The moment that made Rivers Cuomo want to play guitar
The entire musical ethos towards the mid-1990s was anyone’s guess. During the fallout of grunge, many artists were rising to the forefront, trying to lay claim to the next phase of rock and roll, making songs that were as off-the-wall as possible in the hopes that something would stick on the charts. While everyone focused on what was cool at the time, Rivers Cuomo found his calling being the exact opposite of what cool should be.
Initially inspired by the sounds of Nirvana, Cuomo learned to embrace his nerdy tendencies when working with Weezer. Instead of the tormented sounds of Seattle emanating from up north, Cuomo’s take on rock music was more in line with traditional pop songs, creating tracks that sounded like The Beach Boys if they were filtered through heavy guitars.
Although Cuomo loved the idea of working alongside acts like Nirvana at the time, his musical development started in a very different place. As opposed to the sounds of alternative rock, Cuomo initially started working in the world of hair metal. Moving to California to chase his dream, Cuomo became enamoured with the guitar from a talent show where he heard some of his friends playing hair metal songs.
When speaking to Chris Shiflett, Cuomo talked about how he got absorbed in hearing metal sounds, recalling, “At the end of eighth grade, some of my classmates did a performance of Metal Health by Quiet Riot. I couldn’t believe I was listening to kids my age with guitars, drums, and bass playing this song that I loved so much, ‘Bang Your Head’. I just knew that’s what I had to do”.
When learning the ins and outs of guitar playing, though, Cuomo knew that he wanted to do something more than just play the standard rock and roll rhythm playing. Since many heavy metal bands thrived off the energy of loud guitar players going a mile a minute up the fretboard, the frontman said that Yngwie Malmsteen made him want to practice lead.
Discussing the songs that made him a lead guitarist, Cuomo singled out Malmsteen’s solos as the moment when everything clicked for him as a lead guitarist, explaining: “In the 1980s, heavy metal became much more classical-influenced. You hear all the notes in the scale. At that point, I just fell in love with that style, and I never turned back. Probably learning some of those Yngwie licks like ‘Far Beyond the Sun’.”
Despite the immense skill that went into playing heavy metal music, Cuomo was indebted to guitar teachers who showed him a broad spectrum of what music could be. As opposed to artists that dealt with one specific genre, Cuomo’s teachers would teach him about the guitar flourishes going on in pop songs by Madonna, which got him thinking about how the guitar could be used in a melodic framework rather than an opportunity to display his skills.
By the time he got around to putting Weezer together, Cuomo would combine both those sounds, creating songs that blended both sides of his musical personality like the massive guitar epic, ‘Only in Dreams’. Cuomo may have the guitar chops that most heavy metal bands would kill for, but he prefers to see it as just one notch in his musical belt.
