MC: Nowadays, every band needs to be active on social media. That has become such a big part of promoting bands and artists over the past few years. How do you personally engage with social media?
Shriner: Personally, I have an Instagram page, and I’m on Facebook and Twitter. For my involvement, it’s with a combination of people who are really into music equipment and basses, and I have a lot of pictures of my son up, some Weezer stuff. So I’m somewhat active. I’m not dedicated, but I’m there.
MC: How does the band like to utilize social media? Do you have someone who’s hired to handle that?
Shriner: As a band, we are active on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram. We use it pretty frequently. We have a Web guy who follows us around, posts photos from backstage and onstage, and there’s a Weezer Facebook fan page. It’s definitely integrated into our daily lives. We’re involved, we try to stay in tune with it and see how we can participate. Weezer has had a really strong fan base for a long time. So it is a great way to keep in touch with the new record. We have webisodes on YouTube for the songs on the new record.
MC: With the band’s initial history with a major label, Geffen, and then semi-independent, how did Weezer choose to sign with Republic Records?
Shriner: We talked to a bunch of different labels and found a great A&R person that wanted us to work at Universal Republic, and we just felt that was the best choice.
MC: Why not just do a self release as so many artists are choosing to do in the current music industry climate
Shriner: We thought about doing that, we’ve done that, and we just felt that going with a major label and using all of their powers was the thing to do. Our last release was kind of done as an independent, and we wanted to do something different for this one.
So far it’s working great for us. We’ve gotten a lot of exposure, a lot of spins, we’re doing a lot of radio interviews, we’ve hired a great publicist, Jen Appel, and I’m enjoying it so far.
Contact Jen Appel via http://pressherenow.com
