It’s been almost one year since Ween canceled its tour and announced the band would “step away from the stage for the foreseeable future.” At the time, the genre-defying cult favorite stated that this decision was made for the mental well-being of co-founding guitarist Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo Jr. Since then, things have been fairly quiet on the Ween front save for a few sightings of Deaner fishing, so it was welcome news when drummer Claude Coleman Jr. checked in late last month with a status report.
In a new interview with 15-year-old YouTuber J Interviews, Coleman checked in from his adopted hometown of Asheville, NC, with an update on recovery efforts following last year’s devastating Hurricane Helene. Coleman appeared alongside multi-instrumentalist/producer Brett Spivey, with whom he partnered in December 2020 to open SoundSpace @ Rabbit’s, Asheville’s only professional-quality rehearsal studio for musicians. The rehearsal studios are located in the rooms at the former Rabbit’s Motel, a motor lodge opened in 1948 for Black tourists in the segregated South.
Toward the end of the interview, J asked for the best “non-answer” Claude could give on Ween’s status: “Is there any situation improvement? Is there anything?” Coleman’s immediate response wasn’t anything super inspiring.
“There’s basically nothing new to report along those lines from anyone,” Coleman said. “I think everyone is still kind of in a holding pattern, and everyone is hoping for the best for everybody involved, including the sort of primary person, which is the attention focus of everything, you know, Big Deaner.”
Though he didn’t have any concrete information to share, Coleman’s good news was more abstract in nature.
“I think everybody probably has a notion that it’ll come back around at some point just because it kind of has to, because that’s the nature of music and creating,” Coleman observed. “I don’t know anybody who retires from music. It’s just not possible physically, emotionally, spiritually. I don’t think there’s any chance of it ever going away with any kind of real permanence.”
Related: Revisit A Wild Ween Show At Wetlands From 1991 [Watch]
As Coleman continued, this isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Ween. The band suddenly and unceremoniously broke up in 2012 when Deaner’s brother in Boognish Aaron “Gene Ween” Freeman announced via a Rolling Stone interview that he was “retiring Gene Ween” and referred to his time with Ween as a “closed book.” Though Dean publicly stated that he was caught off guard by Gene’s announcement and the two shared some not-so-private bad blood online following the breakup, they ultimately reunited in 2016 alongside their longtime bandmates Coleman, bassist Dave Dreiwitz, and keyboardist Glenn McClelland. During Ween’s breakup, Gene toured under the name FREEMAN and was public about his pursuit of long-term sobriety.
“I don’t think anything is going to be much different when we come back to it,” Coleman said. “We kind of have been through this sort of situation before. With similar sort of, uh, shocking disruption, but, in the end, it’s just like a flick of a switch and we’re back on the bike, you know, raging and ripping it up. So, I think everyone’s hopeful that eventually, but we’re not like really putting too much energy and focus on when and how and what’s really happening. We’re just letting it happen naturally.”
Check out the full interview with Claude Coleman Jr. below, with the question about Ween coming in at 32:30. You can also read the transcript of his answer below (edited for clarity). Get well soon, Deaner, and praise Boognish.
Claude Coleman Jr. On Rebuilding Asheville, Fundraising With Brett Spivey And The Future Of Ween!
Claude Coleman Jr. on the status of Ween:
There’s basically nothing new to report along those lines from anyone. I think everyone is still kind of in a holding pattern, and everyone is hoping for the best for everybody involved, including the sort of primary person, you know, which is the attention focus of of everything, you know, Big [Deaner]. I mean, everyone just cares enough about him to sort of let it all play out. I think that everybody probably has a notion that it’ll come back around at some point just because it kind of has to because that’s the nature of music and creating. I don’t know anybody who retires from music. It’s just not possible physically, emotionally, spiritually. I don’t think there’s any chance of it ever going away with any kind of real permanence. I think we’re still all sort of waiting it through and letting it go through a healing process. And so it’s however long it takes is however long it takes. We’re letting it be organic. I don’t think anything is going to be much different when we kind of come back to it. We kind of have been through this sort of situation before. With similar sort of, uh, shocking disruption, but, in the end, it’s just like a flick of a switch and we’re back on the bike, you know, raging and ripping it up. So, I think everyone’s hopeful that eventually, but we’re not like really putting too much energy and focus on like when and how and what’s really happening. We’re just like letting it happen like naturally, you know.