mewithoutYou was a Philadelphia rock band that ran from 2001 to 2022. It began as a side project for Aaron Weiss, who was playing with his brother Michael in a band called the Operation. It grew into a group built around Aaron's spoken-word vocals over loose, wandering drums, bass and guitar. The final lineup was Aaron Weiss, Michael Weiss, Brandon Beaver, Greg Jehanian and Rickie Mazzotta.
Tooth & Nail and Catch for Us the Foxes
Their first EP, I Never Said That I Was Brave, came out in 2001. A show at the Cornerstone Festival that same year got them signed to Tooth & Nail Records. The debut album, [A→B] Life, followed in 2002.
Catch for Us the Foxes (2004), produced by Brad Wood, got them noticed. The title is lifted straight from Song of Songs 2:15. In 2005 its song "January 1979" won mtvU's Left Field award for most original artist. Wood also produced Brother, Sister, released on 26 September 2006.
A gentler sound
It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright (2009) dropped Aaron's trademark shouting and a lot of the band's post-hardcore bite. In came simpler tunes, piano and harp, and songs about animals and food that talks. They toured in a 1976 charter bus that ran on vegetable oil.
The band parted ways with Tooth & Nail in 2011 and put out Ten Stories (2012) on Pine Street Records. Next came Pale Horses (2015) and [Untitled] (2018) on Run for Cover Records, both produced by Will Yip. In 2019 they said they'd be calling it a day, and the pandemic pushed the goodbye back to 2022. Their last shows were at the Fillmore in Philadelphia in August 2022, more than 1,400 shows into a 21-year run.
Many traditions
The Weiss brothers are of Jewish descent and grew up in a Sufi Muslim household. Their mother had converted from the Episcopal church, and their father from Judaism. Aaron's lyrics pull from Jewish, Muslim and Christian imagery, plus Rumi, John Donne and the Sufi teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. The Christian imagery got them filed with the Christian bands, though Aaron has said he doesn't think they were one. To him the lyrics were about a personal relationship with God, not about converting anyone.
The odd ones out
On the Tooth & Nail roster, mewithoutYou never fit the mold. They were closer to spoken-word post-hardcore than metalcore, and later records got quieter, with harp and piano up front. Hayley Williams of Paramore joined them on their final tour and later said, "No band ever mattered more to me than mewithoutYou." Paramore, Touché Amoré and Being as an Ocean all count them among their influences.
