You might have found yourself laughing at a recent Saturday Night Live skit centered on an argument among neighbors during a holiday dinner about whether pop rock band Weezer can still make decent music.
Weezer, the band that made classics (whether you like them or not) such as “The Sweater Song,” “Say It Ain’t So,” “Buddy Holly,” “Beverly Hills,” and “Pork and Beans,” managed to turn its semi-sarcastic geek-rock music into stadium anthems throughout its nearly 30-year career.
Despite the band’s long list of chart hits, the writers of SNL hit on an ongoing debate that’s existed in the Weezer fan world for many years: Is any of the band’s music actually good after its 1996 album Pinkerton?
The skit featured guest actor Matt Damon as an overly passionate aged Weezer fan who feels that every album released after Pinkerton still lives up to the hype from the band’s 1994 debut Blue Album and its second full-length Pinkerton. SNL castmember Leslie Jones argues that nothing the band released after 1996 is good by clapping her hands at one point and shattering a wine glass.
This summer Weezer released a cover of “Africa” by Toto, which reached No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart, the band’s first top spot since its 2008 hit “Pork and Beans.” The band also recently announced it will release its newest album, The Black Album, in March.
Weezer has always sort of played an underdog role in the rock music universe, which adds to this debate. Some people probably had forgotten the band still exists, but head to Weezer’s Facebook page — more than 3 million are following the band. Weezer also toured with the Foo Fighters earlier this year and has new songs in rotation on Sirius XM radio stations such as 2017’s “Feels Like Summer” and “Happy Hour” from its most recent album, Pacific Daydream.
Not too shabby for a band trying to remain relevant in the constant evolution of the music industry.
All of those die-hard Weezer fans, at least a few in northwest Ohio, might have laughed a bit harder halfway through the skit when Jones said “Weezer died when Matt Sharp left,” followed by Damon’s response that “Weezer didn’t start until Scott Shriner got there.”
Shriner, Weezer’s bassist, who officially joined the band in 2001, has Toledo blood.
In December 2005, the year Weezer released its smash hit “Beverly Hills,” Shriner told The Blade he still had warm memories of growing up in Toledo.
He graduated from Start High School and joined the Marine Corps for two years in 1984. Upon his return, he played bass in local bands such as the Exciters, Loved By Millions, and the Barbecue Gods before eventually packing his bags and moving to California in 1990 at age 25.
“We’d ride our bikes to bowl at Jugs or Miracle Lanes, watch B movies, sneak into the Miracle Mile Drive-In, and play Asteroids at Godfather's Pizza. One of my favorite spots was the Westwood Art Theater. At midnight on the weekends, they would show the Jimi Hendrix movie and Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same,” he said at the time.
While Weezer has such a niche fan-base community, it’s still entertaining each time this debate is brought up among friends, even more so watching Damon exit the dinner in the skit singing the chorus to “Beverly Hills.”
Despite how you feel about the half-joking debate, it’s a cool feeling knowing that Weezer is tied to the city of Toledo.
First Published December 21, 2018, 12:30 p.m.
