Pleased to Have a Piece of Me: An Interview with Replacements Biographer Bob Mehr

Of all the rock ‘n’ roll bands that have had their stories told on the screen or on the page, few carried with them the drama that you find in the story of The Replacements. A band cobbled together by four high school dropouts, including a Steve Howe-obsessed guitarist who stuck a bass in his kid brother’s hands to keep him out of trouble, and a dyslexic janitor who would come to claim that some of his defiant ways may have come from one too many blows to the head as a child, this unit would climb out of the basement and into the gutter, while occasionally reaching for the stars. At least that’s the cliché. The actual story is one that’s much deeper and more complicated than all of that.

And that story is told in a new book. Bob Mehr’s Trouble Boys: The True Story of The Replacements is the result of more than a decade of work and was completed with full cooperation from the group. The seeds for the book were planted in 2004 when Mehr travelled to Minneapolis to conduct a face-to-face interview with Paul Westerberg. The Westerberg that Mehr encountered in Minneapolis was a far cry from the man who’d once turned a tour bus into a hamster cage. He’d become a parent just a few years before that and then lost his own father to the cocktail of illnesses that visit us all in advanced years. “He was in a particularly reflective mood,” Mehr says of the somewhat reclusive singer, “and we hit it off.”

In 2004, bassist Tommy Stinson and Westerberg were at a low ebb in their relationship and sniping at each other in the press. Westerberg and guitarist Slim Dunlap, the man who’d replaced founding guitarist Bob Stinson (who passed in 1995), were not on speaking terms. Drummer Chris Mars – although he and Westerberg had put aside some longstanding differences enough to claim that they were friendly – was deeply immersed in a career as a fine artist.
Stinson and Westerberg had ironed out many of their differences in the coming years, and in 2007-8 Mehr had been given the go-ahead (or at least the early signs of one) from the band, though he would encounter a variety of setbacks and unexpected turns in the coming years, including the death of one Replacement, the near death of another and a reunion that, although perhaps inevitable, was at least, at the time, unforeseen.

As he started writing the book, Mehr got to know the members better through interviews and through examining the group’s history, and he discovered that being a Replacement was, above all else, about being yourself.

“There was less separation, in The Replacements, of who they were, than you get with most bands,” Mehr says. “Some bands will put the mask on when they go on the stage or they deal with the record company or whatever. With The Replacements, there was none of that. They were who they were all the time. I think that, in and of itself, was a really interesting part of the story, so it required me to find out who these people really were, as opposed to the kind of idea about them that’s kind of filtered through the media or filtered through the haze of time and all these romantic stories and rock myths.”

And myth and legend surrounded founding member Bob Stinson. Although each of the members would experience some kind of trauma, his was perhaps the most pronounced, something punctuated by his death at the unusually early age of 35.
“I think there’s such a caricature of him out there as the ‘wild and crazy guy,’ and some of that is affectionate and some of that, frankly, has always felt a little dismissive,” says Mehr. “But I don’t think that any of it was a full understanding or a three-dimensional understanding of who he was and what his life and, unfortunately, what his death were.”

Mehr dug deep into Stinson’s juvenile records and discovered that some of the guitarist’s deep emotional pain stemmed from some particularly horrific childhood abuse at the hands of his stepfather (who was Tommy’s biological father). “I was at the decision of whether this was germane to the story of the band because it was some pretty tough and uncomfortable stuff. But that was a very brief moment because, to me, it is such a central part of not just Bob’s life but Tommy’s life and the way they both related to music and how important the band was, and ultimately [that abuse] would color and in some ways define and shape The Replacements’ drive, all the way down to Bob leaving the band and his untimely passing. I couldn’t put that in a compartment or set it off to the side. You couldn’t separate that from the band’s life or Bob’s journey.”

A recurring theme in the story of Bob Stinson is that The Replacements became an albatross around his neck and that being the Bob Stinson of The Replacements only fueled his frustrations, depression and drug abuse.
“I almost think that, in the immediate wake of leaving The Replacements, he was happier,” Mehr notes. “There was less pressure on him professionally, emotionally, psychologically. Everyone around him says that that was in some ways a relief.”

Bob Stinson’s departure from the band was, in some ways, inevitable. Just as would happen with drummer Chris Mars a few years later, he and his bandmates, perhaps more than anything, drifted apart. “Your priorities and interest in a group that goes five to 12 years can change,” Mehr says. “I think for Bob, by the end of his time with the band, he’d met the woman who was going to be his wife. He had a different set of friends. I think he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the orbit of the major label world, where there were lawyers and A&R people and outsiders, so to speak, that he wasn’t as comfortable relating to as Tommy and Paul were – not that they were particularly comfortable. But, for Bob, there were factors that changed from the band’s Twin/Tone career to when they became a national act to when they became a major label act.”

One thing that does emerge from the narrative is the brotherly affection that Westerberg and Bob Stinson had for each other. Although there were creative and other tensions, one can sense from the page the bond that the two shared. “I think it was genuine, and for a couple of years, the whole band was pulling in the same direction and feeling good about things,” the author says. “It was an adventure for them. These kids weren’t well-traveled; they weren’t experienced. They were neighborhood kids who’d never been out of the Midwest, and, suddenly, they’re traveling and going to New York and having all these experiences. I write about how Paul didn’t like Bob’s guitar playing at the start and how there were clashes, but I think what Paul genuinely loved about Bob then, and still to this day, was his fearlessness, both musically and personally and in the way he carried himself. If you’re playing something that sounds wrong or out of tune or out of key, you just keep going, and I think that was something Paul adapted to and adopted as part of The Replacements’ armor.”

Robert Christgau, Dean of Rock Critics, declared in Color Me Impressed, the fan perspective documentary about The Replacements, that Westerberg joining Bob Stinson’s band (initially called Dog Breath) was probably the smartest thing the budding singer-songwriter could have done. Mehr is quick to point out that each of the four Replacements needed each other, especially in the band’s initial moments.

“With all bands, really great bands, it is a chemical thing,” he says. “It’s the right combination of people and parts at a moment in time. Dog Breath had something. They had an unharnessed energy. And Paul joined that band, fundamentally, but he also brought the other half of that equation with his songs, with his attitude, with a little bit more of a self-awareness maybe than the Stinsons and Mars had at that time. Nobody could have anticipated what would happen, but I think it was that merger, that sort of charmed collision of the irresistible force and the immovable object: you have this really potent combination of people – as Paul described it, they weren’t musically punk, they were criminally punk, they had a delinquent energy that Paul was then able to harness and translate through the songs.”

By the time that Bob Stinson was forced out of the band that he’d founded, Westerberg was pretty well established as one of the emerging voices of his generation. Still, Stinson’s departure could have thrown the band into an unsteady gait. Instead, scared or not, the group traveled to Memphis at the end of 1986 to record Pleased to Meet Me as a trio. Working with producer Jim Dickinson, the trio of Mars, Stinson and Westerberg was stronger than one might have expected, with Tommy even quipping to the producer that no one could doubt his dedication given that he’d fired his own brother from the group.

It was Bob who quite literally placed the bass in younger brother’s hands and who brought him into the world of rock ‘n’ roll, a place that he remains to this day.

“Jim Dickinson used to say that Tommy was like an existential hero,” Mehr offers. “The bass was put in his hands and he had to play to survive, and Tommy’s story is one of survival. He is one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met. He has a kind of glow around him, and some of that comes, I think, maybe from escaping some of the childhood things that Bob was victim to.”

Tommy and Paul both emerged from the shadows of Bob Stinson on the record Pleased To Meet Me, which would contain several of Westerberg’s best songs, including “Skyway,” “Can’t Hardly Wait” (a tune that had also been cut during the Tim sessions), “Nightclub Jitters,” “The Ledge” and “Alex Chilton” It wouldn’t ignite the charts the way some at the group’s label, Sire, might have hoped. But if commercial success continued to elude the band and MTV refused to play the video for “The Ledge,” some of the best musical moments in the history of The Replacements were yet to come.

Enter Bob “Slim” Dunlap, a man who’d been a fixture on the Minneapolis scene for many years by that point, playing in acts such as Thumbs Up and Spooks and, inarguably, one of the most affable figures in the Twin Cities and rock history. Although names such as Charlie Sexton had been bandied about, Dunlap was already a friend to the band and had even been given a nudge or two toward joining by none other than Bob Stinson.

“It was probably an odd choice for the group to go with a Minnesota journeyman guitarist who used thumb picks and was almost a decade older than the rest of the band,” Mehr says. “On paper it may have seemed an odd choice but I think it was the perfect and necessary choice. He had more refined playing. He had a little more country and blues influence. And he was maybe a little more atmospheric as well.”

The group would come apart during the making of 1990’s All Shook Down: Westerberg would write most of the material in isolation and brought the other members in as he needed them. Mars’ participation became almost an afterthought, and by the time the record came out in the latter part of 1990, Stinson and Westerberg were recruiting a new drummer. Westerberg’s marriage was on the rocks, though his legendary drinking career was beginning to wind down.

The band mounted a final tour, hanging it up in Chicago on July 4, 1991. Mehr writes of this period in the book as though it were a kind of blessing. Dunlap returned to his family, Westerberg found sobriety and Stinson was free to write his own music. Steve Foley, the drummer the group hired to carry out that last tour, would never quite recover from his time in the band. And no one’s future turned out quite the way they planned.

Then, in 2012, Dunlap, who’d essentially saved the band in 1987, suffered a debilitating stroke. It was a miracle that he had survived, but he required round-the-clock care. With medical bills mounting, his family was facing a different kind of crisis and so many of their friends gathered to help. Former Replacements manager Peter Jesperson initiated the Songs for Slim project. He gathered a series of performers, including Young Fresh Fellows, Wilco and Steve Earle, to record limited-run singles spotlighting Dunlap’s songs. Each release would feature artwork by Chris Mars, and The Replacements would almost certainly have to be involved.

Stinson and Westerberg brought together some auxiliary players and entered a Minneapolis studio to cut Dunlap’s “Busted Up” from his 1993 album The Old New Me. One song quickly became several, and soon there was an EP with versions of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Lost Highway” and the Gordon Lightfoot chestnut “I’m Not Sayin’.” (Mars didn’t participate in those sessions but did contribute a solo rendition of Dunlap’s “Radio Hook Word Hit.”)
“I think in some ways a reunion became easier for them because there was this cause or banner under which they could do the reunion, and it felt noble in a sense,” Mehr muses. “And Steve Foley had passed, Bob Stinson had passed, and they were aware of their own mortality and maybe this opportunity to capture this very special thing they had between them wasn’t always going to be there so they had to do it. And what a better reason or a better cause to do it than to help Slim and to make people happy. And I think the reunion succeeded on all those fronts.”

Mehr continues, “The silver lining of his story is that you see what an amazing person he is and how he’d been so giving and so sweet and wonderful. You almost can’t believe he exists because he’s so great and so beloved.”
The Songs for Slim sessions swelled to live dates (at Dunlap’s urging) at a variety of festivals, some ill-fated recording sessions, then a short tour. And, finally, inevitably, a second breakup. Mehr may have believed that the story was essentially over in 1991 when the band played what most thought were its final notes in Chicago, but now he had an epilogue that couldn’t seem to stop growing. Until it did.

The group, with guitarist Dave Minehan and Josh Freese, set about a Spring 2015 North American tour that ran from the West Coast and was scheduled to make several stops on the other one as well. But a few dates were postponed when Westerberg fell ill on the road and then, after some delay, canceled. By the start of the summer, the reunion was off as Westerberg announced the band’s second demise from the stage in Portugal.

As Mehr writes in Trouble Boys, issues of money and control had reared their heads in the ranks. The band was exciting audiences in the live arena but attempts at recording new material were not going well.

“I think it’s very difficult to reactivate a band as a going concern when you’ve been away from it for almost 25 years,” says Mehr. “There’s so much that’s changed both in the business and for them as people. Even reunited bands like The Pixies dip between the Pixies and various solo things because of that. You’re not 24 anymore and so your wants and needs and desires are different. But, to me, it would have made sense to me to, on the back of what was a very successful reunion, make another record and really come back fully. But who’s to say that that won’t happen?”
Mehr says that he senses that the bond between Stinson and Westerberg is too strong to break. “I think that no matter how much they are apart or stay away from each other that there’s something that pulls them back together – even if it’s against their own will – time and time again. That may happen, and I think it may result in more music or more shows. So, I don’t think that this version of the reunion tour this past year is the period at the end of The Replacements sentence.”

Even the book itself isn’t quite the end of the story. When the book was almost completed, there was some time for Paul Westerberg to weigh in.

“He read it very late in the process,” Mehr says. “And we had some very intense discussions in the wake of that. He’s a big reader and a big reader of biographies and histories, and so he understands, better than most, how these things come together and what makes a good biography. We talked about my choices and some of the things I’d put in and some of the things I’d left out. He expressed his concern about how some of the things were portrayed or expressed that he loved how some things were done or how he was impacted by reading about his father or friends that’d passed away. At the end of the conversation, everything was fine, and my understanding is that that still holds true, although you never know with Paul. His opinion may change long term.”

In the end, Westerberg gave more of himself than most – at least in one sense. Somewhere in the process, he sent Mehr a tooth. A 12-year molar. “Nothing with Paul is without greater meaning, and I took it as him saying, ‘I’ve given you a piece of myself, now have a piece of myself.’”