Rivers Cuomo

Rivers Cuomo
Background information
Birth name	Rivers Cuomo
Born	June 13, 1970 (age 53) New York City, U.S.
Origin	Connecticut, Los Angeles
Occupation(s)	Musician, songwriter
Years active	1989–present
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar, drums, bass, piano, harmonica, clarinet
Website	http://www.weezer.com/ http://riverscuomo.com/
Associated acts
Weezer Avant Garde Zoom Fury Homie Goat Punishment 60 Wrong Sausages AM Radio Scott & Rivers
Notable instrument(s)
Warmoth Custom Fat Strat Gibson SG Standard Rivers Cuomo's equipment history

Rivers Cuomo (born June 13, 1970) is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and principal songwriter of the rock band Weezer. He has also released works under his own name, and has contributed to numerous songs by other artists.

Early life

Cuomo's 1978 school photo

Rivers Cuomo was born on June 13, 1970 in Manhattan to Frank Cuomo, of Italian descent, and Beverly Shoenberger, of German-English descent. According to Rivers, his mother claims that he was so-named because she first heard the sound of a river outside her hospital window after his birth, while his father claims that Rivers was named after three soccer players from the 1970 FIFA World Cup: Brazilian player Roberto Rivellino, and Italian players Gigi Riva and Gianni Rivera. Shoenberger gave Rivers no middle name in order to permit him to choose his own (which he never did). Rivers was, according to his younger brother, Leaves, almost named "Apple" (most likely because he was born in New York City).

Rivers lived the first few years of his life at the Rochester Zen Center in upstate New York, where his parents first met. Frank Cuomo left the family when Rivers was four years old, and was largely absent from Rivers' youth. Shoenberger moved with Rivers and Leaves to Yogaville East in Pomfret, Connecticut, where they lived until 1981. Shoenberger married Steven Kitts in 1976. At Yogaville, Rivers was given the name Rama by the Indian guru Swami Satchidananda. When Yogaville relocated to Virginia, the Kitts family remained in Connecticut, moving to Storrs/Mansfield area, where Cuomo lived for the remainder of his adolescence.

Cuomo has described himself as a "very somber child." Said Cuomo, "My teacher asked my mother what was wrong with me because I never looked happy. So, my mother advised her to say, 'Let me see that smile,' and then I would smile. So she did that -- in front of the whole class. She got the whole class to turn around, look at me and say, 'Let me see that smile.'" While attending Mansfield Middle School and E.O. Smith High School, Rivers and Leaves Cuomo went by the more "ordinary" names Peter and James Kitts, respectively.

Cuomo was greatly interested in soccer from a young age, initially wanting to be a professional soccer player when he grew up. "...because I rarely saw my dad as I was growing up, I romanticized everything about him. One of the things I romanticized was his passion for soccer; I tried to cultivate it in myself. I took my first step trying to kick a soccer ball." Cuomo also played on a boy's soccer team. However, in 1981, Cuomo learned that he had been born with a congenital femoral deficiency in his right leg. Though his legs were of equal length at birth, by the time of his diagnosis in 1981, Cuomo's right femur had grown 1¼ inches shorter than his left, reaching a 2-inch differential at his full height. Cuomo's interests later pivoted to music.

Cuomo as a teenager

Cuomo was first exposed to American rock band Kiss at age 7. "This little girl came through the ashram for a visit, and she brought a Kiss record, Rock and Roll Over. She came over to our house, and while we played the Kiss record, we recorded ourselves running around in circles as the tape played. It was like, 'this kicks ass.'" Cuomo later joined the Columbia Record Club and bought every Kiss album he could, eventually bonding over his love of Kiss in the sixth grade with friend Justin Fisher, the son of a friend of his mother's. Cuomo was first inspired to learn guitar after witnessing classmates perform "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot at a school assembly. "I just couldn’t believe that kids my age were playing these real instruments and playing this song I loved... it just blew my mind! And so I got my own guitar shortly after that, and I started learning all the metal songs of the day." Cuomo received his first guitar on his fourteenth birthday, in 1984. Cuomo's first band was a Kiss cover band, called Fury, consisting of himself and his brother on guitar, Justin Fisher on bass, and Eric Robertson on drums.

Music career

Early career

Avant Garde

Cuomo and Fisher performed in several bands throughout the 80s, covering songs by bands such as Metallica, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Fates Warning, with Cuomo even taking guitar lessons from Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos. In 1985, the pair formed the glam metal band Avant Garde, recruiting classmate Bryn Mutch on drums and brothers Kevin and Eric Ridel on lead vocals and guitar, respectively. The band recorded three demo tapes between 1987 and 1989. In 1987, Cuomo attended a five-week music program at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he met Texas native Michael Stanton, who later moved to Connecticut to replace Eric Ridel. In 1989, the band relocated to Los Angeles and changed their name to "Zoom," recording another demo tape in early 1990. Zoom played their final show in March of that year before their ultimate dissolution.

After the members of Zoom were evicted from their appartment, Cuomo moved in with a girlfriend and got a job working for Tower Records in Anaheim, California in 1990 before transferring to the company's Sunset Strip that summer. While working for Tower Records, Cuomo first met Patrick Finn, who encouraged Cuomo to write and sing his own songs and exposed him to bands that would later greatly influence his songwriting, like Nirvana, the Beach Boys, and the Pixies. Finn introduced Cuomo to future Weezer bandmates Patrick Wilson, Jason Cropper, and Matt Sharp, in addition to Karl Koch.

In early 1991, Cuomo and Wilson formed the band Fuzz with bassist Scottie Chapman. Fuzz featured a more Grunge-influenced sound, reflective of the music Cuomo was interested in at the time. The project was short-lived; after a single 8-track demo and two shows, the band fizzled out as Cuomo and Wilson shifted focus toward a new project, 60 Wrong Sausages, formed alongside Finn and Cropper. Throughout the fall of 1991, the band recorded a demo, held several rehearsals, and performed one show before dissolving.

Weezer

Weezer's earliest incarnation. From L—R: Jason Cropper, Patrick Wilson, Rivers Cuomo, Matt Sharp

Following the dissolution of 60 Wrong Sausages, Cuomo and Wilson expressed a shared interest in moving toward the type of songs that bands like Nirvana and the Pixies were recording. "There was so much anxiety about authenticity at the time," said Cuomo, "and we’d all just made this radical transformation from being metalheads to being alternative. You didn’t want anyone to find out what you looked like 12 months ago." The two resolved to attempt to write fifty songs between the two of them before pursuing a new band project. "We wanted to write a bunch of tunes before we even played together," said Cuomo, "so that we could have an idea of where we were heading before we started wasting our time and money paying for a rehearsal studio. I didn't want to get back into a band until I felt like I had a bunch of songs that were good and that had cohesive style. So I just wrote songs and didn't play at all for a long time." Though the two did not make it to fifty songs, future Weezer tracks such as "Undone - The Sweater Song," "My Name Is Jonas," and "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" were written during this period. In January of 1992, Wilson shared a tape of the duo's material with Matt Sharp while the latter was living in Berkeley. Sharp was so impressed that he insisted on being Cuomo's bass player, resolving to move back to Los Angeles. "Rivers was able to articulate something that up to that point had been elusive for me," said Sharp, "I thought, ‘I’m doing this, no matter what has to be done to make it happen.'" Cuomo was greatly validated by Sharp's confidence. "It confirmed all my greatest hopes for myself." said Cuomo, "Knowing he felt so strongly about the songs was all the confidence I needed."

Cuomo, Wilson, Cropper, and Sharp formed the band that would later be dubbed Weezer in February of 1992, rehearsing for three days at T.K. Productions & Rehearsal Studios in west Los Angeles. The band performed their first concert the following month, at Raji's on Hollywood Boulevard, performing in support of headliner Dogstar (a band notable for featuring actor Keanu Reeves on bass). Hours before the show, Raji's promoter, Lawrence Mann, asked Cuomo what name to put on the bill. Without consulting the other members, Cuomo answered with "Weezer," a childhood nickname given to him by his father after the character "Wheezer" (Bobby Hutchins) from The Little Rascals.

Weezer recorded multiple demos and played numerous shows around Los Angeles before signing to Geffen Records on June 25, 1993. The band's eponymous debut album was recorded later that year and released the following spring, on May 10, 1994. Over the course of 1994, however, Cuomo became lonely and disillusioned with the lifestyle of constant touring. He began formulating a potential concept album based on this disillusionment, later dubbed Songs from the Black Hole. Later in the year, Cuomo began applying at colleges with the intent of studying musical composition.

On April 14, 1995, Cuomo underwent an operation to correct his congenital femoral deficiency. The surgery involved breaking his femur and fitting it with a metal brace (called an Ilizarov apparatus). Said Cuomo, "Each day I would turn some screws on the rods so that they would extend and increase the space in the break in my bone. After 6 months, the bone was supposed to be totally filled in and they would take off the metal frame. Two months in I was back out on the road with Weezer, stumbling around with a cane." Cuomo required an additional surgery in January of 1996.

In September of 1995, Cuomo moved into a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard University.

Attending Harvard

At Harvard, Rivers began to abandon his space opera concept. A bad case of writers block kept Rivers from writing any material for quite some time. The only thing Rivers knew was that Weezer's next album should be completely without gimmick. At Harvard, Rivers was unrecognizable to most. He walked with a cane, had a thick beard, long hair, and thick glasses. According to Rivers, fans would walk by in Weezer shirts and not recognize him.

Rivers writers block let up when he received a letter from a Japanese fan girl. The letter would inspire the song "Across the Sea", and help to kill the Black Hole project. The song's lyrics reveal that the letter meant so much, and he was in such need of attention, that he would lick the envelope where she licked it, and have sexual fantasies about the girl. Around this time, Rivers was also reading lots of Joe Matt comics, studying classical composition, had a strong interest in Madame Butterfly, and was inspired by the guitar stylings of Yngwie Malsteem. All of these things played a strong roll in the songs he wrote. "Across the Sea" featured references to Japanese culture, had chord changes, dynamics and complexity like that of a classical composition, and the guitar was fast and relentless much like Malsteem's. Furthermore, the idea of holding nothing back and exposing everything is similar to the comics Joe Matt makes such as Spent. Cuomo would also fall in love with girls at Harvard, most of whom he was terrified of approaching, one of which turned out to be a lesbian. This prompted the songs "Pink Triangle" and "El Scorcho". "The Good Life" chronicled the lifestyle of Rivers at Harvard. Rivers walked with an "old man cane", was "bitter and alone", was looking more bizarre than he ever had ("who's that funky dude?"), etc. "Falling for You", another song Rivers wrote at Harvard, made reference to the girl he sang about in "El Scorcho".

Pinkerton

When it came time to record Weezer's second album Pinkerton, Rivers had taken complete control of the band. He was less social with his bandmates, he was more reserved, and he wanted no gimmicks. He wanted Pinkerton to have a raw and rough sound, which he said was closer to Weezer's actual sound.

When Rivers toured for Pinkerton, he had more of a drive to make sure he was having sex with groupies and living the rock star life. After shows, Rivers would make conversation with girls (typically Asian), and often invite them back to his hotel room to have sex with. Rivers wrote of this in one of his essays, A Mad and Furious Master. In it, he writes, "Then one night, I plucked up my courage and boldly proclaimed, “OK, whoever wants to stay in the room has to . . . uhh . . . take off their clothes and…uhh…get on the bed”. The women tittered and most of them left, but four of them stayed, and to my amazement, did as I asked." Several fan accounts of this are chronicled on the website "Rivers el Pervo".

Rivers also made arrangements so that 75% of all video footage in the music videos was of him. He arranged salaries to members based on contributions to the albums (which left him with a majority of the money). However, after Pinkerton's commercial disappointment, Rivers was somewhat embarrassed and ashamed of the album he had made. In 2001, Rivers said, "It’s a hideous record… It was such a hugely painful mistake that happened in front of hundreds of thousands of people and continues to happen on a grander and grander scale and just won’t go away. It’s like getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself." After Pinkerton, Rivers sought a less personal writing style and moved to Boston.

Retreat to Boston

After a tribute show for the late fanclub members, Mykel and Carli Allen, Rivers moved back to Boston and dropped out of Harvard. While there, he pursued many different musical projects, including the short-lived acts Homie and Rivers Cuomo Band, which had songs straying away from the Pinkerton path, being described as "Country songs" according to Cuomo. Homie never had any official releases, apart from a contribution to the Meet the Deedles film soundtrack, contributing the song "American Girls", which would be the last recording to feature Matt Sharp with the band before his departure in early 1998.

Hiatus and the Black Room

During the final Homie show on January 14, 1998, Cuomo announced that Weezer would be going to L.A to make their new record tomorrow. The band rehearsed for most of 1998 with new bassist Mikey Welsh, with Cuomo writing more songs than ever before. Cuomo wanted to write "the perfect pop song", and took heavy inspiration from bands like Oasis, and Nirvana. Towards the end of the year, rehearsals had basically come to a stop, and drummer Pat Wilson moved back to Portland to focus on other projects. This sent Cuomo into a new state of mind, and towards the end of 1998, he had painted his bedroom walls black in order to start a new songwriting project, the The Catalog O' Riffs. On January 1, 1999, he started his new project, writing as many songs as he can, in order to crack the perfect formula for a pop song. As Cuomo would describe it, "The music I produced cycled through various styles, from extremely abrasive to light and folky, but in accord with my new post-Pinkerton values, almost none of the lyrics had any personal meaning." As the year went on, Rivers got more and more isolated from the world. Mikey Welsh would move out to play with Juliana Hatfield, and Pat's band The Special Goodness. Cuomo eventually unplugged his phone and replaced his windows with fiberglass insulation so no light would get in. Cuomo also kept a binder named The Encyclopedia o' Pop, which had mathematical analysis of every Nirvana, Oasis, and Green Day song released up until that point. According to Todd Sullivan , "(Rivers) figured if he could home in on Kurt's formula, he'd figure out his own formula. That way, he would be a never-ending supply of songs." By the end of 1999, Cuomo had wrote and recorded 119 songs. Very few of these songs would see use on future Weezer projects except for what is the bands most famous song, Island in the Sun. Rivers eventually moved out of the Black Room in December 1999 into a house in Beechwood Canyon.

Comeback and SS2K

With all of his new material recorded in 1999, all of Weezer recorded demos and headed right into the Warped tour, and which would eventually lead up to the Summer Songs of 2000 tour (or Ss2K for short). In an interview with Yahoo!, Rivers stated if they weren't on the tour he would "still be in my room wanting to play music."After the tour was over, Rivers had build a new home-studio, which he and the band used to record The Christmas CD (after which Rivers had his braces removed) and what would become The Green Album.

The Green Album and return to success

This section requires expansion.

With all his new material and tons of demos recorded, Rivers and all of Weezer headed back into the studio to record The Green Album. Rivers had written over 75 new songs for the album and was as he said a "struggle" to narrow it down to only 20 songs, which would have to be then marked only to 10.

Maladroit

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Meditation

In February 2003, taking the advice of producer Rick Rubin, Rivers became involved in a form of meditation called Vipassana, and later that year, began a vow of celibacy. His intention was to find balance in his life. He now frequently takes Vipassana 10 day courses every few months.

Unfinished album with Matt Sharp

See Matt Sharp / Rivers Cuomo album

Cuomo sought out reconciliation with both Mikey Welsh and Matt Sharp as a result of this meditation practice, and began collaborating on new music with the latter. Sharp reported that the pair worked on 15-16 songs throughout the month of February in 2004, and Cuomo joined Sharp on stage at one of his solo shows that same month. Sharp announced that the pair was beginning work on a new record at the performance, but that album has never surfaced.

Make Believe

This section requires expansion.

Marriage, parenthood and peace

Cuomo married Kyoko Ito on June 18, 2006, a woman he had known since the fall of 1997. He proposed to her in Tokyo shortly before Christmas of 2005. The wedding was held at a secluded beach on Paradise Cove in Malibu and was attended by over a hundred people, including six of the seven members who played in Weezer (Mikey Welsh being the only no show) as well as notables Justin Fisher, Kevin Ridel and Rick Rubin. The couple has a daughter, Mia, who was born in May of 2007 and a son named Leo who was born in 2011. Mia has played piano live with her father on a few occasions, such as Weezer Cruise II, adding the accompanying piano to Perfect Situation.

The Red Album

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Relationship with fans

In 2009 in a BBC interview, Rivers said "The older fans – their tastes get frozen in time and they’re not able to evolve with the band. We’ve found again and again through our career that we’ve had to shed some fans like a snake sheds its skin, just so that we can stay vital." This was posted on Allthingsweezer and angered many fans there.

Posting on fan forums and social media

Rivers Cuomo has had a very unique relationship with his fan base. Beginning in the early Maladroit recording era, Rivers would post on several Weezer fan message boards, including the official Web site board and the "Rivers Correspondence Board" under the name Ace, which was inspired by Ace Frehley of the band Kiss. Rivers would ask for the fans' advice, treating them as a producer, often exchanging emails through Karl Koch, and eventually posting on boards himself. Some of the correspondence boardies were even invited backstage during tours to play foosball with him. Some of the relationships with the fans pushed Cuomo's temper causing him to once refer to them as "little bitches", Cuomo being upset with the fans' demands for an older sounding Weezer rather than letting the band explore new sounds. Cuomo had also been known for posting on the official Weezer.com message board under the handles RiversCuomo and Zarathustra.

His Instagram and Snapchat accounts have been known to post content that fans have sent them, and he has also been known to reply to conversations. In 2020, Rivers interacted with fans on his own website through 'Riverchat' which evolved to the “River’s Neighborhood” Discord server which he is frequently on while practicing his piano.

Tweets

Rivers is known for his random, stream-of-thought tweets. Fans of Weezer and Rivers alike share an interest and love for these out of the blue tweets. Some fan favorites include the "PJ Tips" Incident where Rivers tweeted on the 12th April 2012 "Recording all day with weezer. Jacked up on pj tips." which was followed by a tweet reading: "Thanks, autocorrect, for changing my "PG Tips" to "PJ Tips" and making me look like a complete dweeb."

As of 2013 Rivers has slowed down his stream of consciousness tweets as he focuses more on his coding and Weezer related content.

Playing with fans live

Starting on the Foozer tour in late 2005, Rivers Cuomo would invite fans onto the stage to play Undone - The Sweater Song on acoustic guitar. After the performance, fans were allowed to keep the guitars they played.

In 2008, coinciding with the release of Weezer's new self titled album, Weezer (The Red Album), Rivers and Weezer announced a Nissan Live Sets performance in which fans were allowed to bring any instrument of their choice and perform in a Hootenanny with the band.

Let's Write a Sawng

In March 2008 Cuomo started a video series on YouTube called "Let's Write a Sawng." Through the majority of 2008, Rivers exchanged videos with fans online to write a new song called "Turnin' Turnin'". The project resulted in the song "Turning Up The Radio," which appeared on the 2010 rarities album Death to False Metal.

Mister River's Neighborhood

See Mister Rivers' Neighborhood

This section requires expansion.

Discography

See Rivers Cuomo discography

As a band member

With Weezer

• Weezer (The Blue Album) (1994)
• Pinkerton (1996)
• Weezer (The Green Album) (2001)
• Maladroit (2002)
• Make Believe (2005)
• Weezer (The Red Album) (2008)
• Raditude (2009)
• Hurley (2010)
• Everything Will Be Alright in the End (2014)
• Weezer (The White Album) (2016)
• Pacific Daydream (2017)
• Weezer (The Teal Album) (2019)
• Weezer (The Black Album) (2019)
• OK Human (2021)
• Van Weezer (2021)
• SZNZ (2022)

This discography lists only Weezer's albums. For more detail, please see the Weezer discography

With Homie

• 1998 - Meet the Deedles Soundtrack ("American Girls")

With Scott & Rivers

• 2013 - スコット と リバース (Scott & Rivers)
• 2017 - ニマイメ (Naimaime)

As a solo artist

Album releases

• Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2007)
• Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2008)
• Not Alone: Rivers Cuomo & Friends Live at Fingerprints (2009)
• Alone III: The Pinkerton Years 1994-1997 (2011)
• The Space Between Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2021)

This discography lists only album releases. For digital compilations, see Rivers Cuomo discography.

Solo singles

Cover	Album
	Medicine for Melancholy Released: March 16, 2018
	Two Broken Hearts Released: December 21, 2018
	Backflip Theme song from the Green Eggs and Ham TV series Released: October 31, 2019
	Anak Sekolah Released: November 10, 2022
	Halik Released: September 29, 2023
	Home Released: October 9, 2023

List of bands

• Fury (1984)
• Avant Garde (1985)
• Zoom (Avant Garde renamed, 1989)
• Fuzz
• 60 Wrong Sausages (1991)
• Weezer (1992-present)
• Homie (Sometimes erroneously dubbed the Rivers Cuomo Band, 1997-1998)
• Scott & Rivers (2013-present)

Equipment

See Rivers Cuomo's equipment

Interviews

See Category:Rivers Cuomo Interviews

Essays

• A Mad and Furious Master (2004)
• What I've Been Up To Since I Left School (2004)
• Letter for Readmission to Harvard (2005)

See also

• List of Rivers Cuomo songs
• List of Weezer songs

• Rivers Cuomo's equipment
• Beverly's letter
• Rivers' Photo Gallery

External links

• The Official Site of Rivers Cuomo

Social media

• Facebook
• Facebook (Japanese)
• Twitter
• Twitter (Japanese)
• Instagram
• Tumblr
• YouTube
• YouTube: RiversCuomoAlone (old account)
• Snapchat
• Vine
• Periscope
• Ustream
• MySpace (protected account)