Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Rivers Cuomo

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo feels excited about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Rivers sits down with Conan to talk about his love of Beethoven, going from worldwide tours to enrolling in Harvard, enduring painful corrective leg surgery, and Weezer’s latest project SZNZ. Plus, Conan and his team celebrate their collective advancements in age. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hi, my name is Rivers Cuomo, and I feel excited about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Joined as always by my steady compatriots, Sonam Obsession, my assistant who does little or nothing for me. And Matt Gorley, you do a great job, Matt, by the way. I hate to draw a wedge between the two of you, but... Yes, you love that. Yeah, thank you.

And I won't accept that until you compliment my friend Sonam Obsession. Sona, you're very good at being famous for doing nothing. You've written a book about it, accept it. Yeah. And he's not wrong. Yeah. But it just stinks. You're the Picasso of screwing around.

I am very good at it. I've been good at it my whole life. But I think when you start off like that and then go to Matt and say, oh, you're great, it just stinks. Nails it. Nails it. Nails it. I'm the Picasso of nailing it.

Exactly. You know, it was fun. We just, before we were recording, there's guitars in the studio today. And so I picked up an acoustic and started screwing around with it. And then you picked up an acoustic, Matt, and started playing. And it was kind of fun and we never do that. No. We never play together.

And I started joking around that it would be amusing to me if suddenly the format of this show changed to you and I playing kind of mediocre to okay acoustic duos together and Sona just quietly listening. Yeah. No musical comedy. And we'd still, we'd still book great guests and they would come and they'd be out in the hallway, but we wouldn't ever bring them in. And it would, you and I just doing this stuff.

And then of course our overlord Adam Sacks would keep coming to us and saying, the numbers are really, the downloads are just tanking. And we're like, Hey man, we're just, we're making some great music together and we're just really enjoying the vibes. That's you talking. That's me talking after a couple of. It's a helium. Changed.

You know, some helium and a mixture of helium and sweet, sweet, married chain. But, but you and I just noodling and then you'd be like, Oh yeah, there's one from, you know, Amy, what you gonna do? And we're just playing. I think that I could be with you for a while, maybe I'll hunger if I do. And we were doing that kind of stuff and people were really getting turned off by it, but you and I were having a good time. How long would this last before?

A day. Well, Adam, jump in here. A day. I want your actual opinion of when, how quickly would we be shut down as a podcast? Be honest. I think the first few episodes, the numbers would probably be okay. People would think it's a joke. They think it's a joke.

Yeah, they wouldn't understand. And then by episode four or five, people would start to say, Oh, I guess this is what the show is now. I'm not interested anymore. Yeah. Thank you. That was generous. That was episode four or five.

And also that they're just like, I'm not interested anymore rather than fuck this. Yeah. Fuck this shit. Violently angry. Also, keep in mind, I'd insist that we still book because we get amazing guests and people would say like, you know, whatever, who? Tom Hanks. Yeah.

Tom Hanks is here and he's outside because we booked him and he's ready to talk and he's got some funny stories he wants to share. I guess technically we could still put Tom Hanks' name on the episode. Yes. Exactly. We'll still say like our guest today is Tom Hanks. He's out there. We'll get to him in a second.

I got to get out of this band. I would love it if there was a musician, a really well-known musician who wants to join you guys. Oh, and we don't let him in. Right. Oh, we don't let him in. No. So James Taylor.

Yes. James Taylor is in the hallway. He's been booked and he hears Matt and I playing. And he's like, oh, well, you know, they're as amp for amateurs. They're okay. I'd love to go in and help them. No, we're good, buddy. We're like, we got it.

Good. Why don't you run along, Mr. Fire and Rain. Thanks a lot, sweet baby James. We got it covered. Mm. Shoes skedaddled. We got this. He's going.

He is. Carly Simon single. Yeah. Woo. But I just love it. And then Adam occasionally like, I think Tom Hanks is about to leave. We're like, let him go. We don't need him.

The hell you're going to die on. And then I'm, yeah. And then I'm just like, Matt, why don't you just start us out and see. And, uh, and I'll do some finger picking. And then it'll be kind of a blues progression. And you're like, uh, yeah, uh, Tom just got in his car and he's leaving. He's looked pissed. And I, you never see Tom Hanks pissed, but he's pissed.

Yeah. And then you're like, well, I mean, you know. And this is, these are original songs. They're not even. Cause you couldn't clear the music. These are original songs. These are highly original. No.

Yeah. The Amy one. I've never, that's a. No, I was sort of riffing off of, um, the famous song Amy by Amy. What you want to do. I think I can be with you for a while. Maybe longer. If I do.

That's quite a well known. Famous. I don't know that song. Yeah. It's a quite famous song. I'm sorry. I mean, the, the title is good. Wait, just for a second.

I know we can't clear it. AMY. Don't anger me. There's a couple days to spell it. Hey me. What you want to do. I can't believe no one knows this song. I do.

I think I'm. I'm shocked. Matt doesn't know. I don't know. Maybe I'll know it when I hear the real version. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not. I think it's by the, is it by the pure prayer?

Yes. Pure prayer league. Oh, right. It's AMIE. It's AMIE. It's spelled AMIE. Oh. Yeah.

Exactly. And what did you say? I said it's AMY. Right. And I said, don't anger me. Because obviously it's AMIE. Eduardo. Oh, no.

So guess what? Shock up another one. You're not unfair. For Conan, I'm never wrong. Oh, Brian. Got Eduardo. Wow. When you said AMY, I was like, oh, yeah, Eduardo.

AMY. God, I never wronged. Yeah. I'm with Conan because if it was spelled that way, the song would go, AMY, what you gonna do? So just think about it. Just think about it. Just think about it.

I do know the song. No, I do. No, I know it. Now we can't play any of what we're hearing right now. Is that right? Probably not. We'll have to talk to them now. Okay.

Okay. This is the kind of music we'd be playing that for sure. It's like skiffle folk. Yeah. Yeah. I want to get you to the chorus. That's spelled on. C-H-O-R-U-S.

That's K. Chorus. K-O-R-U-S. Got it. Asshole. God, no one can spell around here. Here we go. And I name a diddle, diddle, diddle.

Never heard this song. Never heard this song? I've never heard this song. Never heard this song. Never heard this song. Never heard this song. Never heard this song. Never heard this song.

I've never heard this song in my whole life. Stay with you. I'm not so sure. For who I am and I know this I know. Okay. Yes. All right. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. It's, listen, Pure Prairie League. That's the kind of music that you and I are going to play. Yeah. It's real hip. Real hip. 1972.

New music. Okay. Yeah. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I'm being very sarcastic. I still can't tell. It's not even 70s music. Everyone's heard.

No, no. My point is that's the kind of music that Gourley and I would really dig down into. We'd make our own versions of it. You know. Oh, Cynthia. You always were my girl. Oh, Cynthia. I think of you as my pal.

As my pal. As my pal. When will you lay me down in bed? Well, is that, is that someone who's in firm? Yeah. That's someone who. Uh-huh. Would you please carry me to the toilet?

Would you please lay me on the ball? My legs numb and I'm incontinent and I'm afraid. That kind of song? Shitting out my guts is my goal. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. See, you and I are the Lenin and McCartney of awful something.

Yeah. A terrible thing. I think you mean Vladimir Lenin. Yes. Yeah. I will always defend Lenin McCartney. Love that woman. So what I'm saying.

Uh, what I'm saying is, um, that's the kind of music. It'll be all originals and we would do that. It's bad. Book big guests and they would leave. Now, Adam, how soon before the big guests stopped showing up when word gets around town that Hanks showed up, it was turned away because we were playing our shitty music. Um, you know, James Taylor was turned away from joining us. They showed up to promote something and to talk and they didn't get on the air.

How soon would the word get out? Oh, instantly. In the podcast community. And you think that would be a negative for us in terms of booking future people? It would. We'd have to talk to Paula and Gina and the other bookers, but I think it would happen very quickly. Well, hear me out.

What about a live show where we announced the guest and the guest shows up, but Conan and I just play on stage and the guest never comes on stage and they can leave whenever they want to leave. But once they go in that room, technically they were there for the show. Yeah. Yeah. Their name is going on. Yeah.

The name is on the marquee. Yeah. And the name is going on the title of the podcast. I think what Adam is saying, and I don't disagree. My guess is once we continuously evict top talent from our show without letting him speak, word would get out. We'll never know until we do a year of this. No.

Wait, what am I doing? Am I just sitting here? You're sitting and you, you'd contractually have to nod like manager. You contractually have to nod and sort of be like, and occasionally you'd have to say, man, you guys are in a good groove. No. Yes. Hard pass.

Erase if you say it. No, honestly, there's not enough money in the world. $175 every time you say you guys are in a really good groove. God, you guys are in a really good groove. Yes. Eduardo, yes. You're a sellout. And guess what?

You just lost a sweet gig to Eduardo. Eduardo knows how this game is played. Sweet gig? And that's $175 comes out of your paycheck. Exactly. Praise or pay. Yes, right. Praise or pay.

Praise or pay. Which is our next song. Let's go into it. You've got to praise or pay. Yeah, I love this. Look, I don't think we're going to do this because I love the format we have. Yeah. But I do have a sickness, which is I always think of, I think we've talked about this,

what's the worst thing I could do? Yeah. And this one's up there. This one's up there. This is really up there. Yeah. We have a nice thing going here at this podcast. This would tank it really quickly.

Yeah, it would. It would. It would be bad. All right. I won't do that. And I especially don't want to thank our podcast today because we have an amazing guest. My guest today is a singer-songwriter, lead guitarist and vocalist of the Grammy Award winning rock band Weezer.

Good God. I love Weezer. This year, the band has taken on a very ambitious new project called Seasons, releasing one album on the first day of each season. Autumn has recently dropped. It's out there now. And the final album of the series Seasons, Winter, will be released on December 21st. It's a very cool idea.

I'm thrilled he's with us today. Rivers Cuomo, welcome. You have a very special place in my heart because way back in the beginning of my life on television, you guys came on the show. I think it might have been your first television appearance, was Weezer's first appearance. 1994, probably. 1994. At the time, we were doing anything we could to try and tell people what we were trying

to be about, not just in comedy, but in music too. And you guys came on, did the Sweater Song, and I just watched it this morning, and you guys are amazing. I'm horrified by my appearance. I'm just so young and so green. And when you guys finish, I mean, it's amazing, your performance is absolutely amazing. I walk over and shake all of your hands, and it looks like your lawyer has come in. I just like so, I just wasn't myself yet on TV, but I was such a fan, and your performance

was so true to the song itself. I mean, you start with the sort of party talk and muttering, and I think to a TV audience at the time, they were probably thinking, what is this? But it was so great, and I just watched it now, and it just makes me so happy that after all these years, you guys are still thriving. I've made it into podcasts, which is very hard to do. Very hard to go from television to podcasting. It's nice.

I love it anytime in my life when the circle gets completed, so thanks so much for being here. Yeah, yeah, it's very cool. It's cool, and there's some continuity in this crazy entertainment business, and you see the same faces again. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Well, I refuse to go away.

That's basically it. Same here. That's my showbiz motto. I have to say, I was trying to think today, Weezer, what is it about your music, Rivers, that gets me in, and I will say, it is incredibly unique. Like it is, there's no one else. I just keep listening to the riffs, I keep listening to the construction of the song, and it just never sounds like anybody else, and I mean that in the most complimentary way.

It's just, I always know it's you when the song starts, and it's just fantastic, and I don't know, so I guess part of where I wanted to start was figuring out where that comes from your approach to music. I'm actually thinking of the Sweater song now, because you just mentioned it, but I remember the moment I came up with that riff. I was about 20, 21 years old, and I had been exposed to cool music finally after moving to LA from Connecticut, got a job at Tower Records, and started listening to Sonic Youth and Pixies and Velvet Underground, and I was like, okay, I'm going to try to write a Velvet

Underground song. And I sat down and came up with the Sweater song riff, and I was like, yes, this is so cool. A couple of years went by, we got signed, put out a record, it blew up, very happy, 1995, we ended up playing this big festival in New York City, and Lars Ulrich was there from Metallica, and I saw him backstage. And the truth was, I was a huge metalhead in high school, and that's really how I learned how to play my instrument, and it suddenly occurred to me, the Sweater song, that riff,

it's actually very similar to Metallica's Sanitarium, and if you play them next to each other, they're pretty much identical, just one, the Sweater song's in a major key. So I had to tell him that right then and there, that's what I told him when I met him. And how did Lars take it? He's totally cool. We just ran into him again, and yeah, he's just very, very cool, and because recently we covered Enter Sandman, and it's been in our set recently, and we ended a plan with him this summer, and we were so close to playing Enter Sandman right before they went on, when

we asked him, like, hey, is it cool if we play it, and he said, yeah, that would mean we don't have to play it. So did you play it? No, we didn't, we chickened out. Oh man, that would have been amazing. What would the crowd have done? I guess they would be... That's the question.

Yes, that is the question. Oh Metallica would have to play the Sweater song. I know, yeah. I'd pay to see that too. It reminds me of, I know a comedian who's also a musician, is a really brilliant guy named Andy Breckman, who's written for Saturn Out Live and a million other things, and he famously opened for Don McClain once at a festival, and he played American Pie and did the whole thing, and Don McClain was not happy.

That just kills me. That just kills me. But yeah, I mean, Metallica could handle it because they've got a million songs, you know. Not so Don McClain. Sorry, Don. He's listening. Well, he's got the Van Gogh song.

He's listening. Yeah. Oh, trust me. Avid fan. Avid fan. Did you start, I mean, because you talk about, I know you grow up on the East Coast, you're in New York City, and then you're in, like, Rochester, and you're in Connecticut. Is it the guitar where it all starts for you?

Where does it start? Yeah, in recent years, I've really gotten into piano. I just love it. Especially Beethoven. I play Beethoven every night on my Discord server. Just like 20 people show up, but I just play through the sonatas over and over. This just makes me feel incredible. Doesn't matter what happened during the day.

I just feel great. And what is it about Beethoven? I love that I'm acting like this Beethoven guy, but specifically, what is it about his music that's getting you right now? I've always loved it. Right. But now I can semi-play it. So that's, yeah, it's just, I don't know, he's like, it's just how my brain works.

He just gets my attention and he keeps it and takes me to all these different places. And it's such an emotional ride. I put on Mozart and I space out after five seconds. I can't get into it. Right. So, Tim, you mentioned that it's now, it's about piano for you. Are you teaching yourself? Do you have a tutor?

No, I don't really, I'm not, I just play Beethoven really. I'm not learning how to play. And then I jam too. I know, but you're angering me because that's enraging me. Well, no, because I'm sorry, it's just making me mad. I started in earnest about six years ago. Every night I would just start playing and, you know, take, at that time it would take me a week to get through one sonata and now, now it's like two days.

I mean, sorry, two evenings, some two hours to get through a sonata. I'm kind of blown away by that. My relationship, I love playing music, I love hacking around on guitar, but it has never been intuitive for me. I don't have that, which is, and I've always really envied people that have that ability to figure it out, hear something, and then it goes through their brain and then they can make it happen with their hands. I need to actually, I need to figure out what is that shape and I need to memorize it.

And that's how it works for me. And that's why that is not my profession, but I'm really amazed like I'm trying to think of you as a kid and you're listening to classical music, but you're also, I'm sure, listening to heavy metal and at what point do you say I need to get my own guitar? Is that pretty early on? Yeah, last day of eighth grade, there was a performance by some other eighth grade boys. They went up and did metal health by Quiet Riot in front of the whole school. And these were kids I knew and they were just regular kids and yet they were playing these

instruments and it just sounded incredible. It was just magic. I was like, I should be able to do this and I got a guitar and started a cover band, did a bunch of metal songs and then moved out to LA with my metal band and we thought we were going to make it like that, but it didn't pan out. Yeah, so what if it happened to you? You never made it in music and then what happened? That's how it sounded for a second, sorry.

Well, getting the job at Tower really helped me. I got exposed to all different kinds of music, not just the latest cool music, but also going back to the 60s and hearing the Beach Boys and the Beatles and then talking to other employees there. Some of them had been, they were kind of lifers at Tower Records and they're just so knowledgeable. What year is this now? This is like early 90s? Yeah, 1990, 1991.

And I met the Weezer guys through my co-workers there and we formed the band. And the band is named, it's a nickname that you had as a kid? Yeah, that's what my dad called me when I was very young. I don't know, well, I asked him, why did you call me Weezer? And he said it was after the kid in the Little Rascals or as a character named Weezer. Oh yeah. Was there a Weezer? There was like a froggy for a while and he probably grew too old and they put in Weezer

or something like that. I always needed a weird sounding kid or something. And so I said, why him? And he said, because he's the cool one. Oh. That's cool. Same reason I had a band called You Little Shit. Thank you, dad.

We didn't really go anywhere. He's also my favorite Little Rascals. Yeah. It's him. It always makes sense to me when people have kind of disparate references. So classical is in there. There's also heavy metal and then Beach Boys and some people think, well, you know, does that make sense?

Or is that contradictory? And I just love, there's always a great melodic quality to your music that I really like and no matter how hard it gets, those melodic changes are still there. I think that's one of the hardest things to do. So the Beach Boys reference makes absolute sense to me. Yeah. And I should also say that all through school I was in choir, chorus, and barbershop, quartet, and magical singers, musical theater, that kind of stuff.

So I was singing very melodic music from a young age. You guys put together that first Weezer album. It's a huge success. That's the time that I encounter you. You remember that now as like a really happy time. Some people have a hard time digesting that kind of success. You know, it was a huge deal. Yeah.

I don't know if that was particular to our generation, but it seemed like a whole lot of bands tried their best to make it. And when they finally made it, they became very miserable and felt like this was the last thing they wanted. I don't know if that still happens to young artists, but seemed like it happened to a lot of ours. It did happen to you guys? Yeah.

After a year on tour, I was like, screw this, and I went back to college. That's right. And with the thing that you hated about it was touring, repetition, being on a bus, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. It was just utterly mind-numbing and boring and just singing the same songs over and over and there's tons of travel, packing, unpacking, and none of it was interesting. And I just craved some kind of intellectual stimulation, so I went back to school.

You and I were at the same college, different times, but you went to, so you applied to Harvard when you're already a rock star? Is that correct? Yeah. We were on tour and with a hit out, a monster hit album, and you decide, and this is what a lot of rock stars do, they have a monster hit and they say, you know what, I think it's time to apply to an Ivy League school. Yeah, we were playing Boston, so I just went up to the campus and got an application and

filled it out and I couldn't believe it, but they accepted me. Yeah, I think there are a lot of people right now going, wait, what? I went in, it's like you applied for a job at CVS. So you get accepted and suddenly you're at Harvard, don't people know, oh shit, that guy over there who's in my 10 class and who I just saw getting Ville Parmesan at the Adams House dining room, he's a rock star, did they know? Not until the last day of school because, well, most of our fans at that time were like 10 years old, literally.

We connected to a very young group of kids and it wasn't really like a college audience. So it's kind of hard to remember, but at that time there was no sense of me as the front man or famous or anything. People knew the name Weezer and they knew a couple songs, but that was about it. And I grew a very long beard and long hair and I was undergoing this procedure on my leg so I was walking with a cane. I just looked like some really weird, super old, weird guy. Why is he in this class?

You know, I'd be riding the bus with other students that were wearing Weezer shirts that didn't even, you know, they had no idea it was me. I just love that. You'd be on a bus at Harvard as a student and people are wearing Weezer shirts and they don't know that you have any connection to that band. Yeah, so on the last day of school, after the full year, in my music class, I remember having a conversation with some other kids and one of them said, so what do you think he's doing for the summer?

I was like, we're going on tour with no doubt and I was like, oh, cool, are you working on a tour or something? And no, no, I'm in Weezer and that, you know, minds were blown at that moment. That's right. And they're like, so you're a roadie for Weezer and you're like, no, you're the accountant. No. You mentioned your leg. I want to bring this up quickly because I actually know someone who went through the

same procedure. You were born one leg shorter than the other. Is that right? Yeah. When I was born, they were even but as I got taller, my right leg just couldn't keep up for some reason and yeah, by the time I was full grown, it was almost two inches shorter than the left leg. So yeah, there's a procedure.

I think they still do it called the illiterate procedure. They still do it and I know good friends of ours, their child went through it and it's when you hear about it, it almost sounds medieval. Yeah. This procedure, but it works. Yeah. You want to describe it? It's pretty basic.

In my case, it was my femur. So they cut your femur in half and then they screw this cage around your leg and into your bone. And then every day, you turn four screws on this cage and it's kind of separates either end of it a millimeter. So over the course of a couple months, it's separated two inches and the bone, as it's doing that, the bone is kind of growing in the middle. Oh my God.

Wow. But it must be, I mean, is that incredibly painful to turn those screws? Yeah, it was pretty painful. Yeah. I mean, I know I asked a really stupid question and I'll own that, but, and I'll admit that I knew the answer, but I wanted you, I just, I cannot believe. And as I said, I know someone who went through this and it was very successful, but I really felt for this young woman and I felt for the parents because I just thought, I can't imagine

turning those screws every day. Yeah, it's, yeah, I feel sad when I think about a little kid doing it and I saw kids at the hospital doing it at the same time as me and it's, yeah, I feel bad for them because they didn't, you know, I signed up for it. I wanted to do it. I was excited. But it worked. It was successful.

Well, it didn't work. Well, that's the thing is it works a lot better for kids. Their bones just grow and even for me at 25 already, the bone just wasn't filling in. So I had to screw it back together again and then start over and started stretching it and it still didn't grow. So they ended up, after a year or that, they took some bone out of my hip, ground it up and stuck it into the space between the two halves of my femur and then that finally took ...

Oh my God. Sorry. I'm sorry. I just took my breath away. That is, I mean, I'm sorry you went through that, but my God, it just, you know... Do you want to ask him again if it was painful? Well, okay. I actually do.

So, you think a little aspirin will leave? What do you do? No. Sorry. I took a wonderful opiate called demarol and I had no experience with those kind of pills until that point and I really came to love it. I'm hoping you still don't love it. I try my best to avoid those kind of painkillers if at all possible because they're so good.

I do have to say, and I've been on record of saying this before, the few times in my life when I've required a professional-level major league painkiller or opiate, I've been the happiest I've ever been in my life and that's a terrible thing to... and no one should do them, like I understood. I understood where Keith Richards and everyone was coming from, but no, terrible. And the other silver lining is the way it affected my voice, so on our second record, I actually wanted to do the vocals when I was in the middle of this procedure. And man, this is something in my voice, just I can hear what I've gone through and the

physical suffering, it comes out in this very beautiful sad tone in my voice. And there's just, I don't think there's any other way to get that. You know, it's such a cliche, the hunger artist that great art has to come, there has to be pain and everyone has their own version of that, but you know, and clearly I don't wish pain on anybody, but something does come from this. I would think, do you agree with that, that you get something, I mean, other than just a longer leg, you, that this is somehow influential in your creative process or no? Yeah, I think it did, I mean, it depends on how you feel about that album because it,

I mean, it was a big flop when it came out, still a lot of people don't like it, you don't hear it on the radio, but for other people, it's their favorite Weezer album and there's something really special on it. There's, I love it and there's, I know at the time it was not considered, it was not a commercial success and critics didn't like it. I think it's been reevaluated since then. Yeah, I'm a little skeptical because I feel like the only people who bother to go back and reevaluate an album from 1996 are the people who kind of already love it.

I'd like to ask the people who gave it such bad reviews when it originally came out, hey, what do you think of it now? It's hard to, I mean, who knows what they're doing now? Like, yeah, well, that's, they may not still be reviewing music. I mean, that's the other thing I learned early on is with criticism is they didn't like what I was doing in 93 and 94 and there were a lot of people who didn't and I understand where they were coming from. I just decided to keep going and if I ran into them today, I would like to think I'd

have a pleasant conversation with them and, because I don't want to have that, hey man, why didn't you like that? Are you thinking of someone specific? There's too many actually. Okay. There's too many people. That's weird because as somebody who was just watching your show back then, it would never have occurred to me.

There's people that don't like you. That's sweet. It's so funny because I just think of throwing it back to you, Weezer, you guys have endured for so long and done such good work and there's so much great stuff there that you have a conversation with anybody, I don't see, nobody knows or really cares how your second album was received. Do you know what I mean? Which is really nice.

They're looking at the whole. They're looking at the body of work. So I know you went through that period and that was rough but you decided you guys kept going and then just you've been killing it ever since. I mean, that's I think longevity is almost impossible in music. It's hard in comedy but I think it's almost impossible in music, especially popular music. So that's got to feel amazing. It's been a long time.

Yeah. I don't know what else to compare it to. This is the only life I've lived as far as I know. So it seems pretty normal. But yeah, there's not a lot of the same bands that we started with are still going. What do you think has helped because the band dynamic is so impossibly, it can be so corrosive and bands usually just end up splintering, falling apart into a million pieces. What is it you think has helped you guys stick it out?

Well, first of all, we really need each other, but we were way more successful together than any of us would be separately and so we're kind of stuck together and then just getting older and getting married to other people, women, not us, not each other and going. So you didn't all marry each other. I'm sorry. I read this article. My research. Who's doing the fucking research here?

This year and then in 1998, the band all married each other. This unconventional right was sanctioned by the, okay, anyway. That would not have worked. I want you to think about it. What do you think it is about you guys all getting married, which some people might think that would pull you apart actually helped you sustain? Because you learn how to communicate with, you know, in your marriage, you have to. And likely, yeah, your partner can teach you so much about communicating and then in my

case, so I've been in a couple of therapy for many years and just learning how to communicate and then I bring that back to the band and it now like things that caused so much problem and when we're in our early 20s in the band and in some cases cause ruptures and like all that stuff would have been avoidable with better communication that we have now. Yes, I have found that as time has gone on, I look at myself in my 20s and 30s and I was so driven and so ambitious and kind of, I don't want to, I mean, puritanical about this is comedy and sacred and that must be this way and it's the only way it can be and then I attributed a lot of my mellowing to I've become more sophisticated and I've, you know,

I've become, you know, my marriage of 20 years has really helped me and my children and I do, you know, I've come up with all these ways in which I've become wiser and then my wife's mom, my mother-in-law, who's very smart and a therapist, she said, well, your testosterone level fell and she went testosterone levels with men, they drop and yours has, you know, fallen precipitously, which is why you're so feminine now and easy to get along with. I was like, oh, okay. Interesting. It's a lot. I was wearing a wonderful dress at the time, beautiful, but yeah, there is something about, I love romanticize or it's easy to romanticize, especially when you're younger, that kind of Neil Young, it's better

to, you know, burn out and fade away and, you know, die young and leave a good-looking corpse and as you get older, you're like, fuck that. I want to be here and keep changing and evolving and I'm fascinated by the whole thing and I'd like to keep creating and see what I can do and if people prefer the earlier stuff or they don't like what I'm doing now, I'm going to keep trying. Yeah. Yes. I'm thinking of Beethoven again. Some of this amazing stuff came out at the very end of his life and yeah, that could happen for any of us. Is he deaf at that point? Oh yeah, totally deaf. How is that? As a musician, how does that work? I've never quite understood how he could work so well without such a crucial

part of his senses, you know, for music. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how he did what he did when he could hear. It's amazing, but yeah, I guess he's just hearing it all in his head, but some pianists will say like those late sonatas, there's parts that are just so dense and it's really hard to play. It's hard to play in a way that sounds clear and so maybe he had trouble with that because he couldn't hear and he also was hearing everything his head much faster than normal because when you're physically playing it, you know, it takes time to move your fingers or just the mechanics of playing it. Yeah. Or if you're conducting an orchestra to move the baton through the air, all these things slow the

music down. So they had metronomes by the time he died and he was leaving metronome markings that now most conductors have to ignore because they're just way too fast, they don't sound good. So they're ignoring Beethoven. He wrote out what to do and they're like, yeah, that's just Beethoven. We're just going to ignore that. Yeah. I'm just going to geek for a second about guitars because that's kind of a fascination hobby of mine. I listened to your episode with Jack White. I love one of his new albums so much. Yeah. Favorite album of the year. He's fantastic. I'm very satisfying for me to have him in my life as a friend because I met him and Meg when they were kids before they were famous. Whoa. I

went to Minna Bowling Alley and I've mentioned it in discussions. Yeah. Amazing. I famously chased you off my lawn. Remember? You're playing baseball and I said, get off my lawn. I threw a rock at you, remember? We saw them kind of right before they became famous too. In, I was at 2001, we played Space Land under an assumed name, Goat Punishment. And it was the last… That's a great name. Goat Punishment. We booked the show at the last second and there was a band playing that night already and they said, oh, we'll bump them. And so I guess they played, they ended up playing earlier in the night and it was the White Stripes. And I've never seen a two-person band before, blow my mind. At the time it

was so shocking. Others have done it now, but at the time it was, you can't do that. You have to at least have a bass player and probably another guitar player. This just isn't right. Someone should call the authorities, you know, it did feel. But yeah, I was very lucky. I mean, that's a way that I feel, I mean, I've been blessed in many ways, but just the idea that between Jack and Meg, the White Stripes and all these different bands, but you guys, I mean, I just, our musical director all those years at late night and all through TBS, Jim Pitt, who's responsible for so much of the great music we had on the show. And we and I were, he and I were talking before you showed up today and he said, you

got to see Weezer's first appearance. And I usually have trouble watching me, especially from the early days. I haven't gone back and watched it either. Well, you'd be really happy. I know my hair is not good. I've seen pictures. If you think your hair is not good, I look like someone shot a pastry at my head. I look at it now. And when enough time goes by, it doesn't even feel like it's you. So I'm just watching this guy who has a show introduce Weezer when they're for their first TV appearance.

And then I'm watching you guys kill it. And that's one of my favorite bands. And then it's over. And I'm not, I turned to Jim and I said, I don't really believe that that happened to us. You know what I mean? It feels like, I don't know if that's making sense, but enough time has gone by where that just feels like a whole other thing. And then the idea that I was anyway involved makes me just so feel so fucking lucky, you know, it was really cool that we were around in the early 90s at a time when there was so much really felt like something special was happening. Yeah, music.

Yeah, it did. Like I said, the only thing that stands out to me is me coming over at the end and I give you this back then, I was just trying so hard to be professional as opposed to just be myself. So I come over and I quickly shake your hand and go, well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to like you guys. And then I'm like, Weezer, everybody, we'll take a break. We'll be right back. You know, and I look like I just sold you a used car. Very good. Very good. Enjoy it. So Toyota Prius should do well, you know, and you guys drive off a lot. It really, really makes me happy. I want to make sure we talk about

what you're up to now because this, this project is so cool. It's seasons, but it's SZNZ. Yeah. And so ambitious. It's four. Well, I'll let you describe it because it's really cool. Yeah. So it's called seasons and there's spring, summer, autumn and winter and each one comes out on the first day of its respective season. And together they kind of all add up to something that feels like a whole. Each album has a primary emotion. Spring is optimistic. Summer is angry. Autumn is anxious. Winter is sad. Each album has a primary genre. So spring is supposed to sound kind of like island in the sun. Summer is supposed to sound like

alternative nineties rock. And autumn, which is about to come out, is like dance rock, friends, Ferdinand, is that sort of thing. And nineties, sorry, winter is like nineties singer, songwriter, Elliot Smith, that kind of thing. Wow. That is such a great idea. That's an amazing idea. Oh, wow. Thanks. No, I mean that.

No one said that. The three of us just all at the same time and we don't agree on anything. But it's so funny how everyone in the room just now, you know, Matt and Sonia and all of us are just like, oh, it's just awesome. What a great idea. It really is. Now, what inspired you? Well, it all started with Dropbox, because. Why? Beethoven said the same thing. I just every day I just write and I don't think about where a song is going to go. I

don't just whatever sounds cool to me in the moment. But because of Dropbox, I just sort them into these different folders and, well, this sounds kind of like dance rock. So I'll put it in this folder. This one sounds like nineties singer songwriter. I'll put it over here and everything is all nice and neatly sorted and everything at a home. And I didn't have to worry about, well, we're making this kind of album this year. So everything has to fit a particular sound. It just went to whatever folder it actually belonged in. And then I started thinking like, well, what can I do with all this? How can I tie it together or should I make four different albums? And somehow I remembered of all these four seasons

and well, there's four seasons. And yeah, maybe we can kind of tie it together under that umbrella. So you release one. Is the whole project done now and you're just waiting to release them in time? No, we're kind of doing it in real time. So like we just turned in autumn and it's going to come out. And obviously, what is it? September 21. Yeah. So it's a very last minute. And for the fans, it's been fun to watch it. It all happened in real time. Watch Weezer scramble to meet the deadlines.

Did you find that you were angry when you were making summer? I was definitely anxious when I was making autumn. Yeah, I did. I did. I did feel, I did feel, maybe I was just noticing it because it was on my mind, but I have felt those emotions as I was making each album. I'm a little worried about winter. Yeah, you're going to get sad. Yeah, we're just starting that one now. I could come by ice cream cake. But I need to be sad. Yeah. Ice cream cake.

Well, it's not going to be a good, here's the thing. It's not going to be a good ice cream cake. Oh, okay. It'll just make him more sad. Yeah. And it's going to say I hate you on it. That's a terrible idea. Well, it's going to make him sad. He didn't let me finish. God, these guys jump in whenever I think I have a really good idea. They totally screw with me. It's not right. That's very I mean, that's

That is really cool. Using, obviously, technology, you're using computers, you're using programming. Do you find that that helps you? Do you use it to write songs? Do you ever use, I mean, you know, deconstruct songs and almost using an algorithm or anything like that? Have you ever gotten into that? Yeah, I've always, since I was a teenager, I was interested in music theory, music history, and also just kind of analyzing songs. And you know, it's pretty basic stuff like how many bars is the average verse? I feel like my verse is a little long. What does everyone

else do? And then I'll just go and analyze 100 songs and see how many bars are in the verse. So it's basic stuff like that. But then I realized I can keep all this stuff in Google Sheets. So once I've looked it up, I can keep it and I've hoarded massive amounts of data that way. And then it was such a pain to work out the formulas in Google Sheets that I started learning computer programming, because it's a much easier way to kind of go through all the data and refresh it. I can, you know, write little scripts that go to Spotify and say, all right, how many, how many streams has this, how about these thousand songs gotten? And then I can sort and say, okay, here's the most popular songs, how many

bars do the popular songs out on, you know, that sort of basic question. Yeah, but that can really, it's interesting because that's, there's a yin and yang to that. There's a, there's an upside and then there's a downside that you might get too, too introspective about or, you know, I don't know. Too analytical. Yeah. Too analytical. Yeah. To me, it's the fun part is writing the script.

Sure. That's the really fun part. I'd be fascinated to know, and I don't, I know you don't know the answer, but just using that kind of program, trying to figure out which of the most, of the popular bands of the last 30, 40, 50 years, which are the ones that are most atypical, that have managed to be successful being the most atypical, meaning they, they don't fit, they don't fit that, that structure. I don't know.

I don't know what the answer would be. You know, I think the B 52s or something, some rush, well, yeah, well, we don't talk about rush. Really? No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I just like to, I'm an arbitrary cruel king who comes up with weird rules at the last second.

Yeah, I don't know what it would be, but I'd be, I'd be kind of fascinated to, to know. And you can see bands, like obviously the Beatles start out like there was a very clear they were using the, where is the bridge, the middle they would call it and they would work it out. But then even early on, they're doing things that are just strange and at the time were very strange. They worked, but they were using chords that were strange and they were doing two bridges that didn't match and you're like, what are they doing and why did they do it that way?

What gave them the confidence to know they could do it that way? So I don't know. All of that is fascinating to me. Maybe to no one else. I apologize. If you just fell asleep, you shouldn't have. It's a silence. It's painful.

Come on. I'm allowed to muse. Aren't I allowed to muse occasionally? Sure. Okay. Yeah. You're going to put crickets in there aren't you? And a little rush.

And a little rush. A little Getty Lee. Well, I want to make sure I get the word out, spring and summer have been released. Also autumn is just out and winter will be out on December 21st and such a cool concept. We're also, we're performing winter in its entirety under the name goat punishment at the troubadour in a few weeks. You're kidding. Really?

Yeah. It's to kind of learn this, force us to learn the songs and, you know, get them under our belt. So when we go to record it, it will be in better shape. That's cool. At the troubadour. Field trip. Okay.

Field trip. Yeah. Yeah. And I accept your offer to play ukulele with the guys. You're welcome. Sorry. It's gotta be sad ukulele. Trust me.

When I pick up a ukulele, it's sad. Rivers, this has been a real pleasure. It's been funny and sweet and just a great conversation. And I admire what you've done and I wish you continued success. And thanks so much. You took a chance on me in 94 and here we are still in the game, so this just makes me really happy. Yeah.

Same here. Let's do it again in what, 30 years? Yes. 30 years. Yes. I'll be a brain in a jar, but I'll still be going. Hey, thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we've got a reason to celebrate. Oh. It's Sona's birth month. Oh. Yes. Or she celebrates the entire month for her birthday, but this is a big one. This is a big one. It's 40.

Yeah. Yeah. We're all gonna have big birthdays coming up. I know. No? You don't wanna talk about it? Sure. I mean, my birthday hasn't come up for another six months, so I'm not even thinking about

it. But the milestone birthday is all three of us. I don't really think so. I don't think of it that way. I'm not hung up on age, as they say, age is just a number, so I don't think about it much. But yeah, I see what your point is. These are all gonna be big birthdays.

Yeah. Let's just come out with it. You're turning 6-0. Mm-hmm. I'm turning 50, and Sona's turning 40 all within seven or eight months. Yeah. Mine isn't till April, so I don't like being rushed along. Mine's not till May.

Mine's now. That's why I brought it up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's like a rushing thing. No. Well, Conan, you're practically, you know, 80.

I'm like, what? I didn't say that happened. You just said you don't mind it. Yeah, seems like you do. And now you're snowballing it to you being 80. I'm as young as I've ever been. You're getting very attached. I'm younger now than I ever was.

You're at an actor age. Are we still cool? My hip hurts. We're still cool. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Are you kidding?

Yeah, right? Especially me and you. That's a youth quake. I mean, we're taking the world by storm. These are, I guess, yeah, these are, I guess you would call them milestone birthdays that are coming up. But as I say, it's six months away. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm 38 years old.

It doesn't quite work like that. That's not how it works at all. That's how it works for me. No. Also, have you seen me? I am jacked. I mean. Do you mean like put up on cinder blocks and raised like a car?

Is that what you mean? Oh, yeah. I didn't mean working. Okay. Yeah. No, I'm jacked. I'm, I'm, they're working on my undercarriage. There's, there's, there's fluids leaking all over the floor.

What are they doing to it? Come on. They thought they knew what the problem was, but they can still hear the buzzing sound. And there's just spare parts all over the place. How's your piston? Oh, man. Come on, Matt. Hey.

Happy birth month. They can't even find it. Oh, God. The piston was misplaced. Awful gift. This is. Yeah. No.

So this is your, you're talking about, you, you celebrate for a whole month. I think I don't even celebrate for my birthday for a whole day. Yeah. Why? I love birthdays. Me too. I love my birthday. I'll celebrate.

I'll celebrate all year if I could, but that would be weird, but I, yeah, I like celebrating all month. How come you don't like celebrating your birthday? I just don't. You know why? I'm going to be honest with you. I always feel like, well, I didn't do anything. Oh, man.

Did you know what I mean? Like I, I. On that one day a year, you can't give yourself a little gift of just, hey, let's celebrate me. Uh, I don't know. It feels, I get a little, it's funny because I'm being, um, being honest, I, I just always have felt like, well, what did I do? I was just thrust into this earth, uh, against my will.

I wanted to stay in, now you're making me doubt my birthday. Yeah. You wanted to stay in the womb. In the. It was nice in there. The minute I came out, I realized there was so many other brothers and sisters and when I was in there alone, it was, you know, it was nice. And you were only alone in there for a little while, right?

Uh, yeah. I mean, exactly. I mean, in, in my, there was just so many kids that, uh, many, you know, a lot of people can't remember when they were in the womb. I remember and I remember like this was some me time. Wow. This was real me time. Wow.

Yeah. Well, maybe for your birthday, you could just, I don't know, like come back and get a hefty bag full of jelly or something and warm it up and go in there and listen to some, listen to some songs that were on the charts in 1963. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah.

He's so fine. Uh, no, no, I'm, I'm, I'm not anti-birthday, but, um, I usually, my favorite thing to do is just, you know, go to dinner as, as an excuse to just go to dinner with some people. But the whole thing of, um, hey, happy birthday and here's something for you always makes me a little self-conscious. Oh, I don't like it. And it's not, it's not the age thing. It's just me feeling, um, I don't know.

It's so funny because I'm someone who my whole life has been. I love going out in front of people and, uh, whatever, entertaining them. But I feel like that's something that I'm doing. That's me doing my job as opposed to yay. And what did I do? Well, you lived 60 years. I mean, that's no small feat. Yeah.

I don't know why you're rushing my birthday. It's unbelievable. You keep acting like it doesn't bother you. Well, it's another thing to say like, well, so not, I mean, 50, that's a big one. And you're like, what are you talking about? Well, it's coming up. You seem kind of defensive. Uh, this has not, you know, I've got six months to process this.

Yeah. I'm still in my fifties and I'm not going to have you, um, turn this whole segment prematurely into I'm 60 when that's not what I've tried to do. I was just trying to wish. Oh, I know exactly what you're trying to do. And happy fiftieth to you too, Matt. This is about you. I mean, well, you're practically 57 when you think about it.

How do you figure? Well, it's coming pretty quick. I mean, I feel and look that way. Yeah. But other than that, I think. You use a cane and you don't need to. But that's an affectation. I know.

Yeah. Goorley has a walker that he bought at the Rose Bowl swap meet and he got it because it was vintage. It was one of those really cool forties vintage walkers and he uses it. And I've seen old people who needed one and you've. Fuck them. Yeah. They can't walk this.

I think, uh, I don't know how I'm going to react when my birthday rolls around, but I think I'll be pretty cool. I do tend to take the attitude that, wow, I've been on the earth this long as being, I think that's how people used to feel about getting old because nobody, very few people had the chance to get old in our recent history. For most of mankind, if someone turned 50 or 60 or 70, it was a sign of this is cool. This is, wow, you've been here and people would go to you for wisdom. We don't do that anymore with our elderly.

Yeah. Well, because also we're aging better. You look great. You don't look 60 and you do not. Well, I'm not. You are. I'm 59. You look 59 and six months.

No, you don't even look that. You don't, you don't look 60, man. I might. You don't. You look fine. No. Look, we all know. I think we're all real hot.

You don't get, first of all, Sony, you know that no one just gets my body. Okay. I immediately regret complimenting you. It's an incredible amount of work. No one gets your body. They're cursed with it. This body is a burden. No, I, you know, I, I, I do the best I can.

I do have a good body though. That's the thing. Now it's getting creepy. I mean, oh, really nice body. Thank you. I, I'm proud of us because Sony is going to be, you're going to be 40. How soon is your birthday? No one's supposed to know this.

October 13th. Yeah, whatever. I'll have David remind me. What? I just told you. You can't remember it. It's already gone. Okay.

David, the other assistant will remember. But that's a big deal. How do you feel about turning 40? I'm cool with it. Yeah. Should I feel different? No. Should we feel different?

I mean, I don't know. You've got a wonderful husband, two beautiful boys. Yeah, cool. You've got a really nice house. I'm chilling. You're working with Conan O'Brien. Oh, God. This is, I mean, it's the jackpot, you know?

I really am like in a happy place. I don't, I don't know when you get to the point where you're like, oh, like when is a midlife crisis happening? Oh, it happened to me late 40s. Yeah. Oh, okay. Hard. Yeah.

Did you get a Corvette? No, I bought a Margarita maker. Oh my God. That was your midlife crisis. Yeah. And had it installed in his Corvette. That's the problem. I do call it my hot rod.

You got a Margarita maker? My man bought it for me for my birthday, but it was my midlife crisis toy. Yeah. It's actually a frozen concoction maker from Margaritaville, the Jimmy Buffett brand. Okay. Oh, wow. I hope you're getting paid. No, but I would.

I'm not, that's interesting. I don't know. I'm going to think about what I want for my birthday this year. What are you going to want this year? I guess I might be a little like, I like just a dinner with friends, but it's 50th, so maybe we'll have a party or something. I don't know. Right.

And it's just something in the backyard or something. What about you, Sona? What's the plan for the- Oh, well, it's birth month. So it's a lot of dinners with a lot of people and then my trip, a trip with my family. It's very entitled to have a birth month. How dare you? Oh, I'm sorry.

It's just to say, oh, and this whole month is mine. Where do you get off saying you have a birth month? There's a lot of people I want to see. And so it's like, hey, let's, you know, using your birthday as an excuse to see people. Isn't it nice? But it's also pressuring them to get you a gift. No, nobody gets gifts anymore. It's not like I'm turning, you know, five.

I don't want people to get me gifts. No one gets, I don't want to do a gift thing. I expect a gift on my birthday. You want me to get you a gift? Yes. Especially this year. But you have so much stuff. Why do you say that?

Why do you say I have so much stuff? Because you're a very wealthy person. It's all relative. Okay. I mean, compared to Bill Gates. It is hard to buy you a gift. That's not true. It doesn't buy a gift for.

Not true. Okay. It's true. What, really? Yeah. Anything. I'm happy with anything. As long as it's cost over like $2,500.

I'm happy with it. Can I just write you a check? That's fine. Okay. Yeah. No, my limit. A check for $2,500. I knew it.

Catch it. My baseline is $2,500. It is wrong. That is my baseline. You can't, you can't collect checks from your employees for your birthday. My mother a few years ago made, wrote me a little note on my birthday and I sent it back to her and I said this, I want $2,500 minimum and she didn't, she didn't have it. She had to take out a loan.

You should just build into our pay for the company and extra $2,500. No. Come on. You guys do fine and I think I'm a, I loom large in your lives and I think $2,500 a piece is fair. I think it's fine. I prefer cash or crypto. Okay.

You wouldn't know what to do with crypto. I just, I just transferred crypto into your account then. You know what? I know so little about crypto. I'm assuming you did. Oh yeah. So, all right. Boop, boop, boop, boop.

Oh, boop, boop. Oh, I guess, I guess, well, if I hurt boop, boop, then I must have crypto. I used boop, boop, coin and I gave you $25,000 biggie bits. Well, and I'll use some back. Okay. Yeah, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Well, this ended stupidly.

Yeah, it did. Happy birthday, Sona. Thank you. Happy birthday, Sona. Thank you. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sona Moffessian, and Matt Gourly. Produced by me, Matt Gourly. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Salotaroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson

and Cody Fisher at Year Wolf. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Will Beckton. Additional production support by Mars Melnick.

Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco Hotline at 323-451-2821 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe

to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are down below. This has been a Team Coco Production in association with EWOLF.