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Hello, listeners.
Welcome to Music is My Life, a podcast from Berklee Online.
My name is Pat Healy, and I would like you to take note of our guest
for this edition.
If you could please state your name, sir.
My name is Michael Melchiondo.
And it's really-- it's a great last name because I know when it's
a solicitor on the phone immediately.
When they start struggling I just hang right up.
Now, If that name does not ring a bell it's
because he's known professionally by his stage name of Dean Ween.
One half of the band Ween, obviously.
Who for nearly 30 years along with Gene Ween, whose real name is Aaron Freeman,
have been releasing into the world of a very unique style of music.
Is it silly?
Sometimes.
Is it serious?
Sometimes.
Is it strange?
Sometimes.
Is it awesome?
Most times.
And some of this was on a major label.
Deaner, as he is also known, is currently
touring with the Dean Ween Group which features all of the touring
members of Ween minus Gener.
And the Dean Ween Group have an album called Rock2 coming out on March 16th.
The full lineup of Ween has also recently announced
their first show of the summer at Red Rocks in Colorado on June 5th.
Melchiondo and Freeman met in 1984.
Adopting the Ween surname in their early teenage years.
But Melchiondo's love of music began a few years earlier than that thanks
to his father.
The first things I really remember were my dad's records.
My dad didn't have a big record collection, but the records that he had
are so cool looking back.
He went into the Navy in like 1960.
Then when he came out, I guess after whatever
was, two years or four years or--
He met my mom, got married, all that.
But he just totally ignored the British movement, like of music.
Like he was so into soul music and doo-*** and then old
country and then funk.
So there was-- It was very--
his record collection-- very tasty actually.
But there was no Zep or the Kinks or The Beatles.
He did have Sergeant Pepper, that was a big one.
So anyway, that's kind of my first taste of--
The first things I remember-- he would sing a lot of like old Hank Williams,
the real Hank Williams to us, and Bob Wills
and Texas Playboys and George Jones and Merle Haggard and Willie
and that kind of thing.
And then he had records by Parliament.
But he just had this really diverse record collection,
but it was kind of like he grew up a Philly Jersey doo-*** nut.
And then like by the time raising kids he resumed with Cool and the Gang
and Parliament, stuff like that.
So really weird.
So that's my first memory and then rock and roll--
There was a family down the street that had like five kids, this Irish family,
and they all took turns babysitting me.
And they had record collections.
They were teenagers and they turned me on to--
I remember hearing Ziggy Stardust.
I remember hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd One More From the Road, the live record.
I remember hearing Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and The Beatles.
The Beatles was the first thing that really turned me out.
Like the Beatles it still--
always has been my favorite band, always will be my favorite band.
That *** just like turned me out.
I had a wiped out copy of Sergeant Pepper's and then
I got those two greatest hits records, the double record, the red one.
The red and blue.
Yeah, the red one. '62 to '66 and then the '67 to '72 or '70.
And it and had the lyrics, if you remember on the original sleeves,
and that stuff man, that was just like an endless--
I think when you're a kid like mystery is like a really big thing in rock
and roll.
It should be mysterious and dangerous.
And the Beatles man those lyrics--
the lyrics to like I Am the Walrus and of course their voices
on the older stuff.
That was really what kind of like turned me out.
And them-- I'm just gonna keep rambling if you don't mind.
Yeah, go for it.
To answer this question properly I have to.
And then it's a shame it doesn't really happen anymore
as far as I can tell, but the radio--
the radio was huge.
I mean growing up in the '70s and '80s the radio was everything.
That's where-- I'd listen to The Dr. Demento Show religiously.
So did Aaron when he was a kid.
That was a big part of the weird things later on.
And The King Biscuit Flower Hour doing whole concerts.
I guess those are my roots.
And later on I went on to find my real influences after that,
but that's the original stuff.
After that I just became all about the funk and all
about the guitar for a long time.
Bob Dylan.
Very, very classic standard normal tastes.
Zeppelin, Hendrix, Carlos, P-Funk, The Beatles, The Stones.
And I don't think your influences ever change really.
I think that *** is over when you're like 16 or 17.
You're always going to go back to those records.
Yeah.
And was it a bonding thing with you and your dad or was it just kind of you
raiding his collection?
It was a bonding thing, but not nearly compared to what it is now.
Because I know his--
I know what he's going to like and he knows what I'm going to like.
And surprisingly enough my mid '70s father
sent me a YouTube video of something that I've never heard that's so funky.
It's like pretty amazing actually because he's not a musicologist
by any means.
I doubt he has an iTunes account, you know what I mean?
Right.
Did anybody else in your family play?
No.
That's the other really strange thing is I have two halves of my family.
My mother is Canadian.
So I really didn't grow up--
Obviously I never lived in Canada and I never really
was nearly as close with that half of my life
as I was with my Trenton Italian family.
And everybody named Melchiondo has great, great taste in music,
has incredible sense of rhythm and appreciates
and buys and goes to see live music, but no, I'm
the only player as far as I know.
And when did that start?
That started in around '84 when I met Aaron.
Oh, so you hadn't been playing on your own at all?
You just--
I had.
The way that started was I--
My father was a used car dealer, he's retired now,
but he had a car lot down and in Trenton and there
was a music store across the street.
And I was really flipping out on everything at once.
I was just taking in everything.
So I got him to buy me like a crappy pawn shop like $25 guitar
and I just tuned the strings so they would make a chord.
I didn't know how to actually play it.
I got a drum set first and then I got the guitar.
So I was making these like--
I'd take a tape recorder down in the basement, play a drum beat
and then take it upstairs and while I was overdubbing it to another cassette
I'd played guitar over it.
And then in--
So just like boom box to boom box?
Yeah, pretty much.
I'm guessing it's pre four track.
No, no, no.
It was-- No the four track didn't come into play until surprisingly
like five years later.
Even though they were available then I just didn't know it.
Right.
So how old were you at this point?
I was 14.
OK.
Maybe 13.
But I mean Aaron when I was 14.
And it turns out he was doing exactly the same thing with more like Casios
and the built in beats from the Casios.
And it was like a little weirded.
I hate to just make Ween sound so simple,
but I mean at first I was like the punk rock nut.
I was just getting into the--
I was looking for the most abrasive hardest music that
was out there no matter what it was.
And he was into the weirdest stuff out there no matter what it was.
Yeah.
And there was stuff where we met on common ground.
We both loved Devo very much.
We both loved Laurie Anderson O Superman.
We both loved The Dr. Demento Show.
His father was a hippie.
His father was at Woodstock, OK.
My father was probably the guy that would *** throw rocks at hippies.
So there was--
Aaron's dad didn't have a lot of records either, but between the cool ones
that I had and the cool ones he had it was--
that's kind of what Ween is.
He had everything from Nina Simone to the first two Velvet Underground
records to Richie Havens Alarm Clock to--
I mean everything, Beefheart.
And so those influences together that's kind of like what we--
And then we turned each other on to music as it was coming out.
And were you guys teaching yourselves, like going straight up punk rock ethics
or were you taking lessons as well?
No, no no.
It was totally-- totally taught ourselves everything.
That didn't come till a little bit later or a way bit later actually.
For a while it was just drums and that guitar tuned to an open chord.
It didn't matter how many strings were even on it.
I just tuned it to whatever chord and that was the chord.
I'd play it with my thumb across all the frets so it would move around.
And then I think it took a year or more to get a bass, a pawnshop kind of bass.
And then like one day we wrote that song You *** Up.
It's the first song on our first record.
And it actually had a verse and chorus.
That was like our first--
I think that's one of our first if not our first song songs.
By that time I was--
just, I thought I was the only one in the world of course,
like only a teenager would, know about Jimi Hendrix.
Yeah.
Like, oh this is a secret only I know about.
And then from there Zep and then I wanted
to play guitar like really, really bad.
Yeah.
And I had a friend that was willing to teach me.
So I learned a little bit and I showed Aaron what I was learning
and we were figuring it out on our own and you know.
Well, it's so interesting too because that first album it feels
like your sound is already developed.
Yeah.
That stuff it's really, really strange because that--
I mean talking about this sounds really pretentious, but that record--
Our first few records are really kind of-- no one
has ever really gotten it right.
The first record was a studio record.
I mean and there's a huge, huge thing that happened that no one--
I don't know why no one has ever mentioned it,
but everything that we did was with real drums.
Everything from '84 to '90 had real drums on it
because we were living at my parents' house and we were in high school.
We graduated in '88.
They sold the house in like '89 or '90.
We got our own place.
So we did that first record to 16 track tape in Andrew Weiss' living room.
Yeah.
And we got to redo all of like--
The first record was kind of like a greatest hits of the first six years
of Ween.
And it's a rock and roll record.
It sounds like a band.
It's really distorted and it's full on drum kit on almost every single song.
And then we moved.
Then the next two records was when we got the four track
and we were living in this tiny apartment.
And we had to get a drum machine because we couldn't even fit a kit in there
and the neighbors would have gone insane.
So our sound just completely changed from the second and third record.
We went to being a four track--
People started calling us lo-fi and experimental and all that.
But it was just out of necessity like--
Right.
But it never comes up.
People think-- I don't know if they've ever heard the first record
or, but they just think it was done on a four track.
Right.
Well, I was actually particularly talking about like your guitar sound.
It feels like that was developed by the debut.
That lead on--
Yeah.
The lead on LM-- oh however--
you know what song I'm talking about.
Yeah, yeah.
LMLYP.
Like that lead is the Ween, Dean Ween sound I feel.
I mean--
Dude, I'm assuming-- This is for Berklee right, School of Music?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean I don't know--
I don't know--
So I'm assuming you're a musician?
Yes.
Are you a guitarist?
I play guitar, yeah.
Yeah.
Dude, I mean have you ever wondered if you're getting worse?
Like I'm serious and I don't mean that in a way-- because I know
I'm getting better.
I'm positive of it, but I--
I've only wondered when I stagnate, you know?
When I haven't evolved.
Well, yeah.
Yeah, but I hear some of that stuff--
I don't really go back and I'm not very reflective.
I still want to make new music.
But I go back and I listen to some of the stuff
that we did like if it's a live thing from '89, '88,
'87, '90 and it's really *** rad.
The guitar playing is really rad.
And it was almost like--
I almost have to dumb my thing down to get back to that spot.
But you know I mean--
Then you listen to Neil.
Neil has never played better guitar than he has in the third chapter of his life
you know what I mean?
Yeah
Or whatever chapter he's in.
He's playing the best guitar of his life.
Prince was easily playing the best guitar of his life year
after year you know what I mean?
It's only got better.
And I'm not really a fan, but I'll say it Clapton's playing--
but I'm not a Clapton fan.
I never really was.
And Carlos, even though he's making these pop singles and all,
Carlos rules.
Carlos is shredding.
I know I've got more skill and more knowledge, more game now, but--
But it was like at that point you had already figured out like,
OK I like a phaser, I like distortion, I like wah.
A phaser, a wah-wah and an echo, that's still what I use.
That's it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty much it, but then there's other people.
Like you listen to like Ritchie Blackmore.
I see him even from like the mid to late '70s
and he can't play the solo from Highway Star you know?
Like he just can't play that fast or that whatever and it's like--
But you gotta keep yourself scared.
You gotta keep challenging yourself.
Right.
Like ugh you know.
But I'll deconstruct if I need to.
And was it always the Strat for you from the very get go?
It was after that pawnshop guitar?
Yes.
It absolutely was and is.
I have like 40 or 50 guitars, but I mean my thing is so simple.
It's really funny like--
I wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix.
That was to me, to this day--
I mean from the first day and to this day that's the greatest guitar
player in the world.
There's no argument that can be made for anybody else in a close second
you know what I mean?
And so I wanted to know what he had.
So it was like OK, a Strat, a wah-wah and a loud amp.
That's all I needed to know and as it turns out
my friend Billy Tucker who taught me to play guitar played exactly that.
So I never changed.
I just like started there and Tucker played it too
and these were the gauge strings he bought,
and this was the gauge picks he used, and this was the kind of guitar
and I just have never really--
I've tried other stuff, but that's my thing now at this point.
Right, right.
There's no backing away from it.
Right.
It would almost be weird if you switched now.
I mean I do--
I've got a really nice Alembic guitar now.
Like a really beautiful one they made for me.
It's probably the nicest guitar I've ever played in the whole world.
But I can borrow anybody's Strat from any year
in any condition made in any country.
It could be Japanese, Mexican, vintage, custom shop and I can go to an amp
and without even it being on turn the dials,
kick that thing on and know exactly what's going to come out of it
you know what I mean?
That's my ***.
The strat, yeah.
So let's back up a tiny bit.
With those first three albums at one point did you know it was a career
and you knew that this was--
Never.
Never?
I'm still waiting for people to figure out
that we don't know what the hell we're doing
at all to be honest with you, but--
Well, I remember I first saw you guys on I
think it was the Chocolate and Cheese tour in like Providence
and it was a small room.
And I think that was your first tour with a band right?
Yeah, yeah.
That might have been the second show.
We played Maxwell's the night before, it was the very first
and then that was the second one.
It was great, but it was just interesting
because there were some songs that band would sit out because they--
Yeah.
That was the last time we did that too.
Really?
So when Ween went through this thing where
Ween was so closely identified as the two of us
and the tape deck you know what I mean?
Going to see us live was not going to see
like a rock concert like in any other--
I don't think you could've compared us to anything because it was just
the two of us and a cassette deck of me playing the real drums on it.
Yeah.
In the back so when we went and made that record
it was very slick sounding for us, first of all,
and we were very insecure about it.
It was like really--
not in a sell out way, but just sort of like a change, a dramatic change
from the sort of vibe that we'd established
with the second and third one.
So to go out with a live band it was like--
I mean I think I still have close friends that
believed that like that was it for Ween when we went to a real band.
Really?
And that was like 30 years ago now, but--
That's funny.
I remember from that show it was interesting there was this guy there
who was just yelling like, "Chocolate and Cheese is a great *** album."
And that was he yelled between songs.
And it was not that well attended which is surprising.
It was interesting because it felt like that
was almost the affirmation-- like he almost
perceived the insecurities of the band or something and he just yelling that.
Yeah.
That was-- See now, that was like--
That's a really funny show.
I don't think-- I'm positive I've never met anybody that was there.
I remember that I wanted to kill myself after that show.
Really?
I loved it.
I thought it sucked so bad, but we were going through an identity crisis.
And like I said, I have an elephant's memory,
but I remember playing Voodoo Lady that night with the backing
tracks behind us and like something else.
We played a couple of songs like that.
And it was just totally like a sign of weakness.
It was like we weren't committed completely.
And within like two or three weeks of that
we were playing three hour concerts like the Ween of today, you know I mean?
Yeah.
We just totally ditched it, abandoned it, never had that insecurity again.
Just those first few shows and it was like, screw that.
All these songs that had always been exactly a minute and 30 seconds--
like played I Got a Weasel the same way for like seven years up to that point
--could now become 30 minute songs.
And we were having such a ball figuring out how to do it.
And then it just got like from there it just got way, way, way over the top.
Like I said three, four hour concerts.
So you saw you saw something that was like a three
hour like transition phase.
Right.
Right.
And it's interesting too like coming from such a punk rock background and I
had a punk rock background as well and watching
that show it was really exciting to see the possibilities of what two
people can do and what a band can do.
And then it was interesting too--
I think it was The Mollusk tour or it was
after that or maybe later on Chocolate and Cheese
seeing you guys and watching like jam kids were coming out.
I kind of forget that it was something so weird at first for us
when that happened because now it's so ordinary,
but it's like the last thing in the world you would expect
would be to play on a bill with Moe and Phish and *** like that.
But we had the stuff in common.
We actually jam and I mean I'm not going to name names,
but I'm just going to dis every single band on that scene at once.
I mean jamming is Deep Purple Made in Japan.
I mean, that's jamming.
They're rocking out.
Yes.
They're jam-- Crimson.
It rocks, but it jams, but it's in the context of a song.
It's not just all the jam.
And plus it has no teeth.
A lot of that stuff doesn't rock at all.
Well, I haven't found anything that really rocks.
I mean the Allman Brothers are a jam band, the Grateful Dead jam,
Deep Purple jammed.
Right.
Carlos jammed.
James Brown jammed, you know ***.
But you can't just start off with a jam.
I mean if you're going to do a 20 minute song
and it's preplanned, well that's *** right there.
Like I'm always waiting for that moment where the distortion kicks in.
Yeah.
Like 10 minutes into the solo all of a sudden the flanger and the distortion
and then you get the Echoplex and you're freaking out on acid
and like fists are in the air.
it just doesn't happen.
It doesn't happen.
I think that's where we come.
Right.
Right.
So throughout that period when you're going in Chocolate and Cheese
and you're on Elektra.
The previous album was on Elektra.
That's big at the time and are you at that point realizing this is a career
or are you still just--
The only time that I ever realized that I had a career honestly was--
and this is totally true.
I pumped gas six days a week and Aaron worked at the taco place.
And we never got paid for anything and I never expected to
and I don't like when bands play my local bar
and they expect to get a couple hundo or something like forget it.
Like don't assume if you're coming in--
If you get some-- a couple of bucks that's great at that point.
But we made we had made God Ween Satan and we made The Pod
and we got a publishing deal.
Warner/Chappell for a whopping $3,000 advance,
which we had to split and pay the IRS, which of course we
didn't set any money aside for them.
So I 1,500 and I was like, man, I'm a working musician.
I mean I was like--
That's the best check I ever got in my life, actually
was that first check, that publishing check.
And we had just signed away like 150 songs
for like 20 years for three grand.
Yeah.
But we got it all back eventually.
All that *** expired.
But I mean that's--
I think that's the first time--
I quit the job at the mobile station because we had obligations on the road.
And my boss was so happy for me and it was--
He was the man in Pumpin' for the Man, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I mean, I think that was when I felt like I was like really like working.
I don't know.
I mean, I say things in interviews--
Aaron does it to.
Maybe you lie to yourself or you remember it--
you hear about it from other people, then you start to remember it that way.
Like how it really was.
I mean, how it really was was like no thought went into anything.
It was just go, go, go.
But when we are 18--
What does any 18-year-old at a high school want to do?
We wanted to record and we wanted to tour.
We wanted to travel.
And our first tour right when we got out of high school with God Ween Satan
was Europe.
I mean, what the ***?
That was--
I guess, when did you guys realize that, hey, oh my god we really do
have a unique offering in our combination of songs that
are really good, songs that are serious, songs that are silly,
songs that are making fun of other bands?
Well, honest to God I mean--
and I wish I had more of it in me now.
I know that every band has it at that age of your life.
I was so positive that I was in the greatest band of all time
in the history of all recorded music.
Better than Bach and The Beatles.
And we sucked at that point, but I felt that way
for a really, really long time.
And it was just righteousness-- young righteousness.
I thought we were punker than anybody.
But that is a great thing.
And then later on when you grow up or whatever the expression is you find out
or you realize that you're just part of like the eternal song that's
been going on forever you know I mean?
We're all contributing to it.
It's not right to--
If you don't like some other band's music--
I'm really guilty of it --you shouldn't dis on them you know I mean?
Yeah.
Because if it get somebody off out there.
If they have fans and it gets them off who am I to spoil it for them and say,
no that blows.
But don't mistake what I'm saying that we don't have that righteousness.
We're just not as *** obnoxious about it.
Well, with the way you guys have made fun of bands
in songs it's always seemed like--
Oh no, no, no.
That's not what I mean.
That's not what I meant.
Oh, no.
I know.
I'm talking about in the press.
I was pivoting.
Yeah, I'm talking about in the press.
I don't think Ween has ever been guilty of making fun of a band on a song.
And if we are it's so obscure that it would go over so many people's heads.
Like--
Right.
Well, I guess the tributes.
The humor is tributes like Gabrielle being Thin Lizzy or--
But it's not though.
I mean, the way that song went down.
If I remember it correctly I wrote that song.
I just discovered Thin Lizzy probably that week.
Yeah.
And so I *** listened to nothing but that and I wrote that song.
And that's about as much thought as went into that you know what I mean?
There was no whatever about it.
There's no-- I don't even--
We had to answer that kind of question for so many years.
Right.
And we don't anymore, which is great.
It's like, what--
Sorry.
What are these guys--
No, no, no.
It's OK.
But what are these guys' intentions?
Right.
They're trying to do--
No.
I mean I always--
They're trying to do everything you know I mean?
It's like well, where in the rulebook, if there is a rulebook,
says that you can't do everything?
Right.
I mean, I always took it to be a tribute, like Old Man
Thunder being kind of a Seger tribute.
Yeah.
It's like a little thing.
It's just like a little--
put it on there.
I'm glad it's on there.
Well, with the Dean Ween Group project what--
Well, I guess what's different aside from the obvious in Aaron being absent?
Well, it's not a project.
It's very much its own thing.
I fully intend on making records.
That's how I'm making them forever until I can't anymore.
I mean, just the obvious thing is that I have to do everything myself
which I hate.
It's starting to really get old.
I'm actually recording with Kurt Weill.
He's going to walk in any minute.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
Yeah we just started recording together.
That's so funny.
The last episode was Charlie Hall from War On Drugs so he's--
Kurt Weill's been such a weird character in our podcast.
There's a lot of synergy there.
Yeah.
We interviewed Jen Cloher, who's Courtney Barnett's partner,
and they were on tour together.
Kurt Weill walks in the middle of that podcast taking a shower.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm just learning about all this.
I just met Kurt when we did Bonnaroo last year so--
Oh, cool.
But we both live right in the same area and he's
a really nice dude and a cool vibe and we love the same records.
And I knew immediately we'd be able to play together and write together.
That's great.
So we have been and it went way better than either of us
could have expected so now we're all over it.
But you know Ween is--
I hate [? compression. ?] Ween and Dean Ween and Moistboyz-- everything
I've ever done is totally DIY.
I mean, I have engineered, produced, recorded, played, written, sang, mixed,
mastered every single note and that's so much work.
Then you have a business side of music that no one
needs to know about if you're a music fan you know what I mean?
But that takes up 90% of what I--
If Ween is 100% of Ween 10% of it is me making music.
90% is me on the phone making *** right.
And so when it comes to the music thing to have
to motivate myself to go to the studio alone and sit there alone all night
and see a song through.
I can do it.
I mean I've been doing it my whole life, but I really
love bouncing ideas and collaborating and I
guess that's the biggest difference.
Right.
Right.
Well, also with Ween I didn't--
Ween we never thought of things as a band when we were recording it.
The adaptation for the stage was a whole different animal.
And I think I'm working so much with a band now that I really like it.
I maybe subconsciously think of things.
I'm starting to think more in terms of the stage and I love it.
Because right now that's the only way to make a living as a musician, touring.
Right.
You never got record royalties even 30 years ago so now you--
Well, I guess the Ocean Man commercial, whatever that was,
must have helped out, right?
Oh, yeah man that made us like a whopping 6,200
bucks I think before commissions.
Oh, that's it?
Something like.
Yeah.
Oh, man I thought that was everywhere.
*** that, man.
No.
Like a Rock by Bob Seger made a lot of money.
Ocean Man for one week it was on for Honda, no.
Right.
I don't even--
Right.
How is the dynamic of like the Dean Ween Group
and then when Aaron comes back into the fold?
Is it just like seamless or--
I don't really want to go into that very much.
It's not any different really.
I mean we learned to play together.
We learned everything you know I mean?
We are on exactly the same page when we step on the stage and it's--
Especially the Dean Ween Group is--
most of the guys or all of the guys are from Ween.
Right.
Right.
So if anything I like to kick back and not have to sing as much.
Right.
Right.
I love both.
I'm getting the best of everything right now in my mind.
That's great.
I love it.
What do you make of all this?
You've been doing this for 30, 40 years, right?
34 years.
Yeah.
You're not going to believe me.
No one believes me so I don't even know if I should say it,
but I don't do anything any differently.
Honestly.
I mean, we've got nicer gear.
I'm better at writing and better at playing, better at performing,
but I approach it the same exact way.
I don't take away any sense of pride or a better way
to say it is I don't reflect at all.
I feel like, and I know I can speak for Claude and most of my friends
that play, I'm only as good as the last song I wrote or the last gig I did.
Yeah.
That's how I feel about it.
Hold on sec.
I think Kurt's here.
Can we wrap it up?
Yeah, we'll wrap it up.
I guess the last thing is just what's the song that you enjoy
playing the most after all these years?
The song I enjoy playing the most is Roses Are Free,
the one that Phish covers and the one that like people that
have no idea what the hell they're talking about on the internet assume
is like something--
if we play on a jam festival they think it's some calculated thing.
I love the song first of all, but I love it because every single guy in the band
is doing something different and is playing full tilt the whole song.
It's like the ultimate sound check song.
It's like everybody is doing something tasty at the same time
as hard as they can and it makes this one big beautiful sound.
So that's actually my favorite song to play live, is roses are free.
The one that started the whole the Phish jam band thing.
Yeah.
And this is where I would play you an excerpt of the Roses are Free by Ween,
but I'll leave it to you to seek that out and enjoy on your own
the music of Ween and the Dean Ween Group.
Rock2 is out on March 16th on Schnitzel Records.
Special thanks to Juan Camilo Sarassa, [? Nora ?] [? Torel, ?] Chandler
Martin, Andrew [? Walls, ?] Gabriel Ryfer Cohen and thanks to you
for listening.
Stay tuned for a new exciting serial podcast from Berklee Online coming soon
and I will talk to you next month.