The Special Goodness

The Special Goodness is the side project of Weezer’s drummer Patrick Wilson. It currently features Pat on guitar and vocals and Atom Willard on drums. Throughout the years the band has featured various musicians both in the studio and on tour such as bassists Murphy Karges of Sugar Ray, Mikey Welsh formerly of Weezer, Scott Shriner of Weezer, Pat Finn, and drummers Lee Loretta and Jeb Lewis. The band's name comes from a description of how Patrick feels making music. The band has released three albums; "Special Goodness" (aka "The Bunny Record," re-packaged and re-released during tours in 1999 and 2000 and given a full Japan-only release in 1998), "At Some Point, Birds and Flowers Became Interesting" (2001, self-released and also known as "Pinecone") and "Land Air Sea" (2003). After being signed to Epitaph Records in mid-2003 the band re-released a remixed and re-ordered version of "Land Air Sea". Their song "Life Goes By" was featured on "Punk-O-Rama Vol. 9" and an unreleased track "Not The Way" was featured on "Punk-O-Rama Vol. 10". The Special Goodness began touring together in 1999. Of the many side-projects/spin-offs from Weezer (such as Space Twins, The Rentals and Homie) they are the only one to ever actually open for Weezer, which they did on the band's 2002 Enlightenment Tour. Wilson minded both the duties as front man for The Special Goodness and as drummer duties for Weezer. Other notable tours include a west coast tour with fellow Weezer side-project The Space Twins in 1999 and opening for the Foo Fighters in 2003, a feat that Wilson would repeat in 2005 as the drummer of Weezer. One of the most notable shows was on November 2nd, 1999 at Club Laga in Pittsburgh. The club's promoter billed the gig as "The Special Goodness playing all the Weezer Hits." The band played through their set of Special Goodness songs, but felt as if they had to live up to the bill, so an encore of "Tired of Sex" and "Undone - The Sweater Song" was played. TSG's fourth album got off to a quick start in early 2005 while Weezer's fifth album "Make Believe" was waiting to be mixed and released. Wilson, along with Scott Shriner on bass and Willard on drums, recorded a full album at The Steakhouse Studio in the San Fernado Valley with Joe Baressi engineering the sessions. Overdubbing, mixing, and mastering for the album had been completed and Wilson even had a tentative track list for the album, which consisted of many songs that he had written for possible inclusion in Weezer's fifth album. Yet in a January 26th, 2006 post on thespecialgoodness.com, Wilson stated "In my opinion, the songs weren't very good. The lyrics, melodies, chords, and playing were strong but these do not add up to compelling songs." He also claimed that "a year of playing to large audiences (with Weezer) I've begun to understand what I truly value about playing and writing. More to come." Weezer.com webmaster Karl Koch has attributed the album's non-release to "concerns of commercial viability." [1] A new album is still expected in 2006. Recently Wilson cleared speculation by updating The Special Goodness website on July 12th, 2006 stating "3 songs and more on the way."