Gene sings the lead vocal part on every song except 'Piss Up a Rope' and 'Help Me Scrape the Mucus off My Brain', which feature Dean on lead vocals. The only instrumental parts recorded by the core members of Ween were guitar solos by Dean and Gene on 'I Don't Wanna Leave You on the Farm' and 'Fluffy', respectively. The session musicians were responsible for almost all of the instrumentation on the album. 'So Long, Jerry', a tribute to the then recently deceased Jerry Garcia, was featured as a B-Side on the 'Piss Up a Rope' single. When it came time to record the actual album, the band chose not to use the songs 'I Got No Darkside' and 'So Long, Jerry' but kept the album title.

However, the band did indeed record twelve songs during the demo sessions for the album. Ween claimed that the '12' represents the veteran musicians that appear on the record. Later, Ween assembled some of the session musicians again into a touring band dubbed The Shit Creek Boys.ĭespite the album’s title, it only features ten tracks.

Some musicians, such as keyboardist Bobby Emmons (who also served as a church deacon) and Danny Davis, declined to participate in the recording due to the 'blue' nature of much of the material, but Ween and Vaughn still got many highly regarded country musicians to play on the album. The legendary Bradley's Barn was chosen as the recording studio for the album. According to producer and friend of the band Ben Vaughn, Ween asked him to produce the album because he already had experience working with musicians in the Nashville country scene, having produced Arthur Alexander's album Lonely Just Like Me (1993) and co-written songs with Rodney Crowell and Gary Nicholson.

Ween wiki