With morale quickly reaching its lowest point, Weezer embarked on a tour of Japan, Australia and New Zealand, where AP scribe David Daley accompanied them to write the cover story [AP 102]. What he discovered was a band completely coming apart at the seams—and the whole world would soon know about it. The story was driven by quotes attributed to Sharp and Wilson, knocking the Pinkerton concept and Cuomo himself, with Wilson describing Cuomo’s attitude toward his bandmates as running a “selective democracy.”
SULLIVAN: Rivers didn’t want to do any press at all at that point, and the press department at Geffen was all up in arms. I do remember [thinking], “Oh, God, what is going to come out in that article?” because it was done in the middle of the band crumbling at that point.

SHARP: Unfortunately, I most certainly remember that article and had wished at that point we would’ve just kept things in-house. [Laughs.] I can take ownership of some moments within that dysfunctionality—I would smack myself around now if I saw myself acting like that.

KOCH: I think there was a strange backlash within the band where things reached this nadir [that was] unfortunately crystallized,  captured and overemphasized in the AP article. By the time it came out, that storm had passed a bit. It wasn’t like everyone was chummy, but it couldn’t have got any worse than that—and then this article came out and it was portraying this complete catastrophe. We were still touring and rocking out despite these feelings, which were real—it’s not like we were splintering, which is probably the vibe the article gave. I think it was certainly awkward, ’cause everyone read the article and everyone knew what everyone else had said but I am sure a lot went unsaid.

SHARP: Certainly, the writer wanted that story. I’m not blaming him; we should’ve kept it in-house and been smarter than that, but I also know that person wanted that. I remember saying some very positive things, and they were nowhere to be found [in the article]. [Laughs.] I don’t want to air dirty laundry. But [my attitude] did not have to do with something business related.

KOCH: I think [Wilson] was speaking accurately but I think he was also pissed off at the same time. Probably because he was still steamed that he was no longer a songwriting partner and the direction the band had taken with the Pinkerton concept. I think he felt, “Well, Pinkerton isn’t my concept. I don’t know anything about Madama Butterfly; I don’t know anything about these stories [Cuomo] is telling. I am just playing the drums.”

SHARP: I remember when that [issue] hit the shelves, we were playing an in-store, and I went off somewhere and read it and was like, “Ooh, that is not good.”




Even with tensions running high and a second single (“The Good Life”) falling flat, the band had no choice but to get out there and spread the gospel of Pinkerton the old-fashioned way: touring. Weezer crisscrossed North America in the waning months of 1996 and into early 1997, with Superdrag, Ash, Placebo and Nerf Herder opening different legs of the trek. And while the crowds may have been receptive, behind the scenes, it was a different story.
KOCH: You never know [the album was performing poorly] from the shows. That tour was great. [Crowds] were going crazy for the new stuff just as much as for the old stuff.

JOHN DAVIS: I remember going out there every night and killing ourselves, playing as hard as we could and putting off the maximum amount of energy that we possibly could, walking off the stage feeling like we'd absolutely destroyed the place, and then realizing that as soon as those guys walked out and played "The Sweater Song," nobody remembered we were there. You couldn't blow them off the stage. They had too many hits.

SHARP: I’m glad anyone has anything positive to say about how we conducted ourselves on those tours.

DAVIS:I don't want to call them unfriendly, but they definitely kept to themselves. I never even spoke to Rivers until we were 10 days in. Besides Brian, who was from Knoxville, they really weren’t too cool to us.

KOCH: Perhaps as the reality of the actual album was sinking in, I think Rivers went into a shell a bit—but he was never one to hang out backstage with the other bands and laugh. That was never his style. I think that initial sting of, “Ow, people don’t like this record,” enhanced his natural capacity to just be like, “I’ll just go back to my hotel room and read a book.”

SHARP: The things I’m most proud about with Pinkerton have to do with what was on the recordings. I’m not excluding myself in this at all, but how we dealt with each other, how we treated each other and others was not something I’m particularly proud of.

1997: I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW I GOT OFF THE TRACK
With slumping record sales and no radio or video support to speak of, Weezer’s second album was essentially dead in the water, save for one final spark—landing the support slot for No Doubt’s massive tour that summer. Talk of a third single, “Pink Triangle,” surfaced, with the band frantically trying to polish the track up for potential radio play, but it was too little, too late—and ended up causing even more strain within the group.

SULLIVAN: All the momentum was against Pinkerton at that point. There was a mix done on “Pink Triangle,” I think it got on some radio stations, but I don’t think there was a general feel that, “Hey, this thing is going to start to happen.” It definitely felt like there was nothing connecting.

SHARP: At the time, I was in London [working on the second Rentals album] and I’m sure I got a call that said “Hey, can you come back to do this bass part?” or something. I don’t remember it, but that might have happened. But I was in the middle of something that had been planned out for weeks and I was on the other side of the globe. I can’t say what my mindset was at the time; I probably thought it was unnecessary.

KOCH: I feel Rivers wanted his band members to be 100 percent loyal to what he needed and wanted when he wanted it, and I think he made a fairly urgent request for Matt to come back and work. Matt responded with, “You can’t give me such short notice,” and Rivers took the initiative and said, “Okay, we will get another guy to play that.” There was never a desire like, “This would be better without Matt.” It was more like, “I want my band members to do what I want when I need them to and sometimes they don’t,” and Rivers would react to that. At the same time, there was this need to get the work done and he was like, “Look, we are remixing the single. They want it next week. I have a week-and-a-half off of school; we need to do this now.” You know, that kind of thing. So it was practical; it had to be done. We needed someone to do it. He was in Boston and he searched around and found Scott [Riebling, Letters To Cleo bassist].

SHARP: The thing about “Pink Triangle”—I don’t know much about it. I found out about it years later that they had re-recorded my bass parts for the single version. I was not told that actually happened. I found out years later from the person who recorded it. He said, “You know they actually wiped your parts from the recording, wiped the masters?” He said he was ordered to just get rid of it. It would be a real shame if it were true, because I’m quite proud of that song and my contribution.

SULLIVAN: I think that having Matt in the band at that point was really kind of helpful with connecting [No Doubt’s] audience with [Weezer]. He was such a lively person onstage, very entertaining and Rivers was just playing it absolutely straight.

SHARP: That tour, to me, [are some of] the best memories I have from a feeling where we all got along better. The shows were more enjoyable. I remember there being a lot more civility than when we were headlining.

KOCH: As far as I know, the vibes were great. Everyone was having fun. There were some crazy incidents, but everyone was having fun. It could have been more fun, but it was cool and everyone had a good time.

SHARP: On paper, that tour might not have made any sense, but boy, did we learn from [No Doubt] on how you treat others. When we were left to our own devices, that stuff went out the window. We didn’t learn a whole lot.

SULLIVAN: Was it an ideal tour for that record? No. I didn’t think it was great, but I think that they made something out of it.

Trying to keep the momentum going, Weezer began a headlining tour two days after the six-week No Doubt trek wrapped. But just days into the club tour, tragedy struck, as Weezer fan club founders and longtime band supporters Mykel and Carli Allan— along with their younger sister Trysta—were killed in a car accident driving from Denver to Salt Lake City on July 8, 1997. A benefit show was organized a month later at the Palace Theatre in Hollywood. No one knew it at the time, but it was Sharp’s final performance with Weezer, and the band’s last proper show for nearly three years.
KOCH: I remember when we were on the bus to Alberta getting the news and how crushing that was. I remember that was a pretty major thing to process. We were really disturbed by the whole thing and everyone was really sad. It was this collective [thought of], “How do we, as a band, even deal with this?” I think we did cancel the following show in Vancouver so we could all fly to Salt Lake City for the funeral. I remember carrying the caskets and laying Weezer caps on them before they were buried and everything. I remember a couple of Weezer fans were there. They had figured out where it was going to be at and came to pay their respects. There was a collective vibe of, “What do we do now?” But obviously we had to keep going.Shortly thereafter is when we went to Southeast Asia, so it was this totally surreal vibe of we just lost our friends, and there are these 8 zillion Taiwan kids that are totally into Weezer.



SULLIVAN: I remember that Mykel and Carli benefit performance being pretty awesome. It was a great performance from the band, who had battled through that whole time and I felt it was pretty inspiring for two amazing people.

SHARP: That show was not just for us and Mykel and Carli. It was their whole… All the bands [Mykel and Carli] had affected were on that bill. They were family to all of us. We were all there together. They were really saints to us. We were all in mourning together. Their father, who had just lost his three daughters, was the strongest pillar. He was trying to hold up all these other bands. He was there for them, saying, “Hey, it’s going to be all right.” When I saw that strength he was able to carry, it changed my thoughts on a lot regarding religion.

KOCH: The tribute show started a long road to… I always had faith it would lead to something, but in the darkest hours—which I guess would be ’99 before I got word that Rivers finally had some interest in getting things back together—I felt like, “Geez, man, I am sitting around in Buffalo, New York. Now what is going to happen? Not that it is over, but it better not be over.”

1998: SCREW THIS CRAP, I’VE HAD IT
The following months are shrouded with a certain level of mystery, but here’s what we do know: Rivers Cuomo returned to Harvard that fall, playing solo shows intermittently with a number of area musicians, including future Weezer bassist Mikey Welsh, under the moniker of Homie. That winter, he recorded a proper Homie album which, to date, is still unreleased. Matt Sharp officially announced his departure from Weezer in April 1998. A few weeks before that announcement, however, came “American Girls,” a one-off track for the Meet The Deedles soundtrack recorded by a thrown-together supergroup version of Homie, who featured Cuomo, Wilson and Bell plus members of Soul Coughing and Cake—and came with a co-producing credit from Sharp. To this day, there is still debate on just when Sharp and Weezer parted ways, as well as who initiated it.

SHARP: I don’t really know how to speak on this because I don’t know what should be kept private and what should be shared. I certainly have my view of it, as I’m sure everybody else has their sort of foggy things. When you have a group that doesn’t communicate, you’re going to have a whole lot of different stories. [Laughs.]

SULLIVAN: I remember lots of it. But it is still a grey area.

SHARP: I was in the middle of working on the endless second Rentals record, in the middle of doing some overdubs, and I got a call that said, “Okay, you have to be on the other side of the country tomorrow.” And I said, “I can’t be there tomorrow, I have this commitment, but if we want to talk about when it will work for everybody, let’s do it then.” And the basic thing was, “If you’re not here tomorrow, then you’re not here.” So that’s it, however you want to take it. And I was not there tomorrow. [Laughs.]

KOCH: [Sharp’s dismissal] was shortly after [recording] “American Girls.” Because the “American Girls” thing was kind of a truce offering thing [from Cuomo], like, “Hey Matt, do you want to come and produce this track I am making as Homie?” And he was like, “Sure, man. Yeah, we can do this.”

SHARP: I was already out [of the band] by then.

KOCH: I remember getting the news about the “American Girls” thing and Matt being out of the band within days or a week from each other. I was like, “Wow, this is very strange timing.” So I don’t know if something happened during that session. I wasn’t there unfortunately.

SHARP: The main thing I couldn’t get beyond was that people absolutely [needed to] talk to each other with respect and a certain way of conducting ourselves. If that wasn’t there, than it wasn’t worth fighting for. There are all kinds of conflicting stories on it, but it came down to that for me. As long as we’re dealing with each other and being very respectful of each other, then we should continue. And if it can’t be that way, I’m not gonna fight for it.

KOCH: There was definitely a debate at that time of how exactly Matt left because I didn’t witness the moment that it was decided or known. I remember being at home trying to run the fan club and getting a special letter from Matt that I had to print in our fanzine that basically was him saying farewell to the band. He put it in big terms like, “We are parting our ways,” that kind of thing. The debate over "quit or kicked out" is… I don’t know how to answer the question. Again it comes down to the egos of Rivers and Matt and how they both perceived it. Who in the end did what to make it happen? I think in one sense, Matt felt like he was going to have a very busy career with the Rentals at that point. He had just come off creating [Seven More Minutes] and I think he felt it was going to be a very important record. So perhaps from his perspective, he felt he could afford that kind of, “I don’t want to not be in Weezer, but I have plenty to do.” I know it certainly must have bothered Rivers to no end to lose Matt, but at the same time, his ego probably told him, “We can survive this.”

1999-PRESENT: I TOLD YOU I WOULD RETURN
Koch was right; the band did survive Sharp’s departure. But it wasn’t overnight: The next two years are constantly referred to as “the dark ages” by Weezer fans, as there was an extremely limited amount of information available and it was never anything concrete. Welsh, Sharp’s replacement, didn’t even play his first official Weezer show until July 2000, when the band began their improbable, yet somehow perfectly fitting climb back to the top of mainstream music scene, culminating in the release of 2001’s Green Album and the massive success of “Hash Pipe” and “Island In The Sun” (and the second of their three AP cover appearances). It’s not at all a stretch to say that before their comeback, most people probably assumed Weezer had quietly broken up in the late ’90s, but Koch still had hope.

KOCH: Pat did a couple of tours with the Special Goodness, and I was there as tour manager. We booked a show at the Viper Room in L.A. in March 2000. It was one of the last Special Goodness shows on this tour and Brian’s band [Space Twins] were opening the show. At that point, you had Pat and Brian under the same roof and Pat had Mikey in his band. So you had three members of Weezer under the same roof and thought was, “What if Rivers came?” And he did come, and that was the first time in a year, year-and-a-half that you had those guys in the same room together. I remember thinking, “This is a historic moment.” As it turned out, we ended up going back to Rivers’ house in Hollywood. Rivers said, “You guys could crash at my house; I have a big living room and I know you need someplace to stay.” That was spark No. 1. [I remember thinking,] “This is not a crazy man. I think he has got it together now. This could work. He is in L.A. He owns a house here. It is a nice place. There is room to do demos and here he is inviting Pat over while he is on a tour with his other band.” Fast forward a few months, and they started rehearsing at Cole Rehearsals in L.A. It was kind of a dumpy studio, but it was really professional, just kind of trashed. We got a lockdown on a room there and they started doing these demos on a digital 8-track or something. I got in there maybe a week after they were doing that to check it out. I remember the first time I walked in, they were demoing a song called “Mad Kow,” and it was pretty sublime. I remember thinking a couple months ago they weren’t even in the same room together and this sounds amazing. And I said, “I don’t care what is going to happen—this is going to work.”

In the meantime, Pinkerton became a cornerstone of second-wave emo, making loud guitars and sensitive lyrics cool again for a whole new generation of disaffected teens. Dozens of bands used Pinkerton as a direct influence, including future Weezer tourmates like Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World and the Get Up Kids, as well as future AP cover stars like Dashboard Confessional, Good Charlotte, the Ataris, Saves The Day, Tegan And Sara, Manchester Orchestra and Motion City Soundtrack. With the album recently getting the deluxe edition treatment and the band planning on playing the original disc start-to-finish on their upcoming Memories Tour, there’s no question that Pinkerton is still as vital, relevant and massively influential now as it was 14 years ago, and will continue to be so long into the future.
SARA QUIN: I love that the songs are strong and smart and really hooky. But it’s messy and flexible without losing any impact. It’s a warm record, totally inviting, but thrashing and confident. It’s really strange and fun; every song feels triumphant and as the listener, you want to sing along and participate.

ANDY HULL: I can honestly say this record has not one bad song. It’s fully realized and doesn't apologize for it. We were so influenced by Pinkerton during Mean Everything To Nothing that Joe Chicarelli had Matt Sharp come by Sunset Sound in L.A. and listen to some of our songs. I still can't quite wrap my head around Matt Sharp hearing "I've Got Friends" and telling me it was "an epic mind-fuck." I could’ve died. My songs should never even be compared to theirs.

JUSTIN PIERRE: Not only is Pinkerton my favorite Weezer album, but one of my favorite overall albums of all time. It is messy, ugly and raw. It’s full of pain, humor, and brutal honesty. Let me put it this way: If Weezer were the movie Rudy, Pinkerton would be like playing for Notre Dame.

CONLEY: The songs are deceptively simple, which is to say they seem like straightforward rock compositions. When dissected, they betray a musical maturity beyond the normal scope of pop-rock songwriting. I appreciate Pinkerton more than most Beatles albums, which is almost hard for me to admit, my loyalty to the Beatles being sacred in my heart. Yet Pinkerton has all the tricks of the most complicated Beatles compositions, with modern lyrics about alienation and longing. To this day, listening to it provides constant inspiration and excitement, and feels like a gift, as if the melodies and chords were written by a long-lost brother from a distant lifetime. May Pinkerton go down in history as one of the most important rock records of the last 20 years. alt