"Ween's World"

Forget fame and fortune, Dean and Gene Ween just want to have fun with their music

After releasing six unorthodox pop albums that left people impressed, repulsed and perplexed, Gene and Dean Ween - collectively known as Ween - seek only one thing from their musical career.

"We want to have fun, all the time," said Dean Ween (aka Aaron Freeman), the group's guitarist. "You wouldn't believe the (grief) we have taken, just for having fun while making music. I can't figure out why that rubs some people the wrong way. It's like you can't be funny, have fun and make good music."

United by an offbeat sense of humor, Dean Ween and his singing partner Gene (aka Mickey Melchiondo) created Ween in 1990 in New Hope, Pa., to explore the outlandish possibilities in all types of music.

No subject matter was too tasteless, no musical genre too strange, to be tapped, manipulated, deconstructed and adapted into Ween's fringe vision. As a result, strange new musical hybrids began to emerge - mariachi metal, techno folk, cartoon-core, industrial reggae disco, to name but a few.

"Bugs Bunny, Ozzy Osbourne, The O'Jays, Prince, Black Flag - all the same to us," Ween said.

As the music evolved from sludgy bedroom productions to buffed-up major-label weirdness, Ween began to attract a reputation among more discerning critics and fans as an ingenious, often puerile, sometimes offensive, possibly malicious and, as a general rule, wildly entertaining act.

If John Flansburgh and John Linnell of They Might Be Giants were juvenile delinquents, they would be Dean and Gene Ween.

"But we still never really get radio play or any respect," Ween said. "We have plenty of serious songs on our records, but people always say that they are really just imitations of serious songs.

"Lots of people think we are just a comedy act that likes to make fun of music. We have a certain tongue-in-cheek attitude, but it's because we love music, not hate it. And we always try and make good music before we try and make fun of it. But people always look for the joke.

"So even when we are doing something right, people say we're doing everything wrong. People didn't get it in 1990, and they don't get it now, in 1995."

When pointed out that it is 1998, not 1995, Ween paused, then merrily laughed. "You sure?" he said. "Well, it doesn't matter if it's '94, '92, '97, '98, people still don't get it. Time has not brought us more respect, just more birthdays."

Ween does not operate like most bands. Most bands rehearse; not the guys in Ween. "The best we can manage is a simulated rehearsal," Ween said. "We get together, have a few beers, talk about rehearsing, then go home."

Most bands, when faced with making an album for a major record company, will meticulously hone their songs into well-produced perfection.

"Not us," Ween gleefully said. "We like to work really, really, really fast. We never have a plan, and we don't know what we're doing. We just get together, knock around ideas, and do what comes naturally.

"Our ethic is totally different from most bands. There is no rehearsal, no demos, no pre-production, no months of recording. We have an idea, turn on the tape machine, and fool with it for an hour. At that point, it's finished."

Ween proudly pointed out that the band's latest album, "The Mollusk," contains several songs - "Mutilated Lips," "The Golden Eel," "Pink Eye (On My Leg)" - that were written, recorded and mixed in less than an hour.

"As a general rule, we don't like to re-record something once it's on tape," Ween said. "Ween gets by on its energy more than anything; the magic is the sense of fun.

"If you nitpick and overdevelop a song, it becomes mechanical."

"The Mollusk" is slick by Ween standards, filled with subtle cleverness and craft that belie the seeming nonchalance of the duo's creativity. The album, which loosely revolves around a mariner theme, is also an exercise in musical diversity. The band blithely swerves from warped theatrical numbers ("I'm Dancing In The Show Tonight") and profane Celtic music ("The Blarney Stone") to speedy techno-pop ("I'll Be Your Jonny On The Spot") and fey psychedelia (the title cut).

Toss in a loopy instrumental and an obscene sing-along, and the result is a strangely appealing, often amusing jumble of lyrical and musical eccentricity.

"If we want to pursue something out in left field, we don't discard it because it doesn't fit with the other songs we have been working on," Ween said.

"When it comes time to make a record, we just pick our best songs, the songs that we would want to listen to, regardless of what they are.

"Besides, we figure that you can never underestimate the potential popular appeal of a song about a mollusk. Not a lot of those floating around."

Ween's eagerness to explore and exploit almost any subject matter for the sake of a laugh has drawn a fair amount of criticism. The band's detractors claim that Gene and Dean are, at best, emotionally arrested homophobes and misogynists. The band's champions insist that the Weens are lampooning the humorless and the politically correct.

"We don't have any agenda, other than to get paid for playing the guitar," Ween said. "People say we are this or that - well, they are missing the point. We are just a couple of regular guys that eat at Denny's who like to have fun. Again, we don't plan anything. We are just foul human beings."

He laughed. "People either seem to really love us, or really hate us - and that's good. At least we stimulate a reaction.

"Anything but mediocre, that's what I always say."