualities that would ultimately
spell trouble amid the odder personalities. “He was
this more unbridled, Northern California punk hip-
pie spirit,” Cuomo says now. “Which is so different
from my careful, controlled artistry.” Cuomo wasn’t
the focus of Sixty Wrong Sausages; it was more of a
collective, and it didn’t last long.
Cuomo decided he would write 50 songs in a row
before allowing himself to form another band or
play live again. He moved to Santa Monica, started
attending college there, and recorded demo after
demo on an eight-track cassette recorder. He wrote
only 30 or so songs, but among them were “Undone
— The Sweater Song” and other eventual WeezerIN DREAMS
Right: An early
album-cover
sketch, complete
with band logotracks. Cropper says that around this time, Cuomo
also made an entire, never-released rap album under
the name Vegeterrorists — songs about his lifelong
vegetarianism in styles akin to Public Enemy and
Run-DMC. “Rivers can drop mad beats and spit mad
rhymes with the best,” says Cropper. “And if I stayed
in the band, we would’ve done records like that years
ago.” (The only released evidence of this period is a
striking demo of Cuomo covering Ice Cube’s “The
Bomb” like a one-man Rage Against the Machine.)
Matt Sharp had moved to the Bay Area, and was
embarking on weekslong, aimless Amtrak rides.
On one of those trips, he listened to a tape of Cuo-
mo’s new songs that Wilson had slipped him. When
he heard “Sweater Song” and the breakup lamentFADE TO BLUE
Right: Weezer around
the Blue Album’s
release. Brian Bell
(second from right)
replaced Cropper just
as they finished the LP.[Cont. on 97]