The Pleasure Is All Yours: The REPLACEMENTS

For the most part, I hate rock ’n’ roll.

Probably not the smartest thing to admit in print, and I wish it wasn’t true. I used to love it. Worshipped it. Thought it was one of the most important things in my life. Just the mention of it could conjure up images that were like magic. In many ways, rock ’n’ roll had replaced Disneyland. Today, I generally prefer Disneyland.

Because—beyond all the hype and the fakery and the right radio sound and the talentless dreck and the I’m-cooler-thanyou-isms and the nausea—rock ’n’ roll was always funny. Elvis was funny. So was James Brown. The Beatles were comic geniuses. Both Dylan and the Stones could be hilarious in their irreverence. Jim Morrison belched into his microphone during the quiet part of “When The Music’s Over” at the Hollywood Bowl. That’s funny. From doo wop through punk, rock ’n’ roll always had a sense of humor, even when it was being serious or brutal, especially when it was being great. It wasn’t a bunch of “superstars”—with probably one-tenth of the talent John Lennon possessed— sitting around being more serious and more pretentious and more morose than Lennon ever imagined. Working class heroes, indeed.

For the most part, I love the Replacements.

“It’s not that you hate rock ’n’ roll,” says Tommy Stinson. “It’s that you hate everything that goes with rock ’n’ roll. And we aren’t rock ’n’ roll. We play rock ’n’ roll. We aren’t rock ’n’ roll.”

After a short pause, Paul Westerberg retorts in his gravelly voice that’s only going to get raspier before this night is through: “We are, too!”

“We’re not fuckin’ rock ’n’ roll,” replies Tommy with his ever-present laugh. “We don’t wear tight pants and we’re not on the radio and...”

“But that ain’t rock ’n’ roll,” says Paul. “See, that’s the whole thing.”

• • •

I don’t wanna make any grand proclamations here or anything, but the Replacements are probably the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world right now. And Pleased To Meet Me is probably the best rock LP of 1987, if not the ’80s. If you’ve ever loved rock ’n’ roll, you’ve gotta love this record. It’s reminiscent of everything from the Beatles and Beach Boys to Exile-era Stones and the Memphis Sound to Blue Oyster Cult and the Sex Pistols. The list could go on. And, yeah, Alex Chilton is great and king of the wild frontier and everything, and Paul wrote a tribute song for him on the LP— but I think Pleased To Meet Me is actually as good as any Big Star, Box Tops or solo Chilton record I’ve ever heard.

Paul Westerberg loves rock ’n’ roll as much as all the folks mentioned above. Or, as he said about his songwriting during a radio interview later that night: “I do it because it comes naturally. I have no other skills.” And songs like “Left Of The Dial,” “Alex Chilton” or “The Ledge” are as good as any I’ve ever heard. Just listen to his guitar work on this LP; Pleased To Meet Me is the band’s first LP since the departure of original lead guitarist (and Tommy’s brother) Bob Stinson. “They actually let me sit down to play this time,” says Paul—and it’s terrific. The Attitude is there. The music is there. This is rock ’n’ roll I don’t have to hate.

A year ago, J. Kordosh and I met up with Paul and bassist Tommy (now 20—“I’ve grown a few whiskers since then”—and a great guy) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Tommy played Mutt to Paul’s Jeff or vice versa. We had come to question them about the “joke,” these rumors of “greatness,” and some pretty silly shows we’d seen them do. They got us— or actually we got ourselves—very drunk. Tommy smashed bottles against the wall. It was one of the best interviews we think we’ve ever done. And the show they performed .. .well, they even made “Johnny B. Goode” sound refreshing and new (no small feat). They conjured up images that were like magic, and left me proclaiming them “the greatest band in the universe” on that particular night.

So, it’s a year later, and we’re sitting in a bar on Sunset Blvd. in L.A., which is where J. and I now live. (TOMMY: “You stupid shits!”; PAUL: “No, no. Actually, I’d rather spend two days in L.A. than, uh, than, uh, three.”) “We’re on a promotional tour,” says Paul. "Get a load of that!” Drummer Chris Mars didn’t show up, but the band’s new manager, Gary, is here with the first pressing of the band’s latest single (which Tommy urges us to break, and Paul finally does), as is Slim, the band’s brand new guitarist who hasn’t played live or on vinyl with them yet. Slim doesn’t want to talk about himself too much—“He won’t tell us things about himself, like about where he grew up and stuff,” says Tommy—but he’s one heck of a nice guy, and he sure likes talking about the guitar solos of Scotty Moore and Hank Garland after Paul punches in “Little Sister” on the jukebox, and about the time he played with Bo Diddley, and about the time he almost got to play with Chuck Berry. We also know that he’s married, originally from a small town, and as big of a Replacements fan as anyone reading this article.

So this wasn’t an interview per se. The tape recorder was running at the beginning of the night—but this turned into, into... a drunken orgy. Yeah! That’s the ticket. No, actually, it was just having some fun and a few (well, actually many) drinks with some regular, funny guys who also happen to be in the greatest rock n roll band in the world. They don’t want to be famous. They do want people to listen to their music. It’s a dilemma, to be si/re, but any angst Westerberg ever displays (and it’s obviously there) generally takes an optimistic form. The following salvagable—and printable (see, you had to be there)—quotes aren’t all totally in context. But, hey, give us a break, we were smashed, OK?

ON THE TOUR

PAUL: “Hey, we use a set list now.” TOMMY: “We’ve got a stage set-up. We’ve got lights, we’ve got props...” PAUL: “We’ve got lights, we’ve got dancers, we’ve got...”

TOMMY: “We’ve got big dinks onstage...”

BILL: “How about horn players?” PAUL: “No. Although we may have a horn player. I talked to a guy the other day—one of the interviewers. He plays baritone sax, and he said, ‘I’ll come down and honkV ”

ON THE BEASTIE BOYS TOMMY: “They could use a good swift kick in the groin.” (Laughter)

J.: “Wow, this is like the last interview, except no one’s gotten mean yet.”

TOMMY: Well, l m going to start right now! We’re assholes\ Hey, do you know any place in town where we can get ‘butt’ masks? (The laughter is now at uncontrollable extremes.) We want some ‘butt’ masks to wear to our promotional party tomorrow night.”

ON THE LP TITLE,

PAUL: “It’s Tommy’s fault.”

TOMMY: “The only thing is they screwed up the whole idea. They took part of the idea. The whole idea was simpler than it looks, and it doesn’t look that great. The album cover sucks. But after three months of working on a record, you don’t want to worry about an album cover or a video. So you turn it over to them.” PAUL: “They’ve got it like (sarcastically) ‘Pleased To Meet Me.’ And, no, it’s like ‘Pleased—you know, get it?—to meet you, sir.’ I guess they didn’t get it.”

(Paul also mentions that, of the 23 tracks recorded for the album, several will be released as single “B” sides, including a cover of the Sons Of The Pioneers’ “Cool Water” with Chris Mars on lead vocals.)

ON PLAYING EUROPE LAST YEAR TOMMY: “After seven years of trying to get to a certain point, you go over there and it totally deflates your ego.”

PAUL: “You’re sitting in a fucking hamster cage hotel room, and you’re playing to a bunch of stupid skinheads. And you realize how much of an asshole you really are because you wanna ride in a big Cadillac and eat pot roast. And there’s all these teeny cars, and this bullshit food. There were some good gigs in London, but no one had heard of us over there.” TOMMY: “We were like brothers, though, because we were locked in a van and we had to talk to each other because they couldn’t speak English.”

J.: "That would be like Krokus touring over here. They can’t speak English very well.”

PAUL: “They can’t play worth a shit, either.”

ON ATTRACTING A METAL AUDIENCE BILL: “You could conceivably cross over to a metal crowd.”

TOMMY: “You think so? Well, I guess it has the same tempo and stuff. Yeah, but you’d still have to wear studs. At least with this record, there won’t be as many skankers. They’ll know from this one that we’re not up there with Black Flag.”

ON BOB STINSON’S DEPARTURE FROM THE BAND

TOMMY: “We had some artistic differences...”

“We needed something to rhyme with ‘million’ and ‘Chilton’ was the closest I could get.” —Paul Westerberg.

PAUL: “He just learned that last night.” TOMMY: "Well, I’ve been searching for the easiest way to say something without saying anything. And someone said, ‘Oh, you had artistic differences?’ Yeah, that’s it. Easy enough. It was something that had been building up for awhile, and, to be honest, he’s a lot happier now. He’s in a band where he does more of his own style of music, and he plays leads.” PAUL: “You guys summed up Bob perfectly in the last story. I can’t remember exactly...”

BILL: “ ‘Eyes like cherries in a vat Of buttermilk.’ ”

PAUL: “Exactly. It makes no sense to talk about Bob. You’ve met him, you’ve seen him. Anyone who’s met him knows what Bob is like. We don’t want to tell everyone that doesn’t know.”

J.: “He’s in another band?”

TOMMY: “Yeah. And he’s a lot happier. And he’s spending a lot more time with his wife, which was causing him personal problems. He’d leave town, and he just wouldn’t be happy. So he’s happier now. I don’t see him much, but I know that he is.”

ON “ALEX CHILTON”

PAUL: “We did it because he paid us. No, I figured it would be good to come right out in the open and say it. Instead of stealing his licks, we thought it would be good to come out and say, ‘Yes, we love Alex’s stuff, so here’s a song about him,’ rather than ape his style like so many bands do, and then claim, ‘Oh, no, we never listen to him.’ Pius, we needed something to rhyme with ‘million,’ and ‘Chilton’ was the closest I could get.”

A FREE PLUG

PAUL: “We mentioned ’em the last time, and you didn’t write anything about them, so you should mention the Young Fresh Fellows from Seattle. If you think we’re good, they’re the best band in the world. They’re like the new NRBQ, only sloppier.”

ON THEIR VIDEO

TOMMY: ‘‘What do you guys think we should do for a video?”

PAUL: “Yeah, we have to come up with a concept in about half an hour tonight, and then go in and do it tomorrow.” TOMMY: “Think of something as stupid as what we did before.”

PAUL: “But not necessarily. If it’s for The Ledge,’ that’s the only stipulation. If it was ‘I Don’t Know,’ we could do a really stupid one. But we don’t want to do something that makes the song look dumb.” TOMMY: “But we don’t want to do anything relevant either.”

ON THE FUTURE

PAUL “...or an invitation to my wedding.”

BILL: “Are you getting married?” PAUL: “You bet you, by golly, wow. Yeah, in October.”

BILL: “To Lori (his longtime girlfriend)?” PAUL: “Well, what did you think?” TOMMY: “Actually, his name is Ike.” PAUL: “Yeah, fucking Morrissey’s going to do the ceremony.”

IDEAS FOR A CREEM/ REPLACEMENTS CONTEST PAUL: “How about ‘Cut the Replacements’ hair’?”

TOMMY: “Nah, we’ll get some fucker that wants to give us a Mohawk. I ain’t gettin’ no Mohawk.”

ey, go you know any place we can gel ‘butt’ masks?" —Tommy Stinson

PAUL: “ ‘Smell the Replacements’ socks.’ ”

TOMMY: “ ‘Sock the Replacements.’ ” PAUL: “Let’s make it ‘slap.’ ”

TOMMY: “How about ‘comb’ my hair?” PAUL: “Ah, that’s it! ‘Comb the Replacements’ hair.’ We could have it live on MTV.”

TOMMY: “Yeah, that’ll be great. Someone’ll give us dreadlocks, and we’ll look like fuckin’ Bob Marley for a month! No. I’ve got it! I’ve got it! The Replacements Contest: ‘Win A Night With R.E.M.I’ ”

ON THE FUTURE, PT. II

J.: “You guys should be glum.”

PAUL: “We should be glum?”

J.: "Well, you’re so good, you should be more recognized.”

PAUL: “No, we’re very happy with this.” TOMMY: “There’s nothing about this that attracts us more than the music.” PAUL: “This gives us the opportunity if we want to have our ego stroked, we can go where people know us. I would hate to have people knowing you and stuff. I hope we don’t get real big. Just think if we got as big as Bon Jovi or something, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing here now. That would take the fun out of this.”

J.: “Well, I’d like to see you guys make lots of money.”

PAUL: “Nah, we’re much better off not making lots of money.”

ON PRODUCER JIM DICKINSON PAUL: “He produced Big Star 3, and that’s all he really ever did.”

TOMMY: “And he knows Dr. Nick.” BILL: “I saw this thing in U.S.A. Today about Elvis’s supposed illegitimate daughter...”

TOMMY: “I hate thinking about illegitimate kids...”

BILL: “And they quoted Dr. Nick. I guess he’s respected in Memphis again.”

"I hope we don’t get real big.” —Paul Westerberg

PAUL: “Memphis is like that. You can go to a doctor and say ‘I want to lose some weight,’ and he’ll give you speed. Or ‘I need to relax,’ and he’ll give you Valium. All this shady bullshit.”

BILL: “Did you go to Graceland when you were recording in Memphis?”

PAUL: “No. Elvis used to live there. It was too depressing. I thought it would be in bad taste. I didn’t want to go in there.” BILL: “Well, the Beastie Boys went there when they were in Memphis.

PAUL: “Yeah, but the Beastie Boys are crass assholes. C’mon, I’ll fight ’em right now, goddammit!”

A CLASS ACT

PAUL: “We’re classy assholes.” TOMMY: “A lot of this is kind of a joke. I mean, I laughed for five minutes straight this afternoon for no fuckin’ apparent reason.”

I rest my case.

• • •

Following this segment of the interview, the Replacements go to dinner with some record company people to discuss the video—but somehow we all end up at a club in L.A. where the Long Ryders are playing. The drinks are still allowin’. The record company and management want Paul and Tommy to go on a prominent, powerful “new music” station (“Put on the oldies station,” says Paul on the drive there) for an interview. Paul doesn’t want to do it, but finally agrees if Kordosh and I will go on the air with him and say we’re “gay.” (NOTE: This “gay” thing started earlier in the day, and was based around the humor of the double entendre. It got funnier as we got drunker. It had nothing to do with homophobia or hating homosexuals. We even discussed the Beastie Boys’ anti-gay statements, and Paul said, “We’re not anti-gay at all.” And Tommy added: “Have you ever looked up ‘gay’ in the dictionary? It means happy.” I mentioned that Sam Cooke sang about people being “so gay,” and that Elvis sang “I’m gay every morning, at night I’m still the same,” and that Dave Edmunds recently changed that word to something else on his cover of the song. Aren’t “loaded” words great?)

So we’re sitting in a radio studio at one a.m., watching as Westerberg, with a look of terror on his face, looks up and mouths the word “Help!” Things get a little out of control. He tells the DJ that “Alex Chilton” is really about “our new guitarist, Slim. See, Slim is Alex Chilton’s alterego.” Kordosh, who’s pretty darn drunk, ends up answering the studio phones over the air. Probably a bad—but very funny—idea.

Some typical moments:

DJ: “When are you playing in town?” PAUL: “Maybe tomorrow night.”

DJ: “Where?”

PAUL: “I don’t know.”

DJ: (sarcastically) “That’s a good answer, my friend. The next song up is ‘I.O.U.’ What can you tell us about it?”

PAUL: (not at all mean-spirited) “God, he’s got a great voice, don’t he?” TOMMY: “It’s a fake voice. Listen to him.”

PAUL: “No, he’s a fucking professional... Ooops. I’m not supposed to swear, I guess.”

KORDOSH: “Why don’t you talk in your normal voice?”

DJ: “I’m afraid it doesn’t change much this time of night.”

KORDOSH: “No, seriously, talk in your own voice.”

OR:

DJ: "How many songs did Paul write on the album?”

PAUL: “Paul wrote ’em all. (pause) Paul’s a creep. He takes all the credit.”

DJ: “Does anyone else in the band write songs?”

PAUL: “Tommy and Chris also write songs. They’re just not as good as Paul.” TOMMY: “That's the truth.”

DJ: “Uh, huh.”

(Everyone howls, except the DJ)

DJ: “Why do you write songs?”

PAUL: “I do it to make Tommy and Chris look bad. (pause) No, I do it because I’m ‘gay.’ ”

DJ: “What can you tell us about the new single, ‘The Ledge’?”

PAUL: “Well, it’s in E minor, and if you’re following along at home—E minor, C major seventh, D suspended with a B seven turnaround.”

OR:

DJ: (Obviously very peeved) “Well, thank you for coming into the studio, guys.” PAUL: “It’s been your pleasure.”

People talk about outrageous radio, but I’ve listened to a tape of this interview at least a dozen times, and I always end up on the floor. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.

• • •

The following morning, a DJ smashes a copy of the Replacements’ Pleased To Meet Me LP over the air, saying he can’t understand how a major record label could ever “sign a band like this.” Personally, I don’t know why any major record label in their right minds wouldn’t want to sign a band like this.

But then, I hate rock ’n’ roll.