Rivers Cuomo

Rivers Cuomo ( KWOH-moh; born June 13, 1970) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and producer. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist, and songwriter of the rock band Weezer.　 Raised in an ashram in Connecticut, Cuomo moved to Los Angeles at 18, where he played in several rock bands before forming Weezer in 1992. Burnt out after the success of Weezer's self-titled debut album, Cuomo enrolled at Harvard University, but dropped out to record Weezer's second album, Pinkerton (1996); he re-enrolled and graduated in 2008. Though Pinkerton is now frequently cited among the best albums of the 1990s and has been certified platinum, it was initially a commercial and critical failure, pushing Cuomo's songwriting toward pop music. Cuomo has also released three compilation albums of home demos: Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2007), Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2008) and Alone III: The Pinkerton Years (2011). He has collaborated with a number of artists; in 2013, he and Scott Murphy released a self-titled Japanese-language album under the name Scott & Rivers.