THINGS ARE looking cheerful in the world of the Weepies.
The Southern California singer-songwriter duo, otherwise known as Deb Talan and Steven Tannen, are set to release their first full-length album, “Say I Am You,” in March, but it’s already available for purchase online through distributors such as iTunes — and it’s selling like proverbial hotcakes.
They’re getting ready to play the Sundance Film Festival because their song “The World Spins Madly On” is going to be in a new Jennifer Aniston movie.
Oh, and they’re nice people who write terrific songs and seem to really like each other.
Romantic and musical partners, Talan and Tannen were each rising indie singer-songwriters when they met in a Boston club after one of his gigs in 2001, but they didn’t fully merge their musical identities until they’d been together for a year and a half.
Since then, they moved from Massachusetts to a cottage in Southern California (“where the weather is gentle and parking is not a problem,” Talan says). Each released a solo album in 2003, and last summer they got a record deal with the label Nettwerk.
When Talan and Tannen perform together — as they will Sunday at Cafe Du Nord — they trade guitars, banter and lead-vocal duties nearly every song.
She’ll sing the eerie, gorgeous “Unraveling” from her 2003 disc “A Bird Flies Out,” and he follows with “San Francisco” from his 2001 debut “Big Seorita.”
Then their voices will merge into complete harmony in a song from the Weepies’ 2003 EP “Happiness” or their newest release “Say I Am You.”
As for what they sound like, the Weepies usually end up being tagged as pop-folk (folky pop? alt-folk pop?), but Tannen is more philosophical.
“Louis Armstrong said, ‘All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard no horse sing no song,'” he says. “And I think Deb and I think of ourselves as songwriters. We have been independent for a couple of years, so we’ve been driving around in our cars playing wherever we could. And that’s folk music.”
Which is not to say that they’re not also a little rock ‘n’ roll; Tannen started out playing rock music in New York clubs, and Talan fronted a punky band in Portland called Hummingfish in the late ’90s.
Still, the folk label seems to be sticking.
“Say I Am You,” which has been available online, hit No. 1 in seven European countries in the folk category, Tannen says.
“We were a little confused about the genre thing, but ‘folk’ includes David Gray, Bruce Springsteen, Damien Rice, even the Pixies,” Tannen says. “And we were like, the Pixies are folk? And we’re really comfortable being classified with those writers.”
Whatever the genre, the Weepies have a small but growing
fan base, a keen rapport with each other, and an almost giddy enthusiasm about crafting songs. The first song they wrote
together, “Rocks and Water,”
appeared on each of their
solo albums.
“We’re not the ‘sit down from 8 to 12 every day and write’ sort,” Talan says. “It’s constantly in our thoughts and we’re always working on things. And I think it feels very natural to join up with someone else who lives their life that way.”
So the only mystery about them is how such a happy band ended up being called the Weepies.
Talan says that their goal as songwriters is to make every song complex — the sadder songs should have a twinkle of hope, and the happy songs should have a bit of wistful tug.
“We are a pretty happy band, but I think we experience our lives on a bunch of different levels, and we want our music to have that full spectrum.”
