Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Weezer are
Speaker 1: not supposed to be this in singing. They involve a
Speaker 1: bass player who predicted his own death, another bass player
Speaker 1: whose wife got into a gunfight with the LAPD, a
Speaker 1: front man who is obsessed with Kurt Cobain and who
Speaker 1: maybe was Kirk Cobain. Wait a minute, what you'll see
Speaker 1: this was a front man who wasn't your typical rock
Speaker 1: and roll archetype, not a burnout or an outlaw or
Speaker 1: some doomed rock and roll savage. Now Rivers Cuomo was
Speaker 1: more of an analyst than an anarchist, the type of
Speaker 1: rock and roller who studied songs like they were calculus,
Speaker 1: and surprisingly, as a result, made great music. Unlike that
Speaker 1: music I played for you at the top of the show.
Speaker 1: That wasn't great music.
Speaker 2: That was a preset loop for my melotron called Kurt
Speaker 2: Cromo MK two. I played you that loop because I
Speaker 2: can't afford the rights to Luther by Kendrick Lamar and Siza,
Speaker 2: And why would I play you that specific slice of
Speaker 2: Velvet Voice adjacent cheese.
Speaker 3: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one.
Speaker 2: Song in America on April eighth, twenty twenty five, And
Speaker 2: that was the day that Weezer got dragged closer to
Speaker 2: a true crime scandal than they ever had been in
Speaker 2: their thirty plus year history. On this episode, a death prediction,
Speaker 2: a gunfight, burnouts, outlaws and savages, the anti rock star,
Speaker 2: rockstar rivers Cromo and Weezer. I'm Jake in This is Disgraceland.
Speaker 2: Earlier this year, twenty twenty six, a so called peer
Speaker 2: reviewed report by a team of private forensic scientists attempted
Speaker 2: to disrupt the official narrative that Kurt Cobaine's death was
Speaker 2: the result of suicide. The report argued that the evidence
Speaker 2: supports not a single self inflicted gunshot wound to the head,
Speaker 2: but instead a staged homicide. The report questioned whether Kurt's
Speaker 2: body had been positioned or posed It raised the skeptical
Speaker 2: eyebrow at a receipt for bullets found in his pocket,
Speaker 2: and it noted the tidy condition of his works, the
Speaker 2: stuff he used to shoot heroin, most notably the capped
Speaker 2: needles that contained the heroin that he'd shot moments before
Speaker 2: he died. But despite all of this, the report is
Speaker 2: flimsy at best, not to mention, far from revelatory. No,
Speaker 2: Kirk Cobain was not murdered. But this new report and
Speaker 2: the coverage it received in the media did cause another
Speaker 2: old internet theory to resurface, and that theory is that
Speaker 2: Kurt Cobain did not die at all.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: The theory is that Kurt Cobain faked his own death.
Speaker 2: Later on, the front man would laugh about how the
Speaker 2: clues have been there all along, like how he dressed
Speaker 2: in the music video for Nirvana's in Bloom, the horn
Speaker 2: rimmed glasses, the button down dress shirt. That video foreshadowed
Speaker 2: what came next. Kirk cut his long hair sh short,
Speaker 2: and he shaved his face until it was smooth as
Speaker 2: the bare bottom of that baby that was on the
Speaker 2: cover of never Mind, and as smooth as the voice
Speaker 2: he was now using to sing. It was a different voice.
Speaker 2: Gone was his trademark punk rock howl. In its place
Speaker 2: was a clearer, purer voice. It was the voice behind
Speaker 2: his next hit song, a catchy tune inspired by that
Speaker 2: all of drab cardigan he'd famously worn during Nirvana's appearance
Speaker 2: on MTV Unplugged, and the song was called Undone the
Speaker 2: Sweater Song, and it was the lead single Loft, the
Speaker 2: debut album by Kurt's new band, a band that, like Nirvana,
Speaker 2: had a one word name. That's right, Kirk Cobaine did
Speaker 2: not die. In nineteen ninety four, Kirk Cobane secretly became
Speaker 2: Rivers Cuomo of the band Weezer. As music conspiracy theories go,
Speaker 2: I gotta say this one is both pretty ridiculous and
Speaker 2: pretty hysterical.
Speaker 3: Cuomo himself thought that it.
Speaker 2: Was funny enough to actually entertain the concept a few
Speaker 2: years back on Rick Rubin's podcast, even playing along as
Speaker 2: if it were true and as if he were Kurt
Speaker 2: Cobain for real. But still though it's good for a lathanol.
Speaker 2: Imagine that you're Kurt Cobain, a bona fide rock star,
Speaker 2: badass to your core, and then further imagine that you
Speaker 2: are beset on all sides by rubberneckers who want everything
Speaker 2: from you, your blood, your sweat, your tears.
Speaker 3: Would it not be in line with.
Speaker 2: Your badass rockstar character? Would it not be the ultimate
Speaker 2: fuck you to all of these culture vultures? If you
Speaker 2: were to fake your own death and then live in
Speaker 2: secrecy as a nerd, now imagine the reverse. Imagine the
Speaker 2: tame nerd becoming the feral rock star. Imagine Rivers Cuomo
Speaker 2: becoming Kurt Cobain. That seems like a more unbelievable proposition,
Speaker 2: but that's exactly what Rivers Cuomo wanted to do. Rivers
Speaker 2: Cmo wanted it so badly to become Kurt Cobain that
Speaker 2: he kept a three ring binder full of mathematical deconstructions
Speaker 2: of every Nirvana song.
Speaker 3: He studied them.
Speaker 2: He needed to understand how they were made, and by
Speaker 2: doing so he could then write his own songs.
Speaker 3: It would be just as impactful and beloved.
Speaker 2: But rivers Cuomo wanted much more than to simply crack
Speaker 2: Kurt Cobain's code. I seriously thought we were the next Nirvana,
Speaker 2: Rivers told Rolling Stone in twenty nineteen, on the twenty
Speaker 2: fifth anniversary of Weezer's debut.
Speaker 3: And I thought the world was going to perceive us
Speaker 3: that way, like a.
Speaker 2: Super important, super powerful, heartbreaking heavy rock.
Speaker 3: Band, and as serious artists.
Speaker 2: In May of nineteen ninety four, one month after Kirk
Speaker 2: Cobain's death, When Weser released their self titled debut album,
Speaker 2: or the Blue Album as it's now known, the quartette
Speaker 2: of Rivers Cuomo on guitar and vocals and Matt Shark
Speaker 2: on bass, Brian on guitar and Patrick Wilson on drums
Speaker 2: were not seen as a super important, super powerful, heartbreaking
Speaker 2: heavy rock band, nor were they seen as serious artists. Instead,
Speaker 2: they were seen as four lovable dorks.
Speaker 3: With a couple catchy songs.
Speaker 2: Not that there's anything wrong with that, and this isn't
Speaker 2: to say that they weren't commercially successful either, because they
Speaker 2: absolutely were. After a slow burn on the charts nine months,
Speaker 2: to be exact, their debut album reached number sixteen on
Speaker 2: the Billboard two hundred and it's three excellent singles undone
Speaker 2: the Sweater Song, Buddy Hawlly and Say it Ain't So
Speaker 2: All cracked the top ten on the Modern Rock Churn.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the charts that didn't take Weezer seriously, though,
Speaker 2: it was the world. That same world had now turned
Speaker 2: and left Rivers right here with his bowl cut and
Speaker 2: his thick black glasses, looking far younger than his twenty
Speaker 2: three years strumming a powder blue stratocaster and a goofy
Speaker 2: Spike Jones directed video that recreated the set of the
Speaker 2: Let's Be Honest, Pretty Lame TV show Happy Days.
Speaker 3: Rivers saw how the world saw him, and it hurt
Speaker 3: him deeply.
Speaker 2: He had thought he'd been betrayed by his own arm
Speaker 2: and it wouldn't be the first time Rivers thought of
Speaker 2: meditation to take his mind off of things. He closed
Speaker 2: his eyes and hoped the process would come back to
Speaker 2: him like riding a bicycle, the breathing, the focus. Years earlier,
Speaker 2: in the mid seventies, he was made to perform meditation
Speaker 2: daily at Yogaville, a Hindu ashram in Connecticut where he
Speaker 2: lived with his family. But silence and stillness were not
Speaker 2: for Rivers Cuomo. He knew this as young as a
Speaker 2: seven year old when he heard real rock and roll
Speaker 2: for the first time. The girl was a stranger, a
Speaker 2: fleeting visitor to the otherwise insulated Yogaville community. Under her arm,
Speaker 2: she carried an album rock and Roll Over by a
Speaker 2: band called Kiss. She passed the album to Rivers Cmo
Speaker 2: as though it was a secret. If he gazed shyly
Speaker 2: at the cover art lost in the dizzy and cartoon
Speaker 2: collage of Paul, Jean, Peter and Ace. The face paint,
Speaker 2: the curled devil's tongue, the X ray eyes. It all
Speaker 2: felt forbidden and dangerous, primal and animalistic. One of the
Speaker 2: guys in the band even looked.
Speaker 3: Like a cat. It was the coolest.
Speaker 2: Thing young Rivers Cuomo had ever seen. And when they
Speaker 2: put the record on the turntable and the needle hit
Speaker 2: the groove, all Rivers wanted to do was run around
Speaker 2: the room in circles. The music took possession of his
Speaker 2: mind and body. It consumed him. By high school, he
Speaker 2: was fronting his own metal band, and at age nineteen,
Speaker 2: Rivers CMO and his band made the move from Connecticut
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles to hit the big time. But even
Speaker 2: though Rivers had long ago and switched on by Kiss,
Speaker 2: he was no face paint wearing, tongue wagging showmen.
Speaker 3: Instead, he remained.
Speaker 2: The shy wallflower ashroom kid at heart. The LA scene,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, was run by rock and roll animals,
Speaker 2: the deviants, the savages.
Speaker 3: It was no place for the meek and mild.
Speaker 2: When Rivers CMO's high school band was quickly chewed up
Speaker 2: and spit out, still Rivers remained determined he would follow
Speaker 2: the path of the true artists, the path forged by
Speaker 2: the Beach Boys Brian Wilson, who Rivers learned about while
Speaker 2: working at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard, the same path
Speaker 2: later trampled by Kurt Cobaine, whose songs Rivers cmos studied
Speaker 2: like they were fourth period algebra. With Weezer, Rivers played
Speaker 2: a ton of shows. He gigged hard, He worked harder
Speaker 2: than most to plant his own mild mannered flag and
Speaker 2: a scene full of unruly animals.
Speaker 3: Now, finally it looked.
Speaker 2: As though success come, but it was success on someone
Speaker 2: else's terms. Spring nineteen ninety five, Rivers Cuomo reclimbed in
Speaker 2: his seat as Weezer's tour bus rumbled down the highway.
Speaker 2: A mischievous grin crept across his face as he thought
Speaker 2: about the previous night, not about the show itself, but
Speaker 2: the after party his hotel room. Ten maybe fifteen women, attractive, excitable,
Speaker 2: all of them. They're not so much because he was
Speaker 2: Rivers Cuomo, but just because he was a rock star.
Speaker 2: For months, Rivers hadn't been able to work up the
Speaker 2: courage to do what he thought a true rock star
Speaker 2: would do to engage in some wild and debauched orgy
Speaker 2: hammer the gods type stuff, which left these female fans
Speaker 2: milling around, raiding the mini bar and talking about how
Speaker 2: much they loved Green Day or whatever. Because you know,
Speaker 2: normally Rivers wasn't all about that, but last night was different.
Speaker 2: Last night, Rivers even surprised himself when he boldly made
Speaker 2: the announcement who wanted.
Speaker 3: To stay had to get naked.
Speaker 2: In the room cleared out, almost four women stayed behind it,
Speaker 2: four women who proceeded to remove every article of their clothing,
Speaker 2: just as Rivers had instructed them.
Speaker 3: But anything goes.
Speaker 2: Encounters with fans of the opposite sex wasn't enough to
Speaker 2: keep Rivers Cromo on the hamster wheel. He'd been out
Speaker 2: on the road with Weezer for a year straight, and
Speaker 2: already the monotony was crushing his soul, playing the same
Speaker 2: ten songs from your one record every single night, giving
Speaker 2: the same dumb responses to a different dumb journalist every
Speaker 2: single day. And he wondered if Kirk Kobein had felt
Speaker 2: this way, like he was slowly watching his own life
Speaker 2: waste away. Actually, he didn't have to wonder because he
Speaker 2: knew the answer. So, like Kurt, Rivers decided to do
Speaker 2: something about it. But unlike kurk Rivers didn't turn a
Speaker 2: shotgun on himself and pulled the trigger. Because Rivers Cromo
Speaker 2: was a different.
Speaker 3: Type of rock star. He was the opposite of Kurt Cobaine.
Speaker 2: So Rivers Cuomo quit his own band and went to college.
Speaker 2: The Elizarov technique, developed in the nineteen fifties by a
Speaker 2: professor in the former Soviet Union, is a surgical procedure
Speaker 2: that uses an external device to help reconstruct, reshape, or
Speaker 2: lengthen bones, usually in the limbs, following surgery. The Elizarov apparatus,
Speaker 2: or a fixator, as it's also known, is attached to
Speaker 2: the exterior of the body with a series of rings, raws,
Speaker 2: adjustable nuts, and wires. It basically looks like metal scaffolding
Speaker 2: around your body. The thing works via distraction osteogenesis, which
Speaker 2: is a fancy way of saying that this gnarly looking
Speaker 2: apparatus gradually separates a surgically cut segment of the bone
Speaker 2: in order to allow new bone to grow and fill
Speaker 2: the gap. Though it may seem like an archaic process,
Speaker 2: the Elizarov technique is still used to this day in
Speaker 2: orthopedic surgery when someone has, for instance, legs that are
Speaker 2: two different lengths, which is exactly the problem that Rivers
Speaker 2: Cuomo faced when he put his rockstar career on hold
Speaker 2: to enroll at Harvard University in the fall of.
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: A jolt of pain shot up Rivers's leg as he
Speaker 2: twisted the screw of the metal cage apparatus that enveloped
Speaker 2: his right leg. He winced alone in his small dorm room,
Speaker 2: and then prepared to do the same with the next
Speaker 2: screw forest screws in total. Every day he was excruciating.
Speaker 2: Rivers's right leg was almost two inches shorter than his
Speaker 2: left almost two inches, and after doctors cut his femur
Speaker 2: in half, they set him up with an E. Lizarev fixator.
Speaker 2: Over time, the painful daily ritual of turning the screws
Speaker 2: would pull the two halves of his femur apart and
Speaker 2: allow for new bone to develop, until both of his
Speaker 2: legs were roughly the same length. The whole thing was
Speaker 2: conspicuous and embarrassing. Rivers limped across Harvard Yard from one
Speaker 2: class to the next, his apparatus rattling the cane in
Speaker 2: his hand to keep him upright. He looked like an
Speaker 2: old man, and the beard he was growing only added
Speaker 2: to the picture of frailty, but it also made him
Speaker 2: unseen in a different way. The kid in the Weezer
Speaker 2: shirt sitting next to him on the tee had no
Speaker 2: idea who Rivers was.
Speaker 3: Neither did his.
Speaker 2: Classman or the girl, the one he pined for from afar.
Speaker 2: She had no idea he existed, not as a musician
Speaker 2: or a celebrity, or even as another student, a pitiful
Speaker 2: one at that, popped up on pain meds with this
Speaker 2: janky piece of medieval steel protruding from his leg. The unknown,
Speaker 2: unrequited love, the isolation, the pain. It all dovetailed with
Speaker 2: a swift disillusionment in academia, or at least when it
Speaker 2: came to his chosen major classical music composition. What was
Speaker 2: he trying to prove that a quote unquote serious artists
Speaker 2: belonged not on the road but in a classroom.
Speaker 3: He didn't have to be here at Harvard.
Speaker 2: He could be in the studio doing what he'd always
Speaker 2: wanted to do since he held that kiss record in
Speaker 2: his hands. This time there was an opportunity to cease.
Speaker 2: It was staring him in the face. Put Harvard on hold,
Speaker 2: get Weezer back together, and record a batch of new songs,
Speaker 2: transformative songs, songs that were nothing like the songs on the.
Speaker 3: Blue album, Songs that would prove once and.
Speaker 2: For all that he was a serious artist, that he
Speaker 2: was deep and tortured, that he really wasn't all that
Speaker 2: different from Kurt Kobein after all. It was this line
Speaker 2: of thinking that led to a decision that Rivers Cuomo
Speaker 2: would later see as one of the greatest mistakes of
Speaker 2: his professional life. Weezer's sophomore studio album, Pinkerton, was released
Speaker 2: in September of nineteen ninety six. Musically and lyrically, the
Speaker 2: record came as a shock. The Blue album's sonic template
Speaker 2: was in part defined by their producer, Ricoques of the Cars,
Speaker 2: who turned the gain on their amplifiers all the way
Speaker 2: up but turned the volume all the way down, thus
Speaker 2: capturing a crunching guitar sound that wasn't noisy and didn't
Speaker 2: feed back. But on the self produced Pinkerton, the guitars
Speaker 2: routinely squelched out of control. The bass and the drums
Speaker 2: were pushed into the red. Rivers, still in his Elizarov apparatus,
Speaker 2: still in physical and emotional pain, delivered raw, physical and
Speaker 2: emotional vocal performances of lyrics that were extremely personal and
Speaker 2: nakedly documented this current state of alienation.
Speaker 3: It was an.
Speaker 2: Abrasive about face for Wezer, and honestly, Pinkerton is fucking awesome.
Speaker 3: This record is great.
Speaker 2: It's so much better than the so called blue album.
Speaker 2: I don't care what anybody says. However, the intention for
Speaker 2: Rivers was to prove Weezer's biggest critics wrong. The critics
Speaker 2: hated Pinkerton, so did many of the fans. It was
Speaker 2: voted the third worst album of nineteen ninety six in
Speaker 2: a Rolling Stone reader's poll, right behind Bush's Razor Blade
Speaker 2: Suitcase and DJ Spooky's Songs of a Dead Dreamer. And
Speaker 2: while Pinkerton did have his cohort of diehard fans, Rivers
Speaker 2: started to believe what the detractors were saying about Pinkerton.
Speaker 2: He bared it all, ripped his heart out and put
Speaker 2: it on his sleeve, beating and bloody, and no one.
Speaker 3: Cared at all. It seemed.
Speaker 2: The Rivers Cuomo needed a distraction, something deeper than meditation.
Speaker 2: He needed to get back to the good life, the
Speaker 2: life of the road, shaking booty and making sweet love
Speaker 2: every night. You know how the song goes. The life
Speaker 2: that once bored him to tears would now dull the
Speaker 2: heartache that he was feeling as he tried to escape
Speaker 2: that life. Make that makes sense. The Pinkerton Tour of
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six In nineteen ninety seven was happening just
Speaker 2: as the Internet was evolving at move fast and breakshit speed. Soon,
Speaker 2: word of the Weezer front man's sexual conquest spread to
Speaker 2: a Geocity's website with the unfortunate title Rivers l Pervo.
Speaker 2: Now on the website Rivers el Pervo fans or former fans,
Speaker 2: I don't know. They detailed both Rivers's alleged methods to
Speaker 2: select and lure women backstage like he was David Lee
Speaker 2: Roth or something, and also his again alleged interactions with
Speaker 2: girls who were barely of legal age. Rivers freaked out
Speaker 2: when he came face to face with Rivers el Pervo.
Speaker 2: He no doubt immediately thought of the lyrics to the
Speaker 2: Pinkerton song Across the Sea. It's a song he wrote
Speaker 2: in response to an actual letter that he received from
Speaker 2: an eighteen year old female Japanese fan. The lyrics to
Speaker 2: the song layout his moral quandary in how or if
Speaker 2: he should respond to this barely legal fan, and he
Speaker 2: even wondered aloud in the song quote I wonder how
Speaker 2: you touch yourself on quote. Not that he'd done anything wrong,
Speaker 2: not legally anyways, certainly every word out of his mouth.
Speaker 2: Now with this Rivers l Pervo website was going to
Speaker 2: be scrutinized and worse documented online. So rivers Cuomo stopped
Speaker 2: with the naked hotel room Shenanigan's. He stopped having assistant
Speaker 2: scoured the audience for women who were, you know, looking
Speaker 2: like they wanted to hang out with a rock star.
Speaker 2: Yet rivers Cuomo's libido raged on, which is how Rivers
Speaker 2: Cromo began visiting massage parlors every show in every city
Speaker 2: now with a guaranteed happy and hush hush ending. The
Speaker 2: massage parlors offered a discrete location, offered a discrete solution.
Speaker 2: The encounters were anonymous, and these were his secrets, the
Speaker 2: secrets of a rock star, which, despite what the world
Speaker 2: thought of him, was still what rivers Cuomo yearned to be,
Speaker 2: that is, until a real rock star entered his life.
Speaker 2: Boston the South End. Mikey Welsh walked confidently.
Speaker 3: Into the Deluxe.
Speaker 2: The collection of lights glowing from behind the bar made
Speaker 2: it look like it was Christmas time, even though it
Speaker 2: was spring. Mikey pushed past the collection of off duty
Speaker 2: bike messengers who went by the name of the Boston Blackouts.
Speaker 2: There were nursing bottles of high life over by the
Speaker 2: Kitchie Elvis Lamb. Mikey caught the bartender's attention in order it,
Speaker 2: as usual, a glass of red wine. At twenty seven
Speaker 2: years old, Mikey Welsh was already a legend in the
Speaker 2: Boston rock scene, a real, if you know you know
Speaker 2: kind of dude, not to mention a hell of a
Speaker 2: bass player for bands like Heretics and Jock o' bono
Speaker 2: and Left Nut. But Mikey's notoriety was just regional again
Speaker 2: if you know you.
Speaker 3: Know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So when Mikey Welsh saw the diminutive, bespectacled dude making
Speaker 2: his way through the Deluxe, headed in his general direction
Speaker 2: and then immediately clocked him as a River's Cuomo of Weezer,
Speaker 2: one of the most badass rock dudes in Boston felt
Speaker 2: something that he didn't feel every day.
Speaker 3: Starstruck. Hey man, are you Mikey Mikey the bass player,
Speaker 3: Rivers asked, when he was close enough.
Speaker 2: The Bostones guy said that I should talk to you
Speaker 2: the Bostones as in the Mighty Mighty Bostones. Later, Mikey
Speaker 2: Welsh wouldn't remember exactly what he said. The words just
Speaker 2: sort of nervously tumbled from his mouth. But whatever it was,
Speaker 2: that must have been good enough, because Rivers Cromo Weezer
Speaker 2: wasted no time and asked Mikey Wells to jam with him.
Speaker 3: Mikey didn't know it at the time.
Speaker 2: Many didn't, but by the end of the Pinkerton tour,
Speaker 2: Matt Sharp, Weezer's bass.
Speaker 3: Player, would be out of the band.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the first time that Weezer had experienced turnover.
Speaker 3: During the making of the Blue Album, founding.
Speaker 2: Guitarist Jason Cropper was fired and replaced with Brian Bell.
Speaker 2: Matt Sharp later revealed that he was also fired like
Speaker 2: Jason before him, although Rivers says that the real reason
Speaker 2: Matt left was to focus on other band, the so
Speaker 2: called Friends of p The rentals, whatever the case, By
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, Matt Sharp was out and Mikey Welsh
Speaker 2: was in. Mikey left Boston for la moving into an
Speaker 2: apartment with Rivers on Sepulvt Boulevard in Culver City, and
Speaker 2: doing so, Rivers got a front row seat to a
Speaker 2: true rock and roll animal because Mikey Welsh was the one.
Speaker 2: Mikey was the one mixing Klonopin, speed and red wine.
Speaker 2: Mikey was the one dropping LSD right before Weezer's first
Speaker 2: secret show, playing Nirvana covers under the name Goat Punishment.
Speaker 2: Mikey was the one tripping his balls off on no
Speaker 2: Effects as tour bus, eating mushrooms while watching a Porno.
Speaker 3: A Fat Mike in the Gang on a large screen TV.
Speaker 2: Mikey was the one hanging around the kinds of people
Speaker 2: your mother warned you about. Fuck Mikey was the type
Speaker 2: of person that your mother warned you about, but Mikey
Speaker 2: hung around with them because these are the types of
Speaker 2: people who had drugs. And for a guy like Mikey Welsh,
Speaker 2: not only did you play rock and roll, you got
Speaker 2: high and yet it was dark. But to a guy
Speaker 2: like Mikey Welsh that's what rock and roll was, and
Speaker 2: Mikey brought that darkness and the danger that went along
Speaker 2: with it to Weezer in a way that Rivers Cuomo
Speaker 2: never could. And pretty soon all that darkness and danger
Speaker 2: became too much even for a rock and roll animal
Speaker 2: like Mikey Welsh to handle, because in just a few
Speaker 2: years time, as Weezer hit the biggest peak of their
Speaker 2: career to date, Mikey Welsh would go missing.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this word, word word. New
Speaker 3: Year's Eve nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: Beck was talking, but Mikey Welsh could only make out
Speaker 2: every other word, something about Tommy Lee of Motley Cruze
Speaker 2: falling sideways into the bushes outside. Mikey just smiled and nodded.
Speaker 2: He was only half paying attention anyways. His mind was
Speaker 2: likely squarely fixated on the baggy of cocaine stuck inside
Speaker 2: of his pocket.
Speaker 3: The ship waited.
Speaker 2: A ton standing next to him, having better luck in
Speaker 2: the conversation department was Rivers Cuomo, who was chatting up
Speaker 2: their host, Gwen Stefani, who had invited the guys to
Speaker 2: her New Year's Eve party after Weezer opened a few dates.
Speaker 2: For no doubt, Rivers was obviously having a good time,
Speaker 2: and Mikey loved to see it. Over the last few months,
Speaker 2: Rivers had become something of a recluse, Depressed, not writing,
Speaker 2: the muse had packed her things and flown the coup.
Speaker 2: Mikey couldn't help but wonder if that muse had been
Speaker 2: the guy he replaced Matt Sharp. Anyway, Mikey had been
Speaker 2: spending lots of time with the seventy two Hour Party
Speaker 2: people up in the Hollywood Hills. The benders were so
Speaker 2: insane that they bordered on lethal. It was a miracle
Speaker 2: that Mikey stumbled home alive every night. One time, he
Speaker 2: found his way back to the apartment that he shared
Speaker 2: with Rivers, only to find that his roommate had painted
Speaker 2: the walls and the ceilings of his bedroom black. He
Speaker 2: also covered up his windows and disconnected the phone. It
Speaker 2: was just fucking weird, and it worried Mikey. But tonight
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve, he told himself that he wasn't going
Speaker 2: to worry about all that, not with back mumbling in
Speaker 2: his general direction and no doubt boring.
Speaker 3: The shit out of him. The cocaine was calling.
Speaker 2: Mikey asked when Stefani where the bathroom was, and then
Speaker 2: he excused himself, leaving Rivers Cormo to handle the small talk.
Speaker 2: Mikey hit the bathroom, locked the door, dumped the contents
Speaker 2: of the baggie onto the sink, rolled up a dollar bill,
Speaker 2: and snorted it all. Hours later, morning came the first
Speaker 2: day of nineteen ninety nine. Mikey's head was pounding. He
Speaker 2: went looking for some hair of the dog, and instead
Speaker 2: found Rivers Cuomo, not hiding away in his blacked out
Speaker 2: bedroom and not nursing a hangover like Mikey as bass player,
Speaker 2: but typing furiously on his computer.
Speaker 3: Rivers was beginning.
Speaker 2: To catalog all of his songs in a spreadsheet, organizing them,
Speaker 2: analyzing them.
Speaker 3: Not unlike his.
Speaker 2: Three ring Binder of Old, in which he did the
Speaker 2: same thing with the songs of Kurt Kobein this labor
Speaker 2: intensive process was so not rock and roll, but it
Speaker 2: somehow had creatively recharged Rivers. Perhaps it was the call
Speaker 2: to action of a new Year's resolution. Years later, this
Speaker 2: academic fascination with the mechanics of the perfect pop song
Speaker 2: would inspire Rivers Cmo to use algorithms in his own songwriting,
Speaker 2: even to write an entire album with the help of
Speaker 2: a computer formula he had developed. Mikey didn't get it.
Speaker 2: His version of rock and roll was about losing yourself,
Speaker 2: not making sense of yourself with ones and zeros. But
Speaker 2: then pretty soon nothing much was making sense to Mikey anymore.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and one was the year everything changed for Weezer.
Speaker 2: It was the year that they released their third studio album,
Speaker 2: which became their highest charting record to date. The Green Album,
Speaker 2: as it's known, went all the way to number four
Speaker 2: on the Billboard two hundred and Just to be clear,
Speaker 2: it's called the Green Album because, like their self titled debut,
Speaker 2: it was self titled and also featured a cover photo
Speaker 2: of the band against the solid color background, this time
Speaker 2: green instead of blue. The album was led by the
Speaker 2: rousing single hash Pipe, which Rivers called a totally insane
Speaker 2: song about a homosexual transvestite prostitute.
Speaker 3: The Rivers wrote hash.
Speaker 2: Pipe while using a short lived creative technique, no doubt
Speaker 2: inspired by the antics of Mikey Welsh. This technique involved
Speaker 2: chasing a riddlin pill with three shots of tequila. It
Speaker 2: proved to be unsustainable, just as Mikey Welsh's lifestyle was unsustainable,
Speaker 2: but I'm getting ahead of myself. Hashpipe combined the witty,
Speaker 2: power poppy charm of the Blue album with the sonic
Speaker 2: intensity of Pinkerton, but it did so with Rivers's very
Speaker 2: public rejection of Pinkerton. Speaking with the press, he called
Speaker 2: Pinkerton a sick album, sick in.
Speaker 3: A diseased way.
Speaker 2: As he put it, he didn't care if Pinkerton was
Speaker 2: amassing its own cult of fans who loved it more
Speaker 2: than anything, who loved it more than his other records.
Speaker 2: He never wanted to play or even hear those songs
Speaker 2: ever again.
Speaker 3: It was too painful.
Speaker 2: Besides, he was living out his rock and roll fantasy,
Speaker 2: playing is Riddlin and Tequila song hash Pipe of the
Speaker 2: MTV Movie Awards in front of a full on pyrotechnics
Speaker 2: display that would make Gene Simmons kiss happy. But two
Speaker 2: thousand and one was not all pyrotechnics and rock and
Speaker 2: roll dreams. For Mikey Welsh, two thousand and one became
Speaker 2: a nightmare. The MTV Movie Awards were part of an
Speaker 2: insane stretch for Weezer. They toured the States, played Coachella,
Speaker 2: played Saturday Night Live, played Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Speaker 2: toward Europe, taped Top of the Pops, and then returned
Speaker 2: back home to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Speaker 2: As they stepped onto the NBC studio stage in Burbank
Speaker 2: on July twenty seventh, Mikey Welsh was hanging on by
Speaker 2: a single tattered thread. His drug use had spiraled out
Speaker 2: of control. He'd lost seventy pounds. You wouldn't know that
Speaker 2: something was wrong if you watched the Leno clip now,
Speaker 2: because Mikey Welsh is super engaged, as always, the most
Speaker 2: animated one in the group, repeatedly interacting with the crowd
Speaker 2: as the band performs the Green album's second single, Island
Speaker 2: in the Sun. But by the time and that performance
Speaker 2: aired on The Tonight Show later that evening, Mikey Welsh
Speaker 2: had disappeared. It would be days before Rivers, Brian and
Speaker 2: Pat even knew that anything was wrong. They found it
Speaker 2: strange when Mikey didn't show up to rehearsal, a stranger
Speaker 2: still when no one in the band could reach him
Speaker 2: on the phone. It's unclear exactly how they found out,
Speaker 2: but before too long, word reached the Weezer camp that
Speaker 2: Mikey had suffered a mental breakdown shortly after taping on
Speaker 2: Jay Leno. He had tried to commit suicide by overdosing
Speaker 2: his heart nearly quit on him. He slipped into a coma,
Speaker 2: and when he regained consciousness, he discovered that he was
Speaker 2: locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Mikey Welsh suffered from
Speaker 2: bipolar disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder.
Speaker 2: He'd gone undiagnosed his entire life and had been fueling
Speaker 2: the psychological fire with copious drug use. It was a
Speaker 2: near fatal combination. But by getting the help he needed,
Speaker 2: by leaving Weezer and the music industry, and by refocusing
Speaker 2: his creative life as a painter, Mikey Welsh was now
Speaker 2: safe for a moment, at least. After he left Weezer,
Speaker 2: Rivers Cromo had lost his rockstar Avatar, not to mention
Speaker 2: Weezer's rock star street cred, so Rivers immediately made a
Speaker 2: call to an LA music scout with a deep roll
Speaker 2: index of professional musicians. Rivers knew and no on certain
Speaker 2: terms what he was looking for.
Speaker 3: Send me the baddest, meanest, most evil guy you got,
Speaker 3: he said so.
Speaker 2: In other words, the exact opposite of Rivers Cromo, and
Speaker 2: with that Weezer got their new bass player and retained
Speaker 2: their rockstar street cred. But most surprising of all, they
Speaker 2: also unknowingly set in motion the most true crimey chapter
Speaker 2: in their thirty plus year career. And when the smoke cleared,
Speaker 2: someone would be shot and wounded by the lapd and
Speaker 2: Weezer would never be looked at the same again. Scott
Speaker 2: Shriner certainly looks like Rivers Cuomo's vision of the baddest, meanest,
Speaker 2: most evil guy. He's the one member of Weezer who
Speaker 2: has tattoos visible at east He's got a gold tooth,
Speaker 2: and when he was hired to replace Mikey Welsh on bass,
Speaker 2: he showed up with that authentic rock and roll stench, unwashed,
Speaker 2: dirty leather, smoldering Marlboro red hanging from his lip. In fact,
Speaker 2: his appearance was so narrowly the Rivers Cmo actually mistook
Speaker 2: Scott Schriner for Scott Shrine bass tech.
Speaker 3: When he first auditioned.
Speaker 2: But by twenty ten, when Weezer released their eighth studio album, Hurley,
Speaker 2: their fifth album with Scott, some fans of the band
Speaker 2: were no longer finding Weezer anywhere near as narrowly a
Speaker 2: Scott's appearance at that first audition, The hardcore legion of
Speaker 2: fans who were ride or Die for Pinkerton, the album
Speaker 2: that Rivers had bitterly turned his back on years prior,
Speaker 2: was only.
Speaker 3: Growing in size.
Speaker 2: Emo bands that had since gone on to mainstream success
Speaker 2: were shouting out, Pinkerton is a record that meant as
Speaker 2: much to them as Kisses rock and roll Over once
Speaker 2: meant to Rivers, and that same legion of fans also
Speaker 2: believed that Rivers' algorithmic songwriting methodology had cranked out the
Speaker 2: same sounding.
Speaker 3: Record over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: Whether it was maladroit Make Believe, the Red album, Ratitude,
Speaker 2: or Hurley, the complaint.
Speaker 3: Was the same.
Speaker 2: These songs about pork and beans and Beverly Hills they
Speaker 2: suck in comparison to any song off Weezer's strip Bear
Speaker 2: cathartic nineteen ninety six masterpiece Pinkerton. So when Hurley came out,
Speaker 2: one fan started a Kickstarter campaign online with a gold
Speaker 2: raise ten million dollars in order to convince Weezer to
Speaker 2: break up. The campaign fell far short of its lofty goal,
Speaker 2: but not before Weezer's drummer Patrick Wilson tweeted make it
Speaker 2: twenty million and we'll do the deluxe breakup. One year later,
Speaker 2: in September of twenty eleven, Patrick's former bandmate Mikey Welsh
Speaker 2: was the one posting on Twitter, though unlike Patrick, Mikey
Speaker 2: wasn't joking around. On September twenty sixth, he tweeted, dreamt
Speaker 2: I died in Chicago next weekend heart attack in my sleep.
Speaker 2: Need to write my will today. Hours later, he tweeted
Speaker 2: again correction the weekend after next, and then two weeks later,
Speaker 2: on October eighth, Mikey Welsh's body was found in his
Speaker 2: room by employees at the Raphaelo Hotel in Chicago. Prescription
Speaker 2: narcotics and a ziploc bag containing white powder presumed to
Speaker 2: be heroin, both of which were found in the scene,
Speaker 2: are thought to have contributed to Mikey's death, but the
Speaker 2: official toxicology report came back inconclusive. Mikey Welsh was just
Speaker 2: forty years old. The way in which Mikey seemingly predicted
Speaker 2: his own demise on Twitter caused the Internet to question
Speaker 2: if the whole thing was an eerie coincidence or if
Speaker 2: it was intentional. It's a similar rabbit hole now to
Speaker 2: the one the Internet fell down to find out if
Speaker 2: Whover's Cuomo was actually Kurt Cobaine or vice versa. But
Speaker 2: when it comes to Weezer, predictability is baked into the cake,
Speaker 2: so to speak.
Speaker 3: Where should I say?
Speaker 2: It's mathematically determined by Rivers's very unrock and roll, very
Speaker 2: scholarly process of cataloging, writing, and arranging songs. And I
Speaker 2: don't mean that as a pejorative folly.
Speaker 3: I guess I.
Speaker 2: Mean I like some Weezer as much as the next guy,
Speaker 2: but not as much as I like Pinkerton Wheezer. This
Speaker 2: is a band that released an album of covers in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, mostly songs from the nineteen eighties, performing them
Speaker 2: note for note with zero hints of irony. And with that,
Speaker 2: it's not a lot of creative risks, which is what
Speaker 2: makes the events of April eighth, twenty twenty five not
Speaker 2: just unpredictable but shocking.
Speaker 4: This morning a true hardwood crime with all the twists
Speaker 4: and turns.
Speaker 3: Of a blockbuster.
Speaker 4: But she just looked at it up Jillian Schriiner. The
Speaker 4: Life of bass guitarist Scott Schwiner shot by Plenty's and
Speaker 4: arrested for attempted murder, multiple commands given to drop the
Speaker 4: guy and drop the weapon. There were three men and
Speaker 4: one of them in the cop for him right now,
Speaker 4: Please say they then shot Shrine.
Speaker 2: There is not a clear view of what she did
Speaker 2: with that firearm, and it's not clear at case time
Speaker 2: if she fired, if the officers or not.
Speaker 4: You see in this body camera footage lying face down
Speaker 4: in the middle of the street. Arms are stretched out wide.
Speaker 4: He's injured, but a line.
Speaker 2: The whole thing was surreal, like a white knuckle standoff
Speaker 2: in the Sergio Leoni film. On one side of a
Speaker 2: weathered wooden fence, members of the LAPD in the California
Speaker 2: Highway Patrol, their service weapons drawn, safeties off, standing their ground.
Speaker 2: On the other side, Gillian Lauren aka Jillian Shriner aka
Speaker 2: the wife of Weezer's bass player Scott Shiner, pacing barefoot
Speaker 2: in the backyard of her Eagle Rock home with a
Speaker 2: block nine millimeter in her right hand. Just moments earlier,
Speaker 2: had been in pursuit on foot of the suspect from
Speaker 2: a hit and run incident, but the chase was interrupted
Speaker 2: when Jillian Shriner unexpectedly emerged from her house holding a
Speaker 2: loaded gun. The cops identified themselves, repeatedly shouting at Jillian
Speaker 2: to drop her weapon.
Speaker 3: She did not comply.
Speaker 2: Instead, she raised the glock, pulled the trigger, and fired.
Speaker 2: The cops returned fire.
Speaker 3: Immediately, unloading twelve rounds in the bass player of Weezer's
Speaker 3: wife's direction. One of the bullets caught her in the arm.
Speaker 2: She turned, retreating inside her house until about an hour later,
Speaker 2: when she at last surrendered, was arrested, and was subsequently
Speaker 2: charged with the attempted murder of a peace officer, all
Speaker 2: while and I shit.
Speaker 3: You not wearing a Weezer T shirt.
Speaker 2: Nearly six months later, a judge determined that Jillian Shriner
Speaker 2: was eligible for her mental health diversion, meaning no jail time.
Speaker 2: As she complied with the court's demand to ten therapy,
Speaker 2: to swear off firearms, and to avoid the use of
Speaker 2: drugs and alcohol for two years, all charges would be dropped.
Speaker 2: There are questions over what Gillian was able to hear
Speaker 2: during the altercation and exactly who or what she thought
Speaker 2: was on the other side of that fence. A police
Speaker 2: helicopter was reportedly circling overhead the whole time, making it
Speaker 2: hard to hear anything clearly. One neighbor said that a stranger,
Speaker 2: possibly the hit and run suspect, had jumped the fence
Speaker 2: into Gillian's yard, and that Gillian had seen this happen
Speaker 2: while still inside her house, and she was home alone
Speaker 2: with her two children at the time, so she grabbed
Speaker 2: her gun and sprung into protect her mode. Details like
Speaker 2: these matter, of course, but for Weezer, and for Weezer's fans,
Speaker 2: the bigger shock is more simple. Weezer were not supposed
Speaker 2: to be a band that got within ten miles of
Speaker 2: a violent confrontation of guns drawn cops shouting blood spilled.
Speaker 2: Rivers wasn't built that way. Rivers Cuomo went from a
Speaker 2: massage parlor enthusiast in the nineteen nineties to a guy
Speaker 2: who took a self imposed vow of celibacy for years
Speaker 2: in the two thousands. He wasn't the hard living Mikey Welsh,
Speaker 2: he wasn't the hard looking Scott Shreiner, and he certainly
Speaker 2: wasn't Kurt Kobe, no matter what they tell you. Instead,
Speaker 2: he was the spreadsheet guy, the analyst. Rock and roll
Speaker 2: was something he could examine, catalog and control, but the
Speaker 2: feral lifeblood that is.
Speaker 3: Rock and roll, it kept showing up anyways.
Speaker 2: It was there and some of the men that he
Speaker 2: called his bandmates, and then again in the wild life surrounding.
Speaker 3: One of them.
Speaker 2: And so in the end the world looked at Weezer
Speaker 2: a little differently than they had in the beginning, which
Speaker 2: is to say the band had a dark side after all,
Speaker 2: a serious side, a side that could veer off to
Speaker 2: the margins and flirt with this grace. I'm Jake Brennan
Speaker 2: and this is Disgraceland. All right, guys, thanks for checking
Speaker 2: out another episode of Disgraceland, this episode on Weezer.
Speaker 3: Listen before we get into the Question of the Week.
Speaker 1: If you do not have automatic.
Speaker 2: Downloads turned on in Apple Podcasts, please make sure that
Speaker 2: you do that so you get every single Disgraceland episode
Speaker 2: automatically on your phone as it's released. Now for the
Speaker 2: Question of the Week, we talked about my favorite Weezer
Speaker 2: album in this episode, that being Pinkerton, which is their
Speaker 2: weirdest album, and it just begs the question, I think,
Speaker 2: which record by which band is your favorite? That is
Speaker 2: all so their weirdest, their biggest outlier.
Speaker 3: The album that.
Speaker 2: Doesn't necessarily sound like the band sounds on their other albums, but.
Speaker 3: Is still great.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me know six one seven nine oh six
Speaker 2: sixty six three eight voicemail and text at disgrace Lampod
Speaker 2: on thesocials disgrace Lampod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: You want to.
Speaker 2: Email me, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by
Speaker 2: Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis,
Speaker 2: the Exactly Right Network.
Speaker 3: In iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
Speaker 2: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
Speaker 2: a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.
Speaker 3: We really appreciate it, and.
Speaker 2: If not, you can become a member right now by
Speaker 2: going to disgracelampod dot com slash Membership members can listen
Speaker 2: to every episode of Disgraceland ad free, rate and review
Speaker 2: the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and
Speaker 2: Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com
Speaker 2: slash at disgracelamp Odd rock a Roller.
Speaker 3: He's a bad, bad man.