The Weepies

The Weepies
The Weepies performing in Grand Rapids, Michigan in November 2010.
Background information
Origin	Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Genres	Indie, Folk rock, acoustic rock
Years active	2001–present
Labels	Nettwerk
Website	theweepies.com
Members	Deb Talan Steve Tannen

The Weepies are an American indie pop-folk duo of married singer-songwriters Deb Talan and Steve Tannen. Their music has been described as "subtly intoxicating folk-pop".

In 2001, Talan and Tannen were individually active as singer-songwriters but mutual fans of each other's music; Tannen played Talan's album "constantly", even singing along in harmony, while Talan in turn was captivated by and had "formed a kind of a relationship" with Tannen's music. After eventually meeting at one of Tannen's shows at Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts, they quickly discovered a deep musical bond and began playing music together. According to Talan, the band's name

...came about from a few different sources, but one was, you know, those sort of old movies that were called weepies, where you could basically be guaranteed that if you needed a good cry, you could go and see one of these and bring your hanky and have a good time. And we want to be able to provide that for people. We want to make music that touches them and moves them in that way, the place where tears come from, for joy and for sorrow.

The Weepies' first album Happiness was released at Club Passim on November 29, 2003, and though they were unsigned by a label it sold over 10,000 copies.

In 2005, The Weepies recorded a second album, Say I Am You, in the bedroom of their home in Pasadena, California; the occasional motorist can be heard passing by in the background of some of the tracks. In May 2005, after a sold out show at The Living Room in New York City, The Weepies were approached by Nettwerk Records and signed by the label later that year. The album was released digitally in December of that year and physically on March 7, 2006. By February 2006, the album hit number one the iTunes Store list of most-downloaded folk albums in eight countries, with the single "World Spins Madly On" also topping the list of most-downloaded folk songs in the United States.Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody nominated the album for the Shortlist Music Prize, awarded to the year's best album released in the United States selling fewer than 500,000 copies, though it failed to reach the ten-album shortlist.