Rivers Cuomo is an American singer, songwriter, and musician.
42 Facts About Rivers Cuomo
2.
Rivers Cuomo is the lead vocalist, guitarist, pianist, songwriter, and frontman of the rock band Weezer.
3.
Rivers Cuomo played in several bands in Connecticut and California before forming Weezer in 1992.
4.
Rivers Cuomo was born on June 13,1970, in New York City to a Frank Cuomo, of Italian descent, and Beverly Shoenberger, of German-English descent.
5.
However, his father said Rivers Cuomo was named after three prominent soccer players: Rivellino, Luigi Riva, and Gianni Rivera, all of whom were playing in the 1970 World Cup.
6.
Rivers Cuomo was raised in Rochester, New York, at the Rochester Zen Center, until his father left the family in 1975.
7.
Rivers Cuomo's mother relocated the family to Yogaville, an ashram in Pomfret, Connecticut.
8.
Rivers Cuomo attended the Pomfret Community School, and his mother married Stephen Kitts.
9.
Rivers Cuomo was a member of the high school choir and he performed in a school production of Grease as Johnny Casino.
10.
Rivers Cuomo changed his name to Peter Kitts; after graduating, Cuomo reverted to his original name.
11.
Rivers Cuomo formed Weezer in 1992 with drummer Patrick Wilson, bassist Matt Sharp and guitarist Jason Cropper.
12.
In March 1995, Rivers Cuomo had extensive surgery to extend his left leg, which was 44mm shorter than the right.
13.
Rivers Cuomo became introverted and grew a beard, and wrote in his diaries how students wearing Weezer T-shirts did not recognize him.
14.
Rivers Cuomo had planned Weezer's second album to be a rock opera, Songs from the Black Hole, but he abandoned the project as his songwriting became "darker, more visceral and exposed, less playful".
15.
Rivers Cuomo enrolled at Harvard twice more and completed semesters in 1997 and 2004.
16.
In February 1998, Rivers Cuomo disbanded Homie and moved to Los Angeles to work on new Weezer demos with Bell and Wilson, but the sessions were unproductive.
17.
On December 6,2009, Rivers Cuomo was in his tour bus driving to Boston from Toronto with his family and assistant when the bus hit an icy road in Glen, New York and crashed.
18.
Rivers Cuomo has contributed to recordings by various other musicians.
19.
Rivers Cuomo managed the band AM Radio in 2002 and 2003; he and the band's frontman, Kevin Ridel, went to school together.
20.
In early 2004, Rivers Cuomo joined ex-Weezer bassist Matt Sharp onstage at California State University, Fullerton.
21.
In March 2008, Rivers Cuomo began a YouTube video series in which he wrote a song in collaboration with YouTube viewers.
22.
In 2011, Rivers Cuomo collaborated with Japanese singer Hitomi for her first independent album Spirit, in the duet "Rollin' with da Homies", co-written by him.
23.
Rivers Cuomo was featured on the Simple Plan song "Can't Keep My Hands Off You" and Miranda Cosgrove's song, "High Maintenance".
24.
In 2015, Rivers Cuomo appeared on the song "Snowed In" on Big Data's album 2.0.
25.
Rivers Cuomo co-wrote the song "Why Won't You Love Me" on 5 Seconds of Summer's 2018 album Youngblood.
26.
Rivers Cuomo performed a live cover of Toto's "Africa" during the homecoming halftime show at Santa Monica College.
27.
In 2020, Rivers Cuomo released more than two thousand demos and home recordings on his website.
28.
In November 2022, Rivers Cuomo released the Indonesian-language song "Anak Sekolah", originally by Indonesian singer Chrisye.
29.
Rivers Cuomo later performed the song live with Weezer during their headline apperance at SoundrenAline 2022 in Jakarta.
30.
Rivers Cuomo maintains Spotify playlists of music with "cool" chord progressions that he uses for inspiration.
31.
Rivers Cuomo sometimes uses piano to write vocal melodies his vocal muscles would be "too lazy" to create.
32.
Rivers Cuomo credited the Beach Boys as a major influence on his early songwriting.
33.
On tour with Weezer following the Blue Album, Rivers Cuomo listened extensively to the operas Aida and Madama Butterfly, the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, and the musical Les Miserables, which influenced the composition of Pinkerton and the unreleased Songs from the Black Hole.
34.
Rivers Cuomo recorded the Blue Album with a Gibson Les Paul Special and a Fender Jaguar borrowed from producer Ric Ocasek.
35.
Rivers Cuomo's amp was a vintage Mesa Boogie Mark I For touring, he initially used a sonic blue Warmoth Fender Stratocaster copy with Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio pickups alongside Marshall amps.
36.
On June 18,2006, Rivers Cuomo married Kyoko Ito, whom he met in March 1997 at one of his solo concerts at the Middle East club in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
37.
Rivers Cuomo proposed to her in Tokyo shortly before Christmas 2005.
38.
Rivers Cuomo was born with equal length legs, but as he grew to his full height, his left leg grew nearly two inches shorter than his right.
39.
Rivers Cuomo helped acquire music rights and provided financial support to a 2007 documentary titled The Dhamma Brothers about Vipassana meditation being instituted in an Alabama state prison.
40.
In early 2008, Rivers Cuomo played in the Mia and Nomar Celebrity Soccer Challenge and scored a goal in the game.
41.
Rivers Cuomo performed at a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang in Iowa on November 1,2019, though Rivers Cuomo did not explicitly endorse Yang.
42.
Rivers Cuomo took the CS50 course and maintains a GitHub profile, and maintains a Discord server.