Ween

Ween is an American alternative rock band formed in 1984 in New Hope, Pennsylvania by Aaron Freeman (also known as Gene Ween) and Mickey Melchiondo (Dean Ween), both on vocals and guitar.

While Gene and Dean have always been the core of the band, longtime members also include Andrew Weiss on production and bass (from 1987 to 2007), Claude Coleman, Jr. on drums (from 1994 to 2002, and again since late 2002), Glenn McClelland on keyboards (since 1996), and Dave Dreiwitz on bass (since 1997). Prominent associates have included live sound engineer Kirk Miller, bassist and vocalist Chris "Cribber" Williams (Mean Ween), manager, engineer and studio owner Greg Frey, merchandising director and musical collaborator Pat Frey, and vocalist Scott Lowe.

The band were initially active between the years of 1984 to 2012 before breaking up so Gener could focus on his sobriety, before reforming in 2016 and remaining active to 2024, where they announced a hiatus so Deaner could focus on his mental health.

Ween are perhaps best known for their musical flexibility spanning several genres, surrealist low-brow humor, experimental and psychedelic "brown" tendencies, a dense mythology involving the demon god Boognish and various types of food, and a complex amount of unreleased material in addition to their studio output, a portion of which has been unofficially circulated by both fans and certain band members for decades.

Origins and the Early Tapes

Polar Opposites

Dean and Gene Ween didn't know each other well from the start. Although they were both new kids at school, they conflicted completely in taste. Gener recalls that Deaner was a jock archetype, while he was "more of a trenchcoat-wearing guy". Nevertheless, when they were sat next to each other in typing class, they discovered that they were into music, and so started telling each other about the records they owned. Deaner and Gener had both been separately making home recordings by the time they met each other at age 14. Deaner was into abrasive punk rock and had been making homemade recordings using a drum kit and a cheap used guitar his father had bought him from a pawn shop. At one of their first encounters, he gave Gener some Dead Kennedys records and other music like that for him to listen to. Meanwhile, Gener was into the "'weird' stuff" and also made home recordings using the built-in beats on a Casio keyboard (of which some would later be released in 1987 under the Synthetic Socks moniker). Additionally, he had records of Nina Simone, Laurie Anderson, and Prince (the latter of whom Deaner had previously hated and thought was a "big fag"), among others. Despite the different tastes, they found pieces of content that they would find themselves on mutual ground on, for example liking Laurie Anderson's "O Superman", and loving The Dr. Demento Show. Deaner later mentioned in an interview that Gener's father was a hippie who had went to Woodstock, while his was "probably the guy that would throw rocks at hippies".

Gene and Dean's yearbook photos.

After school, the boys would hang at Deaner's house to record music and hear themselves on tape. This was the point where they would name themselves Ween (a combination of "peen" and “wuss”, or “wang”, according to Deaner) and they would start the band in earnest. Ween's earliest material used only drums and guitar – "It didn't matter how many strings were even on it," Dean later said. Deaner would tune the guitar to an open chord and play with his thumb across all the frets. "A year or two" later, they got a bass guitar from a pawn shop. Dean recalled in an interview that "You Fucked Up" may have been the first structured song they ever wrote with a verse and a chorus.

Bird o' Pray

After finding out about the label in a local fan zine, Deaner went through a sustained period of sending indie label Bird o' Pray Records "a [Ween] tape every week" and calling label co-founder Jeff Rusnak "twenty times a day" until Rusnak attended a performance in Deaner's garage. Rusnak soon invited Deaner to the label's headquarters (an apartment in Trenton), advising him to bring all the Ween tapes he had, to which Deaner complied. A compilation of the recordings would subsequently be mixed by label co-founder Andrew Weiss (who would go on to be their longtime producer) and Bill Tucker, with it being released on cassette in 1987 under the name The Crucial Squeegie Lip.

The label would go on to release an additional tape of new material six months later, Axis: Bold as Boognish. Ween's first vinyl release would also be released by the label in 1988, The Live Brain Wedgie!/Wad Excerpts, consisting of both excerpts from a May 2 show in Trenton and songs from their private 1988 demo tape, Wad. Deaner later recalled that the day they picked up the 500 copies of the record to be the "proudest day of [his] life".

The label's final Ween release would be another cassette compilation, 1988's Prime 5, this time consisting of select songs from five of their earliest demo tapes.

The "GodWeenSatan" Era

In 1989, Ween were signed to Twin/Tone Records, where they would record their debut album, GodWeenSatan: The Oneness, releasing it about a year later. Deaner once described it as a "greatest hits" album of Ween's first six years, considering a portion of the songs on the album either originated from or were lifted straight from the several tapes the duo had made up to that point, the oldest track being "You Fucked Up".

Most of GodWeenSatan was recorded in Andrew Weiss' living room studio, the Zion House of Flesh. Like Ween's earlier releases, Deaner played the drums, which were recorded at a studio called "Graphic Sound" by Greg Frey, based in East Amwell, NJ. Additionally, Weiss played bass for the album, marking the beginning of him being a proper member of the band, if only in the studio. A few other tracks for the album would be recorded during their earliest days at the Pod in 1990, including "Birthday Boy" and "Blackjack".

The album would be their only release on Twin/Tone.

The "Pod" Days

The Pod, recorded at the Pod

For the recording of GodWeenSatan's remaining tracks and their next album, Ween moved into a farm that they nicknamed "the Pod". The real farm, Brookridge Farms located on Van Sant Road in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania, was "a large house with about 5 bedrooms and they had a 'revolving door of freaks coming in and out'". The living room was used as a "jam room" and was used by various friends staying or visiting the house. Ween also had a cat staying there, called Mandee. The same place would be where they would record 3,600 hours of tape to be turned into new material for their next albums. Producer Andrew Weiss recalled sifting through the tapes, mixing them, and sequencing onto the new record, The Pod, named after the farm. Due to the compact place and worries of noise complaints, The Pod and the following album Pure Guava mostly had to be recorded with a drum machine rather than acoustic drums. Due to the far more primitive recording methods, the music was of a considerably lower fidelity than GodWeenSatan.

In the liner notes of The Pod, Gener and Deaner claimed that they would huff Scotchgard, a chemical applied to fabric for protection, alleging that in the time that they recorded the album, they had inhaled 5 cans of the chemical, though Gener later backpedaled on this claim and stated it was a fabrication. At some point during the recording of the album, they fell ill to mononucleosis. This harmful experience would eventually be worked out as a song on the album, "Mononucleosis".

A 1991 photo of the setup at The Pod.

Ween was signed to Shimmy-Disc for the album. Deaner once stated label founder Kramer offered them "$2,500 and [a vacation to] Jamaica" in exchange for releasing the album, which they accepted. Three music videos would be the result of the trip to Jamaica, namely of the tracks "Captain Fantasy", "Pollo Asado" and "Pork Roll Egg and Cheese". Shortly after the trip, The Pod would eventually be released in September 1991. Gener and Deaner would ultimately stay in the Pod for a year and 10 months before getting evicted on October 1, 1991 for unknown reasons.

Major Label Days

Using some of the 3,600 hours of material recorded in the Pod, Ween eventually released Pure Guava on November 10, 1992. This was their first release after being signed to Elektra Records, a major record label. This was seen as surprising, as Ween was still a small duo, yet executives at Elektra offered them a 4 album deal, "around $250,000" and total artistic freedom. In a later interview, Deaner recalled himself crying when copies of the discs arrived at their doorstep because he was on the same label as 'The Doors', but they didn't spend any more than two dollars to produce the record, saying they reused demo tapes that miscellaneous bands gave them on the road.

The sole single from Pure Guava, and indeed Ween's first single, "Push th' Little Daisies", released in 1993, gained major exposure after the music video appeared on MTV's Beavis and Butt-head. Furthermore, the single was also their first appearance in mainstream music charts, spending 13 weeks on the Australian ARIA chart, peaking at number 18.

Chocolate, Cheese, and a full band

A proper major label debut

After getting evicted from the Pod, Ween began work on a new album, later christened Chocolate and Cheese, starting with several demos recorded at Graphic Sound studios in the summer of 1992. Two of the demos from these sessions, "Baby Bitch" and "The HIV Song", would be used unaltered on the final album, while a portion of the other demos would be widely circulated by fans as a bootleg.

By the time the Pure Guava Tour was on its last two legs in 1994, Ween had established a live rhythm section consisting of Claude Coleman, Jr., who had played with them before as a guest, on drums and producer Andrew Weiss on bass, mostly eschewing the DAT deck and drum machines they had used for over nine years prior. Coleman, who before then was a member of alternative rock band Skunk, later recalled being introduced to Ween by Weiss and subsequently forming a friendship with the band though sharing the producer, and how Kramer was the one who suggested Ween expand into a band.

Recording for the album proper commenced over a year after the initial demo sessions, in the fall of 1993, and would continue until the spring of 1994. Weiss produced and played bass for the album, while drums were played by Deaner, Pat Frey, and the then-newly recruited Coleman. The recording sessions took place in a rented space in an office park in Pennington, NJ. The album released on September 27th, 1994, and spawned three singles, "Voodoo Lady", "I Can't Put My Finger on It", and "Freedom of '76", with music videos being made for the three.

Almost exactly one month before the release of the album, Ween appeared in the comedy film It's Pat (which shared a director with the music video for "Push th' Little Daisies", Adam Bernstein), appearing as themselves (consisting of Gener, Deaner, Weiss and Weiss' brother, Jon, on drums) and performing two songs, "Pork Roll Egg and Cheese" and "Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)". The film bombed at the box office and was panned by critics.

Z-Rock Hawaii

After Weiss had taken him to see Japanese noise rock band Boredoms twice in 1993, Deaner became a fan of the band and arranged for frontman Yamataka Eye (whose previous band, Hanatarash, had released a song sampling the Pod track "Strap On That Jammy Pac") to have a session with Ween in the studio, with the band at the time being in the process of recording Chocolate and Cheese. The initial sessions consisted of Gene, Dean, Eye and Coleman, with Weiss producing the album, while the second half of the album was recorded by Boredoms back in Japan and had Ween do overdubs. The album was released on September 6th, 1996, under the artist (and album) name Z-Rock Hawaii.

The "12 Golden Country Greats"

Around four months after Chocolate and Cheese's release, the band began writing material for their next album, which they decided to be entirely country music-oriented. After enlisting producer Ben Vaughn, Gener and Deaner created a demo tape with up to 11 songs (including two Chocolate and Cheese outtakes) for Vaughn to pitch to various prominent Nashville session musicians, a decision made after the band realized they could do so with Elektra's album advance.

While some musicians approached declined to work on the album due to the demo's obscenity, the band were ultimately backed by thirteen session musicians for the album, with Gene and Dean only contributing vocals (with the exception of two separate guitar solos on "Fluffy" and "I Don't Want to Leave You on the Farm", respectively) and Weiss and Coleman not appearing. The sessions, recorded at Bradley's Barn, initially produced twelve songs, though due to Vaughn feeling the album was missing a "single", the last day of recording was spent working on the song "Japanese Cowboy", which did not see release as a single but was included on the final album. The album released on July 16th, 1996.

Of the thirteen total songs, three were excluded from the final release ("I've Got No Darkside", "So Long Jerry", and "Boston Chicken"). The album, christened 12 Golden Country Greats in spite of its omissions (though they had initially planned to call it November Nights), produced two singles, "Piss Up a Rope" and "You Were the Fool", the latter featuring "So Long Jerry" as an additional track. Shortly after the album's release, two changes were made to further pressings due to separate legal issues, those being the removal of an unauthorized usage of a Muhammad Ali speech on "Powder Blue" and the addition of a co-writing credit for composer Vangelis on "Japanese Cowboy" due to its similarities with "Chariots of Fire".

The resultant tours spanned late 1996, and featured a few of the session musicians from the album as a backing band dubbed the Shit Creek Boys. In addition to the session players, Coleman returned to playing drums, while Weiss was replaced for the tour by New Hope local musician Matt Kohut in the process of phasing out the former from live performances.

It was also around this time Elektra was experiencing major staff replacements that would negatively affect Ween's relationship with the label, with Deaner later saying the new staff "had no idea what to do with [12 Golden Country Greats]".

The "Mollusk" Days

Cold blows the wind

During the writing process for 12 Golden Country Greats, the band had developed several songs with a more nautical theme, and had in fact considered recording at least one song from the song pool ("Waving My Dick in the Wind") with the Nashville session musicians before making a decision to keep it for their next album.

For some time prior to the recording process of the latter album, Gene and Dean were starting to feel as if the full band lineup was taking some control away from them, especially Weiss (who had become the band's full-time bassist, producer and mentor), and determined that the best move for the band was going back to the two living together in a studio setup similar to the Pod, though with the professional equipment employed on Chocolate and Cheese. This decision would cause intense animosity between the band and Weiss that wouldn't be resolved until several years later. After a period of scouting for beach houses, the two men wound up renting a beach house at the end of the beach due to its isolation during the winter. By the time the 12 Golden Country Greats sessions were underway, the band had already recorded part of their follow-up.

The first song the band recorded for the album was "Cold Blows the Wind", a modified version of a song taken from a songbook of 17th-century songs owned by Gener, recorded during their first night in the beach house. The band would keep recording "day and night" for the next two weeks, recording at least five songs that would appear on the final album during these sessions, including what would ultimately be the title track, "The Mollusk". Deaner would later comment that the aforementioned song, which originated when Gener had sang over a demo of Dean playing acoustic guitar and testing a keyboard module, provided some substantial navigation for the album's direction.

Flooding incident and a new keyboardist

During a brief bout of burnout from the 12 Golden Country Greats and the beach house sessions, the band had refrained from returning to the beach house for a period of weeks. When Deaner returned after that period, he found that the beach house was flooded due to the pipes under the sink having frozen and burst. While the tapes survived, the recording equipment did not, to which Dean later recalled having cried. The band later rented out the beach house for the writing process of two more albums.

After moving whatever was salvageable out of the beach house, the band was determined to complete the record. Deaner rented a house in their native New Hope and recorded at least two songs ("I'll Be Your Jonny on the Spot" and "Pink Eye (On My Leg)") there, a re-recording of "The Mollusk" and "Polka Dot Tail" at Coleman's house, and an additional track, "The Blarney Stone", at Gener's apartment during a party taking place there. After these sessions, Deaner met a jazz keyboardist in a bar by the name of Glenn McClelland, and while the two had different musical backgrounds (McClelland having gotten his start in piano bars and playing with Blood, Sweat & Tears), they soon bonded, with McClelland telling him he was introduced to Ween through Greg Frey playing him "Freedom of '76". Deaner arranged a recording session with Ween and McClelland that resulted in "Boys Club" and "I'm Dancing in the Show Tonight" (the latter of which was taken from one of Deaner's sister's ballet records and featured McClelland's son Charlie on vocals), and McClelland shortly after showed up for a recording of "Booze Me Up and Get Me High". McClelland officially joined the band almost immediately after the sessions proved fruitful and overdubbed various parts of the final album, now christened The Mollusk.

The finishing touches, a new bassist, and release

When the recording of the album ceased, the band returned to Weiss to mix and master the album. Weiss, who still felt animosity towards them, obliged, with Deaner later recalling he "mixed it with hate" and that his work transformed it into a "masterpiece", though the process made Weiss' hatred worse. Meanwhile, Ween commissioned art director Storm Thorgerson, best known for his work as an album artist for Pink Floyd, to create the artwork for The Mollusk. Upon hearing the album, Thorgerson expressed love for the band and amended his contract to state that he wished to do the album art and all promotional material free of charge. Thorgerson's art direction took heavy cues from particularly bizarre sea creatures, with the final album art depicting an amalgamation of said creatures.

On April 7th, 1997, Deaner called up multi-instrumentalist Dave Dreiwitz (whose band at the time, punk rock duo Instant Death, had previously opened for Ween) asking if he wanted to join the band on bass. Dreiwitz accepted, and his first appearance with the band took place five days later, performing "The Golden Eel" on the Comedy Central show Viva Variety. Dreiwitz became their permanent bassist, and the lineup from then on would remain unchanged until their initial breakup.

However, the band was dealing with worsening relations with Elektra during this time. After mastering the album and sending it to Elektra, only to find out the staff had not listened to it for two weeks, Deaner, as he later stated in an oral history, "knew the fucking record was doomed". When the label suggested "Mutilated Lips" be the lead single, Ween's feelings of discontent with the label grew. Ultimately, the album spawned two singles, the aforementioned "Mutilated Lips" and "Ocean Man", and The Mollusk released on June 24th, 1997, initially to mixed reviews.

The last years with Elektra

Settling down and more label troubles

After The Mollusk released, Ween contributed two songs to two separate Matt Stone and Trey Parker projects. "Love" appeared in the 1997 sex comedy film Orgazmo, while "Homo Rainbow" appeared in the South Park season 2 episode "Chef Aid" (alongside Gene and Dean themselves) and the accompanying soundtrack album, released on October 7th and November 24th, 1998, respectively. Gener later commented both duos were "kindred spirits".

On June 22nd, 1999, Elektra released a two-disc live album, Paintin' the Town Brown, which featured performances by the band spanning from 1990 to 1997 ripped from cassette tapes the band owned. Ween had reportedly originally intended the album to be the debut release of their own independent label, Chocodog, but Elektra denied them the right to do so. That same year, Deaner would release a collection of low-quality outtakes spanning from 1996 to 1999 for free via mp3 files on the band's website, titled Craters of the Sac.

White Pepper and leaving Elektra

Starting in or around 1999, Ween began writing and recording songs for their next album, with this batch of songs being far more accessible than previous material. This was their first album with the five-man lineup that had been established two years prior. As Weiss was likely still feeling bitterness towards the band, he did not participate in the recording sessions, with the album instead being produced by Chris Shaw, though they had originally intended for Todd Rundgren to produce the album before backing out due to fear of Rundgren not liking the material. Reportedly, Shaw would be the one to coin the name of the album after calling it the band's "Sgt. Pepper's" and "White Album", with the resulting album name being White Pepper. For the writing process, the band returned to the beach house, while for the recording sessions, the full band lived together near Bearsville Studio in New York.

White Pepper released on May 2nd, 2000, with two singles behind it, "Stay Forever" and "Even If You Don't". The latter received a music video directed by Stone and Parker. White Pepper was their final album before their contract with Elektra expired, with the band opting not to renew it.

Sometime in November 2000, Ween contributed the original song "Loop de Loop" for the SpongeBob SquarePants season 2 episode "Your Shoe's Untied", which aired on February 17th, 2001. Creator and showrunner at the time Stephen Hillenburg had personally commissioned the song, telling the band that The Mollusk was a major stylistic influence on the show.

The founding of Chocodog

While plans for Ween's own independent label had been in talks since at least 1999, the plans were only realized after Ween's departure from Elektra, with Chocodog Records being founded in 2001. Chocodog's first release was a limited edition pressing of a live show from the 12 Golden Country Greats tour, dubbed Live in Toronto Canada, followed by Instant Death's debut album, New Evil Vibe. From then on, the label would mostly be used for Ween's own releases, with the exception of longtime friend Chris Harford's 2006 EP, Looking Out for Number 6.

The "Quebec" Era

Quebec, et al.

After departing from Elektra, the band was struck by a series of unfortunate events, namely Gener going through an acrimonious divorce, Deaner starting to suffer problems from "partying too hard", and Coleman getting severely injured in a traffic accident, the latter eventually staying at the hospital for 34 days and being confined to a wheelchair for two months, with him sustaining several fractures and brain injuries. These events (and the aforementioned departure from Elektra) would drastically influence the darker, more somber tone of their first indie label album since The Pod. Deaner would go on to state that he "never listen[s] to [the album]" due to its darker sound and subject matter. Notably, Weiss returned to produce the album, with the band choosing to enlist him on the project after he mixed the song "Zoloft".

Demo tracks for the album began recording sometime in 2001, while Coleman was still active in the band, being recorded at the beach house, Gener's garage, and Deaner's spare bedroom.

As Coleman was recovering from the accident at the time, when it came time to record the album proper, drumming duties were fulfilled by session drummer Josh Freese, Deaner, Weiss, and Weiss' former Rollins Band bandmate, Sim Cain. Notably, the guitar solo for "Transdermal Celebration" was recorded on Carlos Santana's guitar and setup in one take after Deaner and a roadie had sneaked into a storage space containing the equipment.

By December of 2002, Coleman returned to the band, though he was still dealing with the after-effects of the accident; in a later Reddit AMA, Coleman shared he still suffered from chronic pain and paralysis in his left side, and it took him several years to adjust his drumming technique to it.

On January 12th, 2003, Ween released a live album spanning two consecutive dates of the White Pepper tour, Live at Stubb's, 7/2000, through Chocodog.

The band were signed to British indie label Sanctuary Records for their finished studio album, now christened Quebec, which released on August 5, 2003. Sanctuary would go on to issue one more release, the live CD/DVD bundle Live in Chicago, on May 20th, 2004, before dropping Ween, likely due to the label's intense financial losses from 2004 to 2005.

Quebec spawned two singles, "Transdermal Celebration" and "Tried and True"/"Mountains and Buffalo". The former received a music video animated by Adam Phillips, a Ween fan who had noticed the band had taken to asking fans on a forum for video ideas. Phillips animated it in two weeks and submitted it to Gener, who said he loved the video and wanted it to be the official music video, which was included in the Live in Chicago DVD. Phillips was subsequently paid for his work. Phillips claimed that the band had rejected an "expensive" live action music video after viewing the animated one.

All Request Live

On July 22nd, 2003, Ween entered the Graphic Sound studio for a live-in-the-studio performance streamed live over the internet. The setlist was chosen entirely by fans, resulting in rarely performed and unreleased material dominating the setlist, including the Stallion pentalogy (a collection of five related songs spanning from The Pod to Craters of the Sac). The performance lasted around 65 minutes and would be released as All Request Live on November 22nd the same year through Chocodog.

The Post-Quebec Era

Shinola, Vol. 1

Finding themselves without a label once again, the band decided to devote their time to Chocodog, with their first new studio release on the label being a compilation of remastered and partially re-recorded outtakes spanning most of their career titled Shinola, Vol. 1 on July 19, 2005. The songs were reportedly chosen out of regret for "not putting [them] on [their] other records". In addition to the twelve tracks that made the album, another remastered outtake, the Chocolate and Cheese-era "Dirty Money", was released as a single on iTunes the same year.

Deaner later stated he had "mixed emotions" about the compilation during its production and that he was unsure if he would compile a second volume, though he would go on to call it one of his "top 5 Ween records".

The "party records"

In 2006, the band would rent a 200-year-old dilapidated farmhouse to convert it into a studio, in which they wrote and later recorded demos for around fifty songs. Deaner later reported the band suffered various health problems due to the condition of the farmhouse, which was filled with black mold. The demos and the final songs were recorded to tape on a 24-track recorder, an intentional artistic choice by the band. Another choice was for the tone of the songs to be much more lighthearted then Quebec, with Deaner citing the negativity of the previous record as a reason the band needed to "un-fuck [them]selves" by making the record.

On June 19th, 2007, they released The Friends EP on Chocodog, which contained remixed versions of five songs from the sessions, including a remix of "Friends" by CJ Stone and DJ VooDoo, the latter of whom was best known for producing music for Crazy Frog, which Gener personally requested. The rest of the tracks were produced by Weiss and Greg Frey. Upon its release, Deaner described the EP on his website as "the ultimate party record".

After a period of picking thirteen demos from the sessions (including the original version of "Friends") and rerecording them with Weiss on production, Ween released La Cucaracha on October 23rd, 2007. The iTunes version of the album came with an exclusive bonus track, the demo "Bag of Fat". For the album, the band were signed to Rounder Records, which co-released the album with Chocodog.

Gener later went on to call it "a big clue that Mickey and I were finito", though he did admit to thinking that "[a bunch of songs on it] were good".

Post-Cuc activities

On November 25th, 2008, the band released a live album chronicling a December 6th, 1992, performance, At the Cat's Cradle, 1992, through Chocodog. The live album came with a DVD compiled from three other performances from the Pod tour. When released, the band's website described the live album as "so brown that it's almost black".

In 2010, the band released a new song, "DC Won't Do You No Good", on The Right Track: Tunes to Target Cancer, a fundraising effort on the Target Cancer Foundation website where various artists donated unreleased songs to fund the fight against underfunded cancer types. The same year, an article for the National Post featuring an interview with Dean stated the band were due in the studio that winter to record a follow-up album, though it is unknown what became of it.

Breakup & Hiatus

After a lengthy battle with drug and alcohol addiction, Gener retired his stage name and quit the band in 2012, which resulted in Ween temporarily disbanding from that year until 2016. During the hiatus, most members returned to/started side or solo projects, Gener himself included. Notably, the Dean Ween Group, formed in 2012, had Coleman, McClelland and Dreiwitz as members alongside Deaner.

The Return of Ween

The first reunion concerts

While Gener had previously expressed that he didn't mind still being called Gene Ween by fans during the hiatus, he hadn't officially used the name until 2015.

After Gener returned to the moniker and joined the Dean Ween Group for a rehearsal, Ween announced on November 16th that year that they would reunite for two concerts, set to take place in February 2016, though due to high demand, they later added a third show, and eventually decided to stay together as a band. The first song performed during the initial reunion concert was "What Deaner Was Talkin' About" from Chocolate and Cheese.

"New" releases and second hiatus

In January 2016, Deaner shared that he and Gener were in the process of picking tracks for a potential Shinola, Vol. 2, though neither he nor any other band member followed up on the progress of the album. Also in 2016, the band announced that they would release an archival recording of a September 14th, 2001 live show in which they performed the entirety of GodWeenSatan live for its 11th anniversary. The live album, named GodWeenSatan: Live, was released on November 16th, 2016.

When asked about the possibility of new Ween material in 2016, Dreiwitz expressed hesitation, stating he "[wasn't] sure how that's going to go".

On June 1st, 2018, Warner Brothers released a Ween compilation titled Bananas and Blow without the band's knowledge. Deaner reportedly expressed mild confusion at the compilation and pointed out that the song choice was "random" and mostly consisted of GodWeenSatan tracks.

Between August 9th and 10th of 2022, the band participated in the South Park 25th Anniversary Concert, performing alongside Matt Stone and Trey Parker, funk metal band Primus, and a six-piece choir, performing both songs from the show and their own material. The concert would be released as a live album on September 25th of that year.

On June 7th, 2024, the band announced that a remastered deluxe edition of Chocolate and Cheese featuring several outtakes and demos from the recording sessions would be released on vinyl and streaming for its 30th anniversary, with "Junkie Boy" and a demo version of "Voodoo Lady" being released as singles on the same day and July 19th, respectively. The deluxe edition was released on August 2nd.

On August 29th, 2024, Ween announced through social media that they would take a break from live performances "for the foreseeable future", stating that touring and performing was affecting Deaner's mental health.

Band member history

Main members

• Gene Ween - lead and backing vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, percussion (1984–2012, 2016–)
• Dean Ween - lead and rhythm guitar, backing and lead vocals (1984–2012, 2016–), drums (1984–1990, 1992–1994, 2002)
• Andrew Weiss - producer, mixing, etc. (1987–2007), bass (1987–1994, studio; c. mid-to-late 1980's, 1994–1995 live)
• Claude Coleman - drums, percussion, backing vocals (c. 1991 (as unofficial member), 1994–2002, 2002–2012, 2016–)
• Glenn McClelland - keyboards, piano, synthesizer, percussion, backing vocals (1996–2012, 2016–)
• Dave Dreiwitz - bass, backing vocals (1997–2012, 2016–)

Notable touring/auxiliary members

• Mean Ween - bass, backing and lead vocals (c. 1986–2000, studio and live contributor)
• Karl Weimer - drums (1986, public debut)
• Sim Cain - drums (mid-to-late 1980's, occasional full band shows)
• Mark Kramer - bass (c. 1991, full band shows during the Pod tour)
• Matt Kohut - bass (1996, The Country Tour bassist and studio contributor)
• Josh Freese - drums (2002, stand-in for Coleman for Quebec and live performances)

Gallery

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  Ween Pin with an old slogan