Rivers Cuomo
From Free net encyclopedia
Rivers Cuomo (born June 13, 1970) is a singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is most well-known as the lead singer of Weezer.
Contents |
Youth
Cuomo was born in a New York City hospital, and raised on an ashram (run by the late Hindu guru Sri Swami Satchidananda) in Northeastern Connecticut. Cuomo's parents decided to stay in Connecticut when the ashram (known as Yogaville) was relocated to a plot of land along the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Rivers attended and graduated from E. O. Smith High School in Storrs, Connecticut.
Musical Projects
Cuomo, who began his musical endeavours with the pseudonym "Peter Kitts" ("Kitts" being the surname of his stepfather), formed a progressive metal band known as Avant Garde, and played several shows in Connecticut. He moved with the band to Los Angeles in March 1989, at which point Avant Garde changed its name to Zoom, which dissolved in the late spring of 1990. After a series of musical projects in L.A., Cuomo formed Weezer on February 14, 1992 with bandmates Patrick Wilson, Matt Sharp, and Jason Cropper. Jason Cropper left the band during recording on their first album, and Brian Bell joined in his place. Weezer signed with DGC, a music publisher of Geffen Records, on June 25, 1993. They began recording Weezer (also known as The Blue Album), in August, 1993.
Education
Cuomo started college at Harvard University as an undergraduate in 1995, studying music, but eventually switched his major to English and dropped out two semesters short of graduation. In the fall of 2004, he re-enrolled at Harvard to complete his degree. After another break for the release of Weezer's fifth album, Make Believe, Cuomo has recently stated on his MySpace blog that he intends to return to Harvard in Spring 2006 to finish his degree. His living situation in his second stint at Harvard could be considered odd for a rock star in his mid 30s, as he lives in an undergrad dormitory and eats at the school's dining hall [1].
Throughout his life he has pursued higher education not only at Harvard, but Los Angeles Community College, Santa Monica College, The University of Southern California, and Berklee College of Music where he took summer courses as a teenager.
Cuomo is slated to graduate from Harvard in Spring 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature.
Musical Talent
Musicially, Cuomo is best known for his guitar solos, melody compositions, and orchestration of distinctive harmonies. He is also a prolific songwriter, having written and recorded nearly 800 songs in his life, either with Weezer, earlier bands or self-recorded demos. Of these songs, despite the large amount of unreleased material available on the internet, large chunks of his work remain unheard by fans. These include certain demos for The Blue Album, various songs from the scrapped Songs from the Black Hole project, over a hundred songs he composed and demoed throughout 1999, and well over a hundred songs that didn't make the cut for Make Believe. He has been known to use experimentation to inspire his writing, for example, fasting for a day and then writing a song, as he did on "Hold Me." [2] Cuomo has familiarity with a wide array of musical instruments: besides the guitar, he is also skilled at the piano, vocoder (as used on the unreleased demo "Blast Off!"), synthesizer, talk box, bass guitar (he frequently demoed songs on his own, a la the 1995 Fort Apache Studios Pinkerton demos), clarinet, drums, and harmonica.
Cuomo has cited a wide variety of musical influences throughout the years, from artists as diverse as KISS, Lou Barlow, Pixies, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brian Wilson, and Giacomo Puccini. He took it upon himself to become a student of rock and pop music when in the late 90s, Cuomo created "The Encyclopedia of Pop" for himself, a three-ring binder which broke down the mechanics of pop and rock songs. [3]
Side-Projects
Rivers fronted a band called Homie on certain dates in 1997 and 1998 as well as contributing to recordings by various other musicians (Crazy Town, Cold, Limp Bizkit, Mark Ronson). He also briefly managed the band AM Radio in 2002 and 2003. The frontman for that band, Kevin Ridel, is quoted as having said "I was actually giving up hope the summer of 2001. Right before Rivers called me... he’s done everything. He’s our manager, he’s our record label. He’s pretty much guided us through everything we’ve had to do."[4]
In early 2004 he made a surprise appearance onstage with ex-Weezer bassist Matt Sharp at his California State University, Fullerton show to play two old Weezer favorites ("Say It Ain't So" and "Undone"), a rare Weezer demo that they worked on together ("Mrs. Young"), and a new song they wrote together, "Time Song." Sharp announced that they would be working on a collaborative record together. Yet later that year, Sharp announced on his website that although they had come up with "15 or 16 new song ideas, some good, some not so good" for their new album their "special brand of dysfunctionality" kept them from finishing the project. [5]
Additionally, Cuomo has had cameos in a number of music videos. These include Crystal Method's "You Know It's Hard" and the video for The Warlocks' "Cocaine Blues."
Various Facts
- As of December 2005, is engaged to marry Kyoko Ito this summer, a woman he has known since 1997 [6].
- Has a well-publicized affinity for Asian women. This can be heard in his music (songs such as "Across the Sea," "El Scorcho" and "Buddy Holly," which features the line "your tongue is twisted/your eyes are slit"), in interviews (usually when asked what celebrity he finds good looking, he has responded with Michelle Kwan and Ziyi Zhang) and in music videos (the "Dope Nose" video features a Japanese motorcycle gang with many female members).
- Has had very close interactions with his fans online. Throughout 2002, Cuomo frequently posted on Weezer message boards as "Ace" to discuss music with fans. Since 2003 he has kept a MySpace page in which he has posted many blog entries, including all 3 of his re-admission essays to Harvard.
- The Sugar Ray song "Rivers" is a tribute to Cuomo.
- Known to perform with his customised Warmoth Stratocaster's. Throughout his career he has frequently played warmoth stratocasters that are covered in stickers. Rivers also notably played Gibson V's onstage in late 2001 and throughout parts of 2002 . Today, he almost exclusively plays a red Gibson SG with a strange symbol on it that he refuses to explain. This symbol is Farang, a Thai word for "a white foreigner."
- His fashion trademarks include his horn-rimmed glasses and his lightning bolt guitar strap. He frequently sports a bowl cut. Other notable fashion trends include constantly sporting a life preserver-esque vest in early 2001, growing a thick beard in mid-2002 and a brief suit-and-tie phase in summer 2002.
- For most of Weezer's existence, Cuomo has not been known for his on-stage banter, often only offering very light banter or letting then-bassist Matt Sharp do all the talking. Yet in late 2001 and throughout 2002, Cuomo began becoming quite talkative onstage resulting in many strange and humorous statements.
- Nicknames include "Ace," "The 'Varz" and among his former band members "The Dude," as in the lead character in The Big Lebowski [7].
- In 2003 Cuomo vowed to remain celibate for two years and said in late 2005 that not only has he succeeded, but he has continued past his self-imposed deadline. Cuomo said that his status as a rock star has not made avoiding sex difficult because Weezer "never had any serious groupies, anyway." [8]. During this time, Cuomo also began practicing vipassana meditation. He sold all his possessions and volunteered at a food bank serving HIV patients. [9]
- It's a popular misconception that Weezer are named after Rivers' supposed asthma. Rivers himself has openly admitted that although "Weezer" was his childhood nickname, it wasn't because he had asthma.
- Cuomo was born with his left leg 44mm shorter than the other. After gaining success because of The Blue Album, Cuomo got surgery to correct his problem. He also wore a brace on his leg that required a painful daily "stretching" of the bone. An x-ray of the leg is part of the album art for "The Good Life" single. You can see Cuomo with brace on an episode of Late Night with David Letterman; this can be found on their DVD "Video Capture Device".
Discography
Guest Contributions
- Homie - American Girls, from the Meet the Deedles soundtrack (1998): vocals, guitar
- The Rentals - My Head is in the Sun, from Seven More Minutes (1999): songwriting
- Crazy Town - Hurt You So Bad, from Darkhorse (2002): guitar solo
- Mark Ronson - I Suck, from Here Comes The Fuzz (2003): vocals, guitar, production
- Cold - Stupid Girl, from Year of the Spider (2003): vocals, songwriting
External links
Template:Weezeres:Rivers Cuomo no:Rivers Cuomo pt:Rivers Cuomo sv:Rivers Cuomo