Aaron Freeman (aka Gene Ween) on Going Solo, Sobriety, and His New Album
Jul. 20, 2014
Aaron Freeman lived his professional life as Gene Ween, one half of Ween, the unclassifiable cult rock & roll legends from New Hope, Pennsylvania (the other half was Mickey Melchiondo, aka Dean Ween). When he entered recovery in 2012, he decided to leave Ween in order to preserve his sobriety. Along with leaving Ween, he left behind Gene Ween and is now recording as Freeman, a surname that doubles as the name of his solo project. Aaron Freeman spoke to AllMusic about recovery, going solo and his enduring love of the Beatles, specifically Paul McCartney.
On going solo
Aaron Freeman: I liken a lot of this stuff to divorce. When you go through a big divorce and it's heavy duty and traumatizing, you generally don't start dating for another year or two, once you get your head straight. It's very similar to that. The only thing about the Ween breakup is, I would never do anything to hurt the whole image of Ween in a million years. I spent my whole life in Ween. So the fact that it became so polarized, that really made me sad and there was really nothing I could do about. It was over.
For both of us, the Ween breakup was never about the music we recorded. We both loved the music, we both feel free to play whatever we want from Ween forever—these are our songs.
On recovery
AF: In a way I'm really glad that my struggles are in public. First of all, I can't hide anything—I've never been a good liar, you could see it all over me! A lot of people would get as fucked up as I was, you just couldn't tell. My thing was open. I'm glad everybody knows my past and I wear it like a badge of pride. If you know me, you know where I'm coming from. And people don't judge you as much as you think.
My skin has grown so much thicker in the last couple years. I had to learn not to be insecure and take everything with a grain of salt, which is a good lesson for me personally. Being in a rock band for 25 years, it's very easy to be Peter Pan. Musicians don't have to grow up very much. If they're in a successful rock band you don't really have to do anything but get picked up, go play—you got a tour manager, you got a business manager, you get constant adulation from these fans every night. Ad it's cool, it's wonderful, but a lot of basic things that normal people learn young, rock musicians don't have to learn. You get to be a perpetual kid. So I had to learn how to communicate with people and I've always been pretty shy. I have a few friends but to actually communicate with people in the real world and get things done for myself without having people do it for me—that's a lot. And it's nobody's fault that you're checked out for that long, it's just part of the game. I'm still learning how to be the adult and a lot of people learn when they're fucking 20! I can get affected more, I can take things more personally than I should, when in the real world it's just normal stuff. It's part of being an addict. You don't know how to sit and let things process. You don't ever go through a cycle where somebody's pissed at you but then everything gets better. And that's something I'm getting used to too and it's great!
On writing after recovery
AF: What I was trying to hold true to is the basic stuff. You have to take into account the breakup of Ween, being fresh into sobriety—there's a lot of stuff that went on pretty quickly before I made this record and I wasn't really even expecting to be able to do it. I was really happy that it came back. Like with Ween, all of my songs—I really try to dumb it down. I like dumbed-down songs. I like songs that aren't very political and don't have too much of an attitude—that can get old. When I got to the point when I was comfortable enough with myself, it all just came to me really quickly. And that's great because that's always the way it's been: I won't write anything and then I'll fucking go into the zone for three weeks and come out with a bunch of stuff. It became fun and then I started doing the free associations with words, which I just love—like "Ocean Man," "The Stallion Pt 3," I just can't get enough of it. And when it started coming back to me on this record, it was great. I just had to break through something.
On 'Marvelous Clouds,' his Rod McKuen covers album
AF: I always run on my gut instinct—I have forever and it's always served me pretty right. I listened to the Rod McKuen songs—they were simple, like how I like to write, and I knew I'd have fun singing them. And it was a transition. I recorded that record when I was still pretty fucked up but something about it appealed to me. In my gut, I knew the end was coming and I knew I had to do something about my physical life and that record just came in there. I definitely think it was for a reason even if I don't know exactly what it was. The universe is telling me something.
On recording 'Freeman'
AF: The Rod McKuen record was just covers, I didn't really have to do anything but get behind a microphone—everything else was taken care of. So this was my first process and, boy, it has been a process. I had no idea that when you go solo how much work is put into something like this: you write the songs, you have to go in and record the songs with no money—that was one of the things I had to expect when leaving Ween, I am not going to make any money from here on out and I have to expect that. So we had to record the record in nine days. Fortunately, I had some really good musicians and I sent them some demos and they just got it.. They came up to Woodstock and we didn't really have to rehearse, we just went into the studio and did basic tracks. The last thing I did was go into the vocal booth for a couple days and did nothing but vocals. The only other thing that I could think would be close to that is the country record, 12 Golden Greats. That was kinda similar—we had the songs down, we had to have the songs down—and then those cats played on it, I sang on it, Mickey sang a couple cuts too and that was it. There were very little overdubs and that's how this record was done too. And it was nice.
The making of this record was fucking incredible for me because I never really manned my own boat before and it was wonderful. I was the chief director and I got to use what I learned over all these years to work. And not only do they work but actually what was coming out of my mouth made sense. I could actually communicate with the musician, I could communicate with the producer and I would get it to what I wanted it to sound like. With Ween, it wasn't so much like that. For me, personally, it was certainly a huge stepping stone. There are aspects to this—I'm in charge of the creativity, I'm in charge of what I choose and not choose to represent about myself, that's a lot of decisions and I'm not used to that!
On Paul McCartney
AF: I think when you first come out of something and launch into something new, you want to be really basic, so I wanted to be really basic and just have songs, not have it be an orchestrated odyssey with a million overdubs. I think you have to be vulnerable. I take my juice from Paul McCartney or John Lennon: when they came out of their thing, their records were very stripped down for the first couple of records. And that's a really cool way to approach that.
Paul McCartney, I have always loved him. His first few solo records they are such a big part of my musical thing. He has a way of making light of all the drama. And I love John Lennon for the other reason—he's psychedelic and he's uninhibited and unafraid to scream. I love them both for different reasons. I drew a lot of comfort in the last year and a half from them. When I was getting bashed on the internet and all that crap, I would just listen to nice music and that would really help. The Beatles are what got me harmonizing in the first place. When I was growing up, I would listen to the Beatles and all I would do is try to harmonize with them and that's really how I learned how to do that. And you'll see that on "All The Way To China"—that's like Paul MCartney Harmonies 101.
On musical eclecticism
AF: I think people always give Ween a little bit too much credit. They think I'm purposely trying to be quirky and really, all I care about is a nice melody. I like a deep groove. What I like about this record is everything sounds deeper and I wrote songs around that. When I was writing them, I was thinking "this would sound great with this rhythm section," but they're really just the same songs I've been writing in Ween forever—they just don't have all the stuff on them. And who knows, maybe the next record will. I really just go with, "This is what the universe tells me, I'm gonna trust it, and I'm just gonna go with it."
'Freeman' is out July 22 on Partisan Records
On going solo
Aaron Freeman: I liken a lot of this stuff to divorce. When you go through a big divorce and it's heavy duty and traumatizing, you generally don't start dating for another year or two, once you get your head straight. It's very similar to that. The only thing about the Ween breakup is, I would never do anything to hurt the whole image of Ween in a million years. I spent my whole life in Ween. So the fact that it became so polarized, that really made me sad and there was really nothing I could do about. It was over.
For both of us, the Ween breakup was never about the music we recorded. We both loved the music, we both feel free to play whatever we want from Ween forever—these are our songs.
On recovery
AF: In a way I'm really glad that my struggles are in public. First of all, I can't hide anything—I've never been a good liar, you could see it all over me! A lot of people would get as fucked up as I was, you just couldn't tell. My thing was open. I'm glad everybody knows my past and I wear it like a badge of pride. If you know me, you know where I'm coming from. And people don't judge you as much as you think.
My skin has grown so much thicker in the last couple years. I had to learn not to be insecure and take everything with a grain of salt, which is a good lesson for me personally. Being in a rock band for 25 years, it's very easy to be Peter Pan. Musicians don't have to grow up very much. If they're in a successful rock band you don't really have to do anything but get picked up, go play—you got a tour manager, you got a business manager, you get constant adulation from these fans every night. Ad it's cool, it's wonderful, but a lot of basic things that normal people learn young, rock musicians don't have to learn. You get to be a perpetual kid. So I had to learn how to communicate with people and I've always been pretty shy. I have a few friends but to actually communicate with people in the real world and get things done for myself without having people do it for me—that's a lot. And it's nobody's fault that you're checked out for that long, it's just part of the game. I'm still learning how to be the adult and a lot of people learn when they're fucking 20! I can get affected more, I can take things more personally than I should, when in the real world it's just normal stuff. It's part of being an addict. You don't know how to sit and let things process. You don't ever go through a cycle where somebody's pissed at you but then everything gets better. And that's something I'm getting used to too and it's great!
On writing after recovery
AF: What I was trying to hold true to is the basic stuff. You have to take into account the breakup of Ween, being fresh into sobriety—there's a lot of stuff that went on pretty quickly before I made this record and I wasn't really even expecting to be able to do it. I was really happy that it came back. Like with Ween, all of my songs—I really try to dumb it down. I like dumbed-down songs. I like songs that aren't very political and don't have too much of an attitude—that can get old. When I got to the point when I was comfortable enough with myself, it all just came to me really quickly. And that's great because that's always the way it's been: I won't write anything and then I'll fucking go into the zone for three weeks and come out with a bunch of stuff. It became fun and then I started doing the free associations with words, which I just love—like "Ocean Man," "The Stallion Pt 3," I just can't get enough of it. And when it started coming back to me on this record, it was great. I just had to break through something.
On 'Marvelous Clouds,' his Rod McKuen covers album
AF: I always run on my gut instinct—I have forever and it's always served me pretty right. I listened to the Rod McKuen songs—they were simple, like how I like to write, and I knew I'd have fun singing them. And it was a transition. I recorded that record when I was still pretty fucked up but something about it appealed to me. In my gut, I knew the end was coming and I knew I had to do something about my physical life and that record just came in there. I definitely think it was for a reason even if I don't know exactly what it was. The universe is telling me something.
On recording 'Freeman'
AF: The Rod McKuen record was just covers, I didn't really have to do anything but get behind a microphone—everything else was taken care of. So this was my first process and, boy, it has been a process. I had no idea that when you go solo how much work is put into something like this: you write the songs, you have to go in and record the songs with no money—that was one of the things I had to expect when leaving Ween, I am not going to make any money from here on out and I have to expect that. So we had to record the record in nine days. Fortunately, I had some really good musicians and I sent them some demos and they just got it.. They came up to Woodstock and we didn't really have to rehearse, we just went into the studio and did basic tracks. The last thing I did was go into the vocal booth for a couple days and did nothing but vocals. The only other thing that I could think would be close to that is the country record, 12 Golden Greats. That was kinda similar—we had the songs down, we had to have the songs down—and then those cats played on it, I sang on it, Mickey sang a couple cuts too and that was it. There were very little overdubs and that's how this record was done too. And it was nice.
The making of this record was fucking incredible for me because I never really manned my own boat before and it was wonderful. I was the chief director and I got to use what I learned over all these years to work. And not only do they work but actually what was coming out of my mouth made sense. I could actually communicate with the musician, I could communicate with the producer and I would get it to what I wanted it to sound like. With Ween, it wasn't so much like that. For me, personally, it was certainly a huge stepping stone. There are aspects to this—I'm in charge of the creativity, I'm in charge of what I choose and not choose to represent about myself, that's a lot of decisions and I'm not used to that!
On Paul McCartney
AF: I think when you first come out of something and launch into something new, you want to be really basic, so I wanted to be really basic and just have songs, not have it be an orchestrated odyssey with a million overdubs. I think you have to be vulnerable. I take my juice from Paul McCartney or John Lennon: when they came out of their thing, their records were very stripped down for the first couple of records. And that's a really cool way to approach that.
Paul McCartney, I have always loved him. His first few solo records they are such a big part of my musical thing. He has a way of making light of all the drama. And I love John Lennon for the other reason—he's psychedelic and he's uninhibited and unafraid to scream. I love them both for different reasons. I drew a lot of comfort in the last year and a half from them. When I was getting bashed on the internet and all that crap, I would just listen to nice music and that would really help. The Beatles are what got me harmonizing in the first place. When I was growing up, I would listen to the Beatles and all I would do is try to harmonize with them and that's really how I learned how to do that. And you'll see that on "All The Way To China"—that's like Paul MCartney Harmonies 101.
On musical eclecticism
AF: I think people always give Ween a little bit too much credit. They think I'm purposely trying to be quirky and really, all I care about is a nice melody. I like a deep groove. What I like about this record is everything sounds deeper and I wrote songs around that. When I was writing them, I was thinking "this would sound great with this rhythm section," but they're really just the same songs I've been writing in Ween forever—they just don't have all the stuff on them. And who knows, maybe the next record will. I really just go with, "This is what the universe tells me, I'm gonna trust it, and I'm just gonna go with it."
'Freeman' is out July 22 on Partisan Records