Rivers Cuomo says he feels “postpartum depression” after releasing Weezer’s ‘SZNZ: Winter’ EP

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo has opened up about his plans for the band’s future – now that they’ve completed their yearlong ‘SZNZ’ project – and the melancholy he feels being in “this weird in-between phase” with no new record on the cards.

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The band released the fourth and final instalment in the ‘SZNZ’ series, ‘Winter’, on December 21 (the first day of the titular season in North America). It followed on from the ‘Spring’, ‘Summer’ and ‘Autumn’ EPs, and featured a more pensive, emo-inspired palette of sounds and themes. Speaking to Consequence, Cuomo explained that he aimed to focus on a specific emotion to represent each season, “and for winter, it was sadness”.

On how that translated to the EP’s musicality, Cuomo said: “The original inspiration was that I wanted to try to incorporate some ’90s-era singer-songwriter styles like Elliot Smith, acoustic fingerpicking and just warmer acoustic sounds. 

“For our previous album ‘Autumn’, we were going for dance rock, like Franz Ferdinand, and it had more synths and stab-y guitars, and that we thought it’d be a good contrast to go for something very warm and acoustic – of course, mixed with a giant Weezer guitar sound.”

Now that the final ‘SZNZ’ record is out, Cuomo admitted that he feels a sort of “postpartum depression”, not knowing where the band will head in its next era. “This always happens after we finish working on an album,” he said, noting that ‘SZNZ’ “really occupied most of my time for the last couple of years”. 

The singer and guitarist continued: “It’s been an incredible joy to work on. And suddenly, now it’s over. And it’s out of my hands. And it feels premature to just jump into the next one, although I may do that. So I’m kind of in this weird in-between phase where I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. So, I’m sorry, I guess that isn’t as as positive as I should feel right now!”

As for what Weezer can expect in the immediate future, Cuomo teased that the band “have a big tour announcement coming soon”. On why they haven’t embarked on a headline tour in several years, he explained: “For the last five to seven years, we keep getting geared up to do our big headline tour. 

“And then just as we’re about to put it together, something else comes along, like, ‘Hey, do you want to be part of the ‘Hella Mega Tour’ and tour with Green Day and Fall Out Boy and do stadiums? You just get to play 60 minutes, but it’d be a great opportunity to win over some new fans, and it’ll be fun to be with these other bands,’ and then we’re like, ‘Ah, okay, yeah, I guess we gotta do that! That sounds like fun.’ 

“And then year after year goes by like that, and we still haven’t done the big headline tour. But we’re about to make an announcement that’s going to fix all of that.” 

Weezer were initially meant to plug ‘SZNZ’ with a five-week Broadway residency, but that was cancelled earlier this year due to low ticket sales. Nevertheless, fans in Arizona will be able to see the band live at the baseball-themed Innings Festival next February, where they’ll perform alongside the likes of Green Day, Eddie Vedder, The Black Crowes and The Offspring. They’ll also play the Railbird festival in Kentucky come June.

Elsewhere in the Weezer camp, the band are currently gearing up to deliver a televised tribute to The Beach Boys. In his interview with Consequence, Cuomo said of that project: “We’re in the midst of figuring out which Beach Boys songs we want to cover, and oh my God, it’s incredibly fun. It feels so good to play and sing these songs. And I’m reminded of how much I used them as a model when I was first starting out writing songs for Weezer.”

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