Here is the biography of Mickey Melchiondo (Dean Ween):
Mickey Melchiondo, also known as Dean Ween, was born on September 25, 1970. Growing up, he was exposed to a wide range of music, from the Beatles to Parliament/Funkadelic to Leonard Cohen to Prince to the Ramones to Laurie Andersen. He met Aaron Freeman in a junior high school typing class in their hometown of New Hope, Pennsylvania, and although they didn't get along at first, they soon discovered a shared love for music and formed a band.
The two spent most of their time in Melchiondo's bedroom, with Melchiondo playing guitar and Freeman singing. They were big fans of the Ramones and decided to share a common surname, which led to the pseudonyms Dean (Melchiondo) and Gene (Freeman) Ween. Within a few years, they were opening for underground bands like the Butthole Surfers and Henry Rollins.
In 1989, Ween opened for the band Skunk in a basement, which was attended by a Twin/Tone Records scout who offered them a record deal. The brothers dropped out of community college and recorded their debut album, God Ween Satan - The Oneness (1990),with Andrew Weiss of Rollins Band. The album showcased Ween's eclectic musical style, which blended gospel, reggae, punk, soul, funk, flamenco, psychedelic, folk, and more.
Ween's early success led to a move to Shimmydisc, which produced the dark, lo-fi classic, The Pod (1991),named after the apartment where they recorded the material on their Tascam 4-track. The Pod was located on a horse farm, where Melchiondo was immobile on the couch due to mononucleosis.
Their rising underground status soon had Elektra Records knocking on their door, and by 1992, the duo had a major label record, Pure Guava, which was still all material from their time spent in The Pod. They scored a cult hit song, "Push Th' Little Daisies," which they performed on MTV's Spring Break.
Up to this point, Ween's records had sounded quite lo-fi. The two felt it was time to move on up and used the money from Pure Guava's success to build a proper studio and record 1994's Chocolate and Cheese, though both Melchiondo and Freeman were disappointed with the quality of the recording.
Around the same time, Melchiondo started a side project with his friend Guy Heller called the Moistboyz. In typical common surname fashion, Melchiondo dubbed himself Mickey Moist and Heller took the name Dickie Moist. The Moistboyz music was a hybrid of metal and punk, with lyrics focusing on overtly offensive humor blended with social commentary.
In late 1995, Melchiondo and Freeman found themselves in Nashville, recording an album of country tunes they had written over the years with the help of Charlie McCoy, Buddy Harmann, and other big names in Nashville. Not far off in time from the Nashville sessions, Ween also rented a house on a beach and began recording oceanic songs in 3/4 time and drinking lots of beer. Resulting from these two drastically different conditions were 1996's 12 Golden Country Greats and 1997's The Mollusk.
Melchiondo married his longtime girlfriend, Michelle Ellis, in 1996. Ween's final release of the century was a double disc of live material called Paintin' the Town Brown. In mid-1999, and then in May of 2000, they released their most accessible batch of pop songs on White Pepper, which was very Beatlesque in the best way possible.
By this point, the two were a cult phenomenon with more than their share of fans at both shows and online. The Fox network had the Ween brothers do all of the music for their show Grounded For Life, and a web-based station called Ween Radio allowed fans to make requests from a selection of over 1,500 recordings of Ween songs.
In 2003, Ween released their 8th studio album, 'quebec', which was their strangest and most avant-garde cornucopia of bizarro since the days of The Pod and Pure Guava, only this time well-recorded and more mature.
The group has always resented being labeled as a novelty act and has stressed in many interviews that just because their music has humor does not mean it's a joke. The fact that people think they are a parody of different musical styles hurts them deeply.
Melchiondo still keeps in close touch with all the Ween fans online by commandeering the band's official website and posting on the newsgroups and visiting the Ween chatrooms. He and his wife were blessed with a baby boy in December of 2000. He is also a huge
