Ben Weasel And His Iron String Quartet

These Ones Are Bitter

[4/5]

Ben Weasel’s first foray into solo-record territory came in 2002 with the highly introspective, philosophical and hope-filled Fidatevi. It may have been a different direction lyrically for Weasel from the oft-sarcastic numbers drenching his former band Screeching Weasel’s lyrics, but overall, he and his backing band didn’t stray too much from the signature sound that’s made the man a legend in the punk-rock world. With his follow-up, These Ones Are Bitter, Weasel opted to enlist the help of All-American Rejects guitarist Mike Kennerty (who doubled as producer) and drummer Chris Gaylor, along with Alkaline Trio bass-slinger Dan Adriano-a surprising decision, perhaps, to some punk purists. Yet no matter one’s stance, it’s hard to dispute these guys’ musicianship and knack for beefing up compositions, which shine through on songs like the excellent instrumental-heavy opener “Let Freedom Ring,” the powerful “The First Day Of Spring” and “Affected By You” to name a few. And though the album acts as sort of a concept record featuring 14 songs chronicling a fictional breakup, the music-barring the beautifully melancholy “In A Bad Place” and “Give It Time”-belies this dire subject, as delicious melodies are packed into its uplifting and sunny tone, making These Ones Are Bitter a great summer soundtrack. (MENDOTA) Janelle Jones

ROCKS LIKE:

The Ergs!’ Upstairs/Downstairs

The Methadones’ Career Objective

Parasites’ Rat Ass Pie

IN-STORE SESSION WITH BEN WEASEL

This album is billed as Ben Weasel And His Iron String Quartet, but do you consider it another solo record?



Yeah. Just trying to be clever with the title-or funny. I don’t know what I was trying to do. But one of the names I was gonna have for my last short-lived band was the Iron String Quartet, but I ended up going with another name. But I liked that name a lot. But yeah, it’s the second Ben Weasel record.

What was the other band?

It was a band I [did] in the end of 2004 to the beginning of 2005 called Sweet Black And Blue. And several of these songs that ended up on this album were originally done with that band. We never recorded anything and we just played two gigs.

When I heard you were putting out another record, I kind of expected the usual suspects to be a part of it. How’d you hook up with these guys?



I hooked up with Mike [Kennerty] from an AP interview, actually.

I was going to mention that…

He interviewed me for [Idol Worship, AP 213]… So I kept in touch with him. I haven’t put out any record in four years and I haven’t put out one that was completely my own in five years. I’m a fairly prolific songwriter-not as much as when I was young, but I’d written tons of songs and then distilled them into something that was meant to be a two-album concept record. And this, by the way, was after I’d written another concept record and scrapped the whole thing.

Oh, no!

Because the Green Day American Idiot thing-when [that] came out, I said, “Oh, that’s a concept record, so if I put this out people are going to call me a copycat.” I was trying to get out of it anyway because the concept wasn’t really working and the whole thing was morose in tone and depressing and wasn’t any fun. So I sort of did a complete 180, started working on this other band’s tunes and most of the tunes on this record with the exception of two or three were written in the fall of 2004 and the spring of 2005… And some themes started developing. I had 28 songs that could be split into two albums. I don’t even know if I want to call it a concept album per se, but a very heavily themed thing primarily about these two people in this relationship breaking up. These Ones Are Bitter is part one of this concept, and I hope I can manage to get part two done eventually. Part two is already written. There’s another 14-song album that’s ready to go, it’s just a matter of getting the money to be able to make it. Janelle Jones