Dean Ween on the two guitar solos that influenced his playing style the most
For more than 30 years, Dean Ween had been bringing the brown sound to the masses. Even though his band, experimental rock gods Ween, are experts in crossing genres, Dean’s guitar has been an instantly-recognisable pillar of their sound. Whether it’s heard in the Motörhead-like power of ‘It’s Gonna Be a Long Night’, or the jaunty SpongeBob-approved tones of ‘Ocean Man’, Dean Ween is always there to inject his own personality into the songs.
So where did that style come from? As it turns out, Deaner has been stealing from just two soloists his entire life. When he sat down with Zwan guitarist Matt Sweeney for the Noisey series ‘Guitar Moves’, Ween opened his shack in New Hope, Pennsylvania, to explain his approach to the six-string. After dispensing some invaluable advice about whether your guitar should cover your dick or not, Ween got down to reveal the limits of his guitar style.
“I’ve been playing two guitar solos my entire life and no one has figured it out yet,” Ween claimed. “One is the one from ‘Blue Sky’.” Ween then shows off how to climb the neck of the guitar in a style eerily reminiscent of the Allman Brothers Band’s Dickey Betts, hitting all of the same signature tones and harmonic turns that are featured in Betts’ iconic solo track from the Allman’s 1972 release Eat a Peach.
Ween’s fandom for Betts was on full display throughout the conversation – he and Sweeney played an excerpt from The Dean Ween Band’s tribute to the guitarist, fittingly titled ‘Dickey Betts’. Ween even got to meet Betts when he was a teenager, in a story that he happily shared in the episode as well.
“I actually met Dickey Betts when I was like 12 years old,” Ween explained. “I played junior hockey at a really high level. We were on tour somewhere and he got into the elevator with my father and I. My father knew who he was.”
“He was the scariest guy. It was like being in an elevator with Sonny Barger or something from the Hell’s Angels except worse,” Ween recalled. “He was green and pot-marked and didn’t look like he had slept for a long time.”
As for the other solo that Ween had been ripping off, it was Eddie Hazel’s iconic freak-out on Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain’. “Everything that I play is either a variation on ‘Maggot Brain’ or ‘Blue Sky’,” Ween said. He proceeds to bust out a bluesy solo heavy on string bends. The resemblance is uncanny, so when Ween says that those two solos are the only ones that he’s been influenced by, you absolutely believe him.
Check out Dean Ween discussing the influence of ‘Blue Sky’ and ‘Maggot Brain’ down below.
