For most musicians a side project equals a solo album or getting together with friends and starting another band. For Mickey Melchiondo (a.k.a. Dean Ween of Ween) it meant he followed his obsession with fishing.
His interest began as a child growing up on the Delaware River. The urge to cast a line into a body of water stayed with him as an adult and eventually led to entries chronicling that passion on Ween’s website. From there he started the internet program Brownie Troop Fishing Show, which featured footage of his excursions.
Not satisfied, he took the next step and became a certified fishing guide, with Mickey’s Guide Service, Home of Arcangel Sportfishing. Operating out of Belmar, New Jersey, he takes clients along the Delaware River as well as for trips on the Atlantic Ocean.
On my first attempt to contact Mickey I get his voice mail. A short time later, he calls me back and we proceed to discuss his interest in fishing, how it blossomed from a hobby to a second career and the influence it has made on his ‘day job’ in Ween.
MM: It’s Mickey. Sorry, I was just taking a shower.
JPG: That’s okay. I thought maybe you were still fishing.
MM: Nah. I get done really early.
JPG: Did you start really early?
MM: Five in the morning every day.
JPG: That’s crazy early for me. That used to be my bedtime.
MM: Me, too.
JPG: The change of hours. Is it a major adjustment or you condition yourself to do it?
MM: No. I get so excited for it, sometimes, I don’t even sleep. I try and go to bed when…I have a 10 year old son. Good for me. I go to bed when he goes to bed.
Coming off tour, it’s a big adjustment. We usually go to bed like eight o’clock in the morning when we’re on tour. So, I have to transition like in one day.
JPG: How did you discover fishing?
MM: Through my Father. We had a house down the shore. We always had boats on the ocean. I’ve always lived on the Delaware River. We moved like three or four times in my life but it was always within the Delaware River Valley. We’ve always lived like, literally, right on the river. Still, to this day, I’m in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
JPG: Do you know what part of Italy your ancestors are from?
MM: Foggia, southern Italy, but it’s not Sicily. My grandmother is from Abruzzi and my grandfather is from Foggia.
JPG: The reason I bring that up is I wondered if there is a family history of being on the water or a history as fishermen.
MM: My Italian family is a horse family, actually. They came through Ellis Island and, funny enough, they got a job with the New Jersey State Police taking care of the horses in the stables in West Trenton, which is still where they live. Right by the barracks. My grandmother’s still alive. My grandfather’s not alive.
JPG: Then, the fishing interest is completely based from your dad to you? Are you getting your son into fishing?
MM: I take him out a lot. It’s funny. I’m really into fishing and really into guitar playing and I don’t try to cram either thing down his throat because I’m pretty over the top about both things. He’s a music lover and he’s been fishing with me a million times. So, I just hope…whatever direction he wants to go is fine by me.
JPG: Sometimes it skips a generation.
MM: The Mussolini fascist in me wants to force him to play guitar. (laughs) I don’t do that because he’s only 10.
JPG: Now, because of the crazy life of a touring and recording musician, is the attraction the calmness of fishing, kind of like musicians and athletes getting away from it all by playing golf?
MM: Absolutely 100 per cent dead on balls accurate correct. I think just the turgid lifestyle of that. I feel like as Ween has gone on it was always my, lines are still blurry between whether it’s my hobby or whether it’s my job. I get paid for it. Pays for my mortgage, so, it’s obviously a job in that way but I always used to get up…my wife would go to work in the morning before my son was born and I would get up and record all day and it wasn’t out of a sense of having to work or anything like that. It was just what I wanted to do it. I carved my fishing thing the same way, sort of like I don’t ever want it to become a drag. I’m doing it full time now, definitely. It’s more of a full-time job than Ween has ever been, actually. I’m fishing five days a week.
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