Events

[FOLK] You’ve heard the Weepies, even if you’re not consciously aware of it. The duo’s buoyant melodies, topped with Deb Talan’s addictive warble, have soundtracked our lives for over a decade now, flowing from the speakers at coffee shops and embedded in the plots of shows like Grey’s Anatomy and How I Met Your Mother. They’ve provided tunes for ads from JC Penny and Old Navy and contributed music to a 2008 campaign message from President Barack Obama. Despite their folksy foundation, they usually tour with a supporting band, but not this fall. Instead, they’re opting to go it alone, stripping down their show to its organic roots and traveling to some uncharted territory: Their gig at the Tralf Music Hall on Thursday, December 1, is their first time playing in Buffalo.

The last time I spoke with Talan, I woke her out of sound sleep to do an interview about her solo disc, A Bird Flies Out (2003), and the Weepies’ debut, Happiness, to be released shortly thereafter. It was a starting-gun moment, and the years between have been anything but restful. Talan and her husband Steve Tannen, the other half of the Weepies, have since sold about a million discs of their five releases. They’re raising three children who were home-schooled through their early years and have migrated from Massachusetts to California to Iowa. And just three years ago, Talan discovered she had stage two breast cancer. Although she’s been in remission since summer 2014, the couple remains forever changed. The gravity of their experience informed the tone of Sirens (2015), which is the most recent Weepies release.

As the duo heads out for their “Completely Alone and Acoustic Tour” and Talan readies her first solo collection in thirteen years, she reflected on the aftermath of her health crisis.

“There was a whole cascade of life stuff—a series of things that happened  that were completely out of my control,” she said over the phone. “I really had to rely on the kindness and love of other people, and it was wonderful to feel that support. But for someone that doesn’t like to lean on others so much, a part of it was also really uncomfortable for me. I definitely got the blessing, the positive part, but as I was emerging from this whole experience, I started feeling a need to prove that I could step forward on my own a little bit. I just needed to get my wings back and flex them a little. I wanted to know: Can I still do this?”

Indeed she can. As of this June, she’d raised $57,000 to fund the making of Lucky Girl, the tentative title for her forthcoming release, which comprises songs she’d been tucking away over the years. It was Tannen that gave her the final nudge to start formally working on it after years of focusing solely on the Weepies. In part, the practicality and open-air of the couple’s Iowa home allowed her the space to balance ongoing motherhood with a daunting creative project. It’s a far cry from the rented bungalow they shared (and remember fondly) while building their careers in California.

“We’re both from ‘gypsy Jew’ heritage, so settling in like this isn’t necessarily second nature, but this feels like a really good spot right now,” she said. “We have a studio in our house here, and I had a few hours each day when the kids were all out to work, which actually felt like a guilty pleasure. Everything lined up when we started making plans to move here. It’s a college town, but not so overrun that people are crushing one another. There’s plenty of room for our boys to spread out. There are instruments and Legos in every room.”

Perhaps it’s all that extra space that spawned the desire for a back-to-basics fall tour after years of playing with a backing band. Talan says the caravan feel of the big bus tours they’ve done is great fun, but wonders if a full band presentation might fuzzy the emotional connection between artist and audience some. And maybe, like her new disc, it’s a bit of a personal test.

“This tour is very parallel to the solo project, since we’ve been leaning on these other musicians,” she said. “We thought, ‘Let’s step up in this other way and also have the benefit of making a deeper connection,’ and that means with each other as well as listeners. It’s a very naked presentation. We did a little tester set of shows over the summer, and being alone on stage allows us to listen to each other differently. It feels nourishing.”