Rivers Cuomo

Rivers Cuomo (born June 13, 1970) is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and principal songwriter of the rock band Weezer. He has also released works under his own name, and has contributed to numerous songs by other artists.
==Early life==
Rivers Cuomo was born on June 13, 1970 in Manhattan to Frank Cuomo, of Italian descent,Collinge, Miranda. "Rivers Cuomo" The Guardian. 28 June 2008. and Beverly Shoenberger, of German-English descent. According to Rivers, his mother claims that he was so-named because she first heard the sound of a river outside her hospital window after his birth, while his father claims that Rivers was named after three soccer players from the 1970 FIFA World Cup: Brazilian player Roberto Rivellino, and Italian players and ."his middle name..." Cuomo posting as "ace" on The Cuomo Board, ca. 2002.The Kelly Clarkson Show "Brooke Shields/Weezer" (S5.E139) Air date: 15 May 2024. Shoenberger gave Rivers no middle name in order to permit him to choose his own (which he never did). Rivers was, according to his younger brother, Leaves, almost named "Apple" (most likely because he was born in New York City).Luerssen, John D. Rivers' Edge: The Weezer Story. 2004. ECW Press
Rivers lived the first few years of his life at the in upstate New York, where his parents first met."Music and Spirituality: A Real Connection" Integral Yoga Magazine Frank Cuomo was a musician who notably played percussion on the 1971 album by jazz saxophonist . Frank left the family when Rivers was four years old, and was largely absent from Rivers' youth. Shoenberger moved with Rivers and Leaves to Yogaville East in Pomfret, Connecticut, where they lived until 1981. Shoenberger married Stephen Kitts in 1976. At Yogaville, Rivers was given the name Rama by the Indian guru Swami Satchidananda.Archived journal posts by rivers-words When Yogaville relocated to Virginia, the Kitts family remained in Connecticut, moving to Storrs/Mansfield area, where Cuomo lived for the remainder of his adolescence."Mansfield" Riverpedia
Cuomo has described himself as a "very somber child." Said Cuomo, "My teacher asked my mother what was wrong with me because I never looked happy. So, my mother advised her to say, 'Let me see that smile,' and then I would smile. So she did that -- in front of the whole class. She got the whole class to turn around, look at me and say, 'Let me see that smile.'"Cuomo would later reference this in the Weezer song "Feels Like Summer."Daley, David. "Happy [cancelled] Days" Alternative Press. January 1997. Weezerpedia transcript While attending Mansfield Middle School and E.O. Smith High School, Rivers and Leaves Cuomo went by the more "ordinary" names Peter and James Kitts, respectively.
Cuomo was greatly interested in soccer from a young age, initially wanting to be a professional soccer player when he grew up.U.S. Soccer "Studio 90: Rivers Cuomo Interview" YouTube. 24 June 2010. "...because I rarely saw my dad as I was growing up, I romanticized everything about him. One of the things I romanticized was his passion for soccer; I tried to cultivate it in myself. I took my first step trying to kick a soccer ball." Cuomo also played on a boy's soccer team.Rivers Cuomo "Rivers Cuomo - Lover in the Snow" YouTube. 16 June 2009. However, in 1981, Cuomo learned that he had been born with a congenital femoral deficiency in his right leg. Though his legs were of equal length at birth,"Ilizarov Procedure" Riverpedia by the time of his diagnosis in 1981, Cuomo's right femur had grown 1¼ inches shorter than his left,Letter by Beverly Shoenberger, May 1981 reaching a 2-inch differential at his full height. Cuomo's interests later pivoted to music.
Cuomo was first exposed to American rock band Kiss at age 7.Beaujour, Tom. "Man of Steel" Guitar World. March 1995. Weezerpedia transcript "This little girl came through the ashram for a visit, and she brought a Kiss record, Rock and Roll Over. She came over to our house, and while we played the Kiss record, we recorded ourselves running around in circles as the tape played. It was like, 'this kicks ass.'""Rivers Cuomo" This Little Light (podcast). 2023 Coffman, Tim. "How KISS changed Rivers Cuomo’s life forever" 12 June 2023. Far Out Magazine. Cuomo later joined the Columbia Record Club and bought every Kiss album he could,Edwards, Gavin. "Rivers' Edge" Details. February 1997. Weezerpedia transcript eventually bonding over his love of Kiss in the sixth grade with friend Justin Fisher, the son of a friend of his mother's. Cuomo was first inspired to learn guitar after witnessing classmates perform "Metal Health" by at a school assembly.Leatham, Thomas. "Rivers Cuomo explains the true story behind how Weezer got their name" Far Out. 6 February 2023.The influence of "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot is referenced in the Weezer tracks "Heart Songs" ("Quiet Riot got me started with the banging of my head") and "I Need Some of That" (which cribs the drum intro from "Metal Health") "I just couldn’t believe that kids my age were playing these real instruments and playing this song I loved... it just blew my mind! And so I got my own guitar shortly after that, and I started learning all the metal songs of the day."Gardner, Josh. "Weezer's Rivers Cuomo talks The White Album, channelling James Hetfield and his enduring love of guitar" MusicRadar. 18 August 2016. Cuomo received his first guitar on his fourteenth birthday, in 1984.http://weezerpedia.com/catalogofriffs.html Cuomo's first band was a Kiss cover band, called Fury, consisting of himself and his brother on guitar, Justin Fisher on bass, and Eric Robertson on drums.
==Music career==
===Early career===
Cuomo and Fisher performed in several bands throughout the 80s, covering songs by bands such as Metallica, Yngwie MalmsteenKandell, Steve. "Rivers Cuomo." Blender. January/February 2006. (Transcript/scans), and Fates Warning, with Cuomo even taking guitar lessons from Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos. In 1985, the pair formed the glam metal band Avant Garde, recruiting classmate Bryn Mutch on drums and brothers Kevin and Eric Ridel on lead vocals and guitar, respectively. The band recorded three demo tapes between 1987 and 1989. In 1987, Cuomo attended a five-week music program at the in Boston, where he met Texas native Michael Stanton, who later moved to Connecticut to replace Eric Ridel. In 1989, the band relocated to Los Angeles and changed their name to "Zoom," recording another demo tape in early 1990. Zoom played their final show in March of that year before their ultimate dissolution.
After the members of Zoom were evicted from their apartment, Cuomo moved in with a girlfriend and got a job working for Tower Records in Anaheim, California in 1990 before transferring to the company's Sunset Strip that summer."Tower Records" Riverpedia 4 September 2020. While working for Tower Records, Cuomo first met Patrick Finn, who encouraged Cuomo to write and sing his own songs and exposed him to bands that would later greatly influence his songwriting, like Nirvana, the Beach Boys, and the Pixies.Wood, Mikael. "Weezer’s Blue Album at 30: The inside story of the debut that launched L.A.’s nerdiest band" Los Angeles Times. 25 March 2024. Finn introduced Cuomo to future Weezer bandmates Patrick Wilson, Jason Cropper, and Matt Sharp, in addition to Karl Koch.
In early 1991, Cuomo and Wilson formed the band Fuzz with bassist Scottie Chapman. Fuzz featured a more Grunge-influenced sound, reflective of the music Cuomo was interested in at the time.Hiatt, Brian. "The Strange Birth and Near Death of Weezer" Rolling Stone. 28 August 2019. Weezer Recording History - Page 1 The project was short-lived; after a single 8-track demo and two shows, the band fizzled out as Cuomo and Wilson shifted focus toward a new project, 60 Wrong Sausages, formed alongside Finn and Cropper. Throughout the fall of 1991, the band recorded a demo, held several rehearsals, and performed one show before dissolving.
===Formation of Weezer===
Following the dissolution of 60 Wrong Sausages, Cuomo and Wilson expressed a shared interest in moving toward the type of songs that bands like Nirvana and the Pixies were recording. "There was so much anxiety about authenticity at the time," said Cuomo, "and we’d all just made this radical transformation from being metalheads to being alternative. You didn’t want anyone to find out what you looked like 12 months ago." The two resolved to attempt to write fifty songs between the two of them before pursuing a new band project.Weezer Recording History - Page 2 "We wanted to write a bunch of tunes before we even played together," said Cuomo, "so that we could have an idea of where we were heading before we started wasting our time and money paying for a rehearsal studio. I didn't want to get back into a band until I felt like I had a bunch of songs that were good and that had cohesive style. So I just wrote songs and didn't play at all for a long time." Though the two did not make it to fifty songs, future Weezer tracks such as "Undone - The Sweater Song," "My Name Is Jonas," and "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here" were written during this period. In January of 1992, Wilson shared a tape of the duo's material with Matt Sharp while the latter was living in Berkeley. Sharp was so impressed that he insisted on being Cuomo's bass player, resolving to move back to Los Angeles. "Rivers was able to articulate something that up to that point had been elusive for me," said Sharp, "I thought, ‘I’m doing this, no matter what has to be done to make it happen.'" Cuomo was greatly validated by Sharp's confidence. "It confirmed all my greatest hopes for myself." said Cuomo, "Knowing he felt so strongly about the songs was all the confidence I needed."
Cuomo, Wilson, Cropper, and Sharp formed the band that would later be dubbed Weezer in February of 1992, rehearsing for three days at T.K. Productions & Rehearsal Studios in west Los Angeles. The band performed their first concert the following month, at Raji's on Hollywood Boulevard, performing in support of headliner Dogstar (a band notable for featuring actor on bass).Historic event: 03/19/1992 Hours before the show, Raji's promoter, Lawrence Mann, asked Cuomo what name to put on the bill.Lauden, S.W. Generation Blue: An Oral History of the Hollywood Geek Rock Scene in the 1990s & 2000s. 2024. Remember the Lightning LLC Without consulting the other members, Cuomo answered with "Weezer,"Koch, Karl. Weezine Issue 17 - Tales of Weezer. 2021 a childhood nickname given to him by his father after the character "Wheezer" () from The Little Rascals."My dad's nicknames for people and things" RiverpediaLeatham, Thomas "Rivers Cuomo explains the true story behind how Weezer got their name" Far Out. 6 February 2023.
Weezer recorded multiple demos and played numerous shows around Los Angeles before signing to Geffen Records on June 25, 1993.Weezer Recording History - Page 4 The band's eponymous debut album was recorded later that year and released the following spring, on May 10, 1994. Over the course of 1994, however, Cuomo became lonely and disillusioned with the lifestyle of constant touring. He began formulating a potential concept album based on this disillusionment, later dubbed Songs from the Black Hole.Cuomo, Rivers. The Pinkerton Diaries. 2011. Self-published. Later in the year, Cuomo began applying at colleges with the intent of studying musical composition.
On April 14, 1995, Cuomo underwent an operation to correct his congenital femoral deficiency. The surgery involved breaking his femur and fitting it with a metal brace (called an ). Said Cuomo, "Each day I would turn some screws on the rods so that they would extend and increase the space in the break in my bone. After 6 months, the bone was supposed to be totally filled in and they would take off the metal frame. Two months in I was back out on the road with Weezer, stumbling around with a cane." Cuomo required an additional surgery in January of 1996.
===Boston===
250px|right|thumb|Cuomo's Harvard student ID
In September of 1995, Cuomo moved into a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard University. Cuomo was largely anonymous to his peers while in school. "Most of our fans at that time were, like, ten years old," said Cuomo,Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend "Rivers Cuomo" 10 October 2022 "It wasn't really a college audience...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."
Cuomo wrote very few songs (composition homework notwithstanding) during his time at Harvard, though several of the few songs he did write would later comprise the latter half of Weezer's subsequent album, Pinkerton. These songs about personal experiences at Harvard lead Cuomo to, ultimately, abandon the previous "rock opera" conceit of Songs from the Black Hole. Pinkerton released in September of 1996 and the band toured throughout 1997. The album, however, failed to achieve the same success as the band's debut album, polarizing critics and failing to meet sales expectations. Cuomo began distancing himself from the album for several years thereafter, calling it a "hideous record" in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2001,Brunner, Rob. "The truth behind Weezer's crack up" Entertainment Weekly. 22 May 2001. adding, "It was such a hugely painful mistake that happened in front of hundreds of thousands of people and continues to happen on a grander and grander scale and just won’t go away. It’s like getting really drunk at a party and spilling your guts in front of everyone and feeling incredibly great and cathartic about it, and then waking up the next morning and realizing what a complete fool you made of yourself." Following the conclusion of the tour, Weezer entered a fallow period.
Cuomo initially intended to return to Harvard for the fall semester of 1997, but decided not to at the last minute.Riesman, Abe J. "Rivers' End: The Director's Cut" The Harvard Crimson. 26 April 2006.Koch, Karl. Weezine Issue #11 - Fall 1997 Cuomo instead focused on songwriting again, in addition to performing shows with friends in the Boston music scene. Cuomo fronted a handful of small-venue concerts to try out new material and audition potential new bassists for Weezer following the departure of Matt Sharp, experimenting with both "goofball" songs (under the moniker "Homie") that didn't fit with the darker, more personal songs of Pinkerton, as well as minimalist, "drone rock" compositions utilizing as few chords as possible (a reaction to the negative response to Pinkerton, which featured numerous chords and key changes)."Lovely" Riverpedia.
===The Green Album and Maladroit===
Cuomo ultimately selected bassist Mikey Welsh to join Weezer, and the two moved into a townhouse at Park La Brea in Los Angeles with Pat Wilson.Mikey Welsh Facebook post. Original link: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10150292201982717Weezerpedia Discord Q&A with Karl Koch - April 2023 Weezer resumed rehearsals, primarily at T.K. Rehearsals in Los Angeles.Weezer Recording History - Page 10 Cuomo and Welsh later moved into an apartment on Sepulveda Boulevard. By the beginning of 1999, however, Cuomo had failed to write any material in which he felt confidence.Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo liner notes "My band-mates each were pursuing other projects." Cuomo reflected in 2008, "Weezer's manager and record company rep stopped calling me regularly. Friends and family grew distant. I encouraged the space so that I could be alone. I determined that with enough concentration and effort, I could analyze my way out of the predicament I imagined myself to be in, the predicament of 'poor songwriting'." Cuomo began an analytical process of regarding his songwriting sessions as "experiments," assigning each a number and maintaining a log dubbed "The Catalog o' Riffs." "I analyzed a large number of writing methods, varying what seemed to be every possible facet of the process: the order of the steps (guitar, melody, lyric, beat, riff, etc.); the tempo; the feel; the level of distortion on the guitar; whether I was composing aloud or in my head; the time of day; my emotional state; whether I had eaten or not; the number of drinks I had imbibed, if any. My goal was to ascertain the one method by which I could write the best songs." Meanwhile, he unplugged his phone, painted the walls and ceiling of his apartment bedroom black and covered the windows with fiberglass insulation.Rockland, Kate. "Student With a Past" The New York Times 16 February 2006.Brunner, Rob. "Older & Weezer" Entertainment Weekly. 25 May 2001. (Transcript)Cuomo, Rivers. "What I've Been Up to Since I Left School" Essay. 2004. He began studying and dissecting the songs of the bands Nirvana, Oasis, and Green Day, assembling his studies into a three-ring binder he called "The Encyclopedia of Pop," in hopes of discovering a formula for writing pop songs.Eliscu, Jenny. "[How the Weezer frontman cracked the code of the perfect song" Rolling Stone, Issue 898. 20 June 2002. Archived by Wayback Machine. (Transcript) By late summer of 1999, Cuomo felt despondent in his efforts and briefly considered returning to school, but missed the registration deadline. Weezer performed secret shows during this time—under the pseudonym "Goat Punishment"—wherein the band (sans Pat Wilson) covered songs from Nirvana and Oasis' respective debut albums. 
In December of 1999, Cuomo moved into a house and built a rehearsal studio in the garage. In June of 2000, Weezer performed a number of shows at smaller venues under their own name before joining the Vans Warped Tour. The band continued playing concerts and rehearsing throughout the remainder of the year while Cuomo continued writing new songs.Weezer Recording History - Page 12 From December through the following February, Weezer recorded their third record, the eponymous Green Album. In contrast to earlier albums, Cuomo largely eschewed personal songwriting. "The Green Album and Maladroit were, very intentionally, not about me." said Cuomo in 2006, "Not about what was going on in my life, at least in a conscious way." The lead single from Green, "Hash Pipe," was reportedly written about a "homosexual transvestite prostitute" during one of Cuomo's "Catalog o' Riffs" experiments, wherein Cuomo chased Ritalin with three shots of tequila."I Was a Scientist, This Was an Experiment" iTunes Originals: Weezer"Home Recordings From Weezer Frontman" Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NPR. 22 January 2009. Conversely, however, songs like "O Girlfriend"Midwest Music Media "Weezer: O Girlfriend [Live - 1st time since 2002 - (Madison - June 14, 2023) - Indie Rock Road Trip]" YouTube. 15 June 2023. and "Photograph" were written about real experiences.
Dissatisfied with his management, Cuomo sought to manage the band himself. He had dinner with , frontman of the self-managed band , who encouraged Cuomo not to pay someone a percentage. Immediately following the release of the Green Album, Weezer fired their management, Atlas/Third Rail, and longtime manager Pat Magnarella (who subsequently sued).Pollack, Marc, and Simutis, David. "UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT: You Need A Scorecard To Keep Track, So We've Provided One" Hits Daily Double. 3 July 2001.RIVERS CUOMO, an individual; PAT WILSON, an individual; BRIAN BELL, an individual; and MIKEY WELSH, an individual; collectively and professionally known as “WEEZER” vs. ATLAS/THIRD RAIL MANAGEMENT, INC., a California corporation; and PAT MAGNARELLA, an individual According to Karl Koch, the firing was a "statement of intent" and Cuomo felt that the band didn't need management, and could simply fund their next album with their own money and pay themselves back when the album sold.Weezer Fan Club Vault Dive #1 "I sought to cultivate the same ruthless practicality in my business that I had achieved in my music." Cuomo later reflected in an essay, "I studied the lives of Napoleon and David Geffen, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and contemporary texts on leadership and management. I gradually took over all of the business responsibilities from our manager and managed the band completely by myself. My performing, writing, and recording continued but were now joined by my business activities, all of which together I viewed as converging on the one goal of 'world domination'."
Within weeks of the release of Green, Weezer began recording new demos for the follow-up album. Cuomo shut out record label Geffen from the recording process, and the band financed and produced the record themselves, sharing in-progress recordings with fans online during studio sessions and sending CDs with finished songs to radio stations without the label's foreknowledge. From 2002 to 2003, Cuomo also became the manager for the band AM Radio (fronted by Cuomo's longtime friend and Avant Garde alum, Kevin Ridel).riverscuomo.com bioWiederhorn, Jon. "Weezer's Rivers Cuomo Helps AM Radio Dress For Success" MTV. 26 June 2003.Using this leverage, the band was able to renegotiate their contract, but the finished album, Maladroit, under-performed, selling less than a million copies. Cuomo's behavior also became pointedly antagonistic, demanding a publicist exit his tour bus and walk back to the hotel before consenting to an interview for Kerrang! and referring to fans as "little bitches" in an interview for Guitar World. He also began interacting with fans on internet message boards under the handle 'ace.'Curated archive of Weezer forum threads Cuomo has referred to this period as his nadir."Maladroit Preview 2021-12-27 14.38.mp3" Alone VIII: The Maladroit Years "The end of 2002 was a period of just massive self-indulgence," he said in 2010,Brannigan, Paul. "“I know some people think I'm a weirdo. I'm working on it.” How Weezer's Rivers Cuomo learned how to embrace life following a near-death experience" Louder. 30 May 2024. "I was out at a Hollywood club one night doing who knows what with who knows whom, and when the club closed down I knew some people there so I was allowed to stay inside with a few friends as everyone else was ushered out onto the street. So I was just inside the door when suddenly there was all this commotion outside, and some people got dragged back into the club. They'd just been shot and they were bleeding and in obvious agony. So I was standing there in the midst of these downed people and I was thinking, This isn't where I want to be, there's got to be a better lifestyle to support my creativity."
===Make Believe and discovering meditation===
Songwriting and demoing for Weezer's fifth album had begun before Maladroit had even been released, but plans were halted in the summer of 2002. Soon after, producer Rick Rubin agreed to produce the record. The band continued demoing new songs, but Cuomo wasn't pleased with the music he was making.Grigoriadis, Vanessa. "Weezer's Weird World" Rolling Stone Issue 973. 5 May 2005. Said drummer Pat Wilson, "He didn’t believe in the music, because he didn’t believe in himself [...] Didn’t matter how many times we said, 'That’s rad, Dude.' There were times he was physically ill coming out of the studio." Rubin, wanting to help Cuomo, gave him a copy of The Gift, a book of poems by the fourteenth-century Sufi poet Hafez. Hafez, who wrote hundreds of ghazals about different forms of love, led Cuomo to an epiphany: "If the feeling these mystics get in union with their God is analogous to the feeling I used to get in union with my music, then their teachings for how to achieve their union should likewise serve to instruct me how to achieve my union." Cuomo subsequently sold his house and most of his possessions, moved into an empty apartment next to Rubin's house, and began volunteering six days a week at Project Angel Food in Hollywood, providing meals to people with HIV. After being told that in order to be accepted into a 45-day meditation program that he would need to either be married or celibate for two years,Hedegaard, Erik. "The Dream Life of Rivers Cuomo" Rolling Stone. 7 April 2016. Cuomo took a two-year vow of sexual abstinence."Celibacy rocks, says Weezer frontman" NME. 27 October 2005. After suffering from nocturnal emissions, Cuomo resolved to get married. Cuomo maintained his celibacy for more than two yearsToday. "Weezer singer continues vow of celibacy" 19 December 2005. before his marriage in 2006. Although initially skeptical when Rubin suggested meditation, Cuomo found himself drawn to the technique of Vipassana.
The effect of meditation had an effect on Cuomo's songwriting. One song, "Pardon Me," was written after Cuomo attended a meditation course in which the teacher told him to repeat over in his mind "I seek pardon from all those who have harmed me in action, speech or thought." Another song, "Hold Me", was written while fasting. Weezer's fifth album, Make Believe, was released on May 10, 2005, eleven years to the day after the Blue Album. The album received mixed reviews but was a commercial success, debuting at number two on the Billboard 200 albums chart.Billboard 2005-05-28: 
Cuomo resumed classes at Harvard in December of 2004. On June 8, 2006,"Rivers Cuomo’s Harvard Graduation" Spin. 9 June 2006. he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English, and was elected to the academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa. A few weeks later, Cuomo married Kyoko Ito.
===Late aughts===
In 2006, Cuomo began writing demoing new songs for Weezer's sixth album. In 2007, Cuomo released the first in a series of compilation albums of song demos, titled Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. A follow-up, Alone II, was released the following year. Weezer's eponymous Red Album was released in 2008.
In 2008, Cuomo embarked on a collaborative songwriting project with fans through his YouTube channel. Dubbed "Let's Write a Sawng," Cuomo attempted to facilitate the writing of a pop song via crowd-sourced suggestions,"Let's Write a Sawng (Step 1 and Step 2)" YouTube. 19 March 2008. ultimately culminating in the song "Turning Up the Radio." Although the song did not make the cut for inclusion on Weezer's seventh album, Raditude, it appeared on the compilation Death to False Metal in 2010, featuring sixteen credited co-writers in addition to Cuomo.
On December 6, 2009, Cuomo's tour bus crashed outside of Albany after hitting a patch of black ice. Cuomo suffered three cracked ribs and some internal bleeding. Weezer subsequently canceled several dates on the then-underway .
In December of 2011, Cuomo self-published the book The Pinkerton Diaries, which collated journal entries, photos, lyrics, sheet music, and other ephemera from the period following the release of the Blue Album in 1994 up through the end of Weezer's tour in support of Pinkerton. The book included a pack-in CD release, Alone III: The Pinkerton Years, featuring demos recorded between 1993 and 1996.
==Other creative pursuits==
===Collaborations with other artists===
Cuomo has collaborated with numerous other artists as both a songwriter and singer. Cuomo co-wrote the Rentals song "My Head Is in the Sun" with Rentals frontman (and former Weezer bassist) Matt Sharp. Cuomo wrote lyrics for the song "Stupid Girl," the most successful single by Cold and the only one to crack the Billboard Hot 100. Cuomo also co-wrote and sang on the song "I Suck" from the debut album by .
Before re-recording it as a Weezer song, Cuomo offered the song "Love Is the Answer" to American rock band for their 2009 album . The same year, Cuomo collaborated on the song "Pick U Up" with singer .
Cuomo's song "Magic," co-written with Dr. Luke and and performed by the latter, peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
===Scott & Rivers===
In 2008,"【インタビュー】スコット＆リバースが刻んだJ-POPへの深い愛情。「第二の故郷」で掴んだ彼らの自由とは" 9 May 2017. Cuomo first met musician Scott Murphy (of the band ) after telling his record company that he was looking for a collaborator on a Japanese album."Scott & Rivers" Riverpedia The two formed the Japanese-language pop duo Scott & Rivers, releasing their first album in 2013. The duo's follow-up, Nimaime, was released in 2017.
===Acting===
Cuomo appears as himself in the short film/music video "Cocaine Blues" by American psychedelic rock band the Warlocks. He also makes a brief cameo appearance in the music video for "Murder (You Know It's Hard)" by the Crystal Method, directed by Marcos Siega (who also directed the music video for Weezer's "Hash Pipe").
Cuomo (and the rest of Weezer) appeared in several videos by popular YouTube users (such as Ray William Johnson, Fred, and the Annoying Orange) as part of the "Weezer YouTube Invasion" promotion to promote the band's 2010 album, Hurley. The band also appeared as themselves in the episode "You, Me, and Weezer" of the sitcom The Hard Times of RJ Berger. Cuomo and the other members of the band voice the fictional band Sailor's Delight in The Simpsons episode "The Hateful Eight-Year-Olds" from 2020.
Cuomo has a voice cameo as "Dr. Haskell" in the 2018 film Spell. He plays the character "Lake" in the 2023 Netflix film The Family Switch.
In 2015, Cuomo helped to produce a television pilot by creator titled DeTour, about a rock star returning to school after a period of intense writer's block (loosely based on his own experience attending Harvard). Cuomo made a cameo appearance in the pilot as "Professor Kitts." The pilot was not picked up.Kaye, Ben. "TV sitcom about Rivers Cuomo’s life will never air" Consequence of Sound. 10 July 2015. 
In 2020, Cuomo developed a pitch for a television pilot in which he would portray a fictionalized version of himself, who performs with Weezer and lives as a family man while also secretly being an alien from outer space.stupidsuck1010. "5-22-20 Rivers Cuomo Zoom w Yalun Tu- Buddy Holly I Don't Know How to Love Him, I Admire You So Much" YouTube. 22 May 2020.
==Personal life==
===Relationships===
Cuomo was in an quasi-relationship (referred to by Cuomo as his "sort-of-girlfriend" or "'girlfriend'" in quotes) with musician Jennifer Chiba in the 90s. Several songs written by Cuomo were inspired by Chiba, and she was the basis for the character of Maria in the aborted Songs from the Black Hole concept album. The cover for Pinkerton was based on a postcard sent to Cuomo by Chiba."Pinkerton Cover Art" Riverpedia Chiba was in a relationship with musician Elliott Smith at the time of his death in 2003, and the Weezer song "The Other Way" was written by Cuomo about his conflicting feelings about attempting to comfort Chiba."Elliott Smith" Riverpedia
Cuomo met Kyoko Ito in 1997 at one of his solo concerts in Cambridge, Massachusetts."Kyoko" Riverpedia. https://books-r-fun.herokuapp.com/wiki/Kyoko The two reconnected in 2005 after Cuomo thought of her, two years into his period of celibacy. The two married on June 18, 2006.Weezer.com archived on Archive.org, July 1 2006: The pair have two children.
===Beliefs===
Cuomo has been a vegetarian since childhood"[https://thebadpennyblog.com/2010/09/17/weezers-rivers-cuomo-in-2002-i-think-i-had-a-falling-out-with-the-fans/ Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo In 2002: ‘I Think I Had A Falling Out With The Fans’" The Bad Penny.Wood, Mikael. "Being Rivers Cuomo: Why Weezer’s frontman put his life into a spreadsheet" 22 February 2019. Los Angeles Times though he briefly experimented with eating meat in his early thirties.Weezerpedia edit by User:Rivers Cuomo has considered himself an atheist throughout his life. Though he practices Vipassana, a Buddhist form of meditation, he does not consider himself a Buddhist, and does not publicly ascribe to any particular religion. He lent financial support to the 2007 film The Dhamma Brothers about a prison meditation program in Alabama."The Dhamma Brothers" FrizzyLogic 11 July 2007. Archived by Wayback Machine
On November 1, 2019, Cuomo performed songs at Yangapalooza!, a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate . Cuomo did not explicitly endorse Yang.Hogan, Mark and Bloom, Madison. "Here’s What Happened During Rivers Cuomo’s Set at the Andrew Yang Rally in Iowa" Pitchfork. 1 November 2019.
==Discography==
===As a band member===
====with Weezer====
*Weezer (The Blue Album) (1994)
*Pinkerton (1996)
*Weezer (The Green Album) (2001)
This discography lists only Weezer's albums. For more detail, please see the Weezer discography
====with Homie====
*1998 - Meet the Deedles Soundtrack ("American Girls")
====With Scott & Rivers====
*2013 - スコット と リバース (Scott & Rivers)
*2017 - ニマイメ (Nimaime)
===as a solo artist===
====Album releases====
*Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2007)
*Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2008)
*Not Alone: Rivers Cuomo & Friends Live at Fingerprints (2009)
*Alone III: The Pinkerton Years 1994-1997 (2011)
*The Space Between Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2021)
This discography lists only album releases. For digital compilations, see Rivers Cuomo discography.
====Solo singles====
Cover	Album
 	Medicine for Melancholy
*Released: March 16, 2018
 	Two Broken Hearts
*Released: December 21, 2018
 	Backflip
*Theme song from the Green Eggs and Ham TV series
*Released: October 31, 2019
 	Anak Sekolah
*Released: November 10, 2022
 	Halik
*Released: September 29, 2023
100px	Home
*Released: October 9, 2023
===List of bands===
* Fury (1984)
* Warlock
* Avant Garde (1985)
* Zoom (Avant Garde renamed, 1989)
* Fuzz
* 60 Wrong Sausages (1991)
* Weezer (1992-present)
* Homie (Sometimes erroneously dubbed the Rivers Cuomo Band, 1997-1998)
* Scott & Rivers (2013-present)
==Equipment==
==Interviews==
==Essays==
*A Mad and Furious Master (2004)
*What I've Been Up To Since I Left School (2004)
*Letter for Readmission to Harvard (2005)
==See also==
* List of Rivers Cuomo songs
* List of Weezer songs
* Rivers Cuomo's equipment
* Beverly's letter
* Rivers' Photo Gallery
==Footnotes==
==References==
== External links ==
* The Official Site of Rivers Cuomo
=== Social media ===
* Facebook
* Facebook (Japanese)
* Twitter
* Twitter (Japanese)
* Instagram
* Tumblr
* YouTube
* YouTube: RiversCuomoAlone (old account)
* Snapchat
* Vine
* Periscope
* Ustream
* MySpace (protected account)
Category: Weezer members
Category:Avant Garde Members
Category:60 Wrong Sausages Members
Category:Fury Members
Category:Fuzz Members
Category:Goat Punishment members
Category:Homie members
Category: Rivers Cuomo
Category: People who have produced Weezer albums
Category:Musicians
Category:Bassists
Category:Guitarists