On May 10, 1994, Weezer released their self-titled debut, popularly known as The Blue Album, which went on to sell 3 million copies and establish the Rivers Cuomo-fronted L.A. indie-rockers as one of the most important and enduring bands of the 1990s’ alt-rock revolution. But shortly before that landmark record’s release, founding guitarist Jason Cropper learned his girlfriend Amy was pregnant — and that bombshell, along with growing tensions between him and then-bassist Matt Sharp, led to his dismissal from Weezer.

However, speaking to Yahoo Entertainment 25 years later, Cropper seems to harbor no resentment or bitterness. “It's weird to be this generation's Syd Barrett or Pete Best. But it's pretty cool too,” he chuckles.

Cropper’s first child, daughter Kiefer, whom Cropper describes as a “force of nature,” was born on Jan. 8, 1994 — four months before The Blue Album’s release, and after Cropper had been replaced by former Carnival Art member Brian Bell, who still plays with Weezer to this day. (Bell appeared on the album’s iconic blue cover art, but Cropper’s original guitar parts on The Blue Album were actually rerecorded by Cuomo.) “I was excited to be a dedicated father, which I have been since then. Longer than The Blue Album has been out, I've been a dedicated father. I've always had a home for my kids to live in and been there making dinner and paying the mortgage or the rent. I knew then that I wanted to be able to say that now, and to own it. And it's been great. … I wouldn't trade Kiefer for Weezer!” Cropper asserts proudly.

Cropper met Cuomo and Weezer drummer Pat Wilson in 1991, when their mutual friend Patrick Finn convinced him to move down from Northern California to L.A. to pursue music. "He said, ‘Jason, you should move with me to Los Angeles. We'll write some songs and play in bands and get a record deal. It'll be great!’” Cropper recalls. “I was like, ‘I'd rather do that than go to college!’ So, I threw all my stuff in his car.” Finn set Cropper up with a roommate situation in Hollywood with Cuomo, Wilson, and Sharp, sleeping on a spare couch, and Cropper later worked with Sharp and Wilson at a telemarketing company selling dog shampoo and then alongside Cuomo at an Italian deli in West Los Angeles.

It was during these struggling early days (“I remember shoplifting for food”) that Cropper and Cuomo quickly bonded, especially after they found out that — in either a bizarre coincidence or a case of kismet — Cuomo’s “most important role models in life,” whom he’d met at an ashram in Connecticut, turned out to be Cropper’s aunt and uncle, godmother, and godfather. (“That was a cool synchronicity,” Cropper muses.) Cropper soon took notice of Cuomo’s genius, first when he heard demos of Cuomo and Wilson’s pre-Weezer band, Fuzz. “They were like the Pixies, but with more testosterone,” he says. “It was like, ‘Oh my gosh, these guys are awesome.’ I really looked up to them, and I was like, ‘Man, I wonder what's going to happen next.’”

The answer to that question came when Cropper and Cuomo were working at the Italian restaurant one night and listening to the kitchen’s radio. “The radio station format till that point had been Guns N' Roses, AC/DC. Literally we were there listening to the radio station the minute the format changed [from metal]. I remember Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ came on the radio and we're both working, and the radio's between us — he's washing dishes and I'm cooking. I looked at him and I said, ‘You could write that kind of a song.’ He's like, ‘I could totally write a song like that.’ I was like, ‘Wow.’ We both just felt this moment of ‘this is going to happen.’”

Witnessing Cuomo making home recordings for future Blue Album classics like “Undone (The Sweater Song)” also motivated the young Cropper. “I got to see the inner workings of River's creative process. It was astounding. It was like, ‘Wow, this cat is deep. He is organized. He is dedicated.’ Not in a curmudgeonly way — in a very fun but disciplined way. It was inspirational.”

It was around this time that Cropper contributed a distinctive finger-picking guitar lick that would make it onto The Blue Album and secure him his only songwriting credit on the record. “I got home from work [at the Italian restaurant], and I remember I was still wearing my cook's outfit. I picked up the guitar and played that first part of what became the intro to ‘My Name Is Jonas,’ and Pat [Wilson] said, ‘Stop. Just do that. Just don't keep going to different chords, just do those three notes, those three chords!’ And he puts the mic in front of the guitar, and I do it. And then he's like, ‘OK, give me the guitar.’ Then he took it and wrote the rest of the music, I believe, and then gave it to Rivers, who wrote all the words and all the melody and finished the song. That was typical of the creative process. It was like I maybe got to just throw a penny's worth of information into what became a full dollar bill.”