Rivers Cuomo Calls D.C. Band Priests ‘Charming’

By Ally Schweitzer

D.C.'s Priests also sounds "attractive," says Cuomo.
D.C.'s Priests also sounds "attractive," says Cuomo. Michael Andrade

Rolling Stone asked Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo to review a handful of songs from new and old artists. The mag tossed him a dudely assortment of tunes by Rush, Nirvana, Hozier and Eric Church. Then… Priests!

Yes, D.C.’s own Priests, the punk-rock fourpiece fronted by (recent Kojo Nnamdi Show guest) Katie Alice Greer. This is what the ever-bespectacled power-pop celebrity had to say about the band’s “Doctor”:

There’s a lot of guitar riffage without a real chord progression – but there’s also super-interesting and unique counterpoint between the instruments. And the lyric “You put your fingers in other people’s mouths” is super-provocative. With the sound of her very raw, unpolished vocal performance, the net result is very charming and attractive to me. It seems like they’re not super-interested in melodies, and I was wondering if they came up with the lyrics on paper first, before she sang them. That would be my guess. I also wonder how Morrissey wrote with the Smiths – it’s almost like there were pages of writing and he almost talked them over the music.

“Charming” and “attractive” strike me as misplaced descriptors for a sociopolitical punk band, but hey—Rivers Cuomo just compared Priests to The Smiths. Super-sweet.

Hear Priests play Cuomo’s new favorite song in the band’s recent Bandwidth session: