When stuck on a way to translate the raw energy of the Weezer's seventh studio album -- which features unexpected guests from Lil Wayne to Amrita Sen, who sings in Hindi -- into a concise, marketable title, frontman Rivers Cuomo went to music enthusiast and funnyman Rainn Wilson (aka Dwight Schrute from 'The Office') for ideas. Wilson's answer: 'Raditude.'
Weezer taped a recent Sessions in our Los Angeles studio to support the release of 'Raditude,' and, true to form, brought along another series of unexpected guests: rapper Chamillionaire, pop songtress Sara Bareilles and ... smooth jazz king Kenny G. "It starts to feel stale," Cuomo said during the taping, "unless you do something crazy. We like to spice it up." Mission: accomplished.
AOL: How did you go about picking all the guest artists?
Rivers:
Kenny G lives down the street from me in Malibu. I've known he's there for a long time and I always knew I wanted to do something with him. He's obviously an amazing saxophonist. So it just seemed like the right song, right time -- "Let's do it!" Chamillionaire, I'm such a big fan of 'Ridin'.'. He's just got such an amazing skill, dexterity and tempo to his delivery as well as just a ton of energy, so we did our first run-through today. It was basically rehearsal. We didn't know what he was gonna do. Was he gonna do Lil Wayne's rap from our album or was he gonna do something new? We had no idea and then his verse drops and it was like "Whoa!" We were all smiling and clapping and he just blew us away.
AOL: On your last album, 'Pork and Beans,' you sang about wanting to work with Timbaland because he can give you the hits, but instead you collaborated with Jermaine Dupri for 'Raditude.' Why?
Rivers:
I wrote two songs with Jermaine Dupri. Yeah, it's true on 'Pork and Beans' from last year's album I was singing, "Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the chart; maybe if I work with him I can perfect the art." He's amazing. I'd love to work with him. He's a super expensive record producer. I don't know if Weezer can afford it right now. Anyway, I'd love to work it out if we can. Jermaine Dupri is a little more approachable -- a little more down to earth, I guess. We just hit it off and wrote this song together, 'Can't Stop Partying,' and we also wrote another song called 'Let It All Hang Out'. He was just real fun to hang out with in the studio. Everything he says is cool. Like when it's time for him to go, he said, "Alright guys, I'm gonna slide." I just thought like, "Whoa. That's a cool way to say 'I'm gonna go.'"
AOL: Why did you switch it up and work with hip-hop artists on the album?
Rivers:
Some people say that Weezer's trying to go all hip hop, but we're really just being instinctual. We've listened to hip hop over the course of our lives and sometimes that'll come out. If you listen to 'Raditude,' you're gonna hear all kinds of sounds on there, from pop and electro to heavy metal, and we even have Amrita Sen singing in Hindi on one song and this guy playing sitar. Basically, whatever we've heard and whatever we've dug, it's gonna come out eventually in our own music.
AOL: What is the new song 'Love Is the Answer' about and when did you figure that love is the answer?
Rivers:
'Love Is the Answer' I wrote probably in 2004 or something, and I remember I was squabbling with my bandmates about something, and I was just sitting there like, "Man, I wish we could just get along. I wish we could all love each other like brothers." That's when I wrote that song. We didn't find a home for it on 2005's 'Make Believe,' but we wrote a new bridge for it and got Amrita to come down and sing on it, and it really blossomed into an amazing song. So we're happy it found a home on 'Raditude.'
AOL: Is there a kind of attitude that goes with 'Raditude?'
Rivers:
Yeah, we were stuck on the album title. We knew we had this great rock album and had tons of energy, so I told Rainn Wilson and described the album to him. I said, "What should we call it?" and he said "'Raditude.'" He didn't tell us what it meant, so over the weeks, I've had to come up with my own definition of what it means: It's when you're so focused on what you're doing, you just get in this zone and suddenly you're able to pull off all these things you had no idea you'd be able to do if you were all self-conscious and thinking about it. That's 'Raditude.'
