When Weezer first announced that it would name its next album Hurley, then provided its own punchline by unveiling its Jorge Garcia-laden cover, reaction ranged from general bemusement to the usual scoffing at a once-likably-dorky band that had become consumed by its own shtick. But over the last couple of weeks, those emotions have been slowly replaced by white-hot Internet rage after guitarist Brian Bell seemingly admitted that the Lost connection was made after-the-fact, and that the real reason the album was titled Hurley was because its production had been funded by the Hurley clothing company. Here's that interview:
As you might expect, this revelation caused all sorts of problems: Even for a group who name-checks Best Buy in its singles, admitting that your album was funded by and named in honor of a corporate interest will almost always cause critics to call your integrity into question, even if you’re doing it in a “post-modernistic” way, as Bell awkwardly suggests. Naturally, someone at Weezer HQ asked Bell to “clear something up” by issuing this retraction:
“Recently I did an interview in Denver where I was asked why we called the album Hurley. I mistakenly said that Hurley funded the album. I later found out that it wasn’t true at all. Weezer paid for every penny of this recording. The reason the record is called “Hurley” is because Hurley (Jorge Garcia) is on the cover. We thought about leaving the record untitled for the fourth time, but that causes a lot of problems and he knew people would end up calling the record “Hurley” anyway. We got no money for calling the record “Hurley.” thanks folks, Brian”