Brian Bell is tired. The days on tour, the nights in the bus, the nameless faces; all have worn him, and his polyester attire, thin. Backstage he shuffles by and barely raises his glance to acknowledge our presence. It doesn't look like we're going to get the interview. At least we're backstage and not out front with the throngs of alternateens that have assembled for this sold out Weezer show. The guitarist is tired. He longs to get home to his girlfriend and his merry band of Spacetwins, and we're merely another hurdle from that goal.

The rock star shuffles by again. I ask him if he's ready, and he replies, barely, that he has to do some stuff. Yet another sound check, yet another interview to make you feel inhumane. That Nerf Herder interview is starting to look better and better to me. Weezer trudges through their sound check, and a collective sigh signals that the band is ready for this chapter to end.

The guitarist whispers that he's ready, and asks if we have our shit set-up yet. Chad and I scramble. Trying to save face, we thank him, and tell him that this will be short and sweet. I prepare for the worst, and hope that he's more talkative than the depressed, tired, teen idol that I've seen backstage. I guess I'll know in about 30 minutes.

The Weezer story is a dream come true for almost any struggling band. It's a familiar story so I won't bother with it here. Suffice to say that behind the elated pop sounds that the teens would be pogoing to in a few hours, there lies four talented leaders in a boat traveling down a river which holds strife or happiness behind every bend. Brian Bell, guitarist for Weezer provided us with this insight into the Weezer phenomena, and the ups and downs that have marked the short career of this band. Along the way Brian opened up, talked about love, the Spacetwins, radio, and the future of Weezer.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT BEING THE LAST NIGHT OF THE TOUR?
Well of course I'm ecstatic. It's quite similar to the last day of school. You anticipate it for weeks before. In fact, even before the tour started I was looking forward to this day. I've been counting the days, and during the last three days I was actually counting the hours. I feel like it's going to be a good spring.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE PLANNED?
I'm going to spend the month of February touring with my other band, Spacetwins. I have a very strong line-up now and last time I was home for two weeks we rehearsed for about 5 hours a day. I don't know how many hours you can rehearse in a day, maybe 16, but that's what were going to do. In March, the Spacetwins are going to start doing shows around LA, and then go into the studio. Hopefully what comes out will be great.

I have a girlfriend and it's the first time that I'll be able to spend a good solid amount of time with her. The most we've ever been ableto spend together has been two weeks. This has been going on since July, and I immediately went on tour, but somehow we've been able to keep things going. That's the most important thing to me. To have someone at home to make you feel like [long pause and a sigh], you're a normal person, so you don't loose identity too much, which can be a grueling thing out here on the road.

That's the main plan. My other band, it means as much to me, if not more than Weezer does. In fact it does mean more to me than this band. I just can't wait, I'm jumping out of my skin.

WHAT MAKES IT HARD TO FEEL LIKE A NORMAL PERSON, THE INTERVIEWS, THE FANS?
A lot of times interviews for me can be very therapeutic. I feel like I'm talking to a shrink and I find out about myself more.

CHAD REMARKS ABOUT MY BACKGROUND IN PSYCHOLOGY WHICH MAKES BRIAN LAUGH. BIG BONUS POINTS FOR US.

IS WEEZER STILL FUN?
It is. It's been more fun this time than it's ever been before. Maybe it's because we know we have a long break coming up. All four of us are communicating much better. You've probably read things in Alternative Press and Spin, but it's a relationship like anything else. We're four extremely different people and each of us is talented in our own right, and very smart. We try to be a democracy, but when you have four leaders there's bound to be problems. So, you just have to talk about things. We've been way more open with each other and we've been getting along really, really well. [With a renewed excitement] We had a band meeting the other day and the whole talk was about doing the next record and future plans. Contrary to what you might hear in the media, we are continuing to make records.

HOW LONG DO YOU GIVE SPACETWINS BEFORE YOU GO BACK TO WEEZER?
I'm probably the luckiest as far as side projects go, because I already have a band. The other guys are going to have to find players. To me it's very important that I keep my band happy. They're all super into me being in Weezer. They know that I have to devout at least half a year to Weezer, and there's no conflict of interest. In June, Weezer is pretty much 100% confirmed to tour with No Doubt. That's an incredible opportunity for us and I'm really looking forward to that for this summer. We might, because of conflict of interest with the Rentals and Pat's Special Goodness, have to hire another Bass player. Matt's sick right now and hopefully he'll still be sick. Matt is extremely ambitious, as we all are.

I feel like my music can come out at any time. It's trip hop, it's not techno, it's not alternative rock. I feel like it defies definition and it can come out at any moment. The other guys are worried about things like we can't put out our album in September, because that's when all of the other big bands come out. I'm not worried about those things with the Spacetwins. I want the Spacetwins to have more of a cult following anyway. I'm not worried about these things because Weezer is the money making side of things anyway. I think that it will be much better for Spacetwins in the long run to scoot in along the underground. If it happens that our songs get played on the radio and the masses like it, that would be great, I think [wondering to himself].

DO THE SPACETWINS HAVE A DEAL WITH A LABEL?
When I was talking about it earlier an A&R guy at Geffen had his ears perked up. Since I'm on Geffen with Weezer, they get first option. Now that Spacetwins are different [from the way the were before], they do some of the same songs, but they're much more intricately arranged. There are new players, and I'm coming from a much different angle this time. It's deserving of a major label, but I definitely want whoever is behind it the most to back it. I'm not so concerned with the label. Being in Weezer opens many doors for me, so I'm not too worried about who I'm going to give my tape to. It's really unfair, but it's not like I haven't worked at Weezer for four years either.

WOULD THAT SUCCESS WITH SPACETWINS TAKE SOME FUN OUT OF IT?
Yes, of course. I think that in a way for Weezer it's taken some of the fun out of it. We started out playing in small clubs and touring in a van. People think that we came out of no where, but we toured months on end in that van. Those were some of the best times. I'm not crying, "oh success, it's so bad." It's just that all of a sudden it's a job. It's a damn good job, though. I must admit that I really like it. I am working with really great people. How many times do you go to work and there's people there that you just can't stand. This is definitely the longest job I have ever had. I've been in the band over three years and I've never been able to keep a job for more than nine months.

WHAT'S THE WORST JOB YOU EVER HAD?
Dishwasher at Red Lobster. It was like working on a ship. I did when I was 16, it was my second job. I was working to save enough money to get a car stereo- a cheap one that was just loud as fuck, that's all I cared about. It was for my '74 Capri. Working there was like being on the deck of a whaling boat. It's insane how many dirty dishes that place had. There was this 40-year old guy that was working with me that was on crack or something. Seeing him just made me realize that I didn't want to do this, that I had to get my act together.

Then I moved to LA when I was 18, and I had numerous jobs. Most of them involved delivering. Delivering pizza, delivering movie scripts to Frank Zappa and Penny Marshall. Delivering flowers to some 80 year old woman on her birthday. Flowers are the hardest thing to deliver because you have to keep them nice and the water is spilling all over you. The first time I ever delivered flowers I get way up in Beverly Hills somewhere and I get them to this old lady's house and she says, "these roses are crushed. I've been ordering roses for myself for years and these are crushed." I had to go all the way back and get new flowers. That was pretty depressing, but I felt sorry for her. She seemed so lonely. It was also bad going to the hospitals and places like that.

WERE YOU STILL DELIVERING OUT OF THE CAPRI WITH THE STEREO?
No, I now have the same car that I've had since '90. It's a '90 Volkswagen Fox, but it looks much older because of all of the delivering that I've done in it. I bought it because of how much room it had to put in equipment. Unfortunately, people that design those cars don't think about those type of things and they make them with these big windows that you can see everything in. I had two of my favorite guitars stolen from it. One was a '67 Gibson, and the other was a Travis Bean.

WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING TODAY?
I'm playing a '66 Telecaster Thinline. It was the first year they made them. Then I'm playing a sort of put together '59 Les Paul Jr. I had to find them in less than a week because we were heading out to Europe to do the Redding Festival and all of these other big shows. I was totally rushed. I was kind of bummed on the Les Paul Jr. when I found out it wasn't totally original. It's hard to keep it in tune and I found out that all Gibsons are a little off and it's impossible to get them perfectly in tune, but I've always dreamed of having a Telecaster. I was really depressed about the guitars I lost, and I called up Rivers, and he said that I should just get the guitar that makes me the most happy. I went to the place off of Sunset Strip and it's basically this museum of vintage guitars. Very nice, but very pricey.

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO THESE DAYS?
My tolerance for listening to music is very low. On the last tour I was into listening to the Portishead Dumby record. Then sometimes after show I would only want to listen to music that was the furthest thing from what I just got done playing on stage. That was really nice jazz like, Coltrane, Monk, the piano player, Bill Evans. I've always listened to a lot of Tom Waits. I recently got this record called Barry Black, which is very much instrumental. It has the singer from Archers of Loaf. It's his side project. It has Ben Folds playing on it. I find that highly creative. Aphex Twin, which is electronic symphony music. Basically anything that doesn't go out of it's way to follow any trends and would be timeless music regardless of what era it comes from.

IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO GET AT WITH THE SPACETWINS?
I've had some of these songs for three years and I keep reworking them, and rearranging them. It's like recording is so permanent and I feel like I can do that until the red light is on and someone says, "all right, you have to decide whether you want your head shaved, or a mullet hair cut." Because once you shave your head, there's no turning back. That's why I want to spend a whole month, maybe even more than that, just experimenting. Right now, it's two guitars, bass, and drums. I plan on putting in horns. I play saxophone, bass clarinet, and piano. I'll hopefully throw those in there. The bass player plays accordion. We also have one of the most original drummers. We have this piece that he wrote about nine years ago (I've known him forever), were trees are falling because of an earthquake or something. It's the sound of monkeys jumping out of the tress and hitting the ground. He just thinks that way and it's very interesting. He's one of the most outrageous people that I've ever known. It definitely works for Spacetwins too, because we're definitely trying to be a little out there- well, we don't even have to try. We just are out there in our approach. We're definitely not trying to write hit songs.

DOES WEEZER TRY TO WRITE HIT SONGS?
We definitely think about what kind of songs people latch on to. Why did people like Buddy Holly so well? It's not like we say okay let's write a song just like Buddy Holly, because it just doesn't come out like that. He [Rivers] definitely has more of a knack for popular song writing, but I think that he's getting bored with that too. I think that since I've been in the band, I've influenced him to go a little more left of center field. That's just how I see music. People like Beck are enormous and it's certainly not a standard pop song. There are many, many interesting things in there, and his lyrics- I don't where he gets them. I think that he's the forerunner of what I'm talking about. He's showing the way for people that want to try something that isn't so mundane.

I can't listen to the radio at all. I hear it and I'm just appalled. As far as new bands, I really haven't heard that many that really get me going. I like the Flaming Lips, I like the fact that they got popular. I don't stop liking things because they get popular. As far as guitar bands go, I like Built to Spill.

One thing about having success in Weezer is that it's made me appreciate and not be so cynical about things once they become popular. I can hear No Doubt and see why people like it, and actually like it myself. I can't do that with Alanis Morrisette. I try. I'm looking, I'm hearing and I ask what are people connecting with. I guess it's the lyrics, but I don't relate to it, and I don't like the voice. I just don't like it at all. I know that this is politically incorrect, but I'm just making an example.

DO YOU HAVE SOME OF THE SONGS FOR THE NEXT ALBUM DONE?
We have song writing styles in mind. We've been talking about that. It'll probably be a combination of both records. We've been talking about producers and things like that. It would take a lot off of our minds to have someone else produce next time around. That's [producing] difficult too. If you have a producer, they make the decisions. You don't have to labor over it so much. Producing can involve so much wasted time with wondering which one sounds better. By that time you've listened to it so many times that you can't tell anymore. That's why it was so nice to work with Ric Ocasek. We're just basically looking forward to it, and there's no telling what songs we'll be writing when we get to it. Rivers is just looking forward to starting to write songs again. He's the kind of guy that can only write off tour, so that's why we can't tour the whole year, which is great.

DOWN THE ROAD, WHERE DO YOU SEE WEEZER, WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF?
Plans are: Rivers is going back to school until June, then were going to tour America with No Doubt. We'll hopefully also tour Europe and Japan. Rivers is going back to school in September, and that is when I hope to have the Spacetwins' record done. I want to put it out soon there after, and start touring until Rivers is done with school, which would be in June. Then we would record the next Weezer record, and start the cycle all over again. I just want to fill in the slots with Spacetwins.
There's always the "what ifs.." What if Spacetwins take off and it starts demanding more of your time. That would be the best thing in the world. A lot of times you get things that you don't want, but that's not what I'm looking for in Spacetwins. I want the other guys in the Spacetwins to experience success and actually be able to make a living doing music, but I don't want to have to make sacrifices to get there. The radio these days is just so lame that we probably wont get played and that's all right.

WHAT ABOUT COLLEGE RADIO?
The problem with college radio is that it doesn't break bands anymore. One of my favorite bands is Stereolab. I think that they're just incredible. But, I don't think that they've sold hundreds of thousands of records. They've been on top of the college charts, they're a great band, they're breaking new ground and have an awesome album, but..[trails off] As a musician and artist I think that this is more important anyway. I plan on doing this the rest of my life, so I'm not worried about doing this before I'm thirty. I'm already 28, and I look at someone like Tom Waits, who I take as my mentor. That guy gets better every year, and with every album.

Brian is human. He's tired and I can respect that. Leaving the dressing room he thanks us, and I think to myself that those years of paying tuition and reading clinical psychology texts have paid off for me. As Weezer takes the stage I'm struck by their renewed vigor. Brian struts about the stage like a young David Byrne, and not unlike this former Talking Head, Brian and the rest of the band will have a future beyond Weezer.

After the show I bump into Brian backstage, who now seems complete with his girlfriend in his arms. Not surprisingly the whole band is in high spirits. I ask Rivers about school and am surprised to learn that he's a music major. Chad sarcastically asks him what he plans to do with that degree, and he answers, "nothing."

Brian and the rest of Weezer are going home.