The Weepies' Guide to a Happy Life

Writer: Kate Kiefer, photos by Ji Shin
Features, Issue 41, Published online on 25 Apr 2008 Page 1 of 3 Next >

This unassuming husband/wife duo’s music has graced sitcoms like Grey’s Anatomy and Scrubs, not to mention Sundance hit Friends With Money and major TV ad campaigns. They’ve also collaborated with pop-star-turned-singer/songwriter Mandy Moore, and their new record Hideaway—an irresistible collection of introspective folk-pop songs—is their most delightful work to date. But at the end of the day, The Weepies are just a busy young couple trying to make beautiful music without waking the baby.

Deb Talan and Steve Tannen’s one-bedroom house in the hills of Topanga, Calif., hardly fits three people. Even though the newest addition to the family—three-month-old Theo Samuel—only weighs in at about 10 pounds, his accessories dominate the space. A small flat-screen TV sits on a stool at the foot of the fireplace, overshadowed by a pink pig-shaped humidifier affectionately called the “humidi-pig.” There’s a polka-dotted bouncy chair and a formula bottle on the coffee table, a colorful mobile hangs from the ceiling above the crib, a smaller one twirls over the changing table, and pacifiers and pastel-colored blankets lay scattered about the house. Small canvases lean against the walls—bright owls and monkeys and bowls of fruit, painted by Talan herself. Theo’s crib in the corner obscures the family DVD collection, which ranges from Harold and Maude and Love Actually to The Office. The new parents deemed recording equipment a “baby hazard” and have since relocated it to the garage.

We’re listening to an iTunes playlist called “DebMixPostXmas,” featuring mellow songs by Ryan Adams, Great Lake Swimmers, Joni Mitchell, Beck, Ray Charles, Patty Griffin and, of course, Deb’s husband and bandmate Steve Tannen. Talan’s on the couch cooing at the baby, while Tannen rustles about in the kitchen, preparing a plate of carrots and almonds and asking if I know Lindsey Buckingham, because he really wants to meet him. Nope, I tell him. He looks disappointed and says, “Well how about the guy from The Streets?”

The phone rings. Tannen disappears into the bedroom for a few minutes and emerges smirking. “That was my father, calling to tell us that he got a humidi-pig as well, and to warn us that if you fill it up too high, it won’t work. They’re comfortable with filling it up to the nose.”

The only indication that musicians live here is a double guitar stand in the middle of the living room and a neon sign on the back deck that reads “The Weepies.” Talan and Tannen are trying to get ready for a photo shoot, but Theo just spit up and they can’t find his pink pacifier—neither the blue one, the green one nor the bluish-green one will do the trick. Somehow, though, The Weepies still look like they’ve got life pretty well figured out.

STEP 1: GET OUT OF THE HOUSE

Six years ago, Talan and Tannen were solo musicians and mutual fans. Talan was part of the new-folk scene in Boston, and Tannen in New York. After a few back-and-forth emails (“sent in a half-jokey, half ‘Hi, I’m a fan, how are ya?’ sort of way,” says Tannen), he scheduled his first Boston show at Club Passim. Although he casually mentioned the trip to Talan, he didn’t think she’d make an appearance. “I was extremely nervous anyway, and then Deb Talan showed up,” he recalls.

“With a posse,” Talan interrupts, laughing.

Tannen continues, “Yes, a posse of women all dressed in black, except Deb was dressed in red. And I can’t remember the rest of the gig.” Little did Tannen know, Talan had been waiting for weeks to see him perform. “I still have a little card I wrote on that says “February 12: Steve Tannen!” she says. Both too shy to make a move, they parted ways and agreed to meet again soon.

Talan later recorded a foreshadowing memory of that night in a song called “Slow Pony Home”: “I can remember when I first saw you / You said in my photograph I looked more far away / I laughed and smiled and didn’t say ‘I’m a bit afraid to be here.’”

Still nervous a few weeks later, Tannen attended a Deb Talan show at The Living Room in Manhattan. “I tried to pay her back—I brought my posse,” he says. “But of course my friends included a Ringling Bros. clown and two six-foot-four musicians who look like they should be in a circus.” That night, Talan and Tannen left the club together and began developing an unexpected musical partnership. Initially, they tried to impress each other by playing old standbys (“It was like a duel,” Talan says), but as the pair gained confidence throughout the night, they started playing new and incomplete songs. “We didn’t jump in right away and say, OK, we’re a duo,” she says, “but there was a sense of being so excited to share music with each other, that we actually started collaborating that first night.”

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The Weepies' Guide to a Happy Life

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