Aaron Freeman strongly suggests that Ween has broken up, to the surprise of Mickey Melchiondo

In an A.V. Club interview that ran earlier this month, Aaron "Gene Ween" Freeman declined to go into detail about the current status of Ween, one of the best and most enduring bands to emerge during the '90s alt-rock boom. "I’m just leaving it very open-ended," he said. "I’m not going to really get into that too much, so it’s just open-ended." Reading between the lines, it seemed obvious that Freeman was hinting that Ween was, at best, in the midst of an extended hiatus, and most likely finished. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Freeman appears to be more explicit. "It's time to move on," Freeman told the magazine. "I'm retiring Gene Ween." When pressed on whether this means the end of Ween, Freeman replied, "Pretty much, yeah. It's been a long time, 25 years. It was a good run."

So, is that it? Is Ween done? While some outlets are reporting this as an official break-up, no statement from the band has been released yet. Meanwhile, Freeman's bandmate Mickey Melchiondo expressed surprise on Ween's Facebook page, posting that Ween's break-up "is news to me, all I can say for now I guess." The A.V. Club reached out to Freeman's publicist who told us, "I actually don’t have any further info at the moment but will alert you once I do"

In a way, it might not matter, since Ween hasn't put out an album in five years and didn't appear to be on the verge of starting work on one anytime soon. Still, until we hear something definitive, we're curious to see if Freeman intended his statements to Rolling Stone to be taken as a final word on Ween. [via Rolling Stone]