Weezer have released an adrenalized new song titled “I Need Some of That,” off their upcoming Van Weezer album, which comes out next month.
The alt-rock veterans’ new single is a sugary, hook-laden ode to the good old days of riding bikes through their neighborhood, blasting Aerosmith on the radio and cranking their Marshall stack amps at band practice.
Hand claps and fizzy synthesizers offset crunchy power chords as frontman Rivers Cuomo sings, “Even if we blow up, we’re never gonna grow up, ‘cause this is where it’s at.”
You can watch the lyric video for “I Need Some of That” below.
Van Weezer marks a departure from Weezer’s typical power-pop and alt-rock sound, instead paying homage to ‘70s and ‘80s hard-rock titans like Kiss, Black Sabbath, Metallica and Van Halen, the last of whom inspired the album title. The record was originally slated for a May 2020 release but will now arrive next month, on May 7.
Weezer have been teasing their new album for roughly a year and a half. They released the first single, “The End of the Game,” in September 2019, followed by a pair of 2020 singles, May’s “Hero” and August’s “Beginning of the End.” The quartet was supposed to promote the album on the road last summer during the Hella Mega tour, playing stadiums alongside Green Day and Fall Out Boy. The bands were forced to postpone the trek due to the coronavirus pandemic and are now scheduled to embark this June.
Cuomo recently lamented the fact that Eddie Van Halen didn’t get to hear Van Weezer before he died last October. “It would have been cool if he could have heard the record,” the singer told The Strombo Show in February. “And I don’t know if it would have meant anything to him. But he could have seen his influence bearing fruit decades later and in this modern record of 2021.”
Following Van Halen’s death, Weezer dedicated Van Weezer to the guitarist.