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- [00:02]
Jake Brennan
This is exactly right. Double Elvis
- [00:16]
Lowe's Advertiser
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- [00:39]
Diff Eyewear Promoter
Visit your nearby Lowe's.
- [00:44]
Starbucks Advertiser
What's up, y'?
- [00:44]
Jake Brennan
All?
- [00:45]
Starbucks Advertiser
Summer's got a different tempo. Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plan turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer. Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in between moments. That's where the ideas hit. Conversations stretch out. Little memories sneak up on you. And sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. That color. That chill. The new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks. Guava and passion fruit flavors with mango pineapple flavored pearls. Yeah, that feels like summer before you even taste it. Funny how one small stop becomes the best part of the day. Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks. Try the new Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks.
- [01:33]
Wells Fargo Advertiser
Picture this. Me, Reese Witherspoon in London, ordering fish and chips so often they might start wrapping me in paper. I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book. Travel five times points with hotels, four times with airlines. Three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Imagine getting rewarded for eating a toad in the hole. Wait, what is a toad in a hole?
- [01:57]
Jake Brennan
Visit wellsfargo.com autographjourney Terms apply this episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Weezer are not supposed to be this insane. They involve a bass player who predicted his own death, another bass player whose wife got into a gunfight with the lapd. A frontman who is obsessed with Kurt Cobain. And who maybe was Kurt Cobain. Wait a minute. What? You'll see. This was a frontman who wasn't your typical rock and roll archetype. Not a burnout or an outlaw or some doomed rock and roll savage. Now Rivers. Cuomo was more of an analyst than an anarchist. The type of rock and roller who studied songs like they were calculus and surprisingly, as a result, made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great Music that was a preset loop from my melotron called Kurt Cuomo MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Luther by Kendrick Lamar and sza. And why would I play you that specific slice of velvet voice adjacent cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on April 8, 2025. And that was the day that Weezer got dragged closer to a true crime scandal than they ever had been in their 30 plus year history. On this episode, a death prediction a gunf Burnouts, Outlaws, Savages the anti Rockstar Rockstar Rivers Cuomo and Weezer. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. Foreign. 2026 a so called peer reviewed report by a team of private forensic scientists attempted to disrupt the official narrative that Kurt Cobain's death was the result of suicide. The report argued that the evidence supports not a single self inflicted gunshot wound to the head, but instead a staged homicide. The report questioned whether Kurt's body had been positioned or posed. It raised a skeptical eyebrow at a receipt for bullets found in his pocket. And it noted the tidy condition of his works, the stuff he used to shoot heroin, most notably the cap needles that contained the heroin that he'd shot moments before he died. But despite all of this, the report is flimsy at best, not to mention far from revelatory. No, Kurt Cobain was not murdered. But this new report and the coverage it received in the media did cause another old Internet theory to resurface. And that theory is that Kurt Cobain did not die at all. That's right. The theory is that Kurt Cobain faked his own death. Later on, the frontman would laugh about how the clues had been there all along. Like how he dressed in the music video for Nirvana's In Bloom. The horn rimmed glasses, the button down dress shirt. That video foreshadowed what came next. Kurt cut his long hair short and he shaved his face until it was smooth as the bare bottom of that baby that was on the COVID of Nevermind. And as smooth as the voice he was now using to sing was a different voice. Gone was his trademark punk rock howl. In its place was a clearer, purer voice. It was the voice behind his next hit song, a catchy tune inspired by that olive drab cardigan he'd famously worn during Nirvana's appearance on MTV Unplugged. And the song was called Undone, the sweater song. And it was the lead single off the debut album by Kurt's new band, a band that, like Nirvana, had a One word name. That's right. Kurt Cobain did Not Die in 1994, Kurt Cobain secretly became Rivers Cuomo of the band Weezer. As music conspiracy theories go, I gotta say this one is both pretty ridiculous and pretty hysterical. Rivers Cuomo himself thought that it was funny enough to actually entertain the concept a few years back on Rick Rubin's podcast, even playing along as if it were true, and as if he were Kurt Cobain for real. But still, though it's good for a lath and all. Imagine that you're Kurt Cobain, a bonafide rock star, badass to your core. And then further imagine that you are beset on all sides by rubberneckers who want everything from you. Your blood, your sweat, your tears. Would it not be in line with your badass rockstar character? Would it not be the ultimate fuck you to all of these culture vultures if you were to fake your own death and then live in secrecy as a nerd. Now imagine the reverse. Imagine the tame nerd becoming the feral rock star. Imagine Rivers Cuomo becoming Kurt Cobain. That seems like a more unbelievable proposition, but that's exactly what Rivers Cuomo wanted to do. Rivers Cuomo wanted it so badly to become Kurt Cobain that he kept a three ring binder full of mathematical deconstructions of every Nirvana song. He studied them. He needed to understand how they were made, and by doing so, he could then write his own songs that would be just as impactful and beloved. But Rivers Cuomo wanted much more than to simply crack Kurt Cobain's code. I seriously thought we were the next Nirvana, rivers told rolling stone in 2019, on the 25th anniversary of Weezer's debut. And I thought the world was going to perceive us that way. Like a super important, super powerful, heartbreaking heavy rock band and a serious artist. In May of 1994, one month after Kurt Cobain's death, when Weezer released their self titled debut album, or the Blue Album as it's now known, the quartet of Rivers Cuomo on guitar and vocals and Matt Sharp on bass, Brian Bell on guitar and Patrick Wilson on drums were not seen as a super important, super powerful, heartbreaking heavy rock band. Nor were they seen as seriously artists. Instead, they were seen as four lovable dorks with a couple catchy songs. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And this isn't to say that they weren't commercially successful either, because they absolutely were. After a slow burn on the charts, nine months to be exact, their debut album reached number 16 on the Billboard 200 in its three excellent singles, Undone, the Sweater Song, Buddy Holly in six, say it ain't so, I'll crack the top 10 on the Modern rock chart. It wasn't the charts that didn't take Weezer seriously though. It was the world. That same world had now turned and left Rivers right here with his bowl cut and his thick black glasses, looking far younger than his 23 years, strumming a powder blue Stratocaster in a goofy Spike Jonze directed video that recreated the set of the, let's be honest, pretty lame TV show Happy Days. Rivers saw how the world saw him and it hurt him deeply. He had thought he'd been betrayed by his own art. And it wouldn't be the first time Rivers thought of meditation to take his mind off of things. He closed his eyes and hoped the process would come back to him like riding a bicycle. The breathing, the focus. Years earlier, in the mid-70s, he was made to perform meditation daily at Yogaville, a Hindu ashram in Connecticut where he lived with his family. But silence and stillness were not for Rivers Cuomo. He knew this as young as a seven year old when he heard real rock and roll for the first time. The girl was a stranger, a fleeting visitor to the otherwise insulated Yogaville community. Under her arm she carried an album, Rock and Roll. Over by a band called Kiss. She passed the album to Rivers Cuomo as though it was a secret. And he gazed shyly at the COVID art, lost in the dizzying cartoon collage of Paul, Jean, Peter and Ace. The face paint, the curled devil's tongue, the X ray eyes. It all felt forbidden and dangerous, primal and animalistic. One of the guys in the band even looked like a cat. It was the coolest thing young Rivers Cuomo had ever seen. And when they put the record on the turntable and the needle hit the groove, all Rivers wanted to do was run around the room in circles. The music took possession of his mind and body. It consumed him. By high school, he was fronting his own metal band. And at age 19, Rivers Cuomo and his band made the move from Connecticut to Los Angeles to hit the big time. But even though Rivers had long ago been switched on by Kiss, he was no face paint wearing, tongue wagging showman. Instead, he remained the shy wallflower as from Kid at Heart. The LA scene, on the other hand, is run by rock and roll animals, the deviants, the savages. It was no place for the meek and mild when Rivers Cuomo's high school band was quickly chewed up and spit Up. Still, Rivers remained determined. He would follow the path of the true artist. The path forged by the Beach Boys Brian Wilson, who Rivers learned about while working at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard. The same path later trampled by Kurt Cobain, whose songs Rivers Cuomo studied like they were fourth period algebra with Weezer. Rivers played a ton of shows. He gigged hard. He worked harder than most to plant his own mild mannered flag in a scene full of unruly animals. Now, finally, it looked as though success had come. But it was success on someone else's terms. Spring 1995. Rivers Cuomo reclined in his seat as Weezer's tour bus rumbled down the highway. A mischievous grin crept across his face as he thought about the previous night. Not about the show itself, but the afterparty. His hotel room. Ten, maybe 15 women, attractive, excitable. All of them there not so much because he was Rivers Cuomo, but because, just because he was a rock star. For months, Rivers hadn't been able to work up the courage to do what he thought a true rock star would do. To engage in some wild and debauched orgy, Hammer of the Gods type stuff, which left these female fans milling around, raiding the minibar and talking about how much they loved Green Day or whatever. Because, you know, normally Rivers wasn't all about that. But last night was different. Last night, Rivers even surprised himself when he boldly made the announcement. Any woman who wanted to stay had to get naked and the room cleared out. Almost four women stayed behind. Four women who proceeded to remove every article of their clothing just as Rivers had instructed them. But anything goes. Encounters with fans of the opposite sex wasn't enough to keep Rivers Cuomo on the hamster wheel. He'd been out on the road with Weezer for a year straight, and already the monotony was crushing his soul. Playing the same 10 songs from your one record every single night, giving the same dumb responses to a different dumb journalist every single day. And he wondered if Kurt Cobain had felt this way, like he was slowly watching his own life waste away. Actually, he didn't have to wonder, because he knew the answer. So, like Kurt Rivers decided to do something about it. But unlike Kurt, Rivers didn't turn a shotgun on himself and pulled the trigger. Because Rivers Cuomo was a different type of rock star. He was the opposite of Kurt Cobain. So Rivers Cuomo quit his own band and went to college.
- [15:32]
Amazon Advertiser
Hello?
- [15:32]
Malcolm Glebel
Hello, this is Malcolm Glabel from Smart Talks with IBM. Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard head of fan development for Scuderia for rehp.
- [15:44]
Stefano Pallard
Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia. Ferrari.
- [15:49]
Malcolm Glebel
I'm still working on rolling my R's, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans in the digital age.
- [15:59]
Stefano Pallard
Ferrari fans and super fans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community, and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.
- [16:10]
Malcolm Glebel
You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two traditions.
- [16:24]
Stefano Pallard
When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology. And digital channels are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans.
- [16:32]
Malcolm Glebel
To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.com Ferrari
- [16:44]
Amazon Advertiser
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- [17:14]
Diff Eyewear Promoter
Okay, so can we talk about Diff Eyewear for a second? Because I'm a little obsessed. They have the cutest sunglasses and prescription frames, and honestly, the vibe is like whatever you're feeling that day, there's a pair for it. Chill day. Got you going out. Got you. And every purchase gives back, which I love. Go to diffiware.com and define your style. That's diff eyewear.com you're welcome.
- [17:46]
Jake Brennan
The Elizarov technique, developed in the 1950s by a professor in the former Soviet Union, is a surgical procedure that uses an external device to help reconstruct, reshape, or lengthen bones, usually in the limbs following surgery. The Elizarov apparatus, or fixator, as it's also known, is attached to the exterior of the body with a series of rings, rods, adjustable nuts and wires. It basically looks like metal scaffolding around your body. The thing works via distraction osteogenesis, which is a fancy way of saying that this gnarly looking apparatus gradually separates a surgically cut segment of the bone in order to allow new bone to grow and fill the gap. Though it may seem like an archaic process, the Elizarov technique is still used to this day in orthopedic surgery, when someone has, for instance, legs that are two different lengths, which is exactly the problem that Rivers Cuomo faced when he put his rock star career on hold to enroll at Harvard University in the fall, fall of 1995. A jolt of pain shot up Rivers leg as he twisted the screw of the metal cage apparatus that enveloped his right leg. He winced. Alone in his small dorm room, and then prepared to do the same with the next screw. Four screws in total. Every day. It was excruciating. Rivers right leg was almost 2 inches shorter than his left. Almost 2 inches. And after doctors cut his femur in half, they set him up with an Elizarov fixator. Over time, the painful daily ritual of turning the screws would pull the two halves of his femur apart and allow for new bone to develop until both of his legs were roughly the same length. The whole thing was conspicuous and embarrassing. Rivers limped across Harvard Yard from one class to the next, his apparatus rattling, a cane in his hand to keep him upright. He looked like an old man, and the beard he was growing only added to the picture of frailty. But it also made him unseen in a different way. The kid in the Weezer shirt sitting next to him on the tee had no idea who Rivers was. Neither did his classmates or the girl, the one one he pined for from afar. She had no idea he existed. Not as a musician or a celebrity or even as another student, a pitiful one at that, hopped up on pain meds with this janky piece of medieval steel protruding from his leg. The unknown, unrequited love, the isolation, the pain. It all dovetailed with his swift disillusionment in academia, or at least when it came to his chosen major, classical music composition. What was he trying to prove? That a quote unquote serious artist belonged, not on the road, but in a classroom? He didn't have to be here at Harvard. He could be in the studio doing what he'd always wanted to do since he held that Kiss record in his hands. This time, there was an opportunity to seize. It was staring him in the face. Put Harvard on hold, get Weezer back together and record a batch of new songs. Transformative songs. Songs that were nothing like the songs on the Blue Album. Songs that would prove once and for all that he was a serious artist. That he was deep and tortured. That he really wasn't all that different from Kurt Cobain after all. It was this line of thinking that led to a decision that Rivers Cuomo would later see as one of the greatest mistakes of his professional, professional life. Weezer's sophomore studio album, Pinkerton, was released in September of 1996. Musically and lyrically the record came as a shock. The Blue album sonic template was in part defined by their producer Rico Kasich of the Cars, who turned the gain on their amplifiers all the way up, but turned turned the volume all the way down, thus capturing a crunchy guitar sound that wasn't noisy and didn't feed back. But on the self produced Pinkerton, the guitar is routinely squelched out of control. The bass and the drums were pushed into the red. Rivers, still in his Elizarov apparatus, still in physical and emotional pain, delivered raw physical and emotional vocal performances of lyrics that were extremely personal and nakedly documented his current state of alienation. It was an abrasive about face for Weezer and honestly, Pinkerton is fucking awesome. His record is great. It's so much better than the so called Blue album. I don't care what anybody says. However, the intention for Rivers was to prove Weezer's biggest critics wrong. But the critics hated Pinkerton. So did many of the fans. It was voted the third worst album of 1996 in a Rolling Stone readers poll, right behind Bush's Razor Blade Suitcase and DJ Spooky's Songs of a Dead Dreamer. And while Pinkerton did have its cohort of die hard fans, Rivers started to believe what the detractors were saying about Pinkerton. He bared it all, ripped his heart out and put it on his sleeve, beating and bloody, and no one cared at all. It seemed the Rivers Cuomo needed a distraction, something deeper than meditation. He needed to get back to the good life, the life of the road. Shaking booty and making sweet love every night. You know how the song goes. The life that once bored him to tears would now dull the heartache that he was feeling as he tried to escape that life. Make that make sense. The Pinkerton tour of 1996 and 1997 was happening just as the Internet was evolving at move fast and break shit speed. Soon word of the Weezer frontman's sexual conquest spread to a GeoCities website with the unfortunate title Rivers El Pervo. Now on the website, Rivers El Pervo fans or former fans, I don't know. They detailed both Rivers alleged methods to select and lure women backstage like he was David Lee Roth or something. And also his again alleged interactions with girls who were barely of legal age. Rivers freaked out. When he came face to face with Rivers El Pervo, he no doubt immediately thought of the lyrics to the Pinkerton song Across the Sea. It's a song he wrote in response to an actual letter that he received from an 18 year old female Japanese fan. The lyrics to the song lay out his moral quandary in how or if he should respond to this barely legal fan, and he even wondered aloud in the song I wonder how you touch yourself, unquote. Not that he'd done anything wrong. Not legally anyways. Certainly every word out of his mouth now with this Rivers El Pervo website was going to be scrutinized and worse, documented online. So Rivers Cuomo stopped with the naked hotel room shenanigans. He stopped having assistants scour the audience for women who were, you know, looking like they wanted to hang out with a rock star. Yet Rivers Cuomo's libido raged on. Which is how Rivers Cuomo began visiting massage parlors every show in every city now with a guaranteed happy and hush hush ending. The massage parlors offered a discreet location, offered a discreet solution. The encounters were anonymous. And these were his secrets. The secrets of a rock star which, despite what the world thought of him, was still what Rivers Cuomo yearned to be. That is, until a real rock star entered his life. Boston, the South End Mikey Welsh walked confidently into the Deluxe. The collection of lights glowing from behind the bar made it look like it was crazy Christmas time, even though it was spring. Mikey pushed past the collection of off duty bike messengers who went by the name the Boston Blackouts. They were nursing bottles of high life over by the kitschy Elvis lamp. Mikey caught the bartender's attention and ordered, as usual, a glass of red wine. At 27 years old, Mikey Welsh was already a legend in the Boston rock scene. A real if you know, you know kind of dude. Not to mention a hell of a bass player for bands like Heretics and Jocko Bono and Left Nut. But Mikey's notoriety was just regional again. If you know, you know that kind of thing. So when Mikey Welch saw the diminutive, bespectacled dude making his way through the Deluxe, headed in his general direction, and then immediately clocked him as Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, one of the most badass rock dudes in Boston, felt something that he didn't feel every day. Starstruck hey, man, are you Mikey Mikey the bass player? Rivers asked when he was close enough. The Bosstones guy said that I should talk to you. The Bosstones? As in the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones? Later, Mikey Welsh wouldn't remember exactly what he said. The words just sort of nervously tumbled from his mouth. But whatever it was, it must have been good enough, because Rivers Cuomo of Weezer wasted no time and asked Mikey Welch to jam with him. Mikey didn't know it at the time, many didn't. But by the end of the Pinkerton tour, Matt Sharp, Weezer's bass player, would be out of the band. It wasn't the first time that Weezer had experienced turnover. During the making of the Blue album, founding guitarist Jason Cropper was fired and replaced with Brian Bell. Matt Sharp later revealed that he was also fired like Jason before him. Although Rivers says that the real reason Matt left was to focus on his other band, the so called Friends of P the Rentals. Whatever the case, by 1998 Matt Sharp was out and Mikey Welsh was in. Mikey left Boston for la, moving into an apartment with Rivers on Sepulveda Boulevard in Culver City. In doing so, Rivers got a front row seat to a true rock and roll animal. Because Mikey Welsh was the one. Mikey was the one mixing Klonopin, Speed and Red wine. Mikey was the one dropping LSD right before Weezer's first secret show, playing Nirvana covers under the name Goat Punishment. Mikey was the one tripping his balls off on no FX's tournament bus, eating mushrooms while watching a porno with Fat Mike and the gang on a large screen tv. Mikey was the one hanging around the kinds of people your mother warned you about.
- [29:04]
Stefano Pallard
Fuck.
- [29:04]
Jake Brennan
Mikey was the type of person that your mother warned you about. But Mikey hung around with them because these were the types of people who had drugs. And for a guy like Mikey Welsh, not only did you play rock and roll, you got high. And yeah, it was dark, but to a guy like Mikey Welch, that's what rock and roll was. And Mikey brought that darkness and the danger that went along with it to Weezer in a way that Rivers Cuomo never could. And pretty soon all that darkness and danger became too much even for a rock and roll animal like Mikey Welsh to handle. Because in just a few years time, as Weezer hit the biggest peak of their career to date, Mikey Welsh would go missing. We'll be right back after this. Word, word. Word.
- [30:02]
Malcolm Glebel
Hello? Hello, this is Malcolm Glebel from Smart talks with IBM. Today we're diving into a fascinating conversation with Stefano Pallard, head of fan development for Scuderia Ferrari hp.
- [30:14]
Stefano Pallard
Your pronunciation is strongly American. It's more Scuderia Ferrari.
- [30:19]
Malcolm Glebel
I'm still working on rolling my R's, but what I was able to learn from Stefano was the importance of engaging the Tifosi, the Ferrari superfans in the digital age.
- [30:29]
Stefano Pallard
Ferrari fans and super fans want to be part of something, want to belong to something. So they want to be part of a community and ultimately they want to be part of a winning team.
- [30:41]
Malcolm Glebel
You've got Ferrari, which has a long history, design history, and now you're interacting in a kind of digital space. I'm curious how you balance those two traditions.
- [30:54]
Stefano Pallard
When it comes to fan engagement, it's really digital technology and digital channels are being able to create a deeper connection with our fans.
- [31:02]
Malcolm Glebel
To learn more about how Ferrari and IBM are using technology to build deeper connections with fans, visit IBM.com Ferrari
- [31:14]
Amazon Advertiser
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- [31:44]
Diff Eyewear Promoter
Okay, real talk. I am very much a different pair for every mood kind of girl. And that's exactly why I love Diff Eyewear. Like some days I want something sleek and put together and other days I want to throw on a bold pair and just feel like that girl. You know? Diff makes stylish sunglasses and prescription frames and the range is so good they get that you're not just one vibe, you're like 12 vibes and depending on the day and the playlist and honestly the weather. And here's the part that actually makes you feel good about it. Every Diff purchase gives back. So you look amazing and you're doing something meaningful. That's the combo right there. So go check them out. It's diffiware.com define your style. Seriously, go look right now because you will not leave empty handed. I'm just warning you. That's diff eyewear.com again. Diff eyewear.com.
- [32:48]
Jake Brennan
New Year's Eve 1998 Beck was talking, but Mikey Welsh could only make out every other word. Something about Tommy Lee of Motley Crue falling sideways into the bushes outside. Mikey just smiled and nodded. He was only half paying attention anyways. His mind was likely squarely fixated on the baggie of cocaine stuffed inside of his pocket. The shit weighed a ton. Standing next to him, having better luck in the conversation department, was Rivers Cuomo, who was chatting up their host, Gwen Stefani, who had invited the guys to her New Year's Eve party after Weezer opened a few dates for no Doubt, Rivers was obviously having a good time, and Mikey loved to see it. Over the last few months, Rivers had become something of a recluse. Depressed, not writing, the muse had packed her things and flown the coop. Mikey couldn't help but wonder if that muse had been the guy he replaced. Matt Sharp. Anyway, Mikey had been spending lots of time with the 72 hour party people up in the Hollywood Hills. The benders were so insane that they bordered on lethal. It was a miracle that Mikey stumbled home alive every night. One time he found his way back to the apartment that he shared with Rivers, only to find that his roommate had painted the walls and the ceilings of his bedroom black. He also covered up his windows and disconnected the phone. It was just fucking weird and it worried Mikey. But tonight, New Year's Eve, he told himself that he wasn't going to worry about all that. Not with Beck mumbling in his general direction and no doubt boring the shit out of him. The cocaine was calling. Mikey asked Gwen Stefani where the bathroom was and then he excused himself, leaving Rivers Cuomo to handle the small talk. Mikey hit the bathroom, locked the door, dumped the contents of the baggie onto the sink, rolled up a dollar bill and snorted it all. Hours later, morning came the first day of 1999. Mikey's head was pounding. He went looking for some hair of the dog and instead found Rivers Cuomo, not hiding away in his blacked out bedroom and not nursing a hangover like Mikey, his bass player, but typing furiously on his computer. Rivers was beginning to catalog all of his songs in a spreadsheet, organizing them, analyzing them. Not unlike his three ring binder of old, in which he did the same thing with the songs of Kurt Cobain. This labor intensive process was so not rock and roll, but it somehow had creatively recharged Rivers. Perhaps it was the call to action of a New Year's resolution. Years later, this academic fascination with the mechanics of the perfect pop song would inspire Rivers Cuomo to use algorithms in his own songwriting, even to write an entire album with the help of a computer formula he had developed. Mikey didn't get it. His version of rock and roll was about losing yourself, not making sense of yourself with ones and zeros. But then, pretty soon, not that much was making sense to Mikey anymore. 2001 was the year everything changed for Weezer. It was the year that they released their third studio album, which became their highest charting record to date. The Green album, as it's known, went all the way to number four on the Billboard 200. And just to be clear, it's called the Green album because like their self titled debut, it was self titled and also featured a cover photo of the band against a solid color background, this time green instead of blue. The album was led by the rousing single Hash Pipe, which Rivers called a totally insane song about a homosexual transvestite prostitute. Rivers wrote Hash Pipe while using a short lived creative technique, no doubt inspired by the antics of Mikey Welsh. This. This technique involved chasing a Ritalin pill with three shots of tequila. It proved to be unsustainable, just as Mikey Welsh's lifestyle was unsustainable. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Hash Pipe combined the witty power poppy charm of the Blue album with the sonic intensity of Pinkerton. But it did so with Rivers very public rejection of Pinkerton. Speaking with the press, he called Pinkerton a sick album. Sick in a diseased way, as he put it. He didn't care if Pinkerton was amassing its own cult of fans who loved it more than anything, who loved it more than his other records. He never wanted to play or even hear those songs ever again. It was too painful. Besides, he was living out his rock and roll fantasy. Playing his Ritalin and tequila song Hash Pipe at the MTV Movie Awards in front of a Fox full on pyrotechnics display that would make Gene Simmons from kiss happy. But 2001 was not all pyrotechnics and rock and roll dreams. For Mikey Welsh, 2001 became a nightmare. The MTV Movie Awards were part of an insane stretch for Weezer. They toured the States, played Coachella, played Saturday Night Live, played late night with Conan o', Brien, toured Europe, taped Top of the Pops, and then returned back home to appear on the Tonight show with Jay Leno. As they stepped onto the NBC studio stage In Burbank on July 27, Mikey Welsh was hanging on by a single tattered thread. His drug use had spiraled out of control. He'd lost £70. You wouldn't know that something was wrong if you watched the Leno clip now, because Mikey Welsh is super engaged, as always, the most most animated one in the group, repeatedly interacting with the crowd as the band performs the Green album's second single, island in the Sun. But by the time that performance aired on the Tonight show later that evening, Mikey Welsh had disappeared. It would be days before Rivers, Brian and Pat even knew that anything was wrong. They found it strange when Mikey didn't show up to rehearsal. Stranger still, when no one in the band could reach him on the phone. It's unclear exactly how they found out, but before too long, word reached the Weezer camp that Mikey had suffered a mental breakdown. Shortly after taping on Jay Leno, he had tried to commit suicide by overdosing his heart nearly quit on him. He slipped into a coma. And when he regained consciousness, he discovered that he was locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Mikey Welsh suffered from bipolar disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. He'd gone undiagnosed his entire life and had been fueling the psychological fire with copious drug use. It was a near fatal combination. But by getting the help he needed, by leaving Weezer and the music industry, and by refocusing his creative life as a painter, Mikey Welch was now safe. For a moment at least. After he left Weezer, Rivers Cuomo had lost his rock star avatar, not to mention Weezer's rock star street cred. So Rivers immediately made a call to an LA music scout with a deep Rolodex of professional musicians. Rivers knew in no uncertain terms what he was looking for. Send me the baddest, meanest, most evil guy you got, he said. So in other words, the exact opposite of Rivers Cuomo. And with that, Weezer got their new bass player and retained their rockstar street cred. But most surprising of all, they also unknowingly set in motion the most true crimey chapter in their 30 plus year career. And when the smoke cleared, someone would be shot and wounded by the lapd and Weezer would never be the looked at the same again. Scott Shriner certainly looks like Rivers, Cuomo's vision of the baddest, meanest, most evil guy. He's the one member of Weezer who has tattoos visible. At least he's got a gold tooth. And when he was hired to replace Mikey Welsh on bass, he showed up with that authentic rock and roll stench. Unwashed, dirty leather, smoldering Marlboro red hanging from his lip. In fact, his appearance was so gnarly that Rivers Cuomo actually mistook Scott Shriner for Scott Shriner's bass tech when he first auditioned. But by 2010, when Weezer released their eighth studio album, Hurley, their fifth album with Scott, some fans of the band were no longer finding Weezer anywhere near as gnarly as Scott's appearance. At that first audition, the hardcore legion of fans who were were Ride or Die for Pinkerton, the album that Rivers had bitterly turned his back on years prior, was only growing in size. Emo bands that had since gone on to mainstream success were shouting out Pinkerton as a record that meant as much to them as Kisses Rock and Roll over once meant to Rivers. And that same legion of fans also believed that Rivers algorithmic songwriting methodology had cranked out the same sounding record over over and over and over again. Whether it was Maladroit, Make Believe, the Red Album, Ratitude, or Hurley, the complaint was the same. These songs about pork and beans in Beverly Hills, they suck in comparison to any song off of Weezer's strip bare cathartic 1996 masterpiece Pinkerton. So when Hurley came out, one fan started a Kickstarter campaign campaign online with a goal to raise $10 million in order to convince Weezer to break up. The campaign fell far short of its lofty goal, but not before Weezer's drummer, Patrick Wilson, tweeted, Make it 20 million and we'll do the deluxe breakup. One year later, in September of 2011, Patrick's former bandmate Mikey Welsh, was the one posting on Twitter. Though, unlike Patrick, Mikey wasn't joking around. On September 26, he tweeted, Dreamt I died in Chicago next weekend. Heart attack in my sleep. Need to write my will today. Hours later, he tweeted again, correction, the weekend after next. And then two weeks later, on October 8, Mikey Welsh's body was found in his room by employees at the Raffaello Hotel in Chicago. Prescription narcotics and a Ziploc bag containing white powder presumed to be heroin, both of which were found at the scene, are thought to have contributed to Mikey's death. But the official toxicology report came back inconclusive. Mikey Welsh was just 40 years old. The way in which Mikey seemingly predicted his own demise on Twitter caused. Caused the Internet to question if the whole thing was an eerie coincidence or if it was intentional. It's a similar rabbit hole now to the one the Internet fell down to find out if Rivers Cuomo is actually Kurt Cobain or vice versa. But when it comes to Weezer, predictability is baked into the cake, so to speak. Or should I say it's mathematically determined by Rivers. Very un rock and roll, very slow, scholarly process of cataloging, writing and arranging songs. And I don't mean that as a pejorative fully, I guess. I mean, I like some Weezer as much as the next guy, but not as much as I like Pinkerton Weezer. This is a band that released an album of covers in 2019, mostly songs from the 1980s, performing them note for note with zero hints of irony. And with that, it's not a lot of creative risks. Which is what makes the events of April 8, 2025, not just unpredictable, but shocking
- [45:24]
Wells Fargo Advertiser
this morning a true Hollywood crime with all the twists and turns of a blockbuster twist.
- [45:31]
Malcolm Glebel
She wasn't disappointed, not at us, but she just lifted it up.
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Wells Fargo Advertiser
Gillian Shriner, the wife of bass guitarist Scott Shriner shot by police and arrested for attempted murder.
- [45:44]
Diff Eyewear Promoter
Multiple commands given to drop the gun, drop the weapon.
- [45:48]
Jake Brennan
She says there were three men and one of them shot her. And the cops are relief for him right now.
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Wells Fargo Advertiser
Police say they then shot.
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Diff Eyewear Promoter
There is not a clear view of what she did with that firearm, and it's not clear at this time if she fired at the officers or not.
- [46:02]
Wells Fargo Advertiser
He's seen in this body camera footage lying face down in the middle of the street, arms stretched out wide. He's injured but alive.
- [46:17]
Jake Brennan
The whole thing was surreal, like a white knuckle standoff in the Sergio Leone film. On one side of a weathered wooden fence, members of the LAPD and the California Highway Patrol, their service weapons drawn, safeties off, standing their ground. On the other side, Jillian Lauren, AKA Gillian Shriner, AKA the wife of Weezer's bass player, Scott Shriner, pacing barefoot in the backyard of her Eagle Rock home with a Glock 9 millimeter in her right hand. Just moments earlier, the cops had been in pursuit on foot of the suspect from a hit and run incident. But the chase was interrupted when Gillian Shriner unexpectedly emerged from her house holding a loaded gun. The cops identified themselves, repeatedly shouting at Gillian to drop her weapon. She did not comply. Instead, she raised the Glock, pulled the trigger, and fired. The cops returned fire immediately unloading 12 rounds in the bass player of Weezer's wife's direction. One of the bullets caught her in the arm. She turned, retreating inside her house until about an hour later, when she at last surrendered, was arrested, and was subsequently charged with the attempted murder of a peace officer. All while, and I shit you not, wearing a Weezer T shirt. Nearly six months later, a judge determined that Jillian Shriner was eligible for a mental health diversion, meaning no jail time if she complied with the court's demand to attend therapy, to swear off firearms, and to avoid the use of drugs and alcohol for two years. All charges would be dropped. There are questions over what Gillian was able to hear during the altercation and exactly who or what she thought was on the other side of that fence. A police helicopter was reportedly circling overhead the whole time, making it hard to hear anything clearly. One neighbor said that a stranger, possibly the hit and run suspect, had jumped the fence into Jillian's yard and that Jillian had seen this happen while still inside her house, and she was home alone with her two children at the time. So she grabbed her gun and sprung into protector mode. Details like these matter, of course, but for Weezer and for Weezer's fans, the bigger shock is more more simple. Weezer were not supposed to be a band that got within 10 miles of a violent confrontation of guns drawn, cops shouting and blood spilled. Rivers wasn't built that way. Rivers Cuomo went from a massage parlor enthusiast in the 1990s to a guy who took a self imposed vow of celibacy for years in the 2000s. He wasn't the hard living Mikey Welsh. He wasn't the hard luck looking Scott Shriner, and he certainly wasn't Kurt Kobe, no matter what they tell you. Instead, he was the spreadsheet guy, the analyst. Rock and roll was something he could examine, catalog and control, but the feral lifeblood that is rock and roll, it kept showing up anyways. It was there and some of the men that he called his bandmates, and then again in the wild life surrounding one of them. And so in the end, the world looked at Weezer a little differently than they had in the beginning. Which is to say, the band had a dark side after all. A serious side. A side that could veer off to the margins and flirt with disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace Sat. Guys, thanks for checking out another another episode of Disgraceland. This episode on Weezer. Listen, before we get into the Question of the Week, if you do not have automatic downloads turned on in Apple podcasts, please make sure that you do that so you get every single Disgraceland episode automatically on your phone as it's released. Now for the Question of the week, we talked about my favorite Weezer album in this episode, that Being Pinkerton, which is their weirdest album. And it just begs the question, I think which record by which band is your favorite that is also their weirdest, their biggest outlier, the album that doesn't necessarily sound like the band sounds on their other albums, but is still great. Okay, let me know. 617-906-6638 voicemail and text Disgracelandpod on the socials disgracelandpodmail.com if you want to email me, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in the partnership with Double Elvis, the Exactly right Network and iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland as ad free rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla
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Diff Eyewear Promoter
He's a bad, bad man.
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Jake Brennan
Visit Wells Fargo.com autographjourney Terms apply.
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Diff Eyewear Promoter
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