Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo has shared his plans for the band moving forward. Weezer recently wrapped up their yearlong SZNZ project, leaving the frontman feeling stuck in a “weird in-between phase” with no new record on the horizon.
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The last installment in the SZNZ series, Winter, was shared on Dec. 21 following EPs Spring, Summer and Autumn. The Winter EP featured a handful of emo-inspired tracks that feel right in tune with the colder months. Cuomo recently explained that he aimed for each of the EPs to capture the mood for its corresponding season. “For winter, it was sadness,” he said.
“The original inspiration was that I wanted to try to incorporate some ’90s-era singer-songwriter styles like Elliot Smith, acoustic fingerpicking and just warmer acoustic sounds,” he added. “For our previous album Autumn, we were going for dance rock, like Franz Ferdinand, and it had more synths and stab-y guitars, and we thought it’d be a good contrast to go for something very warm and acoustic – of course, mixed with a giant Weezer guitar sound.”
With the final record being out, Cuomo explained he feels a sense of “postpartum depression.”
“This always happens after we finish working on an album,” he said. “[SZNZ] really occupied most of my time for the last couple of years.”
He continued, “It’s been an incredible joy to work on. And suddenly, now it’s over. And it’s out of my hands. And it feels premature to just jump into the next one, although I may do that. So I’m kind of in this weird in-between phase where I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. So, I’m sorry, I guess that isn’t as positive as I should feel right now!”
While he admitted he felt a little lost on where to take the band next musically, he did satiate Weezer fans by noting a “big tour announcement” was coming soon.
“For the last five to seven years, we keep getting geared up to do our big headline tour,” he explained of the band’s hiatus from touring. “And then just as we’re about to put it together, something else comes along, like, ‘Hey, do you want to be part of the Hella Mega Tour and tour with Green Day and Fall Out Boy and do stadiums? You just get to play 60 minutes, but it’d be a great opportunity to win over some new fans, and it’ll be fun to be with these other bands,’ and then we’re like, ‘Ah, okay, yeah, I guess we gotta do that! That sounds like fun.'”
He added, “And then year after year goes by like that, and we still haven’t done the big headline tour. But we’re about to make an announcement that’s going to fix all of that.”
Photo by Ashley Osborn / Supplied for Magazine feture
