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I guess everyone has their own opinion on Ween by now. From the early home recordings of 'God Ween Satan' and 'The Pod' double albums, through to the Elektra deal, the hit single with 'Push Th' Little Daisies' (from 'Pure Guava') and last year's 'Chocolate and Cheese', they carved a reputation for being alternative music's most prolific pisstakers.
The sense of irreverence and taboo breaking jokes (some would say they're just sick bastards) has remained consistent throughout all the records. The one thing that has changed is the standard of musicianship - 'Chocolate and Cheese' saw them slipping between funk, FM rock, country and just plain strange shit. Never predictable, Ween have surprised us all by relocating to Mt Juliet, Tennessee for a week last November, where they recorded a country album with some legendary session players. Three of them were even called Buddy. I caught up with Aaron Freeman (aka Gene Ween - vocals and guitar) and asked him the inevitable question - why do a country album?
"Cos we really like country! We got the opportunity to do it relatively cheaply, and we got some great musicians to work on it. This guy Ben Vaughn brought it all together for us. We were just talking about how many country songs we had and he lived down in Tennessee for a while so he kind of hooked us up and the whole thing came together really well. Ben found all the session musicians, they're all in a big union book so you can just ring them up at home, it's pretty incredible. You just pay them their union dues."
What did they think of the material you had written? Surely songs like 'Piss Up A Rope', 'Mr Richard Smoker' and 'Help Me Scrape the Mucus off my Brain' aren't what they're used to!
"They had a good time - they had fun! I don't think we shocked them or anything, I mean they've seen the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis blow people's feet off in the studio, so nothing we could do would really surprise them that much!"
So is it meant to be a genuine country album or is it intended to be subversive - are country fans going to buy it and be shocked?
"Well we're not marketing it as a country record, it's a Ween record like all the others, but this is a country Ween record. Obviously if you listen to the lyrics it's still pretty Ween-like. It is what it is -there's no fucking around, we don't try to pull tricks on anybody."
How do you think it fits in with your previous records? Were there a lot of country songs in the semi-legendary backlog of unreleased stuff?
"Yeah, some of them go back a bit. We've always written country songs, like on 'Chocolate and Cheese' we had stuff like 'Drifter In The Dark' so it shouldn't be a shock. We both really like that kind of music, and this was more like a field trip than making a record - the whole thing only took seven days! It feels like a record of the month - if you belonged to a Ween fanclub you would get this as a special issue, like the Beatles Xmas album or something. It doesn't even feel like we've made a record but it's good and we love it, so we're going to put it out."
After the success of 'Push Th' Little Daisies' a couple of years back, are there any plans to do some more poppier stuff?
"Yeah, definitely. We're working on a record right now that will hopefully be out around February '97 (working title - 'The Mollusc'), so the plan is to follow this one up pretty quickly. We don't want to wait two years before we release something after the country record. I think after 'Push Th Little Daisies' was a hit, people did go back and get the earlier stuff - 'The Pod' has actually been selling really well in the States."
How do you think your material has developed from the early home recordings?
"I think it has gotten a lot more melodic, it's not so much punk rock anymore, and as well as becoming better musicians, we're playing better. Though in a lot of ways it's a lot more fucked up than it used to be, it's like we've taken our neuroses and expanded them into our music - it's a good thing I think! We've still got a big backlog of material and hopefully we're going to put out a box set someday, because I think there's about 4 CDs worth of music that you've never heard. Myself and Mickey (aka Dean Ween) have been friends since 1984, and we started writing together in 1985, so 'God Ween Satan' was a culmination of all that from 1985 -1990, but there's a lot of stuff left over."
Former Shimmy Disc/ Bongwater supremo Kramer was closely involved with your early days - do you still see him?
"Oh jeez... I haven't seen him in a couple of years, I really don't know what he's up to. Last time I saw him was at a Blondie show and it was pretty cool actually - he was there with Penn Gillette (as in Penn and Teller's magic show, and the man behind 50,000,000,000,000 Watts of Power records, who released a lot of Half Japanese stuff - trivia ed) and we were hanging out - quite a rock n roll night! That was like two and a half years ago and I haven't seen him since."
Tell me about Ween's Moist Boys offshoot - who is involved with that?
"That's mainly Mickey and his friend Guy, he's the lyrical genius behind the Moist Boys. I'm just their photographer, I'm also Jack Pratt who does the liner notes. They have a new record coming out, it's pretty awesome too, really hardcore, it's on the Beastie Boys Grand Royal label."
So what sort of music are you currently listening to?
"Just lately I've been listening to a lot of Snoop Doggy Dogg. I listen to all kinds of stuff, right now I'm really into this Jerry Garcia bootleg of him at the Oregon State Prison in 1980, but I just move on from CD to CD, I have hundreds of them to listen to."
What would you say to people who say "Oh, Ween's humour is a bit too sick"? I'm thinking mainly of 'Spinal Meningitis' and 'The HIV Song' on the last album.
"We don't get as many complaints as we thought we would. I'll accept that it's probably pretty tough for some people to sit down and listen to 'Spinal Meningitis' - I don't know if I'd be able to handle it if I wasn't in Ween (he laughs)! I gotta say I don't blame them for not listening to it, go listen to something nice - I'm not gonna make anyone listen to 'Spinal Meningitis'. It's tough."
Do you have any time for other bands who use humour in music?
"Yeah, I guess. I liked Zappa up until he got cynical. I used to listen to lot of Barnes and Barnes (of 'Fishheads fishheads, roly poly fishheads' fame), their records are really intense. Back in the early days we listened to more but now we don't listen to that much joking music - funny music kinda pisses me off. It's really easy to fuck it up and become a cynical prick and start singing with a goofy voice."
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