‘Chocolate And Cheese’: Behind Ween’s Deliciously Weird Cult Classic

Flying in the face of the cartoon no-hoper’s predications, Pure Guava was, in fact, a landmark release for slacker rock. Mixing lo-fi touches of psychedelia with avant-garde pop, the album was recorded on four-track in the same ramshackle spirit as Ween’s early work, and it was full of offbeat sampling tricks and abstract detours. Lurking behind Pure Guava’s oddities, however, was a mind-bending approach to songwriting that showed enormous potential. And yet, Ween’s much-anticipated follow-up wouldn’t be without its hurdles.

For one thing, the biggest challenge facing the group was finding the time to record. Having moved into their own apartments since the release of Pure Guava, Freeman and Melchiondo no longer had the day-to-day convenience of writing together. Since Freeman had settled into a New Jersey farm and Melchiondo had moved in with his fiancée, the pair had to work harder and be more focused whenever they met up to write new songs. Luckily – and to their surprise – they ended up becoming even more prodigious than they were before. “I think our work ethic improved,” Melchiondo later said, “because that time had to be sacred to write.”

• 10 Must-Hear Highlights From Ween’s ‘Chocolate And Cheese’ Deluxe Edition Reissue
• Best 90s Songs: 30 Era-Defining Tracks From An Undefinable Decade
• Best 90s Musicians: 20 Bands And Solo Artists Who Ruled The Decade

As their meet-ups grew increasingly more productive, the Ween duo knew that they needed to take a sonic leap with their next album. Conscious of staying true to their lo-fi roots, Ween took full advantage of their major-label status to upgrade their recording technology and record with proper studio equipment for the first time. Not only this, but instead of relying on their trusty drum machines, they beefed up their sound with the addition of a human drummer, Claude Coleman, Jr. Boldly venturing beyond their homespun beginnings, the group were ready to map out new territory for their unique brand of alt-rock.

The recording: “There was a 50 per cent chance that it wasn’t gonna work”

Unsurprisingly, Ween didn’t take the easy route when it came to recording Chocolate And Cheese. Instead of playing it safe by travelling to established facilities such as New York City’s The Hit Factory or The Record Plant, Freeman and Melchiondo chose to build their own studio in a rented space they found in Pennington, New Jersey. “I remember the place was an emptied-out telemarketers office on the second floor of some rat-bag industrial complex,” Freeman later recalled.

Quickly converting this former call centre into a purpose-built studio, Ween kitted the place out with professional gear, and enlisted producer Andrew Weiss to help them wrap their heads around digital recording technology. They switched from four-track to using an ADAT recorder – a device that recorded digital audio onto S-VHS cassettes – which, despite its great potential, was a million miles from the modern-day convenience of Pro Tools. “It’s kind of hard to imagine how prehistoric this shit was at the time compared to now,” Weiss later said. “Back then, you turned it on and there was a 50 per cent chance that it wasn’t gonna work. Maybe even greater.”

Despite the audio syncing nightmares that ensued, Chocolate And Cheese was nonetheless a huge step up in sound quality from Ween’s early, analogue efforts. The album’s opening song, Take Me Away, was a buttery-smooth rock’n’roller full of lounge-lizard crooning, with Aaron Freeman sounding like a sozzled Elvis Presley impersonator fronting a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute act. More polished, better honed, it nonetheless retained Ween’s eccentric lustre.

In fact, the leap from analogue to digital seemed to have emboldened Ween to be even more surreal and adventurous. The album’s seven-minute murder ballad, Buenas Tardes Amigo, found Freeman singing in a faux-Mexican accent, with Melchiondo’s Fistful Of Dollars-style guitar solo lifting the song from flamenco curio to an oddly cinematic tour de force. And then there’s Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?, a perky ditty with an impish air that makes the song’s deadpan lyrics even more bizarre (“He coughed up snot in the driveway/And I think his lung’s fucked up”).

A litany of head-scratching gems emerged from these recording sessions, and Melchiondo recalled being spoilt for choice: “Chocolate And Cheese was more rooting through the best of 50 or 60 songs, whittling it down and recording, like, 25 of them and leaving nine or ten off the record,” he said. Many of these extras would appear on the album’s 30th-anniversary deluxe-edition reissue, while, of the songs that did make the final cut, I Can’t Put My Finger On It was released as Chocolate And Cheese’s lead single, in July 1994. A wonky-pop gem, this unhinged funk-rocker is set to an ungainly, herky-jerky rhythm over which Freeman mimics the gravel-voiced rants of a Turkish falafel-shop owner slicing meat off a gyro spool.

From donning flares on their soft-rock-style answer to America’s Ventura Highway (Joppa Road) to pulling out the harmonica on an authentic-sounding country ballad (Drifting In The Dark), Ween had worked up a characteristically weird and kaleidoscopic melting pot of different genres and styles.

Proving that the group’s songwriting was growing in leaps and bounds, Roses Are Free was a slinky Prince-inspired 80s synth-pop homage that would later become a hit for Phish when they covered it in 1998. Elsewhere, the emotionally affecting acoustic ballad Baby Bitch finds Freeman inventing Elliott Smith’s whispery vocal style years ahead of time.

Despite all their lyrical tomfoolery, Ween’s musical abilities were blossoming into something truly exceptional. Another highlight included A Tear For Eddie, the band’s gorgeous instrumental tribute to the late Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel, on which Melchiondo shows off his own spectacular guitar chops to heart-wrenching effect. Packing their album with edgy humour and songwriting nuance, Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo had proven Butt-Head completely wrong. The future was Ween’s for the taking.

The release: “We worked our asses off on that record”

Released on 27 September 1994, Chocolate And Cheese became a cult sensation for thousands of alt-rock fans and peaked at No.10 on the US Top Heatseekers Charts. With many still mourning the death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Ween’s subversive lyrical wit and iconoclastic genre-bending was a refreshing departure from the era’s mood of sombre introspection. Just when people needed it most, Freeman and Melchiondo had arrived with a wacky dose of light-hearted mirth.

Propelled by crazy bongos and a Dr John-style strut, Voodoo Lady, a delightfully rich gumbo of Santana-esque guitar soloing and zany vocal outbursts, was also released as a single and peaked at No.32 on the US Alternative Songs Chart. And there was much more where that came from. As the album closes out with the one-two punch of What Deaner Was Talkin’ About – a blast of bright-eyed whimsy about anxiety – and the happy-clappy folk-pop of Don’t Shit Where You Eat, Chocolate And Cheese proved to be an embarrassment of riches. “We worked our asses off on that record,” Melchiondo later admitted. “We wrote tons and tons and tons of songs.”

However, Chocolate And Cheese wouldn’t fully escape controversy. For a start, its frat-boy’s-fantasy artwork was criticised for being sexist, although much of the album itself was intent on lampooning rock’n’roll clichés. The levity of the band’s lyrics also raised some eyebrows, particularly on the song Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), which is sung from the perspective of a terminally-ill child (“Am I gonna see God, mommy?/Am I gonna die?”). “That song came out of fear of death, fear of needles in the spine,” Freeman later told PopMatters. Arguing that it wasn’t intended to make light of the issue, he added, “There is a lot of psychological terror going on in Ween, and there always has been.”

Likewise, The H.I.V. Song caused bafflement in some quarters. A jaunty, circus-like instrumental interrupted only by the repeated declarations “AIDS” and “H.I.V.”, it was intended as a satirical work of dark humour aimed at those who would turn a blind eye to the dangers of an all-too-serious public-health crisis.

Though their satirical stance seemed destined to fly over the heads of some listeners, Ween demonstrated their songwriting maturity with the smooth falsetto and jazzy major 7th chords of Freedom Of ’76, a slice of Philadelphia soul that was issued as Chocolate And Cheese’s third single. “It kind of started like we were playing a Bill Withers thing,” Melchiondo later said of the song, “and then we changed it all around and bastardised it.” As is Ween’s way, subversion was the name of the game.

For those who appreciate the irreverent humour of South Park or Family Guy, Chocolate And Cheese is unlike any other album. Whereas many comedy records tend to fall flat, Ween’s skilful balancing of offbeat humour with genuine songwriting ability was exceptional. Their journey from lo-fi whiz-kids to fully professional alt-rock studio outfit was now complete, and, as far as Ween were concerned, the only way was up.

The legacy: “It was still pretty punk rock to do that”

Since the release of Chocolate And Cheese, Ween have continued to evolve and revel in surprising their fans with chameleonic shifts in genre, notably with 1996’s 12 Golden Country Greats and 1997’s prog-influenced concept album The Mollusk. Never easy to pigeonhole, the group have navigated different styles and sounds with a confidence that has helped them establish a cult fanbase.

Despite the handful of albums they released before it, Chocolate And Cheese is perhaps best seen as Ween’s ground zero, and quite possibly one of the very best Ween albums of all. Arguably the ideal place to start with the group’s frequently baffling discography, not only does it mark the beginning of Ween’s studio-based adventures, but it also captures the unique moment that their wildly experimental style found favour on MTV, bringing Freeman and Melchiondo’s genre-hopping audacity to the 90s alt-rock scene.

“When I hear it,” Melchiondo later said of Chocolate And Cheese, “I feel like I’m listening to an autobiography of our lives in the early-to-mid-90s. If it sounds like we had fun making it, we did. That’s kind of what Ween is all about, though.”

By chopping up such disparate styles as funk, country, psychedelic rock and pop and throwing them all in a blender, Chocolate And Cheese is full of wildly eclectic ingredients, and yet its idiosyncratic sound has proven hugely influential and can still be heard today, particularly in the work of indie singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco. “Now everybody records their own records,” producer Andrew Weiss said. “Back then it wasn’t nearly as common; it was still pretty punk rock to do that.”

The DIY ethos at the heart of Ween’s mission – always driven by their irreverent sense of humour and their sheer unpredictability – has inadvertently spawned a legion of indie artists who owe the group a great debt, whether they realise it or not. But perhaps more importantly, Ween’s embrace of a professional studio sound on Chocolate And Cheese knocked over the first domino in a cascade of creative decisions that would send Freeman and Melchiondo tumbling down a rabbit-hole of constant reinvention. Without a doubt, it’s what made them the artists they are today. For that reason, Chocolate And Cheese remains the ultimate gateway drug into the weird and wonderful world of Ween.

Buy Ween ‘Chocolate And Cheese’ anniversary merch.