Rivers Cuomo (/ˈkwoʊmoʊ/ KWOH-moh; born June 13, 1970) is an American musician best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter of the rock band Weezer.

Cuomo was born in New York City and raised in several Buddhist communities in the northeastern U.S. until the age of 10 when his family settled in Connecticut.

But his father has said Rivers was named after three prominent soccer players: Rivellino, Gigi Riva, and Gianni Rivera, all of whom were playing in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.

This involved the surgical breaking of the leg bone, followed by months of wearing a steel brace and painful physical therapy.

[31] 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".

[32] Realizing he did not enjoy contemporary classical music, and missing Weezer,[29] Cuomo dropped out of Harvard two semesters before graduation.

[29] He expressed the isolation and sexual frustration he had felt at Harvard on Weezer's second album, Pinkerton, released in September 1996.

In February 1998, Cuomo disbanded Homie and moved to Los Angeles to work on new Weezer demos with Bell and Wilson, but the sessions were unproductive.

[26] In June 2006, Cuomo graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Harvard[34] and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

[35] On December 6, 2009, Cuomo suffered cracked ribs and internal bleeding when his tour bus hit an icy road in Glen, New York, and crashed.

[36][37] During Weezer's hiatus after Pinkerton, Cuomo formed Homie, and performed what he called "goofball songs" for his "country band".

[38] In early 2004, Cuomo joined ex-Weezer bassist Matt Sharp onstage at California State University, Fullerton.

If you value these archaeological digs as an opportunity to construct an alternate band history, Alone III is easily Cuomo's most worthwhile project since, well, Pinkerton.

"[44] Cuomo has made cameos in music videos including the Crystal Method's "Murder" and the Warlocks' "Cocaine Blues".

Cuomo featured on the song "Magic", on B.o.B's debut album B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray, released in April 2010.

In a May interview with HitQuarters, producer-songwriter Lucas Secon confirmed that he had recently worked with Cuomo on both a Steve Aoki single and "some Weezer stuff".

[45] In 2011, Cuomo collaborated with Japanese singer Hitomi for her first independent album Spirit, in the duet "Rollin' with da Homies", which he co-wrote.

[52] In 2017, Cuomo featured in RAC's "I Still Wanna Know", as well as Vic Mensa's "Homewrecker", which sampled Weezer's "The Good Life".

In 2018, he helped write two songs, "Clock Work" and "Dancing Girl", for Asian Kung-Fu Generation's 2018 album Hometown.

[54] Cuomo also performed a live cover of Toto's "Africa" during the homecoming halftime show at Santa Monica College.

We looked back to rock and roll's pre-drug days—to the clean images of the Beach Boys that felt, ironically, rebellious.

I went to the local used record shop in Santa Monica with the intention of buying a classic album that was going to be a huge influence on me and my writing for Weezer.

[68] Cuomo's other influences include the Beatles, Kiss, Nirvana, Giacomo Puccini, Green Day, Jane's Addiction, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest, Cat Stevens, Lou Barlow, the Who, Pixies, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elliott Smith, Mike Smith, and Sonic Youth.

[71] For touring, he initially used a sonic blue Warmoth Fender Stratocaster copy with Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio pickups alongside Marshall amps, but the guitar was split down the middle onstage in 1997 and eventually retired in 2000.

[72] In recent years, he has used additional Warmoth Strat copies (in blue, seafoam green, black and blonde), as well as a Gibson SG painted white with a Seymour Duncan bridge pickup.

[74] Cuomo took a vow of sexual abstinence from 2003 until his marriage in 2006, and considered his celibacy a positive influence on Weezer's Make Believe (2005).

[75] On June 18, 2006, Cuomo married Kyoko Ito, whom he met in 1997 at one of his solo concerts at the Middle East club in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[78] The wedding was on a beach on Paradise Cove in Malibu, and all of Weezer's past and present members except Mikey Welsh attended, as did Cuomo's old bandmate Kevin Ridel and Make Believe producer Rick Rubin.

[83] Cuomo helped acquire music rights and provided financial support for the 2007 documentary The Dhamma Brothers, about Vipassanā meditation being instituted in an Alabama state prison.

[86] In August 2009, Cuomo participated in the Athletes for Africa 5v5 Charity Soccer Tournament in Toronto, alongside actor Michael Cera.