Shit Howdy Stranger,
Mosey On Down An' Chaw Some Ween

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Reminds me of my little sweet patootie. Her ass is so big it could shelter Texas in a Hurricane. She's got big ol' Dolly P's but she's about as givin' as a Death Valley cow pie. One night a month ago when I was drinkin' kickapoo joy juice straight outta the jug I said, "Cow! Time we got some milk outta you." And I dragged her kickin' and screamin' out to the milker and hooked her up. Got a quart an' half 'fore the cops came.

Anyhow this record is so loaded with down-home beans it had me fartin' harder than a thunderin' herd o' mad-brain cattle. I Don't Want To Leave You On The Farm is a song singin' straight to my heart. "Days go by / And I'm still high / But you know I'm thinking about you / Corns turn brown / Leaves fall to the ground / It's a sound that reminds me of you/ It's a sound that sticks like glue."

I don't know how many times I've had to just "keep truckin' and gettin' myself stoned." It's a motto for any Marlboro man.

Scrape The Mucus Off My Brain is a sad tale about the whiskey drinkin' man we all know. " I guess it's somethin' in my brain/ I need whiskey to ease the pain /I think I spent the dog food money / But he'll love me just the same / And if you really love me baby you'll help my scrape the mucus off my brain / It's a shame when morning hurts / I've seen bad I've seen worse / It's the nature of my bein' / I stole the money from your purse." It's a song about how every woman should stand by her man in times of thick and thin, and how it's her moral responsibility to get a job washin' dishes or something if her man's outta luck.

And that final song about his faithful dog Fluffy poopin' on the porch. I know, I know the betrayal of a dog, hurts you more than any woman ever could. There are men who have punched me and kicked me and stabbed me, but how could you Fluffy? How could you?

-- Unsolicited review of Ween's new album, name withheld by request. The following interview with Dean Ween (aka Mickey Melchiondo) was conducted by Wesley Joost and Jon Randall.

Goblin: What did you have for dinner?

Mickey Melchiondo: I had chicken, asparagus, cous cous. It was pretty wonderful.

Goblin: Could you put your finger on the cous cous? If my Michael Jackson is the King Of Pop what does that make you in the Hierarchy?

Mickey: I don't know where we fit in, I don't think I should think about it actually. We started Ween when we were in Junior High School and it was the two of us then and we were working pretty similar to the way we work now. It got pretty good when we were in 11th and 12th grade and we were playing shows then. It was a little bit more of a band but we never sent tapes to anyone or tried very hard to get shows. And then we got signed to "Twin Tone" right after High School.

Goblin: How do you go about writing the songs -- does somebody come up with a tune and the other person writes the words?

Mickey: It changed a little bit. We used to not write songs really. Now if you listen to the country record or Chocolate and Cheese, they're songs with verses and choruses -- where we used to really kick it. We would have a title in mind, or a cool beat, or a riff, and occasionally we would write a song like you would imagine a song writer guy with a notebook and a guitar. Now we work a lot together in the same way in the studio. It usually starts with a good title and we form the idea around that. And we write individually, I'll write at home and bring it to him and vice versa. There's no real system, although now I notice we write actual songs. Like Little Birdy the first song from Pure Guava is a good example of a jam. We just jammed and let it fly until we laid down the vocal track. The song writing goes 50/50. There are songs that I write and he ends up singing and songs that he writes that I end up playing. It's totally free.

Goblin: Do you criticize each other much or is it pretty much co-operative?

Mickey: It's kind of amazing, with him and I, and even Andrew Weiss and Claude (Coleman) our drummer -- where we all pretty much see eye to eye on music. I don't ever recall Aaron ever being into a CD that I go, "What are you thinking, that sucks." We know when we're suckin' and we know when we're happenin'.

Goblin: Do you argue much personally?

Mickey: We don't even have to be together long to get on each others nerves. Our friendship is pretty intense as you can imagine. From about eighth grade until High School we basically didn't spend a moment away from each other. At that point in '88 we moved in with each other. Aaron was living with me at that summer at my folks house. Then they sold the house and we moved into the Pod and were there for a couple of years. So we know each other so well that in a sense we are brothers. There's a lot of things we don't have to communicate to each other verbally. We also know on that same level to avoid arguing -- to cut past it and get right to the meat of the matter. I don't trust anyone over him and vice versa -- and we love each other. That's the best thing about having a band that has two guys in it, I can't imagine that happening among five people. With the both of us it's much easier to keep our shit together.

Goblin: What kind of background do you come out of? I know Aaron's father is a psychiatrist. Are your parents comfortable?

Mickey: I come from a whole family of used car dealers actually. All my uncles and my father and my grandfather and even his brothers. I guess me and my cousins will be the first generation that aren't used car dealers.

Goblin: Are they supportive?

Mickey: They are. They are extremely supportive. I don't know when it occurred to them that we were pretty good. Like I said, when we were in the ninth grade we were horrible. We had the four track and we were basically getting fucked up on drugs all the time and making racket constantly. Back then that's what it basically was. And when we got better everything just took off. And they're so into it, especially when they see us pop up in a newspaper or Beavis & Butthead. But it wasn't like in eighth grade they said, "Oh Mickey, you have to follow your dream."

Goblin: You sing songs about working at gas stations and Mexican restaurants. We assumed you must have personal experience. Were you slumming it for a period? Mickey: Yeah, at the Pod. There was a period between when my parents moved and his parents threw him out that I pumped gas six days a week and he worked at El Pollo Loco, and we were slummin' it. But I haven't had to work since '91. But at the time all we gave a shit about was Ween. It wasn't really torture or nothing. Aside from The Pod, and Pure Guava, we did thousands of songs in that apartment. Goblin: With the epic Buenos Tardes Amigos and Pollo Asado -- is there a Mexican motif to your music?

Mickey: With Pollo Asado I just laid down this jam, and he got on the mike after work at the Pollo Loco and just let it go. I love that stuff -- I love that bad cheesey Mexican angle that we always go for. I wish I could tell you some bullshit story but no, we always do that.

Goblin: Do you think your thirst for cheese is related to the lounge scene now -- where there's almost this organized love of cheese?

Mickey: No. When we sit down we're not very calculated about what we do, like, "Wouldn't it be funny to do a Mexican song?" We're one of the few bands that will put it on our record. What we do a lot of other people might do but it would never leave their room or rehearsal. But we take it and try to extrapolate on our thing -- to make it the most of what it can be. When we do something we go for the essence of it. I think that basically is what Ween is all about. We don't always try to cop a style. Most of our songs are very unique to us. All those influences are in there too, because we're listeners also. We listen to a lot of records.

Goblin: You're pretty timely with this new record -- Beck and the Butthole Surfers are also doing Country & Western.

Mickey: I don't know what we did with this record. I think we were being naive in a way and now we have to live with it. As a listener, bands that I grew up loving like P-Funk or Elvis Costello are bands that put out two, three, four records a year -- and we're a band that can do that. We never have really exploited our right to do it. And we could. When we put out Pure Guava we could have put out three records from that same time. And we recorded 50 songs for Chocolate and Cheese and shit-canned them all.

With this record we were already making our album that's going to come out next -- our new record is done. We wrote like six country songs and we figured, instead of putting six country songs on our record, let's write six more and put out a country record in Nashville. And it never occurred to me we hadn't put out an album in one and a half years. So now I'm doing all these interviews and everyone thinks we've "gone country." It's basically just a Ween record in Nashville. And when we've done like fifteen albums this will just be a piece of the picture. For now we only have five albums so it's kind of fucked up.

The other thing that has bothered me about doing this record, is that a lot of people are kind of confused and think that we're a parody band. I don't think that they know our music or understand us enough to know that our country record is a great record. We just annoy the shit out of them, so they think our record in Nashville is a comedy album.

Goblin: You have a reputation for having a great sense of humor, and a lot of bands don't have any humor at all, so it's relative.

Mickey: Yeah, but we pay the price for it. I don't mean to sound down on it but I really, truly don't give a shit at all. I would rather people liked us than not like us, and I would rather get good review than bad reviews.

Goblin: We've read a bit about how you like to write and perform on mushrooms -- why do you prefer them to other drugs?

Mickey: I don't prefer anything to alcohol - that's on its own level. I drink pretty much every night, a lot of beer and Jack Daniels. To compare alcohol and pot is kind of tough. Everybody reacts different to anything. I use alcohol and pot in the same way. If I ate as much Mushrooms as I drank beer I wouldn't get off on them because I'd be completely immune. Mushrooms, Tequila, and Pot are a Nobel winning concept; the triple best combination you can ingest.

Goblin: Has it affected your music much -- do you write music much when you're stoned.

Mickey: Yes it super affected us before and no, now. There was a time when I would get up and get high and that was the way I lived and I don't live that way any more. I just couldn't do that anymore. I would just smoke all day until I went to bed. And there wasn't a time for like five years when it wasn't like that. That ain't no good, I don't recommend that to anybody. Then, I thought it was unthinkable that we could write or play when we weren't fucked up or baked. So I won't deny that we made a lot of great music because of that. If you listen to The Pod it is so covered in pot and acid and pills and beer. It's a totally fucked record that reflects where we were then. I was also miserable then, I was totally out of my skull and depressed.

Goblin: Do you get interesting groupies?

Mickey: Not as much as I would like. When I go to other bands' shows it always seems better. Go see Prince and George Michael and there's something to strive for. But then you go see Slayer and its all dudes. We have it pretty good, we have a pretty mixed audience. Everyone wants to get us high or give us some kind of cakes or cookies, and drugs. But there's definitely a picture. I could sit down with a pencil and draw the kid that comes to see us -- it's a terrible person, it's not the kind of person I would want to hang out with. It's this slightly overweight kid who's always high, with a baseball hat on.

Goblin: How do you deal with them?

Mickey: I shouldn't say it, but I've already said it a million times -- I kind of hate them in a way. I try to be nice but there's moments . . . I truly in my heart appreciate them, I realize that without them (and it sounds totally clichˇ but) we're dog shit. These are the kids who buy our records and come to see us. But we don't really consider them that much.

Goblin: What do you do in your spare time?

Mickey: I'm an avid golfer, I play tons of golf. I watch lots of cable, I drink all night and I sit on my computer. I'm a sports junkie.

Goblin: It's rather strange in the HIV song how you have that carnival background with that HIV chorus.

Mickey: It's probably the best song about AIDS that's ever been done. I used to have to answer this question like every single interview. AIDS is sort of like a circus and I think you have to "de-mystify" it. I grew up here in New Hope which is probably the largest Gay community in the north east and I have friends who have AIDS and I know people well who have died of it. I think if you take something like AIDS and put it in the context of music like that you get the most . . . I don't know. You could never hear a song like that and forget it. By saying nothing we've said more.

Goblin: I agree. It creates a real eery feeling that gets you closer to the real feeling of AIDS, the strangeness and the banality of the horror of it.

Goblin: Can you isolate some of the major influences that have worked on Ween's music since you were kids?

Mickey: Yeah. And I would never touch that question in the past because everything with us goes into influencing us; bad music even. I can be watching the weather channel and the music in the background can inspire me. What we really model ourselves after is probably like Prince, the Beatles. . . Anybody who can do it for a long time and then do it more and better and better.

Miles Davis fucked me all up when I was a teenager. Things have changed a lot now with my listening; I used to discover something new ever week that I never heard before. And then immerse myself in just that; and right on the heels of the Beatles I discovered the Clash, Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, Fear, punk rock. In High School I was into Jimi Hendrix and lots of people. But the Butthole Surfers -- Ween would not be half the band without the Butthole Surfers in about '86, '87. That was a band that turned us completely upside down. We played with them right when they were in their prime.

Goblin: What are some of your favorite foods?

Mickey: I've been invited to fancy record parties that served this gourmet bullshit and I don't go for it at all. I'd rather have a veal chop, you know what I mean. Bad food can be great. I eat quarter pounders with cheese, I love them. I can't handle more than one a month but at the time, if it's right, for that $3.50 it tastes like the best thing in the world, so it's all relative. I'm not a food snob, but I don't like it when people take me to places like that, it's inexcusable. I don't want lime and "scholesha" on my one little shrimp.

Goblin: What are your favorite Minor Etruscan Fish Dieties?

Mickey: (garbled)

(JR To WJ: "I told you that wouldn't work!")