World released "Hear You Me" which was dedicated to Mykel and Carli. Hiatus (1997–2000) Weezer completed the Pinkerton tour in mid-1997 and went on hiatus. Wilson returned to his home in Portland, Oregon to work on his side project, the Special Goodness, and Bell worked on his band Space Twins. In 1998, Sharp left Weezer due to differences with the band members. He said of his departure: "I certainly have my view of it, as I'm sure everybody else has their sort of foggy things. When you have a group that doesn't communicate, you're going to have a whole lot of different stories." Cuomo returned to Harvard but took a break to focus on songwriting. He formed a new band composed of a changing lineup of Boston musicians, and performed new material. The songs were abandoned, but bootlegs of the Boston shows are traded on the internet. Wilson eventually flew to Boston to join Homie, another Cuomo side project. The members of the band were composed of Greg Brown (Cake and Deathray), Matt Sharp, Yuval Gabay (Soul Coughin) and Sulfur), Adam Orth (Shufflepuck), and future Weezer bassist Mikey Welsh. Although a Homie album was being recorded, they ended up only releasing one song called "American Girls" for the 1998 film Meet The Deedles. In February 1998, Cuomo, Bell and Wilson reunited in Los Angeles to start work on the next Weezer album. Rumors suggest Sharp did not rejoin the band and left the group in April 1998, which Sharp denies. The group hired Mikey Welsh, who had played with Cuomo in Boston, as their new bassist. Welsh was also previously a bassist for Juliana Hatfield. Weezer continued rehearsing and recording demos until late 1998. Frustration and creative disagreements led to a decline in rehearsals, and in late 1998, Wilson left for his home in Portland pending renewed productivity from Cuomo. In November 1998, the band played two club shows with a substitute drummer in California under the name Goat Punishment, consisting entirely of covers of Nirvana and Oasis songs. In the months following, Cuomo entered a period of depression, unplugging his phone, painting the walls of his home black, and putting fiberglass insulation over his windows to prevent light from entering. Eventually during this time, Cuomo started experimenting with his music and ended up writing 121 songs by 1999. In the meantime, Wilson continued to work with The Special Goodness