Brian Bell

**Association with Weezer** | Guitar, Vocals, Keyboard, Synthesizer, Bass

**Brian Lane Bell** (born December 9, 1968) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist, keyboardist, backing vocalist, and occasional lead vocalist of the rock band Weezer, with whom he has recorded fifteen studio albums.

## Early Life

Bell was born in Iowa City, Iowa to parents Tom Bell, a geography professor[1] at University of Tennessee, and Linda Menasco, an elementary school assistant principal, and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. He first took an interest in music at age four, when his parents took him to an Elvis Presley concert at the Stokely Athletic Centre in Knoxville . Soon after, Bell became obsessed with his father's record collection, and played it constantly. Bell was forced by his mother to take piano lessons, and refused to let him take guitar lessons until high school, because she "wouldn't believe that he would practice." Eventually, during his freshman year in high school, Bell's parents allowed him to take guitar lessons from Knoxville musician Ben Bolt.

During his first year in high school, Bell had to switch schools; "I was zoned to go to county school and my mom taught in the city, which meant I could go to a more privileged school. In doing that, I was surrounded by snobs'. 'I was kind of finding myself at the time, so I decided to go to the school I was zoned for." During this time, Bell had a job delivering pizzas in the Knoxville area at Stefano's Pizza. He worked with Blair and Todd Mitchell (who he introduced to Queensryche's music). He worked and started playing in a band with school friends, Trey Counce, and Tim and Glenn Maloof, named Blooshroom, which Bell described as "Pink Floyd-meets-The Stooges."

After completing high school at Bearden High School in 1987, Bell decided against college, feeling it would be a "waste of money." At the age of 18, Bell moved to Los Angeles, California, and enrolled at G.I.T. In 1991, he became a member of a band named Carnival Art, which released 3 official albums and an EP, with Bell playing bass guitar. The band had low record sales, and were dropped by their record label, Beggars Banquet.

As Carnival Art was disintegrating, Bell became acquainted with the members of Weezer. He said: "They started playing on the scene, and I instantly saw something unique in them. I didn't necessarily want to be in their band. They were for some reason, in with the wrong crowd and playing at the wrong venues. I wanted to help them out any way I could and I wanted to play a show with them." In mid-1993, Bell quit Carnival Art. At home, he found on his answering machine a message from Weezer bassist Matt Sharp. Sharp called again the next day, and Rivers Cuomo took the phone and asked him to join the band.

## Weezer

Despite being credited for guitar and vocals in the liner notes, Bell's last-minute arrival at the Blue Album sessions meant that he only had time to re-record Cropper's backing vocals, while Cuomo re-did all of Cropper's guitar parts. Besides doing back-up vocals and playing rhythm guitar, during Weezer's live performances, Bell takes on many of the multi-instrumental duties, including keyboards or harmonica.

Although all songwriting credits on Weezer's 2005 album Make Believe are credited to Rivers Cuomo, Bell wrote the intro to "We Are All on Drugs" and the dueling guitars in the solo of "This is Such a Pity." Bell also contributed the song "Thought I Knew" to the band's 2008 self-titled album as well as "It's Easy," an iTunes exclusive demo that serves as a bonus track to that album. This marks the first time Weezer has officially released a song written and sung by Bell, although the band demoed and played his song "Yellow Camaro" live in 2002. The song eventually made it onto the Space Twins debut LP The End of Imagining.

In 2005, during live appearances, Bell sang lead vocals on "Why Bother?", "Smile", "Getchoo" and "Keep Fishin'". In 2008 during the band's Hootenanny Tour he began taking lead vocals on "El Scorcho". He continued singing "El Scorcho" and sang "Suzanne" as well on the band's Troublemaker Tour in 2008.