Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie is no stranger to The Current. Since his band’s first visit to The Current studio in 2016, Weiner and company have become friends of the station, having played Rock The Garden 2018, The Current’s 17th Anniversary Party, The Current’s 2019 SXSW Day Party, an early 2020 MicroShow, and so much more. He’s even hosted a miniseries of programs called The Connie Club.

So when Adam Weiner visited The Current studio for a conversation with Jill Riley on Morning Show, he surprised us with a gift: three songs from Low Cut Connie’s forthcoming album, Art Dealers.

In conversation with Jill Riley, Adam Weiner shared details about his songwriting process — and how the writing on Art Dealers allowed him space to stretch the gender perspective in the songs’ points of view.

Watch the complete session and interview above, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: Well, it's The Current, I'm Jill Riley, and I am here with a special guest today who came to town, stopped by The Current. He's become a very good friend of the station. And we've just had so much fun, again, supporting the music of Low Cut Connie, but also kind of watching the growth and kind of the arc of the story of that band. Adam Weiner is here. Welcome back to the Twin Cities!

Adam Weiner: What's up, Jill? Good to see you.

Jill Riley: It's good to see you!

Adam Weiner: Always good to be here. Love you guys. Good to be back.

Jill Riley: We see you quite often. I mean, just going back to the days of you playing at the Turf Club and the Entry and the First Avenue Mainroom, and just so many events around town. Just last year, the State Fair.

Adam Weiner: The State Fair was so weird.

Jill Riley: Tell me about it.

Adam Weiner: I loved it. I really loved it. We did two shows at the at the lodge thing.

Jill Riley: Yeah, the Leinie Lodge, right.

Adam Weiner: And we hung out for a few days, and I got to see you know, the best cheese sculpture and all the like farm implement things.

Jill Riley: Machinery Hill. This is fascinating, because I wonder what the outside perspective is? Because I grew up here, you know; I grew up in Minnesota, and the thing is, is like, everybody goes, everybody. Every walk of life. Everyone goes to the fair. So for you being you know, Philly, New Jersey, what is it? I mean, to experience that kind of sort of like piece of culture.

Adam Weiner: I'd never been to any state fair.

Jill Riley: OK.

Adam Weiner: I don't know if there's a New Jersey State Fair, but I never went. And I imagine it wouldn't be — there wouldn't be farm implement sculptures and things.

Jill Riley: Right. Not in Jersey. Right.

Adam Weiner: But yeah, it was extremely, you know, it was exactly what I would picture for a Midwest city fair, ou know? It was artistic, and everything was made of cheese. And it was very strange.

Jill Riley: What about the shows? Like when you looked out into the crowd into the audience...

Adam Weiner: Fabulous.

Jill Riley: Yeah.

Adam Weiner: It was an amazing mix of people, which is what I love about playing in the Twin Cities every time, is it's a very interesting mix of people. And people love live music here, apparently.

Jill Riley: Yes, you've heard! That's good! Yeah, because you've done so many different kinds of shows, especially, you know, in front of The Current audience, like Rock the Garden and anniversary shows and again, shows at First Avenue. So we're looking forward to having you back here because I understand that there is some news from you that you've got perhaps some new music waiting to share.

Adam Weiner: Yeah, we got a new album.

Jill Riley: Yeah.

Adam Weiner: And there's a film that goes with it.

Jill Riley: OK.

Adam Weiner: They're both called Art Dealers. And I thought today I would play some songs to premiere some of these songs from the new album; the new album comes out in September. And we're going to put a song out in April, and I wanted you guys to hear it first. And yeah, I've been working on this for a while. And I'm really, I'm not gonna say anything bad about it.

Jill Riley: I hope not! Yeah, because, you know, during the pandemic, you put so much energy and time into connecting with people and building this community. The Tough Cookies community. So I wonder like, where we're at now, you know, 2023, where did you find that the inspiration came from for new songs?

Adam Weiner: It just, you know, we were all in our bedrooms. We were all in our bathrobes. People saw me in my underwear in my house for two years, which was an amazing experience. But then all of a sudden, the energy started to come back of it's time to get wild again. It's time to get your hair messed up again, it's time to, you know, be in a crazy, sweaty, rock and roll club. I want to see people dancing, I want to see people sweating, making out, crying, laughing. I wanted that crush of energy, rock'n'roll energy. And so that's where all these songs came from, was just wanting to get back out there.

Jill Riley: Yeah, and so Art Dealers coming this fall. And so you mentioned that not only is it an album...

Adam Weiner: It's a film, too.

Jill Riley: It's a film!

Adam Weiner: Yeah.

Jill Riley: So tell me about that part.

Adam Weiner: We've been making a film for a bunch of years. We filmed, like, 30 shows over many years. And these people were doing like a road documentary with me. And then COVID hit, and we had to stop. And then coming out of quarantining, we decided to do a concert film. So we had this amazing opportunity to play three shows in New York City last April, at Sony Hall, which is this humongous kind of Broadway theater.

Jill Riley: OK.

Adam Weiner: And we shot that, and then we shot two nights at the Blue Note, which is a very famous jazz club, which was a totally new experience for me. We'd never played at — Low Cut Connie at a jazz club was very strange, but it worked amazing. So then we just combined them. And so it is a concert film, but it's got years, going back 20 years of the story of how I got to where I am, wherever I am. I don't know where I am. But I hope people like it. I think it's good.

Jill Riley: Well, we look forward to it. But we get did get a little preview of some performances, right here at The Current, you know, sitting at that piano—

Adam Weiner: Amazing piano!

Jill Riley: ...and hearing some of these new songs. So "Sleaze Me On."

Adam Weiner: Yeah.

Jill Riley: Tell me a little bit about that song. I made a little note while you were playing it. Because you mentioned New Jersey. And it's a line, you know, it's like a line and a song that I would hear and I've never been to New Jersey, but like people that are from New Jersey probably go "Oh, I know exactly. I know exactly what that is."

Adam Weiner: I think people know by now that I'm from New Jersey. And I can't hide that. I mean, look, this is you know... and so there's a place in New Jersey, where pretty much all the glitter on Earth is made.

Jill Riley: Like for real? Like a fact? OK, so that's a true story?

Adam Weiner: That's true. Yes, this this guy invented glitter, many, many moons ago and patented glitter. And they make glitter there; there's is a glitter factory.

Jill Riley: OK.

Adam Weiner: And it's a really weird place. And it's a very grimy, industrial, polluted part of New Jersey. And out of that comes glitter that, you know, all glitter on Earth. And so the song "Sleaze Me On" came out of me thinking about that. And also, with all these songs that I'm gonna play for you today, you know, for many years I've been writing songs where I've been writing about women, and there was "Charyse" and "Beverly" and "Shake It Little Tina" and—

Jill Riley: "Suzanne"!

Adam Weiner: "Suzanne," all these girls’ names. But I was always, like, tiptoeing, tiptoeing, tiptoeing, towards writing songs from either a female or a non-binary perspective in the songwriting. And I realized during the pandemic that that's somewhere that I just wanted to go, and I was just tiptoeing too slowly, for some reason. So a lot of these songs on this album are written from, I don't know what gender perspective, but not specifically a male perspective at all. That's something, we're sitting here in the Twin Cities, that's something I really identify with Prince and why he's my favorite songwriter, is because there's a wide perspective of fluidity when it comes to gender, gender roles, sexuality, in his writing. Is it the male perspective? Is it the female perspective? Is it non binary? Yes to all of that. And so "Sleaze Me On" and a song I'm playing for you today, "Don't Get Fresh With Me" and "Are You Gonna Run," are coming from a sort of freer gender perspective from me.

Jill Riley: Yeah. And I wonder when you say that you were kind of, not that you were reluctant, but you were kind of slow to get there. What are the experiences that you've kind of gathered to get yourself maybe into that role, or whatever that role is or that character?

Adam Weiner: I mean, I started a band called Low Cut Connie, and I never understood, people have asked me for years, where's the name come from? It's not a great story. But I got stuck with the name. It was not intended; you know, like Red Hot Chili Peppers or whatever. You pick a name and a moment, and 20 years later, it's like stuck to you, right?

Jill Riley: Yeah.

Adam Weiner: So 12 years ago, we came up with this ridiculous name for this little side project, Low Cut Connie. But as the years went on, the Low Cut Connie name, I started more and more to inhabit the alter ego of Low Cut Connie. People started to say "Hi, Connie." "Hi, Connie, what's up?" "Hey, Connie!" You know.

Jill Riley: Yeah.

Adam Weiner: And it felt natural to me. It didn't feel unnatural. And the more I performed, the more I became sort of a conductor of people's experience, right? That's what I'm there to do. My job is to make people feel free, right? To lose their inhibitions. And so in the process, I have to shed my inhibitions, right? So I am the freest, most open version of myself onstage when I'm performing. And the more that I did that years and years and years, the more open I felt about who I am. And that affected my writing and how I carry myself, and so I re-examine, you know, what perspective I was taking in terms of writing in terms of gender. And I just let myself go a little bit, you know? So I'm inspired by the audience really, they allow me to be free.

Jill Riley: Yeah. I'm talking with Adam Wiener, Low Cut Connie. And hearing you talk about this, about how Low Cut Connie, almost like it's a character but an alter ego. But the alter ego is actually the real you.

Adam Weiner: Exactly! I don't think of it as a character. I think of it as, like I said, the freest version of myself.

Jill Riley: Yeah.

Adam Weiner: It's kind of like David Bowie, or Prince, or some of my greatest performing heroes, male, female, and otherwise. Onstage, they shine the brightest. And they are giving you a piece of themselves. It isn't just a mask, right? We have to go back to our daily street life, and walk around in daytime and be in society, and we have to put a few other, you know, guards around ourselves in order to be in society. But I don't think of me onstage as myself as a character; I think it's a truest form of myself. I really do. 

Jill Riley: And kind of just like, the ever evolving, I guess, when it comes to the music or the way that you express yourself, or you express the songs. I mean, you touched on that a little bit, it seems like when you did Private Lives.

Adam Weiner: Yeah, one of the things with Private Lives was that I became really into the idea that there's a daytime presentation and a nighttime presentation of people's lives, myself included. When people meet me during the day, I'm shy, introverted, kind of square. And then they see me on stage and they like get whiplash, do you know? I'm fascinated by what makes people tick, and how they release, how they find ways to be themselves and release. So with Private Lives, throughout the whole album, not just the song "Private Lives," I was trying to write about, you know, interior and exterior lives, if that makes sense. This one, Art Dealers, it's way more integrated. I am fully just sort of letting it go. I did that exploration of interior exterior; this album is very much out, front facing, if you know what I mean.

Jill Riley: Yeah. So three songs in the performance today, we got a preview. I wonder if you could talk specifically about "Are You Gonna Run"?

Adam Weiner: I mean, once in a while, different people write songs in different ways. And once in a while, you know, something happens really easy. I'm like a craftsman. It could take me 10 years to finish a song. Right? On my last album, there's a song called "Charyse" that you guys have played on the radio, and that was a song that was really old. And there was a song called "Help Me" that took years and years and years to really complete. But "Are You Gonna Run" was like a lightning flash, and it came to me very quickly and very simple. And it's really an emotional song. And sometimes when something hits you like a pure emotion, you start to complicate it and say, "Well, how do I make this cooler?" Or "How do I make this sexier?" Or something that might be a little more in fashion or on trend or something. But at this age, and at this stage of my career, I just let things be. And so it's a very pure emotion in the song. And I just let it stand that way. I don't think it's very cool, necessarily, to put your heart on your sleeve. But I do in that song.

Jill Riley: And when, you know, when you're writing, composing a song like that, do you kind of get stuck at times? I mean, even though it came, you know, like it came out, it came easily, but it's like, OK, this is a song for a record; how am I going to do this live? Where does that sort of begin and end?

Adam Weiner: Well, I don't you know, if I went too in depth, it's like talking about your sex life: It's like you really, you want to know, but you don't really want to know. Like, I'll tell you only a little bit, and that's basically, like, some things are quick and some things take a really long time. And um, I think I always am thinking "Is this something I can play onstage?" But now I'm involved in so many projects, thank God, like working with other people, producing people, songs for the band, songs for other projects, who knows? So kind of like Prince, I'm not thinking necessarily about how I need to turn this, I don't have an agenda of I have to turn the song into something it doesn't want to be. And the beauty of it, Jill, is that when I started this band, we were thought of as a kind of jokey garage-rock band. And whether that was true or not, every album and every year that has gone by, people's perception of Low Cut Connie has expanded and expanded and expanded. Private Lives was an album where I tried so many different things. There's ballads. There's political music. There's party music, there's quiet songs, there's songs with strings. There's heavy, punky songs. There's everything in between. And my fans and my listeners accept me for all that, which I really appreciate. So now, I just let a song be what it wants to be.

Jill Riley: Yeah, the new record is coming this September, and it's called Art Dealers. So not just a record, but also a film. That means…

Adam Weiner: "Spaceballs the breakfast cereal!" [Editor’s note: Adam and Jill are referencing the 1987 Mel Brooks Star Wars parody film, Spaceballs.]

Jill Riley: "The flame thrower!" Thank you so much.

Adam Weiner: Art Dealers, the breakfast cereal, yeah!

Jill Riley: "Merchandising!" You know, the third song that you played for us, "Don't Get Fresh With Me," I can hear a tone of voice just when I read, when I just read the words on the page.

Adam Weiner: Yeah.

Jill Riley: "Don't get fresh with me." It's not an expression, I would say, a line that I don't think comes up around this region very much.

Adam Weiner: OK.

Jill Riley: And I wonder if that's something that is more of like an East Coast, New Jersey thing? Because you're like, "I can't hide New Jersey." Obviously. I can't hide Minnesota. I'm like, ready to do chores right now.

Adam Weiner: You gotta hook those thumbs. Come on, Jill, give it up!

Jill Riley: But it just like, "don't get fresh with me." You know?

Adam Weiner: Yeah, yeah. I lived in New York City for 13 years. I live in Philly now. And yeah, I can't shed my northeast urban culture, right? I worked for so many years playing piano in bars. The first 10 years of my career, I was a tip-bucket musician. And I have to say, I really enjoyed it, by the way. Being in a restaurant, a bar, I've worked in ballet studios, old age homes, wherever there was a piano, I'd sit down and they'd hire me, Christmas, whatever. You learn a lot about people. And you hear a lot of people saying amazing things, amazing little snippets of dialogue that come up. I have a song on Private Lives that I can't say the title right now. But somebody once when I was younger and looking really good on that particular day, I walked by, and somebody in this bar had said, "Ooh, my life just flashed before my thighs." And it just stuck in my head, and a song came out of that. So "Don't Get Fresh With Me" is a phrase that I've heard many times — not directed to me — but we, for years, lived next to this halfway house in Spanish Harlem. And it was men and women in this halfway house, and I would get to know some of them and talk to them, and I'd hear all kinds of incredible things that they would tell about their lives. And so this phrase, I heard somebody say, "Don't get fresh with me" to somebody else in a playful but, you know, strong way.

Jill Riley: Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Weiner: And, again, if I allow myself gender-wise to be free, you can look at "Don't Get Fresh With Me" from a lot of different perspectives.

Jill Riley: When I heard it, again, not a phrase that I would have heard around here, but I know of it. But I was thinking, it seems as though he has written this from a woman's point of view when I was listening to it.

Adam Weiner: Yes. So many of these amazing, strong, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough women that I've met, throughout their lives have been put in situations where they've had to use, you know, all their strength to survive, you know? And I've written about that a lot. With "Beverly," I was writing about women who live week to week in these motels, right, that I meet. But these tough, tough, city people that I would meet who are like day to day, just trying to make it by, right? And I would meet these people in his halfway house, and you don't know, some of these people were in and out of this house, and you don't know if they're progressing to a better life or regressing, right? So it's an interesting kind of waystation, and you hear how people handle the situation. And somehow, despite the challenges, still manage to have fun sometimes, right? Like this halfway house, they would have, they would have barbecues that we would be invited to. And so I just did kind of a character sketch. It's a little bit me, it's a little bit some of these women I've met. It's a little bit other people I've met. It all kind of comes together. And it's a tough song, but there's some humor in it too, I think.

Jill Riley: Yeah. Adam Weiner, Low Cut Connie. New record on the way. And you can, again, check out these performance videos; you can get a little preview of the new record, which we're very excited about, and it's called Art Dealers. It's coming out in September. Thank you so much for coming by.

Adam Weiner: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Jill Riley: The Current is public media made possible thanks to member support.

Video Segments

00:00:00 Don’t Get Fresh With Me
00:03:43 Sleaze Me On
00:06:30 Are You Gonna Run
00:09:16 Interview with host Jill Riley

Credits

Guest – Adam Weiner (Low Cut Connie)
Host – Jill Riley
Producer – Rachel Frances
Video Director – Evan Clark
Camera Operator – Peter Ecklund
Audio – Eric Xu Romani
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Low Cut Connie – official site