Ween Revisiting ’12 Golden Country Greats’ Album With Two Ryman Auditorium Shows

Alt-rock group Ween have gone in plenty of surprising musical directions over the course of their extensive, multi-decade career, but for country fans, one of the group's finest moments was arguably the release of 12 Golden Country Greats in 1996.

While many artists have "gone country" at one time or another, the rock group completely embraced the format and all its trappings for an entire album, which was a stark change for a band famous for eschewing genre and employing primarily DIY recording methods. Ween even tapped established Nashville musicians such as Charlie McCoy and the Jordanaires to help them recreate a classic country sound.

Six years ago, however, it seemed as if Ween were calling it quits: The group's members Gene and Dean Ween (aka Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo) gave their final performances for over three years in 2012, and Freeman subsequently announced that he would be pulling out of the band, ostensibly to focus on his work as a solo artist. However, shortly thereafter, Freeman explained that he was struggling with substance abuse.

Fortunately for fans, the group reunited at the end of 2015, and quickly began to perform again as well as revisit projects they'd recorded in the past -- and soon, 12 Golden Country Greats will be among those revisited project. In October of 2018, Ween have announced, they will be appearing in Nashville with the S--t Creek Boys, a group of several musicians they worked with during the album's initial recording, for a throwback country show.

Ween will play the Ryman Auditorium on Oct. 16 and 17 in a two-night run celebrating 12 Golden Country Greats. Pre-sale for the shows begins on Aug. 15 at 10AM CT.

In the meantime, Ween are on their Florida Georgia Line Tour (no relation to the country superstar duo). For more information, head over to their website.