The Nirvana song that spoke to Rivers Cuomo and inspired Weezer: “I immediately started dancing”
For a band that was active for less than ten years, it’s impossible to understand the impact of Nirvana. As they spearheaded the grunge movement, Kurt Cobain and his crew have been locked in history as the ultimate 1990s alt-rock troupe, being brought up time and time again by hoards of new bands that have come after them. But even as the band were still playing, the shockwaves of their sound rippled out into the surrounding scene with even their peers taking note. Weezer definitely were.
For purist Nirvana fans who lean heavily into the more gritty grunge side of the band, the thought of aligning them with Weezer might feel blasphemous. In the 1990s scene, Weezer was always more pop-leaning, involved in the pop-punk sounds of the era and melding it with an alternative rock edge but in a more radio-friendly way. However, their leader, Rivers Cuomo, like all other guitar rockers at the time, was dialled into whatever Kurt Cobain and his group were doing.
In fact, the impact of the band was so great that it was one of those musical memories where a person can remember precisely where they were and what they were doing the first time a certain track came floating into their ears. For Cuomo, his remembrance of one track is vivid.
He recalled to Rolling Stone, “I was working at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in the spring of ’91, and another cashier, Harold, said, ‘Hey, Rivers, I know something you might like. It’s called Nirvana.’” Hearing the band for the first time is impactful no matter what decade it is or however far removed from their original scene a person is. But to be hearing Nirvana for the first time, as a young musician trying to make it while they were still performing, it was revelatory.
It would feel like a beam of hope shining down. Cuomo had just moved to Los Angeles in the hopes of making music work, so to hear Nirvana, with their tracks recorded in the city, it probably felt like the town suddenly came alive with energy and promise. With their thrashing guitars and musical makeup that was built of nothing but instruments and a dream, Nirvana managed to be more aspiration and accessible, which is a winning combo to the ears of a start-up musician.
In particular, he heard their track ‘Sliver’, released as the band’s first non-album single in 1990. In the gap between their debut and their momentous sophomore album, Nevermind, the track levelled up the promise attached to the group. “As soon as I heard ‘Mom and Dad went to a show,’ I immediately started dancing around,” Cuomo remembered, “It was exactly how I felt, and they were putting it to music.”
“It inspired me to do the same thing,” he said, spurring him on to not only keep trying at music but to make music exactly like this that was full of energy and fire. Years on, after his career in Weezer was well and truly established, Cuomo played homage to Cobain and this track on his own number, ‘Heart Songs’ as he writes about hearing Nirvana. “Then I heard the chords / That broke the chains / I had upon me,” he sings, crediting the band for setting him free.
