The Springfield News-Leader from Springfield, Missouri • Page 29

08.20.2009 Weekend 3 NEWS-LEADER The Baxter Bulletin EML'JhlU WEISS FAMILY FRIENDS Side group to perform at Outland Saturday. By Jan Peterson FOR THE NEWS-LEADER Weiss Family Friendsmay not have a CD out, but fans of mewithoutYou will recognize much of the music they play Saturday at the Outland Ballroom Weiss Family Friends is a side project of mewithoutYou, which recently concluded a five-week tour promoting their fourth album, "it's all crazy! it's A -j pi 1 nf i-lJi Mi without mewithoutYou Michael and Aaron Weiss, (from left) with their mewithoutYou bandmates Greg Jehanian and Richard brothers' breakout group, Weiss Family Friends, will play the Outland Ballroom Saturday night. all false! it's all a dream! it's alright," released May 19 on Tooth and Nail. On Saturday, Weiss Family and Friends will offer a new approach to the experimental folk rock heard on "it's all crazv!" Along with brothers Aaron and Mike Weiss on acoustic and elec- trie guitar, respectively, will be Mike's wife, Sarah, on keyboards and Matt Chapin on trumpet. From somewhere between gigs in New York and Ohio, Mike Weiss talks about the origin of Weiss Family and Friends and what fans can expect at the show.

Y0UWI1H0UTME and the family dog. The Mazzotta people. I don't expect too many people will even come to the show. We're just grateful for the chance. to be able to do a tour like this where we have people interested in playing with us and we have people, interested in and hearing our music It makes me think, man, after all these years of hard work, this is really cool.

Is Weiss Family Friends working on a recording project separate from mewithoutYou? I thought about doing something along the lines of touring, but I think with any kind of recording project I would assume Rickie and Greg would want to be a part of that and I would want them to be a part of it. I love playing music with those guys. We just have flexible kinds of ideas of how we can get this music out I think it can benefit mewithoutYou to have Weiss Family and Friends on the road, keeping the music out there without forcing those guys to make sacrifices at this point in their life that they're not ready to make. with the same sort of intensity. It still forces me to rethink the music a little more and approach it to where my guitar is a little more in the forefront.

Where things would normally work they don't now. When things really get huge sounding on the record we're going to make it quieter. It's been a great experience for me and we've brought on some great musicians. I've seen some articles that lump your music into the Christian genre, but I've also seen it described as spiritual rather than belief-specific. How would you describe it? It's pretty spiritual.

I think that's a good way to describe it. A lot of inspiration for the lyrics comes from a part of Aaron that doesn't want to just proclaim our religion. His understanding and experiences in his own life have brought him to a place where he's still searching for more answers than he He has more questions than he ever has and less of a desire to VcHlt tO GO? What: The Weiss Family and Friends with Damien Jurado and Psalters When: 8 p.m. Saturday (doors open at 7 p.m.) Where: Outland Ballroom, 326 South Ave. Cost: $15 at the door (Jehanian) didn't want to do it and Aaron and I really did want to do it, we asked for their permission and blessing to do it as a tour but not as mewithoutYou because it's not those guys are an extremely important part of that name.

So we put together this idea. How does it differ from what fans of mewithoutYou are accustomed to? Probably people will be accustomed to more of a rock show. This is not a rock show We're not as loud. It really is a different dynamic for me personally because I'm not playing with the same kind of rhythm, be a preacher to anybody. But it's very spiritual.

In fact, I would say we probably don't have a single song that doesn't involve some sort of expression of love toward the creator or a question of what the real truth is in this world that we know exists somehow that there is a common thread and ultimate story that exists. But we're just finding it little by little. That's Aaron for you. He's an intense guy; he's really goofy sometimes; he's really sincere; he doesn't want to get up there on stage or make a record that just makes people tap their foot. How would you describe the band's vibe? We're just a very schizoid kind of shuffly little music group with a lot of love for playing music.

We haven't rehearsed intensely for this tour. It hasn't been a huge amount of preparation. We're trying to communicate something that transcends rehearsals. We're just trying to share that with So tell us about the Weiss Family Friends tour. How did the idea get started? Why not hit the road with the entire mewithoutYou group? It was more a result of our drummer and bass player just wanted to have some time off.

I don't know if it's more of an intended sort of statement to want to slow down in general with the touring, but there's definitely a sense those guys didn't want to do the full-time thing anymore. There's not talk of anyone quitting the band or breaking up the band. Those guys are going back to school and taking classes in the fall. Because (drummer) Rick (Mazzotta) and (bassist) Greg.