"15 minutes WITH WEEN"

Gene and Dean Ween, those wacky imps with the monkey faces, foul-mouthed lyrics and a trunkful of crazy tunes, didn't show up for our scheduled interview, shortly before they played to a soldout crowd at Maxwells back in November. Instead, we spoke to Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo. So you're asking, what's the difference? After all, Aaron and Mickey just call themselves Gene and Dean Ween; at least a few of their brighter fans suspect they're not really brothers. But Gene and Dean are funny and bright and say all sorts of spontaneous, nutsy things. When the boys showed up for our interview, Mickey had a queasy stomach and Aaron was a little drunk, neither one felt like talking, and even though we go back to when Mickey was a cocky 15-year old (and did demo tape reviews for Jersey Beat), they blew me off after 15 minutes. I guess you can do that to your old friends when you're major label rock stars. We did pry a few details out of them though...

Q: So I guess the question the world really wants to know is how did Ween wind up on a major label?
Mickey: They came to us. It wasn't like we went to them.
Aaron: Yeah, Some guy from Elektra called us up and said he wanted to sign us.
Mickey: At first we said no, because we wanted to do another indie album and strengthen our bargaining position before we went to a major label.
Aaron: But this dude just kept insisting so we started talking to him, and he pretty much gave us everything we wanted.
Q: So what did you get?
Mickey: We really shouldn't be talking about this.
Q: Oh, c'mon, you can tell me.
Aaron: Well, we got a pretty good advance...
Q: I heard it was $250,000.
Aaron: Yeah, that's about right.
Mickey: We really shouldn't be talking about this.
Aaron: And we got total artistic freedom, so they have to put out anything we give them.
Q: You did Pure Guava on your little four-track machine at home, like all your other records, right?
Mickey: Yeah, and we have about eleven more albums worth of songs already recorded, so we have the whole contract satisfied already.
Q: What does your Elektra deal call for?
Mickey: We really shouldn't say.
Aaron: We're guaranteed four albums, and we already have lots more than that recorded so it's gonna be no sweat.
Q: So since you're not going to spend any of that money on recording, what did you do with it?
Mickey: We bought a van.
Aaron: Yeah, it's a total pimpmobile. It's got a VCR, a CD player, a television, and it's got red, white and green running lights going all around the outside.
Q: Where are you going this tour?
Mickey: We're pretty much heading due south and we're hitting a lot of places we've never been before, like Georgia and Mississippi and places like that. I think we go as far south as Florida, then we go west a little bit and work our way back up and then come home.
Q: How happy are you with Pure Guava (the Elektra Ip)?
Aaron: It's our best album yet.
Mickey: Yeah, Ween just keeps getting better. Our first record was good, the second was better, but this new one totally rules.
Aaron: Totally.