READ IT AT BILLBOARD (in print too)

After nearly 20 years of interviewing musicians, I was finally led by the journalism gods to the living rock nerd altar that is Rivers Cuomo. He was every bit as repressed and smart as I would’ve hoped. And also Brian Bell was there. He had long hair and wore a loose suit and rockstar-ed me the second I met him at a fancy Santa Monica coffee shop. I introduced myself and he said, “Great. Because I’m Brian Bell from Weezer and I need an espresso,” as he walked past me, took a seat, and waited for his espresso to materialize. But all worked out in the end: his publicist ordered him a drink and I asked these two Weezers a bunch of questions about their new album, Pacific Daydream. Also, Cuomo big-upped XXXtentacion, which was surprising on many levels.