What are they going to front funny Holly? I believe is written about this lovely Korean lady. Funny to think of her as a lady out when she was that much older than us, but she seemed like an old lady. And I think I don't recall anyone ever giving her a hard time, but it might have looked like that to rivers. Because when we're fucking going to her house, I'm not I remember. She had a piano. So rivers was all about vocal rehearsal. Because he's like, I want this to sound good. Right. And we would go over there, sing incredibly poorly. All of us. Yeah. But it was her piano. So maybe one day we said something offhanded and he wrote about it. I don't know. My friend of mine at the SMC lent me a keyboard and I wrote a couple of songs that featured that synth sound very heavily. And yeah, I got this idea like, okay, this first record is going to be, you know, the color is going to be the acoustic guitar and the harmonica and then the next record is going to be all synth and new wave and that's why the first song is on pickers and have synth. But then after that, none of the songs have pinkerton too, because I had given up on the synth idea. I was open enough to the idea of recording Buddy Holly at the time. Oh, you know, we had Michael and Carly was going to be the tenth song and it just as we were recording. It was clear that Buddy Holly was much much cooler track. And so Michael and Carly was relegated to B side, which I don't think it came out until the deluxe edition. I had to best Friends producer Ric ocasek, lobbied hard for weezer to record Buddy Holly. Even making an actual sign he held up at the band to request it during pre-production. It certainly wasn't obvious hit. During mixing show remember stepping out of the control room and catching a studio reception is coming into herself. And you'll never find a voice I don't care what they say about us the way I don't care about that just before they finished recording. Weezer fired cropper and Cuomo replaced all of his guitar parts. Crapper still convinced he was can mostly because of his relationship with his then girlfriend. Now his former wife, who was unpopular with the bammies. She was pregnant with the first child and defying Cuomo's no girlfriends while were recording role. She flew to New York to visit cropper. He also thinks sharp had it out for him. Maybe it was jealous that he'd written the guitar intro to my name is Jonas. Sharp gently says none of that is true. Instead, sharp says a series of tiny infractions. Led him to believe that the band's overall chemistry was at risk. Cuomo felt if they were going to make a change, it had to be before they finished the first album and shot the album cover. For cropper, it was a tough road at times. They eventually reconciled with Cuomo and told him he was grateful for all the years he got to spend with his family. Instead of on the road. People in the LA music scene could be shockingly callous. One Booker casually told cropper, gosh, I'm surprised you haven't killed yourself. Cropper whose kids have grown up, performed with Cuomo in 2018. I'm not just an ex member of the band. I'm a huge fan. I love to go see them play. And any chance that any of them would have welcomed me on stage or in the studio, I would be there in a heartbeat. Anyway, weezer needed a replacement fast and settled on a great looking guy that's seen around LA. Sharp was pretty sure Brian bell could play, but he wasn't entirely positive. Bill food in New York just in time to squeeze in some background vocals on weezer's debut. When he arrived at their hotel, he knocked on Cuomo's door and discovered that the frontman had grown a robust cop mustache. Cuomo told him, first thing is, you have to grow a mustache because we're all going to have mustaches on the front cover. Are you sure about asked him? Fortunately, Cuomo wasn't sure. Got word that he would be sharing a room with Patrick Wilson. So I go to pat's room and pat goes, he's like, welcome to weezer, and he just pulls his pants down in moons me. I'm like, what the hell have I stepped into? What kind of nerds are these? Yeah, yeah. In classic 90s fashion, Cuomo almost immediately realized he hated being a rockstar. Weezer were hesitant to do music videos, but got along with a young director Spike Jones. The only guy to pitch a sweater song video without any images of a sweater. When they teamed up with him again for a Buddy Holly video, he came up with a happy day's theme. Buddy Holly took over MTV in hall rock radio. The blue album started selling big. Weezer were stars. They're not quite the kind they wanted to be. Put quite simply when we were making our music and making our record, I seriously thought we were the next Nirvana. And I thought the world was going to perceive us that way. Like a super important, super powerful, heartbreaking, heavy rock band, and a serious artist. That's how I saw us. The first clue that the world would see it slightly differently came in a lunch with their A&R guy, who praised the humor of some of Cuomo's lyrics. Even using the words, comical band. It was just like a gut punch. And that's when I started to realize the world wasn't going to see weezer like I did. And the world wasn't going to see the blue out like I did. I am I can sweater song in particular with misunderstood. Yeah, it was like a song about my darkest thoughts and it became clear like everyone else who hears this song is gonna think it's hilarious. Well, that was one of the first songs I wrote for that album. And I was definitely trying to copy the pixies. It wasn't any kind of like marketing angle, like, oh, I should do a college rock type of song. It was more just that I love the pixies and I gotta figure out how to be exactly like them. Cuomo didn't enjoy touring. In part because of an entirely self imposed mandate to play the same set list in the same order, nearly every night. He wrote a lovely ballad called longtime sunshine that strongly suggested he wanted to quit rock and roll in college on the east coast, and get married. He became obsessed with classical music. Asking for piano in every hotel room, and seeking out opera performances on the band's European tour. He also began sending out applications to elite universities. Here's Brian bell. He definitely told me and Matt once like, I think I want to go to school back to school or study classical music and be a classical musician. I'm like, are you dude dude? Okay. I'm like, it's like I did it again. Like where I'm like, okay, cool. Nice wanted to get away. I was so, so unhappy with life on the road and life in the band and wanted to, yeah, everything you hear in that song, I wanted to find a girl and get married and go to college and learn and become a composer. Cuomo picked Harvard after he realized he didn't have enough formal musical training for Juilliard. His first choice. No one in the band would admit to worrying that it was all over when Cuomo matriculated. But it was definitely unnerving. He was disillusioned and we were like, what the fuck? Can we please keep doing this? In the end, Cuomo's bandmates were correct. Weezer's weird story was just beginning. Score not. In the fall of 1995, Cuomo enrolled at Harvard, strolling through the leafy campus, just as he had dreamed. No one bug him. It was as if weezer never happened. There were papers to write, piles of reading to do. But here's the thought that soon came to his mind. It wasn't long though, like maybe a couple weeks before I was like, I kind of want to go back to being in a band. My love is so high take her. The blue album landed at number two 94 on Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums list. I'm Brittany spanos, this has been Rolling Stones 500 greatest albums. An Amazon original podcast. Executive producers are Christian horde, Hank steamer, Gus winner, and myself. This episode was produced by Brian Hyatt. Mixing by Marquis Neil our senior producer is Michelle lands. Additional production help by Mary dew. Bridget Chelsea is our production manager. Peter Miller is our music supervisor. Fact checking by Jonathan Bernstein. Supervising executives for Amazon music are Nathan brackett, Morgan Jones, staff walking, and Lauren D and for Rolling Stone, Jason fine. Listen to Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums, every Tuesday, and here at first, on Amazon music. My love is for life take.