Bandsplain - The Replacements with Bob Mehr, Part 1

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

The Replacements are one of rock n’ roll’s greatest cult bands. Also: one of Yasi’s all-time favorites, which is why this gets the two part treatment (them’s the rules). Grammy award-winning journalist Bob Mehr, author of Trouble Boys: the True Story of the Replacements, leads us through the ‘Mats 101. Follow Bob Mehr on Twitter at @BobMehr and find Trouble Boys: the True Story of the Replacements wherever books are sold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplaine? Welcome to Bandsplaine. I'm your host, Yossi Salick. If you haven't listened before, this is a show where experts explain cult artists. Sometimes it's bands I don't know about. And sometimes it's my favorite fucking band in the world, like today, where our episode is about the replacements. If you don't know what the replacements sound like, I feel bad for you.

Here's what the replacements sound like. Because this is my show, and I decide, this is a two-part episode. My guest is journalist, author, and fellow member of the illustrious Persian Replacements fan club, Bob Mer. Welcome to the show, Bob. Thank you for having me, sister. Bob, I think first and foremost, we should get out of the way that you literally wrote the book on the replacements.

I know there's other books on the replacements, but as far as I'm concerned, you wrote the book. Well, thank you. Yeah, I'd like to think of it as the book, if nothing, for no other reason than my gentle ego. But yeah, it's called Trouble Boys, the true story of the replacements. And it really kind of tells the story of the who, what, where, when, why, and why not in the case of the replacements. Why they didn't become maybe as famous as some other bands that they were contemporaries with, like REM and so forth. but it's really kind of, you know, my attempt to understand the phenomenon of the replacements. And I think for people like yourself and me, it is kind of a thing where it is a phenomenon. The fandom is so intense and the love so profound that it kind of took about a 500-page book to unpack all that.

Amen. Honestly, the book is going to be way better than these two episodes. But if you want to hear a dumb idiot gush about the replacements to an extremely intelligent man who wrote an extremely intelligent book about them, you have come to the right place. Like, where to even begin? I'm just, my arm hair is standing up. Let's start. Why don't you give us, like, the, who are they who is in the band? When did they start? Where are they from? Etcetera. So the replacements led by singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg, lead guitarist Bob Stinson, his younger brother bassist Tommy Stinson and drummer Chris Mars, formed in December of

1979 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, South Minneapolis, to be precise. They broke up on July 4th, 1991, and in those dozen years, released eight albums, four for their hometown indie, twin-tone records, and four for Warner Brothers through its Sire imprint. You know, their catalog includes early classics like their debut, 1981's, sorry, Maher forgot to take out the trash, mid-period masterpieces like 1984's Let It Be, and 1985's Tim. And even though there's some debate, there are later albums like 1989's Don't Tell a Soul. I think when you listen to the Replacements Catalog, you hear a real evolution, a band that started out as a kind of snotty punk pop band, deviated, briefly went into even more hardcore territory. And then by the third album, Hoot Nanny, released in 1983, really kind of found their sound and style, which was that they weren't beholden to anyone's sound or style.

And I think you get into what is a really interesting kind of adventure when you listen to the Replacements Records through the years. You know, musically, I guess they're a classic rock and roll band in the real kind of best sense of the word. I mean, they're connected deeply to the Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones lineage of things. While they certainly had influences of punk and pop punk, you know, whether you're talking about the Ramones or Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers or even the Sex Pistols. It's all there. But I think individually they touch on folk and blues and singer-songwriter fare from Paul's side and even sort of blues rock and heavier things from Bob Stinson's side. So I think, you know, there's a real grab bag of influences and you can't sort of pin the replacements down and they sort of wouldn't let you pin them down.

I think their catalog reflects that. Let's talk about, I guess, it's kind of hard to say, and I'm sure you'll have some thoughts on this, like what their best known song is, because there's probably a couple that you could choose from since they didn't really have like a massive hit in any sense. Right. Well, if you're talking purely in a chart sense, it would be I'll be you from their 1988-9 album, Don't Tell Soul, because that was the one that really kind of got them the most video airplay, as I say, kind of hit the lower reaches of the, 50s in the chart. But I think they really have much more significant and well-known songs that didn't make it onto the radio or onto TV. There's a couple songs in their catalog,

interestingly, that have been covered by some very famous people. And those are the ones that tend to be at the top of the Spotify sort of playlist and charts. But for me, the song that's kind of defining, and I think they're most anthemic and a hit in a sort of alternate reality is a song off their 1985 major label debut, Tim, called Bastards of Young. listening to a music and talk episode. What's that? It's where full songs and talk segments can live together in gorgeous harmony, only on Spotify. Do you dream of making your own music and talk show? Well, guess what? You too can create one for free with Anchor, Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started today at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.fm slash music and talk. That was bastards of young by the

replacements off of 1985's Tim. I'm crying. So it's fine. I don't know why this band has this impact on me. I mean, we can talk about it a little bit later when we discuss our origin stories. But let's talk about this song. This was a song they played, if I remember correctly, on their Saturday Night Live performance.

Yes, it was a very famous or infamous Saturday Night Live performance in January of 1986. It was kind of, as I say, the replacement's a joke. put out Tim that fall in 85, and they were, you know, still a band that was hard to market, hard to know how to get them on television or radio. And Warner Brothers, their record company, had a pretty long history with Lauren Michaels and Saturday Night Live, and a good one where they'd broken a lot of artists, including Ricky Lee Jones and Prince, even Leon Redbone. You know, they had a very chummy relationship. And so the replacements were tapped as a last minute appropriately enough replacement. Legend has it that the Pointer Sisters were supposed to appear and

canceled for some reason. And so within a few days, they were notified and replacements flew out to New York. And at that point, Sarenet Live was in kind of a weird spot. It was Lauren Michael's first season back after being away for a number of years. And they were on thin ice. You know, there was threats of the show being canceled and there had already been, you know, sort of plummeting ratings and some issues with advertisers and NBC execs. So the replacements kind of walked into a pretty interesting episode, which was hosted by Harry Dean Stanton of all people, who really had no live comedy experience. The comedy guest was Sam Kinnison, and the musical guest was the replacement. So sort of a powder keg waiting to go off that night. And it sort of all came to ahead in the

replacement set during their performance of Bastards of Young, where Paul sort of off-mic screamed to Bob Stinson or yell to Bob Stinson as the solo was approaching. Come on, fucker. Which you are not allowed to say on live television. Yeah, definitely not in 1986. And, but it really was sort of off mic, and I thought the performance was really fantastic. But apparently, Lauren Michaels was not so happy that they had cursed on his airwaves and then also later found out that they had sort of trashed the dressing room as well because they'd been sort of trapped in the studio for about 12 hours, which is not something you ever wanted to do with the replacements. But so as legend has it, they were, you know, reamed out by Lauren Michaels. It ruined Saturday Night's relationship, at least temporarily with Warner Brothers, and the replacements were banned from NBC forever.

Many years later during their reunion, they did make a return in 2013 to the show. But it really is true that they did not appear on American television for another three years after that. So it's kind of one of those things that, like a lot of replacement stories, it seemed like a very bad thing at the time, but has gone on to become such a legendary story that it's part of their myth and mystique. It's also like I just can't even picture a world where the replacements would be on TV. So just like to think about them being booked onto Saturday Live, it feels like an alternate universe for me. Yeah, it was a weird time.

They were booking a lot of kind of at that point, you know, acts that they probably wouldn't have. And, you know, the funny thing is at that point, I think in a lot of cities, that episode of Saturday Night was actually preempted by some kind of muscular distrific. telethon. So it wasn't as widely seen at the time as may have been or the hip show that it was at its peak. They were kind of coming to the show as a last minute replacement in Saturn Night's low point. And yet it's always when you see these lists of legendary performances, Saturn Night Live performances, or great moments of music on TV, it's up there. So again, it's one of those things that sort of

was a disaster at the time, but now is a piece of their legend. Okay, so this show is like ostensibly for people who like are maybe like, oh, everyone talks about the fucking replacements. Like I don't really understand. I don't know how to access it. Like, so let's like, can you talk a little bit about this song? Like you mentioned like, you know, it's anthemic. It probably does like in a lot of ways encapsulate a lot of what the band was about. Yeah. I mean, it is when you look at it, it's, I think one of Westberg's best songs, you know, he was always someone who wrote very casually. You know, he would have an idea. he would have hooks, but he would oftentimes improvise things in the studio, you know, entire songs sometimes and some of their best songs. But this was one I think he labored over a bit. And it's really a, it's filled with bits of biography. I mean, it's very much a kind of response, I think, to sort of the Reagan era consumerism and yuppieism. And it's a, it's a, you know, generational anthem for

people like the replacements who were, you know, guys who didn't graduate from high school, who didn't have driver's licenses, who didn't really have much prospects in life. kind of being in the heart of this, you know, yuppie go, go, go economic boom era of Reaganism, mourning in America. And yet at the time, and yet Paul didn't really write sort of big anthems that were sort of so broadly political. And it's very much a personal anthem too. It's, it's imbued with a lot about his upbringing, about sort of growing up Catholic. There's a lot of allusions to sort of Catholic and Catholic liturgy in it. And just some straight biographical stuff. For example, the line income tax deduction, one hell of a function.

That's really from his life. Paul was born on New Year's Eve, 1959, and he wasn't actually due for many days later. But as the sort of family, Westberg family legend goes, his mom decided to sort of flip a mattress on New Year's Eve and sort of in order to induce labor or break or water or whatever the case may be so that they could claim Paul as a tax deduction that year on their taxes. So, you know, like a lot of Paul's songs, it's not about one thing. It's bits of his own life, observations of society, observations of people he knew and the environment he grew up in, and he puts it together in a way synthesizes all that. So it feels at once completely universal, but then also very specific to him and his own experiences. So it's really imbued with a kind of truth and a reality as well.

And the Sons of No One, that's a reference to a bar, right? Well, no, there's a lot of, you know, as with a lot of replacement things, there's a lot of misnomer's about where things come from. There was a place called Sons of Norway Hall in Minneapolis that they played in. But Sons and No One, and you know, this is another sort of hotly debated point. The line is actually weight on the Sons of No One. That's actually how it was written, how, you know, you see the lyrics in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But everyone thinks it's we are the Sons of no one, which is much more kind of, I guess, the anthemic version of that chorus. But Paul sings it weight on the Sons of No One. Eventually, he even started singing, we are the Sons of No One.

So it's one of those things where, like, it's maybe his best-known song or best-known chorus, and yet there's a huge, you know, discrepancy about how he wrote it, how he sung it, how people have perceived it. But I think, again, like a lot of really great songwriters, he leaves enough there to where it feels completely universal at once, completely personal. and people sort of take and read into it what they want. And I think that's why so many of songs, and this one in particular kind of resonate. I was today years old when I learned this information that it was not written.

We are the sentence of no one. I think that it seems clear that someone wrote a book about the replacements and knows all of the information. No, I'm just kidding. No, that's really good. Actually, like, important to start off pointing out, like people that have maybe just like a surface understanding of the replacements, really probably don't or haven't heard the first two albums,

which are just so sonically different than everything that is like most familiar about the replacements. Because it's, I mean, you say pop punk, but I think you don't mean blink 182 pop punk. You mean punk that is less black flag and more, I guess black flag is hardcore, but you know what I mean? Buzzcocks. Yeah.

I think, I think there's a, you know, for, for, for, for, Westerberg, I think he always had a pop sensibility, whether that was sort of mainstream pop, you know, of the 60s and 70s, or whether it was, you know, punk with sort of pop intentions, like the Ramones, like the Buzzcocks. I think there was a real edge to what they did, though, too, in terms of being kind of punk rock filtering Chuck Barry, a la Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, which was a huge influence on Paul and the band on those first two records. When you listen to Sorry, Ma forgot to take out the trash, I mean, you're hearing really evolved sharp two-minute songs done in this kind of punk style, at least on the surface.

But there's, you know, I always say the replacements are a rock and roll band with an emphasis on the roll. They had a swing. They had a groove. They had a kind of thrust and a sort of insouciance that was part and parcel of what they did. They were never any one thing. They couldn't be.

They got bored too easily and frustrated too easily to kind of stick to any one style. So I think, you know, what you hear on Sorry Ma and its follow-up the following year, The Stink EP, although it's almost a mini-album, is a band that's pretty quickly cycling through the music of their youth and moving on to something else, which is what happened, I think, on their third album, Hoot Nanny. Why don't we hear a song off of Sorry Ma that's kind of in that punk-ish-pop-ish sensibility? Yeah, I mean, I think the first single of the band released. the A side, I'm in trouble as a perfect example of that melding of influences of the pistols and the

buzzcocks and the heartbreakers and, you know, the Ramones with that sort of 70s bubblegum pop stuff in the background. So I'm in trouble by the replacements. That was the replacement's first single. I'm in trouble released in 1981. And then like you pointed out, they sort of quickly went and made an EP right after this. They were a very prolific band from the day they started. And I think twin tone, their label, was really enthusiastic for them to keep making music. So Stink is, I think, spiritually very close to Sarai Ma. Yeah, there are almost two records of a piece. In a way, the replacements, you know, when they started touring at least just regionally at first, because Tommy Stinson was still in eighth and ninth grade and hadn't quit school yet,

one of the bands that they were sort of closely associated with and running with in the same circles was Husker Do, who were much more of a loud, fast, very fast, hardcore band, and much more in that sort of scene. Eventually, they signed to SST and were kind of aligned with the whole black flag, Minutemen West Coast kind of world. But early on, the replacements were sort of going and playing, you know, Chicago with, with Husker Doe. And so I think in order to keep up with them and sort of keep up with the audiences and their thirst for loud, fast stuff, they kind of went into this kind of hardcore sort of deviation on Stink. I think, and I think Paul probably thought at the time,

it was almost tongue in cheek. He was almost as a meta-commentary on hardcore music at that point. But it did yield some really amazing songs on the Stink record, including the lead track, Kids Don't Follow, which famously its intro was recorded at a keg party where the cops broke up a replacement's performance, and that's what you hear at the beginning of the record. but it's one of those, you know, it's one of those hardcore records.

It's almost a commentary on hardcore. And, you know, to give you an example, in this furious anthemic song, Paul's talking about, you know, all the things he doesn't like and he doesn't care about. And he mentions the band NRBQ. No one can pick it out because he's sort of screaming it. But NRBQ, of course, was this sort of weird, rootsy, roots rock, jazzy kind of bar band, the greatest bar band of all time. And I think it's just funny that Paul is the kind of guy who would take a,

what sounds like this dogmatic hardcore song and throw an NRBQ reference in the middle of it. Should we hear kids don't follow? Absolutely. Kids don't follow by the replacements. Okay, famous myth about this song, right? That that little intro clip of the cops breaking up a show,

the kid that yells, fuck you super loud, is Dave Perner of Soul Asylum. I believe that's true. I tried to investigate that for the book and I talked to Dave about it. He claims it is there's some reason. to believe that's true. More interestingly, recently, I found out that the cop, who's on the mic at the beginning of the track, who breaks up the party, is apparently now a very outspoken critic of police brutality,

and he goes around departments trying to root them out and clean them up and sort of change the policies of police departments across. He's considered the leading expert of cleaning up excessive force and police brutality. We simply love to see it. He was affected by the report. placements just like the rest of us. Exactly. So yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. Like, you know, stink is hardcore pantomime or not pantomime, not the right, but cosplay, hardcore cosplay, you know, like, they're like, we can be like Husker do, but they're not. Right. And I think being in that sort of hardcore world, because that was the circuit they they were playing, they weren't, you know, there wasn't anywhere else for them to play and they just

sort of got, you know, picked up into that environment. I think what that did was, you know, Paul and those guys, they never took like any kind of dogma very seriously. And hardcore certainly was its own kind of dogma. And I think playing loud and fast not only got tiresome and physically draining after a while, trying to out fast and out, you know, loud everybody. I think they got bored and almost resented, you know, Paul's contrarian impulses kicked in, you know, and they started to resent and resist that. And so they started doing weird things.

Like they would play country covers very, very. slowly for these audiences of, you know, desperately hardcore skinheads and punks. And so I think the light bulb kind of went off in Paul's head. I mean, he said, you know, if you stand still in one place, you know, you can get hit with a bottle. But if you're always moving around, they can't catch you. And I think they applied that sort of philosophy to their next record, which was 1983's Hoot Nanny, which still has some of those kind of hardcore pastiches on there, songs like Run It or whatever. but I think it graduates into a whole other area for the replacements. Again, one where they decided our style is to have no single style.

I mean, you've got hardcore, you've got punk, you've got blues, you've got pop, you've got electro pop, you've got weird sort of psychedelic elements on this record. And I think, you know, it's the first record where the replacements really sound like the replacements as they are going to be and probably at their best. Yeah, I mean, I think a song off of Hootenani vits. sounds like to me what the replacements sound like going forward, even though, as you point out, the sound changes a lot. But like, this is the DNA is color me impressed. Absolutely. That's probably my personal favorite song by the replacement. So I would love to hear it.

That was Color Me Impressed by the Replacements off of 1983's Hoot Nanny. I want to talk now a little bit, and this is my favorite part because I get to talk about myself, but also you get to talk about yourself. What was your personal entry point? into this band. Like, how did you find them? What album did you first come across? What song really spoke to you? Like, what does this band mean to you in the history of your own life? Well, I was actually, my first exposure was just by dumb luck and coincidence. It was the Saturday Night Live appearance. I was 11 years old. I was living in Los Angeles. My grandmother was babysitting us. And I guess I liked Saturday Night Live that season because I was a fan of Anthony Michael Hall, who was one of the cast members for that one ill-fated

year. Shout out. What's the movie where they build a woman? Weird science. Thank you. Weird science. Quite possibly why I was interested in seeing Anthony Michael Hall or I'd become a fan. But yeah, it was a weird cast that year, Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., Randy Quaid, very, very strange. Anyway, I was just home and watching the show and don't remember it being a particularly good or memorable episode, but then Paradine Stanton introduced the replacements. And this band came on, unlike anything I had seen, you know, to give you some context, music on live television in the 80s in general, everything had shifted towards videos and lip syncing and sort of big productions in that way. And live music on TV was very polished. It was solid gold, you know, that that show

people dancing and that kind of thing. It was, you know, past the era of Don Kirchner's rock concert or anything like that that you would see sort of real live music. And this band came on and they were so loose and so loud. In fact, they were so loud because I think they had turned their amps up after the sort of sound check had happened that, you know, you can hear the sound fluctuate. They come on really loud and then obviously the engineers and the booths turned everything down. And the performance, they look completely unkempt, completely drunk, which they possibly were. Oh, that's really kind of you. Yeah. They were, and it's funny, Paul sort of wanders around the stage, you know, Mrs. Cues comes back to the mic late.

but there was something so weird and disorienting in seeing that for me that it sort of stuck with me. It was just so unlike anything I had ever seen. And I think probably unlike anything most people had seen at that time or were seeing on TV. So for me, that was kind of a weird flashpoint moment. Obviously, I was a little too young to really understand the context or where they came from

or even probably go out and buy that record. But I knew sort of vaguely of them because of that. It was just sort of this weird phenomenon I had seen on TV one night. A couple years later, we moved to, we left Los Angeles, moved to Arizona. I moved in the middle of eighth grade, not the best time to leave your home

and start a new school. The middle of eighth grade, you're right. I did the same thing in the ninth grade, so I'm right there with you. Right. So, and around that time is when I discovered, oh, this band that I saw had a then was a fairly new album, pleased to meet me. It was their first album they made without Bob,

but it's really kind of maybe their best album, in a sense. It's the most consistent performance. They had the best producer working with them, Jim Dickinson. And so that was the first album that I got into. And I think it's probably good because that's probably a more accessible album than some of their earlier stuff, you know, the early punk stuff or even the early sort of indie records. I would have probably been confused and confounded by that, by those records because they are so all over the place stylistically and

musically. Whereas, pleased to me, it was pretty consistent and pretty kick ass for lack of a better or more eloquent term. But it was something that even a 12, 13 year old could sort of get into and figure out. And so yeah, that's how I made the connection. Just dumb luck seeing them on the TV, the one time they were ever on TV and then sort of in a troubled, early teenage phase, finding, please to meet me. And so it all kind of, the tumblers of the universe all clicked into, clicked into place for me then. It's beautiful. Once again, Cran, I have like a similar, not really that similar, honestly. I found them at 12, so similar age, but when I was 12, it was one year after they had broken up.

So they weren't existing. However, I was 12 years old and the world's biggest Nirvana fan. Right. Because I was 12 in 1990. Actually, they had broken up a couple years ago because it was 1994 when I was 12. Right. And so I went to the used bookstore where my dad would always let me buy books. And I found a book called Route 666, The Road to Nirvana by Gina Arnold.

Gina Arnold changed my whole life. someday I would love to meet her and tell her this because I just read that book and it's basically a book kind of chronicling the music that led up to allowing Nirvana to become such a big deal. Right. And I would go out with my little allowance money. I would walk down to the warehouse music in Torrance, California, and I would buy whatever she talked about. And she mentions the replacements and I bought Let It Be.

I don't know if it's because she talked about Let It Be or because that's all they had at the warehouse music. But I was obsessed. I was 12 years old. It was such a weird kid. Everyone else is listening to like whatever, the toadies or no doubt it was 1994. And I liked those bands too, sure. But I was just like privately in my room, like listening to let it be over and over and over again. And then just like by coincidence, like a month later, I went to a garage sale and bought, pleased to meet me on vinyl for a dollar. He had a little record player. And then I would like wear the shit out of that. I played Alex Chilton like six billion times in my room alone. And I'm sure you didn't know who Alex Chilton was at the time probably. I had no fucking idea who Alex Chilton was. I didn't even really understand who the replacements were. I mean, like, I just knew, I couldn't really Google.

It wasn't, there was no Google, you know, like, I just knew them contextually through this book that they were a band that predated Nirvana and had something to do with Nirvana existing. And then I just got so into them. And I didn't have anyone to talk to about it because I was, again, 12 years old and none of my friends were like, what? But I've just been my favorite band ever since. Well, I think my story, your story, it's probably not uncommon, certainly for people of our age who maybe, you know, miss them. I actually saw them on the last two tours, one when they were opening up for Petty and once on their final tour, I was in high school. So, you know, I knew enough that I was like, I should probably catch these guys.

I think there was even a sense towards the last couple years of the band that they probably wouldn't be around much longer. I mean, they were always pretty combustible. But, you know, I actually saw them. But even then looking back now, it's like I didn't really sort of realize the full weight of what I was seeing or probably even. hearing, it was just like this weird thing I was connected to because I like the music. And then, of course, you come to realize later on, and Gene Arnold's book and Michael Osirot's book, you know, how much they were part, in a sense, they were part of an era that was very important to American music and to rock and roll and to, you know, certainly alternative

music at that time. And so, yeah, I think, you know, I think people, I find more than most bands, people have very deeply personal stories of how they found their replacements and why they connected with them. And again, I think that's why they're a band that is, you know, they're in a way, they're the quintessential cult band, but they're almost more than that. You know what I mean? They've hit people on a very deep level. I think, you know, some of that's a song, some of that's, that's the romance of the band, but it's a pretty interesting phenomenon, obviously, of which we are both apart. Yeah. And I think also, like, it's worth mentioning that, I mean, people will hear it

as we play the songs, but like the replacements are also super accessible because Paul Westerberg is like a pop song writer, like, you know, at his core. Like these songs are, they might have a lot of aesthetic on them, which was why I like them, but they're just really good songs. And no matter how you slice it, however you would want to produce it or cover it or whatever, they're just solid songs. Yeah. I mean, and he had a real desire, I think, and he came from part of his rooting, Yes, it was punk rock and it was also folk and blues. But he was a guy who grew up listening to AM radio in the golden period of bubble gum and sort of early 70s pop.

And, you know, he was a guy, as a kid, him and his buddy, he had a friend whose dad owned a bowling alley, and they would had a jukebox in the bowling alley, and every few months they would get all the sort of discarded singles. So we're talking like Jackson 5, we're talking to Franco family, Partridge family, all that stuff, I think, you know, was really fundamental to the way he perceived, and appreciated and understood music as a little kid.

And so I think a lot of that is there in his songwriting. And yet, Paul is a very weird kind of contrarian character, both in his thinking and as a songwriter. So they're pop songs, and you hear the sort of pop things in them, but they're not out and out sort of pop songs that everyone can get. I think you have to have a formulaic. Yeah, they're like 80% of a pop song and the other 20% is something else that's sort of unique or weird.

or off. And maybe in a way, that's, that's the 20% that kept them from being massive stars is like he had the 80% of a hit pop song, but the 20% was just purely him and them. And that wasn't sort of commercial or ever going to be that big, but it did connect with and does connect with people in a very intense way. Why don't we hear your favorite song off of, place to meet me? Boy, I would say, since it is the song you wore out, I would think Alex Chilton really is the standout of that. I mean, it's a tribute to a fellow sort of cult musician, but it's also probably their best kind of pop song in its own way. So, yeah, Alex Chilton off, pleased to meet me. That was Alex Chilton off of, please to meet me.

I'm just going to be really cheesy here and say, like, that's literally what being in love sounds like to me. Like, that's what I associate. And also, that's what being a preteen teenager where music is the most important thing in the world to you, and like finding that music and it's speaking to your soul. Like it's so encapsulated in that song. In those lyrics. Like I'm in love, what's that song? I'm in love with that song.

I mean, it's really, again, like, like you say, it has this universal thing. It does feel like falling in love or being in love with something. But it's really about the first time Paul Westberg met Alex Chilton, who was in the box tops and big star and somebody they really admired after a show, a kind of famous show they did at CBGBs in 84. And it came up to Alex. and it was sort of fumbling for an icebreaker and said, oh, man, I love that song of ears.

What's that song? And he was referring to a big star song, I think, watch the sunrise. So he took that, you know, immediately being the sort of songwriter and with the pop sense that he has. He's like, ah, there's an idea for a song. And originally, so Alex Chilton was a guy from Memphis, Tennessee. He had a hit. First time he walked into the studio called The Letter with a band called The Box Stops. He was 16 at the time.

And he had a number one hit all over the world. Literally the first time he stepped into a recording studio. studio. And Alex's career is sort of the sort of almost the reverse of the replacements in a weird way. He started with this global smash and then eventually became a cult artist through his work with Big Star, which is the band he did after the box tops, who were an amazing pop band, you know, one of the most revered groups in kind of the American underground, so to speak. They got, I think all three of their records are on Rolling Stones' 500 greatest albums list. But nobody ever heard those records. They never toured. They never got played. They're like the

true lost band. And then Alex sort of disappeared for a while, got into the sort of punk vein, produced the cramps, did all this stuff. And by the 80s, when the replacements are around, Alex is like a dishwasher in New Orleans. You know, he's gone from the very top of the mountain to sort of just completely almost out of the music business. And he started playing again, right around the time the replacements were kind of becoming nationally known around the time of Let It Be in 84. And yeah, so they were on the same bill. They'd been trying to hook up because the replacements through their manager, Peter Jesperson, who was the only, of Twin Tone Records, co-owner Twin Tone Records.

He was one of the few Big Star fans, and he kind of fed the replacements, the three Big Star records and turned them on. And Big Star, weirdly, was probably the only thing, the only music that all four guys in their replacements agreed on and loved. So it really meant something, I think, to them. And also, I think Big Star, as great as they were,

they were kind of a lesson that you could make great, incredible, beautiful albums, and nobody might care. So they were kind of a weird warning to Westerberg, the replacement. So I think the idea for Alex Chilton, the song sort of came out of the spirit of all that. And, you know, Paul's own fears and uncertainties about the music business and how creativity may or may not be rewarded. And so he was celebrating Alex in a way saying, you know, children by the million scream for Alex Chilton. You know, that was a kind of a bit of myth-making, but also maybe a hopeful projection on Paul's part that, you know, in a world where people scream for Alex Chilton,

they might scream for the replacements as well. Not quite, none of it quite happened the way he wrote it in that song, but it's a great, you know, piece of work, nevertheless. And actually, Alex ended up, he was supposed to play on Alex Chilton because they recorded that album in Memphis at Arden, which was Alex's sort of home base. And he was originally going to play on Alex Chilton. That seemed like it might be the sort of funny thing to do. But he never really, I think the replacement's got cold feet about actually playing him the song, so he never heard it while they were recording it. But he does appear on the Pleas to Meet Me Track, can't hardly wait. He plays one sort of squiggly little guitar line after the, after the line, Jesus.

rides behind me. He never buys any smokes. And there's a little, sort of quick little, a few notes in there, and that's Alex. So that's Alex's contribution to the, to please to meet me in the Replacements canon. That's also really, I think, in my mind anyways, like a very, I don't want to say an outlier replacement song, because in some ways it feels very replacements. And in some ways, it's like a little bit weird. All the horns, like, K. Arley Wade is just such a cool and interesting song, which also did become very well known well after the fact because of the film Can't Hardly Wait. Which they took the title and I guess they must have used the song in there. But yeah, I mean, Ken Hardly Wait, it's another great song. It's one of those songs that they were trying to record

over a period of many years. They recorded it probably for three different albums and it never quite came out the way they wanted. And until ultimately they went down to Memphis and did this kind of Memphis-y version with horns and strings that actually really hard. harken back to Alex Chilton's work in the box tops, which was this sort of pop soul kind of sound. And so that's really kind of an Alex song, too, in a way. It's a tribute to the box tops and Dan Penn's productions on the box tops, which Jim Dickinson knew and loved. And so he kind of brought that element. So in a way, Alex Chilton is a tribute to Alex Chilton, but so is Can't Hardly Wait.

It's kind of a tribute to Alex and the box top sound. Why don't we hear that song? Sure. Can't Hardly Wait by the replacements. That was Can't Hardly Wait by the Replacements off of Pleased to Meet Me. It really, really hits. That's all I have to say. Let's talk about the fandom of the replacements, like modern day, you know, because I do think people tend to be rabid replacements fans.

And you mentioned that you think, Please to Meet Me is their most cohesive album. What's the, like, what would you say is, like, the general consensus? maybe are the most consensus that you could draw upon of like the best replacements album? I think the one that is generally recognized as being the best is Let It Be, which was their last album on an indie label, came in that very wonderful musical year of 1984. It was kind of the culmination, I think, of what the replacements were building towards with their first few records. They were sort of, as I say, early on, they were a pop punk band, the second record was hardcore.

Third record was this grab bag of styles where they sort of started to figure out like we don't have to be any one thing musically. And so the subsequent record was let it be. And it is a kind of, Westenberg is compared it kind of to Beggar's Banquet on the Rolling Stones. It was recorded in the fall.

It has an autumnal feel. You have songs like 16 Blue and Unsatisfied that are, you know, have that feeling. But it's also got plenty of, you know, sort of stupid S-T-O-O-P-I-D in the Ramon's tradition. in songs like Gary's got a boner and Tommy gets his tonsils out. And so you kind of get all the different colors of the replacements before they got maybe more professional or more serious or before Paul's songwriting sort of veered off in a different

direction. It's right in that sweet spot in the middle. And I think that's the record that's probably on most of the album lists of the best albums of the 80s or best albums of all time. So that's the one that I think. And also it has the most iconic cover image, them on the roof of the Stinson's house. And so, you know, which has been it's been parodied and copied and paid tribute to. So I think, you know, the iconography of that record sort of plays into it. But it's, it's probably their best record or their best known. And it has, you know, a handful of Westenberg's truly great songs, I Will Dare, Unsatisfied, Answering Machine. So it's kind of the first, I think, you know, definitive replacements record and probably the one

that's considered the best. But I think it really, for me, it's part of a continuum of let it be Tim and pleased to meet me, which are kind of, you know, Paul at his, at his peak songwriting in the band, really sort of finding its, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, mythologically wise, mythology wise. Mythology wise. It's the album, I think, that, like, speaks most to, like, you can really hear the, the, the, the, the, the more, like, you know, Paul finally venturing into, and, like, you know, Paul finally venturing into being more sincere and writing these more beautiful songs. And also, like, a thing

we haven't really talked about, which I think is really, like, visceral in this album in a way that I can't totally explain, but maybe you can, is that Tommy Stinson was 13 years old. Right. Like, that's a huge part of the lore of the band. Yeah, I mean, the band was, I mean, I guess compared to some bands these days, the band, they were all pretty young. They were all basically 19 or 20 or so when they started. But Tommy, who was Bob's younger brother, he was seven years younger than them. So Tommy was like, you know, 12, 13 when they started, you know, 14 when the first record came out, and 15 by the time they got on the road and had quit school and everything.

So, yeah, it's a weird kind of story in terms of that. But, you know, as young as Tommy was, they were all still pretty young. And I think that's partially why the records and the sound and the ambition sort of changes so dramatically over the course of 12 years and 80 albums, is because they were really just teenagers when they started making this music and started playing in this band. And so imagine the changes you go from 17 or 18

or in Tommy's case, 12, 13, to your mid to late 20s, almost 30 by the time the band was over. So I think there's a lot that sort of happens and changes and evolves in your life. And I think the Replacements catalog kind of documents that for them as a band and for Paul as a songwriter, certainly. Yeah, there's even the song 16 Blue on Let It Be that is about Tommy being a teenager. Right. And, you know, I think he'd got lost on the road and left behind once in New York.

And in general, you know, Paul who could sort of put himself, I think, you know, he tended to write maybe less about himself, but things he observed and being sort of that close to Tommy and recalling his own kind of uncertainties at that age. But sort of seeing them played out with this, with, you know, Tommy on the road as a 15, 16 years. there's your old kid and all the things he was experiencing on the road. I think, you know, Paul sort of drew on his own experiences, but sort of saw them, but also saw Tommy's experiences at that point. And so that's why I think it's one, you know, it's a very tender song. And as you say, that record is, it's the perfect balance of Paul and Bob and the sort of twin poles of what they were musically.

Like I say, you've got these big kind of powerful rockers, but you've also got the sensitive stuff in balance. Whereas I think on the records before that, like Hoot and Annie, which immediately preceded it, they were just still figuring it out, and Bob was still pushing against too much of that stuff being on there, although you do get something like within your reach. And by the time you get to Tim,

Bob is already sort of edging his way out of the band, and the Bob songs on that record are maybe more throwaways. Whereas I think with Let It Be, there's an equal weight to, you know, the Rockins side and the sensitive side, you know, the sort of the Bob side and the Paul side. And I think that's maybe it's the most balanced replacements record in that sense, and probably that has something. to do with why it's sort of considered and rated as highly as it is.

Okay, well, why don't we hear a song off Let It Be? Off of Let It Be, why don't we listen to the first track, which is kind of the quote unquote hit of the record, I Will Dare. That was I Will Dare by the replacements off of Let It Be. Okay, I have a fun story about this one. One time I was DJing at the Chauta Lounge here in Silver Lake, California, Los Angeles. And I played that song because I played that song every time I DJed. a man walked up to me, kind of messy hair, just like a white man. And he said, great song. And I was like, thanks, dude. I thought it was like a guy like hitting on me or something. And he goes,

that's my band. And I was like, hmm, sorry, excuse me? And then he just smiled and then walked away. And then I realized it was Tommy Stinson. But I couldn't get up or do anything. And I died. I think my corpse is still there in the cha-cha lounge. DJ booth to this day. Just it's like you separated from yourself, your soul and your spirit and it was left behind. Also, is that not the most Tommy story that you could think of? Like, he was like, oh my God, someone's playing my band. I need to go tell them that I was in it.

Because this was also, again, before, I think the replacements, like, not come back or whatever, like the really, like becoming so beloved by so many, like, cool other bands and the internet and everything hadn't really happened yet because this was this has got to be like at least 10 years ago almost now so i didn't really know what he looked like modern day so i wouldn't have recognized him you know and of course weirdly enough after he left the replacements and had his own really good groups bashing pop and perfect Tommy ended up joining guns and roses for about 15 years and was axel rose's right-hand man so that might have been around the time he was sort of uh in the axle orbit. But yeah, that's very much like Tommy. But the other fact that has always amazed me,

maybe more interesting the fact that he joined the band when he was 12 or he's had this amazing life is Tommy lived in Los Angeles for I think about 17 or 18 years and never drove. Does not have a car. Still doesn't know how to drive. None of the replacements do, I don't think, even to this day. So somehow he managed to, you know, cage rides off of people for 15 to 17 years in Los Angeles, which is some kind of miracle, I think. We cannot help but stand. And obviously, someone drove them while they were on tour. Oh, yeah.

I mean, we talked a lot about Tommy, but I think, I do think people don't talk enough about Tommy. I mean, obviously, this is Paul Wester Riggs band, you know, in the end of the day. But Tommy had a lot to do, I mean, with them getting signed to a major label. There was a lot of, like, Tommy being this gorgeous teenage boy that, you know, these label heads thought would be a marketing tool. It was certainly part of the early on, even the interests when they got signed to Twin Tone is like, you know, it's a band with a 12, 13-year-old bass player.

It was weird and interesting. And I think really, you know, I think the band started as Bob and Paul's band. You know, Bob was kind of the, you know, it's the irresistible force and the immovable object. You know, they each had this kind of thrust and power. And Chris was a great drummer. and was sort of in the middle, and Tommy was just a kid, you know, but I think very quickly Tommy's instincts as a musician, as the band's, you know, heart and soul, its editor,

its bullshit detector, it kind of came to the fore. And when Bob started to sort of leave the fold, you know, first kind of distancing himself and then eventually really being out of the band, Tommy stepped into that void and really took over, you know, the kind of leadership in a sense along with Paul. And I think a lot of what you hear, certainly from Pleased to Meet Me on,

even though, like you say, it's Paul's band, he writes the majority of the songs. A lot of what happened good and bad, creatively, professionally, the directions things took or didn't take were it was down to Tommy. And I think he's proven himself as a guy who, you know, knows how to be the foil, be the lieutenant to somebody who is, you know, a kind of rock and roll sort of savant as Paul is. And I suppose Axel Rose is in some ways. And, you know, it's to be in that second position, you know, you tend to get overlooked. but I think he's had a tremendous impact on, you know, both groups that he was in, you know, the

replacements and guns and roses for the time he was there. First of all, I'm really sorry. I said, I'm gorgeous teenage boy. And secondly, yeah, you know, I think a lot about this, like about, and I know, I know that Paul Westerberg's solo music is really good. I like it. I listen to it. It just doesn't have the magic of the replacement songs.

And it just, you know, you think about Paul Westerberg and how much he was. was like, you know, not a chameleon is not the right word, but like he had like an alchemical reaction to what was around him. Absolutely. And those people being around him made that music. You know, like the Tommy, the Bob, even like, even like, you know, like you said, the George from outer space, like all these like things in his orbit so impacted his songwriting. He just like kind of absorbed them and then put them into this music. And that's what made it so good. I mean, you can go through the list of songs that are about, that are, he's reacting to, responding to. He was a reactive person. He was a reactive writer. You know, early on, what he had

to react to was, you know, his environment, which was South Minneapolis and these guys he was playing with. That's why those first few records are, a lot of them are about the band or about Tommy and Bob and their adventures and about what they would get up to together. And it was a kind of mythologizing, self-mythologizing, maybe in the way of like Mott the Hoopal or somebody like that. And then as the band hit the road and their world grew, he started writing about bigger and different things, you know, things he encountered on the road. Something like Left of the Dial is about, you know, this sort of long-distance kind of courtship he had with Lynn Blakey of Letts Active. And it's become a song that symbolizes the esprit of core of college rock and college radio and

alternative music. But it really came from a from his personal experiences. So I think, you know, all the way down and then you get to the later stuff, even like, don't tell a soul and all Shukhtown are really about his frustrations and his fears about being in the mall of the music business. So it is a thing he was always, his writing was always stimulated, but by whatever he was facing, dealing with. And for a long time, it was just the band. And so that's why those, the replacements are characters really in their own music in a sense, either very explicitly or implicitly. Totally. Speaking of characters, if this is a TV show, we are getting to the end of part one. next time on Bansplane

What happens to the replacements? Do they sell out? Do they become famous? Is Paul still sad? What happens to Bob? Tune in next time to find out. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe to more episodes of Bandsplaine, only on Spotify.

Thank you to our expert guest Bob Mayer, who recently won a Whole-Ass Grammy Award for best liner notes on the four-disc box set Dead Man's Pop, which he also co-covers. produced. No big deal. Feels like a great time to mention that I also recently learned that Bob is my uncle's godson and has been for quite some time. So the entire time I was growing up trying to break into music journalism and Bob was just quietly being the music editor of the village voice and my uncle's godson and my uncle never mentioned it to me. It feels painful now.

Anyways, if you care about me, come back next week for part two. Fans playing is a Spotify original series produced in partnership with Spoke Media. This episode was produced and edited by Cody Hoffmuckle with help from Sherita Linsolis, Dylan Rupert, Carson McCain, and Hebron Mendez. Mixing and sound design by Will Short. Our executive producers for Spoke Media are Aaliyah Tavocelian, Keith Reynolds, and Jean-Yelle Kastner. Our executive producers for Spotify are Liz Gately, Gina Delvac, and me, Yossi Selleck. Our catchy and gorgeous theme music was composed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos Delagarsa.

Special thanks to Felipe Ghi Hermino, Leah Edwards, David McDunna, Dana Meyerson, and as always, the framed drawing of David Matthews I Got on Deep Pop, whose spirit guides this entire show.