ITunes Originals band commentary - 2010: Difference between revisions

'''Rivers:''' Weezer was super confident about who we were musically, um, when we were playing the clubs in L.A. and we, uh... the last thing we wanted was a producer to come in and tell us how to sound when we were making our first record. And, but when we got a record deal with Geffen Records, they pushed us hard, basically they said you have to have a producer on your first record. Uh, so... I thought about it for a while and I just reached a conclusion—I think maybe I'd heard on the radio, a [[Cars]] song came on, maybe just what I needed. And the guitar sound kind of reminded me of Weezer, these downstroke eighth notes on the distorted guitar. And it sounded great. And I just thought, if we need a producer, I want somebody who's actually a musician and a guy in a band, that sort of thing. Not somebody who's just, you know, working in the studio, uh, working basically for major labels, making records. So, I didn't even know Ric Ocasek was actually a producer and had made some great records before. So I told the label, they sent him our demo tape and he immediately got back to us and said, "This is amazing, I gotta do this." And he was so cool, he completely waived his fees so we didn't have to pay him anything at the time, which was good, because we didn't have any money. Uhm, and then he just did an amazing job helping us... polish up our sound but retain our sense of who we were. And that record, to this day, sounds pretty unique.