Chalk one up for the newest generation.
The infant son of Steve Tannen and Deb Talan — otherwise known as husband-and-wife duo the Weepies — is on the road with his parents and 3-year-old brother and doing just fine as they zigzag around the country playing sold-out shows.
“He is doing great,” Talan said of the family’s newest addition. “He has a family of 15 people [of those working with the band] who want to hold him and be with him. He’s having a great time.”
So are his parents, who are touring behind their August release, “Be My Thrill,” which almost immediately zoomed up the Billboard charts to the Top 40 and Top 10 Album downloads. The duo’s indie-pop-mixed-with-hints-of-folk sound has won them a loyal legion of fans and plenty of critical and commercial success. Weepies songs have been used in many popular television programs including “Gossip Girl,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scrubs,” plus the movie “Sex and the City” and various television advertisements, including one for Old Navy.
“We are obsessive-compulsive writers,” said Tannen, noting both he and Talan had independent careers as singer-songwriters, primarily in the Boston area, before they met and joined forces. “What we are going for is to stop writing. We were home for months and months writing and raising kids, so [when we decided to record] we had more than 70 tunes [from which to choose].”
While such an embarrassment of riches might actually be difficult for some to shape into an album, the duo noted that the song selection was almost as easy as the writing.
“When we met, we were both writing, and that’s how we do it now,” Talan said. “One of us starts something and then we bring it to the table and finish it. Sometimes we start together and [then one of us works on it exclusively].”
Now that the couple’s life is full of children, the duo said they often block out times for a period of days and even weeks and months during which they write. The pop-folk sound is a natural for the parents who, like many others with young children, now take a bit of a different view on life.
“We are very aware of trying to catch a moment,” Talan said. “One thing parents have is a real sense of time slipping away.”
