Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo on constructing group on-line

With Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk altering the panorama of the social media platform, many artists and music followers are on the lookout for different methods to construct group on-line. NME spoke to Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo about his Discord group Mister Rivers’ Neighborhood, and the way it’s allowed him to attach instantly with followers.

Following Musk’s latest takeover of Twitter, a number of artists have criticized and, in some instances, left the social media platform. In November, 9 Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor confirmed his departure, citing “embarrassment” over the place the positioning was heading. “For my psychological well being, I have to tune out,” Reznor informed The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t really feel good being there anymore.”  The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas additionally voiced his disgust at Musk’s dealing with of Twitter, and Jack White left shortly after Musk reinstated former President Trump’s account.

Although the modifications happening at Twitter are ongoing, many artists have stayed or, within the case of Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, even provided to assist. different musicians are discovering extra insular areas to attach with followers, together with platforms like Discord.

“This neighbourhood of followers has been round of followers have been round for many years now,” Cuomo informed NME about his on-line group. “It predates Discord.” the Weezer frontman moved the group to Discord in 2020 however was already participating with followers by way of a web based chat platform he had coded himself. “It was tremendous enjoyable, however since I used to be doing it in my spare time it had very primary performance.”

Cuomo was coping with a scarcity of time since he’d additionally been coding his personal streaming platform known as Weezify, the place he hosted hundreds of Weezer demos. He determined one of the simplest ways ahead was to search out one other manner his followers might “commune”. “I lastly determined, ‘let’s all migrate to Discord and also you’ll have a bunch of bells and whistles you’ll be able to play with’ we pulled the set off and inside a couple of days, we have been like, ‘that is unimaginable’.

“Within the early days, folks loved with the ability to make their very own threads and publish photos and movies,” he mentioned, noting that he couldn’t absolutely help these options on the positioning he had coded. The fan group additionally elevated “5 to 10 occasions” mechanically as a result of there have been already so many individuals on Discord that “would by no means have thought to come back to my web site,” Cuomo added. “The important thing for me was that you may nonetheless be a developer, I might nonetheless code a bot and add my very own options to it. If it weren’t for that I wouldn’t have jumped to Discord.” For him, the power to customise was key. “There isn’t any server like mine, my bot is fairly insane.”

Cuomo beforehand informed The New York Times that his present Discord is just like the Weezer message boards followers commented on in 2001, and even the letters followers would write again in 1996. A lot has modified, however the “musical values” of the folks concerned in his communities have remained the identical.

“Our musical tastes are very constant even from the ’90s, actually,” Cuomo mentioned. “All of us nonetheless like tremendous emotional songs with nice melodies which are catchy and but considerably progressive and difficult and sophisticated musically. We like massive guitars and bizarre lyrics. It’s nonetheless true.”

The demographics of these followers and what they speak about on-line has modified, nevertheless.

“I bear in mind in 2000, it appeared like there have been extra guys, and now there are extra ladies. It additionally appeared just like the dialogue in 2000 was extra targeted on Weezer music and now it’s in every single place. It’s extra only a place to hang around. Again then, the age vary of our followers was teenagers and early twenties. Now there are 13-year-olds to outdated folks like myself.”

Although he recently tried out an AI bot on Twitter, that had followers questioning why he was Tweeting about “#FemboyAnthems”, estrogen and Arctic Monkeys, he informed us that Mr. Rivers’ Neighborhood allowed for higher group and communication with followers than different social media channels. “Nicely… I don’t actually converse to anybody anyplace else,” he laughed. “I wish to maintain it to Discord. Individuals simply appear very good and well mannered and respectful, type and fascinating and humorous in comparison with anyplace else. It’s uncommon that I enterprise out.”

Although Cuomo seems like he has such a “weirdo distinctive character” that lends itself nicely to platforms like Discord, and admits the platform will not be nicely suited to artists that “flourish higher” on different platforms, he did supply recommendation for newer artists keen on taking their fan base on-line.

“[I don’t] see it a lot as a method for selling myself or my music or making an attempt to deliberately develop a group. I’m utilizing it for my very own enjoyment.”

A part of that enjoyment is asking Weezer followers for assist. “For instance, one time, we have been stranded in Europe we couldn’t discover practice tickets. I simply went on the server and the followers in Europe have been capable of finding me a practice ticket. Any person met me on the station and I used to be capable of catch a practice in time.”

He additionally faucets into fan suggestions, asking them what they consider “this or that”, and so they give recommendation. “They only prompt a tune I ought to cowl in Jakarta and so they helped me be taught TuneCore so I might share that tune on Spotify. It makes it enjoyable for the followers too as a result of they’ll inform I’m getting rather a lot out of it. It’s not a job for me to be there.”

Followers have additionally got here up with art work for singles and assist him to raised join with followers, particularly once they’re touring in different international locations.

“I’ll begin a thread and say, ‘What ought to I say on this nation?’ and so they’ll inform me the native phrases and the native language and tips on how to pronounce it very exactly, it’s superb on the reveals it actually blows folks’s minds,” He mentioned. “That wouldn’t be doable with out the followers within the Discord server.”

The group additionally has a weekly live performance collection the place they cowl Weezer songs and “just about each evening” Cuomo goes into his voice channel and performs piano. “I do it for me, after all, lots of them like to come back in and hear nevertheless it means a lot to me to have an viewers, a small viewers however people who find themselves clearly actually moved by having me play,” he mentioned. “I believe it’s real, or they’re actually good at faking it” he joked. “In both case, it makes me really feel so good and so heard.”

‘Winter’ follows the ‘Spring’, ‘Summer time’ and ‘Autumn’ instalments of ‘SZNZ’. Weezer have been meant to advertise the collection with a five-week Broadway residency, however that was cancelled earlier this yr as a consequence of low ticket gross sales.

Nevertheless, followers in Arizona will be capable to see the band reside on the baseball-themed Innings Competition subsequent February, the place they’ll carry out alongside the likes of Inexperienced Day, Eddie Vedder, The Black Crowes, The Offspring, The Fairly Reckless and Paris Jackson. The band can also be set to play the Railbird competition in Kentucky subsequent June.