Brian Bell at the Live4ever Media Lounge, SXSW 2017
Brian Bell likes to keep busy. A Weezer mainstay since the recording of the group’s blue debut album, Bell uses downtime from his day job on projects like The Relationship, a band he started a decade ago which will release its second album, Clara Obscura, on April 14.
During a chat at Live4ever’s Media Lounge, sponsored by Pirate Studios, at SXSW last month, Bell said the difference between the Relationship and Weezer is that while the latter are largely driven by the group’s mercurial leader, Rivers Cuomo, the former is very much his own thing.
“These are my emotions and feelings and language that’s coming out of my head,” Bell said. “And there’s some co-writes too, so there are other people. But it’s different than what would come out of Rivers’ head.”
“Rivers has a special way of communicating, and that’s specific to him. And he’s very successful at it, and it’s been amazing. But this is my voice.”
Bell has been following the sound of his own voice since childhood, growing up in a family of academics in Knoxville, Tennessee.
“It’s east Tennessee. Which I call the real Tennessee, because a lot of city people, like L.A., New York people for some reason have all been in Nashville. I love Nashville too, but I feel that east Tennessee is more the true Tennessee. It’s very green and mountainous. Knoxville is in a valley surrounded by the Smokey Mountains. It’s very beautiful. It’s hard to leave, it’s so pretty. But it’s very dull, especially as a teenager.”
Bell spent his formative years playing air guitar while listening to the monolithic stereo console in his parents’ house.
“My dad had a pretty good record collection for a dad,” he said.
His first concert experience was Elvis Presley at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium. Bell was just four years old.
“I have some vivid memories of holding my parents’ hands and walking across the street,” he said of the life-changing concert.
“I remember people screaming, so it was kind of scary. I also remember him playing ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Teddy Bear.’ ‘Teddy Bear’ was my favorite song at the age of four.
And he brought out a big styrofoam guitar for the song ‘Teddy Bear.’ And he was definitely in his white suit period.”
It was around the same time that Bell began taking piano lessons, adding saxophone to his repertoire in high school.
“I felt that saxophone at that time was the most rock & roll-oriented instrument in the orchestra, except drums,” he said. “I probably should have taken drums.”
It wasn’t until he was a teenager that Bell found his way to the instrument that endeared him to Weezer fans all around the world.
“At the age of 15 I got my first guitar and really lucked out finding a great teacher in town,” Bell said. “There were a lot of great guitarists in Tennessee. The guitar teacher I took lessons from was a master student of (virtuoso classical guitarist) Andrés Segovia.”
Bell’s guitar teacher convinced his parents to send him to Los Angeles after high school to study at the Musicians Institute, also known as the Guitar Institute of Technology, a one-year vocational school. The move fulfilled a teenage version of manifest destiny for Bell, who’d long fantasized about heading west.
“I needed some more stimulation, and L.A. was always calling to me throughout my whole life,” he said. “Every record that I owned, it was always like, ‘Where was this music made?’ It was always California. It was always where the record labels were. Island Records had the palm trees as the symbol. Every movie. It was, ‘What is this magical place? I have to go.’”
In Los Angeles, Bell found himself at odds with the style of the Sunset Strip, which was still mired in a scene vividly explored in Penelope Spheeris’ 1988 documentary, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. Rather than try and keep up with the shredding, Bell picked up a bass instead.
“The bass happened because in like ’89, I think, this is when guitar players played super fast, and in a very showy way,” he said, “I liked metal, but I didn’t like hair metal. I thought I had to find a different sound. The Sunset Strip was going on, and that was a crazy time. But there was also a counterculture. It was what we call alternative now, and I was definitely drawn to that scene. The guitar playing was a lot sparser. And I also thought there were too many flashy guitar players, and I can’t even play like that. So I switched to bass to join my first band called Carnival Art.”
Carnival Art had a quick, exhilarating whiff of success, opening for the Pixies on just their third show, and getting signed by Beggar’s Banquet where they recorded three albums before splitting. And that’s when Weezer happened, a story Bell would prefer to save for another time. Because while Weezer are very much happening in 2017, so is the Relationship.
Clara Obscura, “clear and obscure,” is an album unlikely to yield much more than the handful of live dates the Relationship has already played, and another handful planned for a brief lull in Weezer’s otherwise solid year of touring. That’s partly by design, though, because Bell would rather fans experience the Relationship’s latest album as an album. Certainly on vinyl, but optimally in a car.
“I’ve heard a test pressing (of Clara Obscura), and that’s very exciting to hear it on vinyl, which is a different experience than listening to a CD, which I still listen to in my car, which is kind of the best sound, your car stereo and you can’t move when you’re driving somewhere,” Bell said. “But there’s a warm quality when you’re listening to vinyl. The problem is everybody doesn’t have the same sound system. Not that I’m an audiophile.”
While his calendar is full through October with Weezer dates, Bell said a similar tour with the Relationship wouldn’t hold much appeal for him.
“As far as being gone for that long, I don’t see the benefits that much,” he said. “The music will be out there, and that’s the most important thing to me. Performing it takes a lot out of you. The show’s got to have a meaning to me. Is it making the band grow or is it just a paycheck? I’m still hoping every show is more and more people talking about it. It’s almost like an art opening. The art has already been created. We’re just going to perform it for you live. Things happen. Everybody’s soul gets involved in the music you’re making live, and that’s the interesting part. That excites me. But it’s also draining. So I don’t want to do it too often…It’s great driving music. And then I wouldn’t have to tour.”
Bell isn’t a a Luddite when it comes to technology – he spoke of his fondness for recording demos on his iPhone – but his relationship with how people experience music today is that of a casual observer rather than an enthusiast.
“I don’t really stream music yet,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to. But I’m a little overwhelmed. I go on Apple Music and I see all these different icons for genres and it’s too much. (But) what’s happening with streaming for me is people can send me a playlist of things they’re into and I don’t have to search for it.”
Bell’s wariness of digital music stretches back to the MySpace era, when he’d post work-in-progress Relationship demos as a means of connecting with the fans, little realizing the permanence of such a move.
“I wish I’d never done that,” he said. “It upsets me when people hear songs that aren’t ready to be heard yet. That was one of the exciting things about MySpace, where you can put out a demo and get feedback. But what I didn’t know at the time, and I don’t know if anyone knew, is that anything you put on the internet is there forever. I just wanted some feedback to see if it helped at all. I’m not sure that it does.”
But while he’s still grappling with the present in terms of music listening technology, he didn’t hesitate when asked where the future of music is going.
“I saw it already,” he said.
“Starcrawler from Los Angeles is this young band. I don’t even know if they’re over 18 yet. And I haven’t seen a performer like Arrow (de Wilde) since I first saw Jane’s Addiction and a young Perry Farrell. She’s got that much command and confidence onstage.
And the music was great. It was punk rock, but also good songwriting. They’re so young and I’m excited to see what happens for them. I just love the youthful energy of bands just starting out. I know that energy, and it’s kind of the best time of your life.”
As for what’s next with the Relationship, perhaps another album, one defined by collaboration.
“Collaborating is a wonderful experience,” Bell said.
“I’d like to collaborate with a female lyricist and singer, someone like the girl from Beach House, someone like that that just has this amazing poetic sense that I would never be able to come close to matching. Or a performer like Karen O. Maybe even like a country singer. It would be interesting. But no one is knocking on my door to do this.”
“Collaborating with someone that does (film) scores would be really cool, too. A perspective like that could be neat. Like Hans Zimmer.”
Watch our interview highlights with Brian below!
