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weezer's Patrick Wilson: Back To Blue
Author: Waleed Rashidi (Modern Drummer)
Published: October 2001
With Weezer tickets selling out in a matter of minutes across the nation, the band that faded from the spot-light a few years ago has returned with a surprisingly strong following. Fans who have waited three or four years to catch the act in concert finally have their chance.
Fans were beginning to wonder about a new record, too. Well, the band's latest self-titled disc has been riding high on the charts of late. This time around they decided to step back further in time and record material that's more in line with their decidedly poppy self-titled debut (sometimes referred to as the "blue" album).
Drummer Patrick Wilson explains the thesis behind the project: "I think our whole plan was, 'Okay, let's go do the blue record style again. It's way more straight-ahead. Pinkerton [Weezer's 1998[sic] release] was a full freak-out, but this new album is nothing like that. It's real radio-friendly."
Tracking for the new album went pretty quickly, even though the band was rather meticulous about Wilson's drumming. "I was pretty much done in ten days," he says. "And that's with people saying, 'Hey, it's 92 beats per minute instead of 91.'"
As comfortable as Wilson might be in the studio, he says that he just recently realized how he sounds live. "Interestingly, we did a show on New Year's with Blink-182 at a 12,000-seater," he explains, "and for the first time suddenly everything totally made sense to me. I felt that was the type of venue that Weezer's sound made sense in. It just sounded like a huge stereo to me. I had to play simpler in such a big room because I thought, 'Man, if I start going off, no one's going to get it."
Aside from his busy Weezer schedule, Wilson has been working with his own side project, The Special Goodness. He plays most of the instruments and records it all in his home studio.
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