Question::
Hello Mickey.

if you werent a musician or anything involved with fishing.
What would you be? or maybe.. who you would you be now

A- Music is a life sentence at this point and I have no say in the matter. I would always rather be somewhere playing a gig or jamming than sitting on my couch. You try and deny it and tell yourself you should get a real job sometimes, but you can’t hide from the truth, it’s just too much a part of me at this stage. I would like to write though as well, write a book, whatever. And then there’s Spinal Tap, where I could work as a hat salesman in a shop after the band quits.

Question::
Absolute least favorite genre of music?  Bands, songs, etc that you
just cannot fucking stand at all whatsoever?

A- I love all kinds of music, I would never throw away a whole genre in a wholesale way because that is just plain ignorant. I always like to say “if it sounds good then it is good”. One thing I absolutely can’t stand is any kind of fake music that is completely insincere in every way and that brings me to my answer—NEW COUNTRY. I’m not talking about all country music, I’m just talking about the crap that comes out of the Nashville hit factories these days and gets played on the air. I’m about as big of a country music fan that has ever walked the earth, but the music on the radio these days simply isn’t country music at all. It might have steel guitars and fiddles but it resembles badly manufactured pop music more than it resembles Hank Williams, George Jones, and Willie Nelson who were true artists with something to say.

Question::
What are some of your favorite prog albums?

A- King Crimson “Red” is one of my fave albums, also “Court of the Crimson King” and “Larks Tongues”. I also love “Close to the Edge” by Yes, and “Going For the One”.  I like some early Genesis as well and Gentle Giant’s “Three Friends.”

Disclaimer: Do not attempt to play these record when there are chicks in the room and you’re trying to score, you will definitely not get laid.

Question::
Live records:

I’ve got Live at Leeds, Band of Gypsies, Miles of Aisles by Joni
Mitchell and a few others as essential live albums.  Any live albums
that you think just have to be in the collection?

A- Grand Funk Railroad Live is a must, Santana’s Lotus is my all-time fave, James Brown at the Apollo Theater, Miles Davis Live Evil, the Allman Brothers live at the Filmore East is a no-brainer as well, and Neil Young Live Rust!

Question::
Any backstage rituals or traditions that Ween had before, during,
after shows? Im sure there are some good stories from the shows in
1996-2001.

A- Claude definitely had a ritual of warming up before we played, I don’t know about the other guys, but I definitely have a routine that starts on a show day from the time I wake up. First, I never shower or wash my hands anywhere close to show time because it softens the callouses on my fingers, I don’t eat at all on a show day except for very little in the morning and a big meal after the gig is finished. I prefer to be completely alone (except for the band and crew members backstage), and lastly I stretch out intensely and repeatedly for the hour leading up to showtime. I try to not start drinking beer until showtime, save for maybe one or two. I drink 2 or 3 Red Bulls and drink Royal Jelly and Ginseng, also one or two bottles of Gatorade. I take Advil to ease the tendinitis in my hands and arms as well. I write the setlist at 5pm before I leave for soundcheck. I used to walk around every corner in the building to see what the crowd was going to see before the doors opened. I also have a ton of superstitions that are too many to list. So yes, I definitely have a major routine before a gig.

Question::
Only so many hours in a day/practice…

Is it more important to concentrate on songwriting or being
technically amazing for/as a young Band/Artist?

A- Write some good songs. It’s 3am, I’m wrecked, but this won’t be one of the internet posts I delete in the morning. Say what you mean and say it mean.

Question::
Would you rather be Jimi Hendrix on all the drugs and die young,
leaving behind an amazing rock ‘n’ roll legacy and be famous for your
works until the end of time? or…do some really lame
singer/songwriter BS record and tour that nobody cares about and never
will?

A- I just hope there’s a balance between those two things. Some dudes keep getting better with age, like Neil Young, Prince, George Clinton, maybe some others…..I dunno. At a certain point (and I’m at that point) you just give yourself over to the fact that this is what you do……..I’m more comfortable in front of an amplifier and a crowd of people than I am trying to make small talk on back to school night with a bunch of white devil honkies under florescent lights in an institutional building. You can have it both ways I hope and pray. I’m still working through the process, but I feel the most like myself when my dick is hanging out and I’m playing my guitar well, like a mass murderer. It’s a fucked up life being a musician, and I don’t even relate to most of the musicians I know. So fuck me.

Question::
Why do you often wear a rubber band around your wrist?  Thanks for the
music and happy holidays.

A- Originally I started wearing it to snap myself out of panic attacks, like a reminder to tell my brain to shut the fuck up. I would just snap it on my wrist so it hurt a little. Eventually I started wearing it as a superstition, like for good luck. After that I started wearing them for fishing purposes, my mate Randy and I would be trolling and we’d have the two flat lines tied off to the cleats on the stern of Archangel. When a fish picks up the bait it snaps the rubber band and the fight is on. If you own a boat and have done any kind of trolling then you understand, sort of acts like an outrigger release clip and you need a shitload of rubber bands when the fish are on the chew. We’d be walking around Key West wearing rubber bands on every limb.

Question::
Hey mickey, what are some of your favorite resturants in your area?

A- New Hope is very tricky because it’s a tourist town, there are a lot of places that are just plain mediocre where the prices are through the roof. There are some great ones as well though if you know where to look–let me help you. You’ll have to look up the addresses yourself. Duck Soup Cafe (breakfast and lunch only), Hong Kong Sunny (Chinese), Villa Vito (family Italian), and Zoubi Restaurant (French–excellent food) all in New Hope, PA. In Lambertville, NJ you have Hamilton’s Grill Room (fresh fish and chops), O Ta Ya (sushi), Bell’s Tavern (everything), and Rick’s Cafe (Italian–fantastic too). Lastly, in Stockton, NJ there is Via Ponte, which has the best Italian food in the area in my opinion.

Question::
What song took the longest to write?

A- I don’t know the exact answer but I have a feeling it would be “Buckingham Green”. It wasn’t as if it took us 3 weeks and nights of slaving over it, it just took a very long time to evolve into the the tune that you hear on “The Mollusk.” Originally Aaron and I wrote and recorded it on the 4-track at Brookridge Farm in his bedroom. It was just the verses, about 90 seconds long, no intro, no solo section, no outro, just two rhythm  guitars and 2 vocals. When it came time to do Chocolate and Cheese it wasn’t ready to go, although we played around with it live occasionally. We cut a better sounding version of it with bass and drums at Greg Frey’s studio and added a long spoken word/instrumental passage at the end a la “Nights in White Satin”. A year or more later I recorded a song in my apartment in New Hope inspired by the book “Shogun” called “Mariko-San”. The vocals would eventually get scrapped and become the music for the awesome middle section of “Buckingham Green”. Then, (are you still following this?) I went and re-recorded “Mariko-San” at Greg Frey’ s studio. So time goes by and we are now working on “The Mollusk”. Andrew Weiss feels that “Buckingham Green” needs a killer solo section that is different from the verses and chorus. Stealing from yourself is totally allowed in songwriting so that’s exactly what I did, and used the music from “Mariko-San” under the guitar solo. By the time “The Mollusk” was released it had been 4 years and 6 different demos of Buckingham Green, including a Peel Session we did in London. So there you have it.

Check out Neil young’s new book “Waging Heavy Peace”.  It has a lot of things that really ring true with me, but none more than how passionate he feels about the degradation of music these days. I’ve been working on my solo album and the new Moistboyz album for about 6 months non-stop and it pains me to think of people listening to all of my hard work on computer speakers thru a compressed audio file they downloaded (probably illegally without paying for it.) But hey, you’re not allowed to complain about these things, that makes you a grumpy old dick. I have a pretty decent studio actually, really nice gear that I’ve spent a lifetime accruing. Nice microphones, old vintage compressors, etc. I’ve also spent my entire life refining my skills as a songwriter, musician, producer and engineer. I can make the shit sound good, especially at maximum volume. That’s assuming that anyone actually owns a stereo anymore with the capability of blasting music. Probably not though, probably they just use an Ipod dock or just listen on their computers or smartphones.  Is that being too negative, I’m sorry! Something has to change and it has to happen soon. I always thought CDs wouldn’t last very long as media, and they didn’t. I have no sentiments or affection for the thousands of cds I own, I would sell them all for a hundred bucks if someone promised me they would come get them. My record collection on the other hand is something I’m very proud of. There are a lot of memories and inspiration in those cardboard sleeves. A lot of imagination too, especially for a music junkie like myself.  Now even the CD seems like a better option than a digital file. It is really a loveless format, the mp3 and the native compressed audio file. I wonder if all of the time I’m putting in is even worth it, should I mix the record on a pair of earbuds instead?  I’m being serious here, I’ve spent my whole life trying to be the best at one thing, making music, and this is the reality in 2012. Digital audio files sound like shit, period. I feel bad for people that never got to experience the magic of a great album cover with killer artwork and liner notes, gatefold sleeves, double long playing LPs, etc. “Yeah dude side 4 is the shit!”  There was magic in there, the 4^th Zeppelin album with it’s mysterious artwork, the Yes records with the awesome artwork, Santana’s Abraxas, I could go on forever. Can’t we all just agree to go back to vinyl and cassettes? It would require all of the labels to enforce it (or force it) on the public. I’m gonna go first and throw my hat in the ring. I’ll bet Neil Young is with me too.

I just got this email, this rules, true Philly shit!

Jerz

Question::
Trying to be concise. I’m 35, married with an amazing 2 year old boy.
I think I’m intelligent; I’m well read and have been a writer since
7th grade. However I can’t do anything with my life and feel like an
utter failure. I’m on the verge of losing my wife, whom I love dearly,
because I’ve lied about stupid shit (never cheated, though fooled
around online, which is why my marriage is about to end). Any advice?
Once my marriage ends I have no clue how I can manage to go on. I have
never lived up to my potential, and am depressed because I’m not even
sure I can. I’d appreciate any words of wisdom/experience you may
have. I’m a longtime fan.   Keith

Keith:
I’ve spent my whole life searching for the meaning of life, and peace of mind. A bazillion people that are smarter than me have thought this through before me. I think having kids is a part of growing because it makes you less selfish but it isn’t a cure all, it can also make things pretty complicated, but overall at the end of the day it’s worth it. Marriage is the single most toughest job I’ve ever faced, it is definitely not easy. It takes a lot of perseverance and mettle, I’ve been married my whole adult life pretty much and I’ve had good periods that have lasted for 6-8 years and had times that I wanted to bail every day for over a year but stuck it out–and then things are peaceful and wonderful again. I think people are too quick to give up on marriages. I can’t tell you what to do, ultimately you’re gonna have to decide which way to go if you hit a fork in the road. Work on yourself, focus on your goals, love yourself, be happy with yourself. Encourage your wife to do the same exact thing. If you are both happy in your own skin you will ultimately be happier together. Chin up brother.

I know this is usually a question and answer website but I have a lot of heavy thoughts weighing on my mind today and I wanted to throw them out there.

It’s been hard to get out of bed this week, I have to force myself to do it. Depression is not normally my thing, I suffer from anxiety more than most people, but that is a different feeling altogether and I’m not feeling much of that right now. What I’m feeling is loss– this storm took so much from so many people, in some cases it took people’s lives. For me it took away something that can’t be fixed with money alone.

The shore is my personal refuge, and fishing is my therapy. I am a busy person and I have a lot of bad habits that go along with being a professional musician. I party too much, I smoke too much, I have very strange hours, these things come along with the job and most of the people I know that play music for a living are the same way, some are better at keeping in check than others. I’m good at keeping myself in check and know when to pull back a little. My peace of mind comes from my family, when I’m satisfied with my work, and the ocean–not just fishing, but the whole maritime package. Standing on the shoreline at 2am trying to catch a fish alone is something that is very dear to me. Sleeping in my trailer on the south end of Long Beach Island while it’s cold and the wind is howling out of the NE in late October is my therapy. Waking up to catch the change of the tide at 4am and pulling on my damp waders and hitting 7-Eleven for a coffee has been an annual fall occurrence for all of my years. It is one of the few things that I do completely alone. For the most part, I need to be surrounded by my friends and family ALL of the time, except for when it comes to fishing. I fish with like minded people who have no idea, nor do they care, that I’m in a band. These are my friends and associates, many of these people have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and in some cases all of their worldly possessions. I pray that time and a lot of work and people pulling together will eventually heal this. I can’t tell you how much I am grieving for them right now, and also for myself. I feel a giant black hole in my soul at the moment but I know that in time it will go away. I also feel empathy for people affected by the tsunami, or earthquakes, or Katrina, that I didn’t feel before quite as strongly. I now know what it must have been like for them, it isn’t just something on t.v. anymore, it happened right in my backyard, to a place that is sacred ground to me, a place where I have worked my whole life with aspirations to retire to. I want to raise my family, send my son to college, and move to the shore to fish out the later years of my life. That has been my goal since I started thinking about such things, ask anyone who knows me. Many of these entire towns are gone, burned down, washed away with the tide. They will be replaced by new dwellings in time I’m sure, I’m a glass half full kind of person and an eternal optimist but right now I’m hurting, and it’s nothing in comparison to what some of my closest friends are going through.

So……thanks for the ear, I ask that you please do what you can to help with the rebuilding efforts. Times like these bring out the best in people, and if you’re somewhere far away from here please remember that this isn’t just a story on the news this week, this is very real and if everyone helps just a little bit it will go a long way to helping the Jersey and NY coastal areas get back on their feet. And I promise to get out of bed tomorrow.
sincerely,
MM

I met Nick Honachefsky on 6/18/08 after I had filmed a few episodes of my web based fishing show “Brownie Troop Fishing”. He sent me an email saying that he liked my show,  knew my band and that he fished his ass off and wrote for “The Fisherman” magazine, a NJ based weekly publication that I subscribe to. I had read his articles and seen his name a million times and when I called him to take him up on his offer to surf cast I knew immediately that we were kindred spirits. I had just broken my ankles on a Ween European tour after a wild night but it wasn’t stopping me from fishing. I told Nick what I was dealing with and we both agreed that it wouldn’t be a problem,  I would just tape my legs up with garbage bags and duct tape so as not to get the casts all wet and slimy. (yeah right). I drove alone to the address he gave me in Normandy Beach, NJ and got to his house before he got back from running errands. I had to take a leak, big time after an hour in my truck so I let myself into his house to use the bathroom. He came home as I was walking through his kitchen and he simply said “hey, make yourself at home why dontcha”.  After a few short formalities he helped me drag our gear onto his beach to go fishing and from the first cast we knocked it out of the park catching Stripers, Bluefish, and Sharks. We never looked back after that, I had found a like-minded friend in every sense of the word. After that day we fished something like 5 days a week, and spoke on the phone like 20 times a day. Our friendship grew naturally from that moment on and he quickly became one of the closest friends I’ve ever had. He has watched my son grow up, we’ve been through all of life’s major events together, the good and the bad. Most of all we fished together, as hard as two people can fish—from the surf, from the boat, in the river, in canals, around the world. Along the way we shot 16 episodes of the Brownie Troop Fishing Show together. He is as good an angler that has ever walked the beaches of Jersey, and he is an even better saltwater journalist, evidenced by his rise from local freelance fishing journalist to Managing Editor of Saltwater Sportsman, the Sports Illustrated of fishing magazines. He is even a better loyal friend though. When Hurricane Sandy hit, Nick’s house was at ground zero of the devastation. His house burned to the ground and washed away with the tide that we so carefully monitored for the past 4 or 5 years for a fishing advantage. I’ve spent a hundred nights sleeping on his couch at his place in Normandy, the door was always open to me and we had a lot of fun and a lot of late nights and early mornings there, waking up before sunrise to pound the surf. Now it’s gone, reduced to matchsticks like so many other homes left crushed in Sandy’s wake, along with all of his fishing journals, tackle, and all of his worldly possessions.  I am hosting a benefit concert to help Nick rebuild his house and reclaim his life at the Jersey shore, which is exactly where he belongs. I’m asking for your support for my friend, come out and enjoy an evening of incredible music and good laughs for a great cause. We are down but we are not out and we will fish again soon, and forever. There are a lot of people in need and I have seen the best in people this past week since Sandy left the area, I ask that you help within your budget and limitations and assist in helping my good friend get back on his feet.
Here is a donation website if you want to kick in and can’t make the concert:

http://nickymagnum.chipin.com/nick-honachefsky-fund

To clarify: The Saint in Asbury Park, NJ–Sun Nov. 11–”Dean Ween and Friends” featuring Claude Coleman, Glenn McClelland, Chris Harford, Dickie Moist, and the all of the usual suspects. The evening will feature new music and old music by Moistboyz, Chris Harford, Jimmy Wilson, members of Ween, etc. More specific details to follow, stay tuned to this website for updates.