As Weezer gear up to release their second album of the year this week, frontman Rivers Cuomo has revealed the group have two more records in the works.
Back in 2017, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard undoubtedly set the bar high for prolific musicians, releasing a total of five records in 12 months, and having almost all of them chart in the ARIA top ten.
However, it seems as though alt-rock veterans Weezer could be gunning to steal King Gizzard’s crown.
On Friday, March 1st, Weezer are set to release The Black Album, their sixth colour-themed album, and second record for the year.
While The Black Album was originally supposed to be released back in 2018, it’s now coming out just one month after Weezer released The Teal Album, a record full of cover versions, back in January.
Check out Weezer performing ‘Living In L.A.’ on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgtaJZCIeHQ
However, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, frontman Rivers Cuomo explains that the band are continuously writing, and have another pair of records in the works.
“What I’ve been working on the last two weeks is back to big guitars,” Cuomo explained. “Blue Album-ish, but a little more riffy.”
“The working title is Van Weezer. The inspiration came from our live shows, where, in the middle of ‘Beverly Hills,’ unlike on the album, everything stops and I just break out with this crazy guitar solo.”
“We noticed that, recently, the crowd just goes crazy when I do that. So it feels like maybe the audience is ready for some shredding again.”
“Van Weezer is in mortal combat with Okay Human, a record that’s mostly done,” he continued. “That one’s totally different.”
“It’s inspired by an album from 1970 called Nilsson Sings Newman. It’s all piano-based, but it has a ton of orchestration. We just did the strings at Abbey Road. It’s just gorgeous melodies and extremely eccentric lyrics.”
Check out Weezer’s ‘Zombie Bastards’:
While Rivers Cuomo’s desire to make a big rock album seems to be in contrast with the recent comments made by guitarist Brian Bell, these new albums make it seem as though the group are constantly reinventing themselves and forever looking for a challenge.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cuomo explained that he has an almost endless list of song ideas, noting he has “a folder of about 1,400 demos.”
“Some of them extend back to my very beginnings in the early ’90s,” he noted. “I’ll give you one example: The bridge of the song ‘Byzantine’ is from 1991, a very early-’90s grunge Soundgarden-type of song. But we reimagined it as this French-pop ’60s thing with a drum machine.”
In related news, Weezer recently appeared on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon to promote their new album. In addition to performing a raucous rendition of ‘Living In L.A.’, the group also performed a barbershop version of breakthrough hit ‘Buddy Holly’.
Sure, Rivers Cuomo looks awkward as anything during the clip, but you can’t deny his endearing charm. Check it out below.
Check out Weezer performing ‘Buddy Holly’ on Jimmy Fallon:
https://youtu.be/SoH7HeAVg5E
