Rivers Cuomo (/ˈkwoʊmoʊ/ KWOH-moh; born June 13, 1970) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and producer. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist, and songwriter of the rock band Weezer.
Raised on an ashram in Connecticut until age 10, Cuomo moved to Los Angeles at 18, where he played in several rock bands before forming Weezer in 1992. Burnt out after the success of Weezer's self-titled debut album, Cuomo enrolled at Harvard University but dropped out to record Weezer's second album, Pinkerton (1996); he re-enrolled and graduated in 2008. Though Pinkerton is now frequently cited among the best albums of the 1990s and has been certified platinum, it was initially a commercial and critical failure, pushing Cuomo's songwriting toward pop music.
Cuomo has released thirteen compilation albums of home demos: Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2007), Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2008), Alone III: The Pinkerton Years (2011), Alone IV: Before Weezer (2020), Alone V: The Blue-Pinkerton Years (2020), Alone VI: The Black Room (2020), Alone VII: The Green Years (2020), Alone VIII: The Maladroit Years (2020), Alone IX: The Make Believe Years (2020), Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years (2020), Alone XI: The EWBAITE Years (2020) and Alone XII: The White Years (2020).
Outside of his work with Weezer, Cuomo has collaborated with a number of artists, including B.o.B and Todd Rundgren. Cuomo and Scott Murphy have released two Japanese-language albums under the name Scott & Rivers.