Ween: flying high without a flight plan

From Portland Press Herald, written by Jonathan Cohen.

The duo has built a solid following with a range of music so wide and unpredictable that even they don't know what they'll do next.

Every Ween album seems calculated to be a little different, to make people take notice and say, "That's odd."

"Chocolate & Cheese" (1994) paid its homage to 1970s funk and soul. The 10-song album "12 Golden Country Greats" (1996) is stacked with profanity-laced hillbilly music. And Ween's seventh studio al bum "White Pepper," due in stores Tuesday is a Beatles-esque tribute to flowery pop.

So, can we assume that the two men behind Ween Mickey Melchiondo and Aaron Freeman, who perform under the stage names Dean Ween and Gene Ween - work hard at redefining their sound with each new album and plotting new ways to catch listeners off-guard?

"No, I can't stress enough that we have no idea what we're doing, ever," said Melchiondo, 29, who founded Ween with his school pal Freeman in the mid-1980s. "We have no goal, no plan. We're way too lazy for that."

Maybe that's why the college kids love Ween's eclectic, experimental pop-rock. The band will play for a college crowd Saturday, at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. Five lesser-known bands will also perform, in an all-day AIDS benefit.

Ween's Freeman and Melchiondo met when they were in the sixth grade in New Hope, Pa., north of Philadelphia. They were among the kids in school who preferred music to sports, and they spent time browsing record stores and listening to college radio stations.

Around 1984, while still in high school, the two boys began hanging around the radio station at Trenton (N.J.) State College and eventually got on the air there, playing all manner of pop, punk and rock. They began writing and recording songs. Melchiondo had a guitar and drums;

Freeman had a keyboard and a bass. "Throughout high school, we were making these noisy home recordings.

We just kind of learned to play as we went along," said Melchiondo, who along with Freeman still lives in New Hope. "By the time we graduated school, we were prepared to just get an apartment and play music.

The duo played clubs around New Hope and Trenton, and sold cassettes of their music. Their musical tastes changed from punk to Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and funk. So, when people tell Melchiondo that Ween's new album has a noticeable Beatles' influence, he doesn't flinch.

"Any songwriter who says they don't like the Beatles well, either don't believe them or their music
isn't very good," Melchiondo said. Less than a year out of high school, Ween signed with TwinTone Records in Minneapolis and made a 20-song debut album called "GodWeenSatan: The Oneness." Today, five albums later, Ween has a reputation for pushing the pop music envelope with profane lyrics and experimenting with a variety of musical genres.

The reputation for profanity doesn't really carry to the latest album, "White Pepper." The album bears a "parental advisory" sticker, even though none of the songs use vulgar language. Melchiondo said the band earned the sticker because of "Bananas and Blow," a Caribbean-flavored song that mentions cocaine.

"We didn't make a conscious effort to not have obscenities," Melchiondo said. "We just didn't use them this time. But sometimes you can really drive a point home using them. People listen."

Melchiondo wouldn't say whether the band will or won't use more profanity in the future. That would be planning. He's way too lazy for that.

"The only thing we make a conscious effort to do is to not repeat ourselves," he said. "So far we've never been guilty of that."