WEEZER

Over the years I have had the great good fortune to work with my all-time favorite band, weezer, and to make some exclusive items for the Weezer Fan Club. Below is a reverse-chronological listing of all the projects I have done for weezer, most of which were art directed and/or initiated by Karl Koch. Throughout you will find links to blog posts which provide some behind-the-scenes context for each project.

Indie rock roadtrip (2023)

In 2023 I was hired to illustrate the poster for weezer’s Indie Rock Roadtrip summer tour. Then weezer hired me to help create the concert visuals for the stage performances. I illustrated 711 assets and animated 99 loops which were then composited together, animated, and plussed by the incredibly talented team at SRND Studios in Brooklyn, NY under the direction of Brian Palmer and Brad Palmer. Also the stage design for this show was directly based on the cover art for the “It’s Been So Long” weezer fan club single which I illustrated back in 2019 (see below). Photos below taken on the first night of the tour in Alabama by weezer fan club member Britton Wade.

tales of weezer / weezine #17 (2021)

This 56-page, full color zine was printed in 2021 as an exclusive item for the Weezer Fan Club. All of the writing was done by Karl Koch, recounting the early days of weezer and the band’s formation, as well as some crazy stories from the 1997 pinkerton tour. I did all of the graphic design and layout for this book, as well as four pages of comics and a handful of illustrations. Karl scanned a ton of photos and rare weezer items from his archive, which were also in this zine. Hopefully someday this’ll get reprinted in another weezine omnibus (see below).

IT’S BEEN SO LONG (2019)

In 2019 the Weezer Fan Club put out a 7” single with the exclusive weezer track “It’s Been So Long.” The jacket cover is a historically accurate recreation of the interior of “Betsy,” weezer’s first tour van. The back cover shows Betsy broken down by the side of the road, as Scott Shriner cruises by. Art direction and copious reference materials provided by Karl Koch. Lots of notes about the creation of this art package are in this behind the scenes post.

Weezine omnibus: Deluxe edition (2016)

After Karl and I finished the Weezine Omnibus (see below) which got all the original black and white weezines back into print, we spent a year working on the Weezine Omnibus: Deluxe Edition. This book includes all the original paste-ups for the zines in full color, with Karl’s commentary throughout, plus tons of scans and photos from the weezer archive. I didn’t do any illustration work for this project, but I did all the graphic design and book layout. Karl did all of the scanning! It’s 388 pages and only available for purchase by members of the weezer fan club. You can see a video preview of the book below, and here is a behind the scenes post with some more information about its creation. Edited by Karl Koch!

Weezine omnibus (2015)

The weezer fan club was relaunched in 2014, and while chatting with new fans in the private facebook group, it became evident to me that a lot of weezer fans did not know the history of the fan club, which was founded by Mykel and Carli Allan. I pitched the idea to Karl to create a print-on-demand collection of all 14 original weezines (the zines created by Mykel and Carli and Karl during the early days of the band, which were sent to all the fan club members), which would keep it in print indefinitely. I had my own complete run of the zines, and Karl had all of the original paste-ups that were used to create the zines. I didn’t do any illustration for this project, but I did clean up all the files and do all the graphic design and layout of the book. The goal was to recreate as close an approximation of what the original zines looked like. This 314-page black and white book is available for purchase by members of the weezer fan club. You can see a video preview of the book below, and here is a behind the scenes post with some more information about its creation. Edited by Karl Koch!

EWBAITE T-Shirt (2014)

in 2014 I drew a pinball-themed t-shirt which was sold during the tour for Weezer's ninth studio album, Everything Will Be Alright In The End. Each separate area of the playfield highlights a different track on the album. You can read more about the process of creating this illustration in this behind the scenes post. Art directed by Karl Koch.

today in weezer history (2014)

For a while on social media weezer’s archivist Karl Koch was creating “Today In Weezer History” posts which recounted important moments in the band’s history that took place on that day. On January 13, 2014 Karl wrote a post about “Rhino Lad” - a massive kid who freaked out at a show in Richmond, VA in 1997 and destroyed a bunch the band’s equipment. There was no photographic evidence of this moment, so Karl supplied a sketch and some reference photos, and I created this illustration for his post.

Memories Tour Posters (2010)

In 2010 I created about 60 weezer “icons” for the then-current design of weezer.com, which allowed users to “gift” digital icons to each other. (You can see these in the following behind the scenes blog posts: Blue icons, Pinkerton icons, Make Believe - Red Album - Raditude icons, Hurley icons, Weezer “Mix Tape” icons)

Later that year Weezer embarked on their Memories Tour, which was a series of two-night performances where they played the entirety of The Blue Album on the first night and then the entirety of Pinkerton on the next night. The band needed some posters quickly, so we repurposed one icon illustration for each track on these iconic albums. These were exclusive merch for the concertgoers who shelled out $600 a ticket for backstage VIP access. These posters are incredibly rare and are highly sought-after in the fan community (No, I do not have any extra copies for sale!). Art direction by Karl Koch.

These posters were later repurposed as the covers for my book Weezer Fan, which is an autobiographical account about being a lifelong weezer fan. You can read it for free on the Phase Seven Comics website.