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Weezer's Rivers Cuomo broke a ukulele on stage at Bonnaroo last June. Now, that's true metal! © Tim Mosenfelder/Corbis

Weezer's Rivers Cuomo says that turning 40 earlier this year, along with the band's "growing canon of material" both played into his decision to go retrospective with the continuation of his Alone series of recordings, next month's long-waited Pinkerton Deluxe Edition, a compilation called Death To False Metal and the upcoming Memories Tour.

"It does feel as we get older we have this growing canon of material, and it's part of our lives," Cuomo said during a recent interview. "There's no getting away from it. It's hard to add to it because it just becomes more impressive as time goes on...and I guess naturally we find that we spend more of our time and energy doing retrospective projects. Luckily, I'm a very open-minded artist, and I like to go with the flow and really go with what our audience wants to hear."

And what the audience wants to hear, in increasing numbers, is Weezer's second album, Pinkerton, which the band will dish out in its entirety on their Memories Tour. The run begins 26 November in Universal City, California, and will feature two-night residencies during which Cuomo and co will play the first Weezer record (aka the Blue album) and Pinkerton from beginning to end, along with other material.

"Our core audience is always clamoring for more Pinkerton and more Blue album," Cuomo explained, "so why not do a handful of these shows in select markets? A lot of them weren't old enough to see those songs when we were originally playing them in the mid-'90s, so we think it'll be a real exciting event for them."

Pinkerton dissed upon its initial release

Though now regarded as one of Weezer's finest hours, Cuomo recalls that the critical reaction to Pinkerton, released in 1996, was anything but pretty. "We put out Pinkerton, and it seemed like what I was hearing at that point was, 'What happened to our fun band? They're catchy and poppy and fun and energetic, and now they're...bizarre, grotesque, obscene, noisy...' And at the same time, it was such a personal record for me. I felt like I was saying, 'OK, world! Here's the truth. Here's what I'm really like.'

"I guess part of me assumed that it was going to be very successful, and I'd become like this superstar, because the record was so focused on me. And it came out and sold a tenth of the Blue Album...That was just crushing for me - all of that together - and it took a while to build up the confidence to even step back in the spotlight again."

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