Weezer’s new album is their "biggest departure" from their original sound.
The band release their 11th LP ‘Pacific Daydream’ later this month and frontman Rivers Cuomo believes fans will be surprised by the new sound, which is inspired by The Cure and The Clash.
He told NME magazine: "’Pacific Daydream’ is the biggest departure we’ve made from our ’90s Beach Boys grunge sound. We really went for some different things. On guitar, we were really influenced by a lot of British bands like The Cure and The Clash. Instead of stepping on the distortion pedal in the chorus, we’re stepping on the reverb pedal. We listened to a lot of Phil Spector and ‘Pet Sounds’ to give it more of an orchestrated approach. It’s long been a goal of mine to break away from distortion, but I’m delighted that we’ve finally achieved it. At the same time, it still sounds like a sing-along, beach bar party album, mixed with sadness and alienation."
And he revealed that the band’s follow-up ‘The Black Album’ will be even "darker" and "wildly negative".
He explained: "’The Black Album’ is darker. It’s more experimental and wildly negative. It’s experimenting with more modern electronic elements. It has one foot in the future and one foot in the past. The foot in the past would be like The Jesus & Mary Chain."
Meanwhile, Weezer are set to support Foo Fighters on their upcoming tour and Rivers revealed he considers Dave Grohl and his bandmates to be their "friendly bitter rivals".
He said: "We’re friends and rivals. Friendly bitter rivals. I don’t think they think of us as rivals because they’re 10 times bigger than us, but that’s how I feel because we came up at the same time and they put their pedal to the metal, became gigantic, and now we’re opening for them on their stadium tour. It’s all good, because they’re obviously amazing and we love the music. We were about to sign off on our own New Zealand and Australia tour, and they gave us a call and were like ‘do you wanna come with us?’ We were like ‘damn, stadiums? Where do I sign? Let’s do this’."
Weezer influenced by The Cure and The Clash
