Ok, let me first start off by saying that we vowed never, ever, ever, would there be horns on a Ween album. As teenagers we always used that as a yardstick to determine when our favorite band was starting to suck, when their new record came out and it had horns on it. (This rule applies only to Rock music, and white people). But there has always been one provision to this rule, and that was we would only use horns if we could get David Sanborn to play some sexy saxophone on a Ween tune. We finally wrote a song worthy of him, contacted his manager and it turns out he was a Ween fan and immediately agreed to do it. So that, in and of itself, means that we have accomplished one of our lifelong goals as a band. As far as the rest of the record goes, we wrote and recorded “La Cucaracha” in a rented, moldy 200 year old farmhouse in our hometown of New Hope, PA. It is one of the most disgusting places I've ever had the displeasure of working and I'm sure that Gener and Andrew Weiss will back me up on that one. None of us will let our kids go there, I'm not lying to you. Right now I have an upper respiratory infection that was initially spawned by working in our black mold filled “studio.” Hell, I wouldn't even let my dog crap in that place. After we move out, I hope a tree falls on it so they have to bulldoze the building to it's foundation, although the house is already about to cave in on it's own. I also want to make a special point of mentioning that we recorded this record to TAPE, 24 track, 2 inch TAPE. I'm really less than thrilled that most people will probably download 2 tracks from it and listen to it on their I-pods. The 13 songs that make up “La Cucaracha” represent a very small portion of what we wrote and recorded. The real number is about 50 songs. If you hate the album, you should hear what we left off of it. Hold on a second, I have to spit a greenish black gob of phlegm into the sink. This is also our first record on the Rounder label and I feel obligated to mention how this came to pass. The guy from Rounder drove down to New Hope from Massachusetts and took us to lunch. We've been on a lot of labels the past 23 years and had a lot of lunches and we've heard a lot of “pitches”. After making small talk for the first 20 minutes I finally felt like I should ask him something, anything-- since he drove all the way down here. The only thing I could come up with was “are there any other bands on Rounder comparable to Ween? I mean when I think of Rounder Records I think of all those Thorogood records and mostly folk type stuff.” He said “no, not really.” We all started laughing and the decision was made in our minds right there that this was where we needed to be. Later that night we watched the Red Sox game at our studio and then he drove back to Boston the next day. That's the whole story, and now Ween is on Rounder. Anyway, it's not my job to critique Ween and measure one of our records against another, but I will say that we are super happy with “La Cucaracha,” we consider it to be a party record, unlike our last record which was more of a Jonestown type party vibe. This record is a lot more fun because that's where we're at right now. (I'm getting teary-eyed just typing this). I'm gonna go deal with my tuberculosis now.

- dean ween

Nicely put Dean....

For further information on the wonderful world of WEEN go to: www.ween.com