Rock Star Adam Weiner (Low Cut Connie) on His New Album and the Art of Empathy in the 21st Century

Adam Weiner is Low Cut Connie, a south Philly-based rocker with a collective of musicians organized around the frontman’s extroverted persona and extraordinary talents. A jukebox of genres and influences, he draws comparisons to myriad artists as distinct as but not limited to Jerry Lew Lewis, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Hall & Oates, Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen. Since 2010, Low Cut Connie songs have spanned the American rock songbook – from aching ballads to shimmy-shaking boogie woogie; from fuzzy guitar rock to Philly soul – that emerge from Weiner’s vocals and piano, the latter of which serves as the pulpit for sweat-soaked live shows that rival revivals in energy and emotion. Adam Weiner is a 21^st century rock star, an artist inspired by empathy and the obligation to sow community through song and dance. After performing weekly live stream shows – dubbed “Tough Cookies” – from his South Philly apartment during the pandemic (and named, as a result, the “Pandemic Person of the Year” in 2020 by the New Yorker), Low Cut Connie recorded a seventh studio album, Art Dealers, which was released on September 8^th. I recently spoke with Adam over the phone about his new album and his role as an artist in contemporary America. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Tell us about the new album.

I mean, I’m not gonna say anything bad about it (laughs). I came out of the pandemic with a lot of confidence. I felt like I knew my voice better because I spent the pandemic performing other people’s songs. I covered over 600 songs in my “Tough Cookies” shows. And then at the end of 2021, I went back to my own music for the first time since the beginning of 2020. I felt like I knew my own style, my voice, and my writing better. It gave me a lot of confidence, so I was able to do this Art Dealers album very quickly. We recorded it in a week. We had to do like a COVID level type of situation, so we bubbled up the band for a week, and we just got it done. I love how it turned out. And I think it reflects the strength of a band that’s been cooking for a decade.

As a longtime fan, and as a writer myself who pays a lot of attention to artists I admire, it seems each new Low Cut Connie records gets deeper and wider, both musically and thematically. Is that something of which you are conscious?

I think it’s just a natural evolution. It’s important to understand that Low Cut Connie started as an accident. The band was not intended to ever be a band. It was just a group of friends getting together for a weekend and fucking around. And it turned into that first album. There was no intention or sort of creed behind the band or like modus operandi. People defined Low Cut Connie for us. In the first couple of years, people said we were a “sleazy rock band.” We played “scuzz-bucket rock.” We were a “Party Band.” And that was fine, but it was a narrow definition. So, as I’ve progressed with Low Cut Connie, I’ve expanded and allowed all the things that I do to be part of it. I’m happy that the fans have gone with me. As I got older, and became more socially conscious, people went there with me; as I became more musically dynamic – I can do ballads to heavy and everything in between – bringing all these different different styles that I explore into the music, people have stayed with me. And so at this point, I don’t have a fixed idea about what Low Cut Connie is. It’s just kind of whatever I’m feeling, and I really appreciate that my fans have rolled with me through all these albums.

One of the things that most defines your music, lyrically, at least, is not just a tender spot for the outsider or the discarded, but a real sense of solidarity with them. I identify empathy as probably your greatest gift as an artist. And you seem to be particularly attracted towards displaying empathy and solidarity with people deprived of mainstream acceptance in America. Is this accurate?

I think this is a very nice observation. And probably an accurate analysis. I would say, though, that a lot less thought goes into these things than you might imagine. Writing music and performing music for me is not in the same realm as thinking. It’s more in the realm of doing and action. So, if a line of text feels good to say, then I’m gonna say it. The reason it feels good, I don’t really analyze. I know when a certain line or emotion resonates with me, and I know it resonates with people when I sing it on stage or when they hear the record, and that makes it a good piece of writing. Beyond that, I don’t analyze too much, but I think your analysis is very good. The mark of a good song, in my opinion, is that it resonates across time and across all kinds of boundaries. So, for somebody like me that tries to write songs for a living, you hope that your work will resonate with as many people, and for yourself, for as long as possible, so I guess your point about empathy makes sense.

There seems to be a particular emphasis in your work as Low Cut Connie, right from the first album and more so with each subsequent recording, on those in the LBGTQ community. From where does this particular strain of empathy derive?

I’ve always run in queer circles, from the time I was 10 years old. I stopped playing sports because I was bad at sports. I started doing theater and would do community theater production and started to go to art camp. I was exposed to transgender people, gay people, people of every stripe. Being in that community from the time I was young has given me a more open view of the world, a more compassionate view of the world. My first musical jobs were playing piano and gay bars and drag karaoke nights, cabaret shows, in New York City and other places around the world. That’s where my musical career started, and so – to be honest – for me to be in this kind of very male dominated, rock and roll band was a departure for me. And slowly with the band, I started to go back into my comfort zone, which is a less gender-defined place. And I’ve actually gone deeper into my comfort zone with Art Dealers than I have before.

Agreed. This album really has more of an androgynous component to it. When I listen to your music, in general, I often think of Prince. I’m sensing David Bowie’s presence on the new record. What are your thoughts on these two artists?

Prince and David Bowie are the most chameleonic artists of all time. They were changing every album, every video, every era with different looks, different voices, different vision. I always admired that, and even if you don’t love every era of Prince or every era of Bowie you gotta admire the bravery of the openness and the willingness to go places they haven’t gone before each time they step up to the plate. A lot of artists do one thing and do it well, and they do it forever. Those two artists did a million things, and they kept expanding. It’s something I really admire and aspire to do.

“King of the Jews” is a very powerful song and video. Is this the first time you are personally addressing being Jewish?

Everything I do is pretty Jewey (laughs), but over the years, I’ve just gotten a little more in touch with my Jewish side. I’m not gonna lie. I’m an atheist. I’m not religious. I don’t go to temple. I don’t pray. I don’t have a theological side, and that’s maybe disappointing to some people. But it’s not really a part of my life. I grew up in a very conservative, traditional Jewish family. Hebrew school three times a week and etc. As an adult, I found this new thing, which I consider “Jeweyness,” and it’s basically embracing the cultural and ethnic heritage, even if you’re not religious. And I think again, during the pandemic, during the “Tough Cookies” shows, people saw how Jewey I am. I was basically teaching people Yiddish on the show. The humor that is a distinctly Jewish type of humor is something I grew up with to such a degree, and it’s like: You gotta laugh at everything. You know what I mean? In the darkest situation, you’ve got to find some humor in it. And I’ve always tried to do that with my songs. And I guess when it came around to “King of the Jews,” I just decided to be a little more overt. I feel like this song is acknowledging that the Jewish perspective is one that has shaped me, and it’s one that gives you empathy and insight because it’s a slight outsider perspective, historically, and that little bit of an outsider perspective makes you see things differently. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the greatest songwriters, and my heroes, have the same Jeweyness: Lou Reed, Paul Simon Leonard Cohen, Carole King, on and on. All the way back to Gershwin. There’s something about the perspective of the Jew that’s just unique.

You don’t see a lot of rock musicians directly and frequently addressing the idea of mental health. I see that a lot of your characters struggling with mental health. Is that something that you are consciously writing about?

It’s kind of funny, but I didn’t know specifically that I was talking about mental health in some of my songs until people told me that’s what I was doing. And I’m very comfortable talking about mental health issues, as we all should gain more comfort talking about it. But I certainly didn’t have an agenda before I wrote, for instance, “Help Me” on the last album, which got a lot of attention. I think part of it was that we’re going through a mental health crisis in our country, in our world, really. And people are starting to become aware of this kind of other pandemic, which is a mental health pandemic. And I’ve written a couple songs that speak to that around the time that people are gaining some awareness and language for it. And so it’s interesting that “Private Lives” and “Help Me” on the last album seemed to really strike a chord with people during the pandemic and what they were going through. And so for this album, the emphasis is still there, but it’s just taken somewhat in a further direction, into a place where now we’ve acknowledged the struggle, but then how do you go a step further and actually have a joyful life once you’ve acknowledged that you’re in the struggle?

Do you think that’s part of your job as an artist is to sort of help foster understanding, communication, and reconciliation?

I absolutely do. 150%. Why do you go to see a live show? You want to feel different when you go home from when you arrive. You want something to excite you, to turn you on, to give you some enlightenment, some uplift, some titillation. You know, to turn on all the synapses. I definitely want my crowd to feel great when the show is over.

You said earlier that you are not a religious person, but your shows feel, without actual preaching, like revivals to me. Is that something you’re conscious of?

Like I said, I’m not a theological person, but I think part of the reason I’m not religious is because art kind of occupies the space that religion does for a lot of other people. I’ve had experiences at performances as an audience member that shook me, that made me cry, that made me feel alive, that made me feel part of something in the way that people derive from religion. And then I became a practitioner of it, and I’ve facilitated people having this feeling of magic. And it made me believe even more in the power of art and entertainment. I’ve seen the wonders that it can work for people, myself included, and so it is a powerful, spiritual, physical kind of moving experience. And I wouldn’t go so far as to say that’s religious, but it’s certainly a sort of magic.

Do you ever imagine a time when you won’t be writing songs, making records and touring?

As long as I’m healthy and able to do it, that’s what I’ll be doing. You never know how long you get, how many laps around the track. You never know if the appetite of an audience will still be there. You never know if it’ll be possible financially. You just never know what’s going to happen in life. But as long as I’m able, this is what I feel I’ve been called to do. I’m expanding into other media. My work is now going into film making. I just made an Art Dealers film. I’m starting to write something. I’m starting to write songs for other people. I’d like to get back into theater. There’s a lot of other avenues I’m trying to explore. But, yes, both writing and performing music is the central thing that I am called to do.