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Presumably Hero will fall in line with frontman Rivers Cuomo's comments about Van Weezer being a guitar-driven record, revealing last year that he was inspired to change things up, musically, simply from performing live.
“The inspiration came from our live shows, where, in the middle of Beverly Hills, unlike on the album, everything stops and I just break out with this crazy guitar solo,” he said. “We noticed that, recently, the crowd just goes crazy when I do that. So it feels like maybe the audience is ready for some shredding again.”
“I just like one idea to the next and I forget what I was into last year,” Rivers explained on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show of how Van Weezer differs so drastically from the pop of 2019's Teal Album and Black Album. “And then I guess it maybe it’s from one extreme to the other… so last album we didn’t have any guitars, this one is just all guitars. A hundred guitars. This is all from playing shows, and we just noticed over the last few years there’d be these moments during the show where I’d accidentally bust out a few harmonics or a whammy bar dive or a little tapping just because I can’t control myself.
“It’s been a while since I busted the [harmonics] out. Like since the ’80s, probably. I think you could walk into any Guitar Center around the country and hear a ton of those harmonics.”