With each step I take, I see that my ability to perform gets a little better. So until it starts getting worse, I'm going to keep moving forward.
The reason I started with prostitutes was solely to work on my negotiating skills. Once I mastered negotiating with naked women, dealing with Interscope was a piece of cake.
It could appear that I'm some kind of natural genius, but it's just a million small lessons I've picked up over the years.
I do want to make music that people love, but I also want to make music that I love. I know I can't please everyone with anything I do, so I don't think too much about how other people are going to take things.
I have no interest in emo. I'm all about rap metal.
I never feel guilty about liking music.
I think there is a very subtle shift from the metal I grew up on to Weezer. I think the big shift was from a minor key to a major key. That made a huge difference in how it was perceived.
I find that I end up liking songs if I really have an idea of something I wat to write about-some problem in my life or something I want to work through; if I don't have something like that at the root of the song, then I think I end up not caring about it as much. I gravitate towards some kind of concept or idea or situation that I want to write about. Very often I have to write, rewrite and come at it from an opposite angle...and I end up writing the opposite song that I thought I was going to write.
It is cool to have a label head that is also a songwriter, in a band, and produces records.
I'm constantly fighting with my manager to reduce the amount of time I have to spend on promotional activities, so I can get back in the studio and work on new music.
Most of the songs I write just very directly from my life. I don't have a big imagination. Whenever I tried to write from fantasy, it comes out sounding really fake.
I enjoy listening to the albums of my youth as much as ever.
The internet has not granted us more control in relation to the record company because we're still bound by an agreement with them not to release our music without their consent. But they generally let us do what we want, anyway, so it doesn't matter who's officially in control.
If enough people out there want a physical product, I'll be happy to make one. I'd say about 10,000 people is "enough."
I can't say I was consciously thinking of the big changes in the music business when I was writing the lyrics, but change, uncertainty, flux, impermanence - these are things I'm acutely aware of. And I enjoy facing it all.
