Featured Conversation: Talking Weezer With Stephen Lopez

Published on Feb 18, 2025

Today we are talking to musician Stephen Lopez, a long time internet friend of mine and my resident Weezer expert.

Would you like to introduce yourself?

I’m Steve, locally known as a @steelopus on the internet. I’ve been a Weezer obsessive since 1994, so much so that a local radio station dubbed me Weezer Steve.

So tell me your Weezer credentials. When did you start listening to them and how far do you go with them?

I started in ‘94 right when the debut came out. I actually didn’t really catch on until probably late ‘94, after a couple singles had really taken off. And I’ve been ride or die ever since for the most part, just a couple detours here and there, but just absolutely loved them from the start. I was 14 in 1994. I think most people can understand that’s a really impactful age, and if the right music hits you at that time and it’s going to stick with you. Weezer was that band for me.

What is your Weezer collection like? Do you have everything?

Not physically. For the first, let’s say, up until Maladroit came out, I was an obsessive completionist with every piece of physical media I could get my hands on. T-shirts and posters and magazines and all that kind of stuff. I have boxes of them. You know, back in the early days of the internet, I was literally printing out pages off Weezer message boards and the Weezer website, and I’ve got three ring binders in the basement, with archival information about Weezer from that time period.

Oh, that’s awesome.

Thank you. Most people would say it’s a little bit nerdy, but that’s fine. I don’t mind being nerdy.

Everybody has something they’re nerdy about.

So, in terms of vinyl, it wasn’t really until maybe a decade ago that I started trying to collect as much of the Weezer vinyl as I could that I was interested in. My actual first piece of Weezer vinyl was a “Buddy Holly” 7 inch that they released, and I probably bought that on eBay in 2001, maybe 2002. And since then, I’ve kind of amassed a pretty small collection. It’s modest, but it’s the stuff that I care about, which is what I’ve collected.

Do you collect variants?

I’m not really worried so much about different variants. You know, by now, there’s been so many different variants of Blue, deluxe editions and, remasterings and European stuff. It’s like, no, I just want a nice copy. If I can find a nice copy of the things I really care about, that’s enough for me.

I have four different versions of the blue album. I have the original vinyl, then the 30th anniversary repressing, a CD, and then I got the CD box set for Christmas.

Yeah, that box set is fantastic. I love it, even for me, somebody who’s been obsessive since ‘94. I was still learning stuff reading the zine that Karl Koch wrote, there’s stuff there that I never knew. So, yeah, 30 years in, we’re still still learning, which is great.

Now, you go all the way with Weezer. I know a lot of Weezer fans who drop off at some point.

I’ve often talked with other friends about this and that I kind of consider Weezer to be three different bands at this point in time, right? There’s the Weezer that’s kind of like the old school traditional Weezer. Purists are going to consider 90s Weezer to be the only Weezer that matters, right? But over the course of the 30 years, they’ve released modern albums that kind of still fit into that box. So Everything Will Be Alright in the End, the white album, those are ones, I feel like are classic, traditional Weezer, with Maladroit and the green album. And then there’s another Weezer, which I would say is like pop Weezer. Like this is the Weezer where Rivers decided “I want to be a pop artist. I want to make pop songs”. And those are the albums that I don’t really care for as much. So black album, Pacific Daydream, Ratitude for for the most part, Make Believe kind of fits into that category where “Beverly Hills" was their first number one single. It was like, that was him trying to be a pop band, right? And then the third version of Weezer, I think, is weird Weezer. They also put out albums that are very unusual and sort of risk taking. Maladroit kind of fits into that category. The red album is super weird. It’s one of my favorites. But it’s a weird one. “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” is a weird song, right, right? So that album is weird Weezer. OK Human, that they released over COVID, that acoustic album, it’s beautiful, but it’s weird. So I kind of see them as three different bands, and I treat them that way, like I try not to judge them too much, because as long as well, one out of every four albums gives me something that I really like I’m okay with it, no band is perfect. I can’t think of a single band that’s lasted 30 years, and they had a perfect discography.

No, definitely not. And I have several bands that I like that I also put into different categories, like Incubus. There’s the early Incubus is one band, and the rest of it is a different band and I treat them that way.

As long as you yourself can compartmentalize that in your own brain and heart. Yeah, it’s okay. I’m not disappointed when Rivers releases an album like the Black Album, which I thought was terrible, because his resume is strong enough to let that happen. I can just kind of listen to it once and be like, it’s not great. But it doesn’t make me think that Weezer sucks, or that’s not Weezer. All the trademarks of the band are still there. It’s just the songs aren’t what I like to listen to.

What’s your Weezer top five?

I’m going to give you a top six because both Blue and Pinkerton are one. I can’t choose. Maladroit actually would fall next on that list. Everything Will be Alright in the End will fall after that, then the Red Album, and then the White Album, and then Green is after that. And I know you really like Green. I know a lot of people think it’s fantastic .

My second favorite Weezer album, yeah.

It just lacks any sort of emotion to me, because the songs are so sterile.

To me, it’s a happy album. I put it on when I’m in a good mood. I don’t think there’s a lot of substance to it, but it makes me happy. I’m not thinking of the lyrics going, oh, this is a really profound song. I’m just enjoying the music.

Yeah, it’s definitely not Pinkerton, you know, which is an extremely dark album. I hate to use this phrase, but it kind of works as background music, because the songs are all like three minutes long. The album itself is 28 minutes or something. It’s ridiculously short. But yeah it doesn’t crack my top five, just because I think they have others that are stronger for me, that connected with me deeper, more deeply, right? A lot of people hate the red album, and I don’t get that. I think it’s fantastic. He (Rivers) let each of the other band members sing a song on the album, and they all switched instruments, and that’s fun when the band does that.

I don’t think I ever listened to the red album.

You probably have. “Pork and Beans?”

Oh, yeah!

Probably haven’t given it a deep dive, but it’s worth your time.

Well, I just recently got into Maladroit, and Everything Will Be Alright In the End. I just picked those up last year.

I mean, they are fantastic.

I can’t believe I skipped over them.

Maladroit has a really special place in my heart, because I was, in some way, a producer on that album. So that was in the period after the green album where a lot of the fans gave Rivers a lot of grief for how, like, I said, sterile sounding the green album was. All these fans, all the die hard purists were expecting something that sounded more like Pinkerton, which was the last thing they had heard, and they got the green album, which was a complete…

Polar opposite.

So there was a lot of fans who thought negatively about the green album, and there were message boards, and one of them was called the Rivers Correspondence Board, the RCB, and Rivers was actually a member of that message board, and he would be posting and soliciting feedback from the fans while Weezer were in the studio, making Maladroit. So there was a small group. There’s like 250 of us who were in there, we were hearing demos straight from the studio. Like he’d come home from the studio, he’d post an mp3. We’d all listen to it, and then give him this feedback, which, you know, we’re fans. You really shouldn’t let your fans produce your music. It’s risky. But there were moments on that album that came from fan suggestions, fans were like, try this in this guitar solo. And he would do it the next day, and we would hear it, and then when the album comes out, we’re like, oh, he stuck with it.

It’s incredible that he spends time with his fans and takes what they say to heart.

Some people would say it’s a sign of insecurity. He can’t just stick to what he believes in, he’s kind of caving into the fan desires. But as time has shown that that’s not true. Like he’s going to do what he’s going to do, and he’s clearly a capable songwriter. He doesn’t need our help, although, to be fair, that is, in my opinion, the best album the band ever wrote. So the blue album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End, the green album, those were all Ric Ocasek albums. Pinkerton and Maladroit were self produced, so you can hear like there is a distinct difference in tone when they’ve got a professional in the studio with them. Rick Rubin produced, Make Believe.

Yeah, it’s funny that three of my favorite albums are their Ric Ocasek produced albums, that’s on brand for me.

Well, it makes sense. I mean, Ocasek was a genius. The Cars were a genius band. So it’s no surprise that he could get them to perform their best and that they trusted him like they did Rivers. They must have had enough respect for Ric Ocasek to let him win arguments. Sometimes there’s going to be arguments in the studio, a producer is going to want to go one direction, and you’re not. But you know, a guy like Ric Ocasek, it’s hard to argue with his resume, and so he really helped them.

Are there Weezer albums that you just don’t like?

Yeah, Like Hurley, the black album, these are albums that are clearly…they feel like entire albums of filler. Rivers at some point went for quantity over quality. I think that’s hurt them in the long run. He did an interview in the past six months where he had kind of admitted that was maybe a mistake. Maybe they’ll slow down, you know, and release albums that have better songs, rather than just an album every year, rather than just throwing something out there for the sake of doing it.

How many times have you seen them live?

About 12 to 15 times which, you know, it’s, it’s a modest amount. Some, some people will see bands way more than that. Based on where I live, we don’t get quite as many tours coming through here as people in larger cities. But I’ve traveled to see them play in different cities. 1996 I got to see them on the Pinkerton tour. That was my first show, first Weezer show. And it was life changing. It was one of those shows. I think everybody has this experience when you’re a kid and you see a show that just plants a seed in you, that sprouts, and it helps you realize how much you love live music, and B, love specific bands. They played that tour with Ash. Remember the band Ash? That’s where I learned to love opening bands. I came away from that show loving Ash and realizing that you should get the show on time, because the opening band might be the next Weezer.

I want to talk about the blue album before we wrap this up. What was your first reaction upon hearing this perfect album?

I was talking to a friend about this recently. My first experience was that the drummer in my band gave it to me, dubbed onto a cassette, and for whatever reason, the songs were out of order. So I actually, I’ve been looking for this cassette and I can’t find it. It’s driving me crazy, because it’s got to be someplace I didn’t throw it away. But my first experience with the blue album wasn’t that traditional. You know, the “My Name is Jonas” experience where you press play and you hear that, and that’s the greatest opening track of an album of all time. So it took me a few months before I actually physically bought the CD and realized what the true track list of that album was, and how it was sequenced. But it didn’t leave my CD player, my Discman in 1995 for, I don’t know, months, like I feel like it was the only thing I listened to for months, and that’s saying a lot because 1994 and 1995 were great for music. I couldn’t stop listening to it. I was a fledgeling songwriter at that point, we were just starting to be a band, and I was just kind of learning how to write songs and make music, and I had been listening to a lot of like metal, like Metallica and Rollins band, and blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix and Guns ‘n’ Roses. That was my life up until ‘94 and then as soon as I heard the blue album, it totally changed my taste in music. Not that I’d stopped liking the other stuff, but it taught me to love music as a melodic thing. It changed the direction of my life as a listener and as a songwriter. It wasn’t long after that before I was into Superdrag and Harvey Danger and Spacehog. The list goes on and on.

So that album really changed you.

It changed me in ways I can’t articulate. It was clearly a turning point in terms of me as a human and I just latched on like a leech. I couldn’t let go. And those songs are incredible, right? I heard a podcast once where they were arguing about, if you had to cut one song from the Blue if you had to take one song away, what would it be? And I often think about that, because it doesn’t seem like it’s possible, right? It seems like those 10 songs are meant to be together.

The sequencing on that album is perfect.

It is. And then the more I thought about that question, I think where I landed on was, I think I would get rid of “Buddy Holly.”

Oh, really?

Which is incredible, right? Because it was their hit. It was the one that that totally changed that band’s career.

What do you think the future of Weezer is? What are you looking forward to?

Well, I’m hoping what Rivers said is true, and he’s going to focus on albums of quality versus multiple albums of quantity. It’s an interesting time. We know that bands are struggling to sustain themselves financially. By this point, those guys are all millionaires they’re set l, they don’t need the money. I think everybody feels this way, that touring has become so big, every tour needs to be big in order for the bands and the crews to make enough money to sustain themselves. I just dream of a band having the guts to, like a successful band like Weezer, having the guts to do a club tour. You don’t need a stadium, just book a 30 city club tour where you play in a 1000-2000 capacity venue, just like the old days. If people are lucky to get a ticket, they get a ticket. If they don’t, they don’t, right? I think that would be incredible.

Paul McCartney played a club a few nights ago.

That’s amazing, if you can do it.

Is there anything else you want to cover before we go?

I need to mention Matt Sharp because it’s hard to talk about Weezer without talking about Matt. So everything after Pinkerton was not Matt harp. They had Mikey Welsh playing on green album. And then after that, everything since Maladroit has been Scott Shriner. Clearly, he’s been in the band for 20 something years. He’s been the longest tenured bass player in Weezer but it’s hard for me to talk about Weezer without mentioning Matt’s contributions. Like everybody focuses on Rivers on those first two albums, and Pat Wilson, the drummer, wrote a lot of the bits and pieces of songs on the blue album. So I like to bring up Matt, just because I think his contributions to the band were integral, they wouldn’t have been who they were without his contribution. And then he went on to put out great albums with the Rentals. They never reached the stardom of Weezer, but he’s been a great songwriter all along.

Most Weezer fans talk about him with reverence.

People thought last year, on the 30th anniversary of the blue album, that there might be some sort of reunion with Matt, or they would bring him back for a show or something. And it’s not gonna happen, not that there’s bad blood between them. It’s just, what are you going to accomplish with that?

And what are they gonna say? What are they going to tell their bass player?

You know exactly. “Hey, Scott, why don’t you, why don’t you step aside for one song?” It’s a little weird.

I think it’s worth mentioning the fact that the blue album, while it was primarily a product of Rivers and his songwriting and his output, it wouldn’t be what it is without Matt’s contribution, Patrick Wilson, Jason Cropper, their original guitar player, who, you know, who they kicked out of the band during the recording, and you can hear it. I’m sure you could hear it on the demos on that 30th anniversary release box set. He is the soul of the blue album, like that core that makes it something special. You can hear it in those demos of these four guys playing in the garage, learning how to play music with each other, learning how their songs come together. It was lightning in a bottle that those guys found each other, right? Geffen signed them. Geffen paired him up with Ric Ocasek. It’s incredible that it all happened the way it did. And we’re all lucky for it.

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