And so, in a final series of disastrous concerts opening for the hugely popular commercial stalwarts Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, they essentially ring the doorbell and run away. And then, when the Replacements finally reach the doorstep of the grand mansion, they realize that the invitation was always illusory - they were never really getting in. As they chart a torturous one-step-forward, two-steps-back trajectory toward the grand mansion of rock stardom, there are (to quote Craig Finn) some massive highs and some crushing lows. As their talents grow, so do their ambitions, but a fundamental contrariness and diffidence prevents them from behaving in even the semi-professional manner that the mainstream industry can trust with their investment dollars. The story went inextricably like this: A ragtag band of misfits from an unfashionable outpost emerge from the punk-rock underground to become the unlikely practitioners of a great, raunchy, intelligent, and vulnerable sound that qualifies them for a time as nothing less than the American Stones. More than being great, every album plays a separate, important role in elucidating the near-mythic Joseph Campbell-like journey they had embarked upon. Bob was gonna die.Įvery Replacements album is great (particularly recommended are the terrific 2008 expanded reissues, which all contain outtakes ranging from the amusing to the indispensable, and great liner notes from original manager fifth-Beatle figure Peter Jesperson). The reports, few and far between, were never promising: Bob was back in Minneapolis, there were health problems, mental illness, drug and drinking binges. But whatever happened to Bob? Understandably, the band preferred not to discuss him in interviews after his firing.
The Replacements were still great, still humming along on their zip wire to God knows where. Bob’s own playing on the older records was lively and inimitable, alternately ridiculous and moving. Old fans raved and rhapsodized about him, his younger brother Tommy was still there on bass, the protégé and obviously first lieutenant to Westerberg. For fans of the Replacements who came to the band after Bob’s position had been handed over to the excellent Slim Dunlap, the former guitarist was already a ghostly seeming figure. There is no prevailing evidence to suggest things would have turned out differently for Bob Stinson had he remained in the band. The Replacements may have played Russian Roulette, but on some level everyone always knew who was going to lose. The fact that he was eventually fired for being overly erratic is an unamusing irony. Being wasted was Bob Stinson’s brief in the Replacements - he really wasn’t good enough a technical player to keep around sober and levelheaded. Westerberg brings him a bottle of champagne and tells him: “Either take a drink, motherfucker, or get off my stage.” It doesn’t matter so much if this is true or not, simply because it is plausible. A much-repeated (and unconfirmed) story tells of Westerberg confronting the deeply troubled and dependent founding lead guitarist Bob Stinson before a show when Stinson had just finished 30 days in a detox clinic. The band wasn’t a suicide pact, but they were a sort of four-man Russian Roulette game. Westerberg even ends the song with a sort of cheerful refrain of “bye, bye” - it was 10 years before Thunders would finally leave the building, but the Replacements had already skipped ahead to the eulogy.įor all of the tremendous hilarity surrounding the band’s legendary antics, the Replacements’ story is far more tragedy then comedy. On “Johnny’s Gonna Die,” Westerberg sings with an offhand casualness: “Johnny always takes more then he needs / knows a couple chords / knows a couple leads / and Johnny’s gonna die.” The sentiment is decidedly not, “Hey, we should probably do something before Thunders finally kicks it!” It’s more like he’s noting the weather outside, an absolutely prosaic dispatch. One of their very first songs was a tribute to Westerberg’s great hero and soon-to-be inevitable heroin casualty Johnny Thunders. Indeed, the Replacements seemed to revel in it. Paul Westerberg always seemed to understand that for the kind of band he was going to run, danger was a part of deal.
To term this attitude exploitative would be an understatement, but from Eddie Cochran to Elliot Smith, that’s a big part of how the game has been played. By rock and roll’s demented logic, that can be kind of OK too, as those artists failing to survive the crucible achieve a sort of special martyrdom, and also become reliable commodities in perpetuity. A lot of times what happens next is grim, sometimes lethal. Rock and roll is a business largely founded on a kind of voyeuristic cannibalism: Take the most vulnerable, volatile performers you can find, place them in the most intense circumstances imaginable, and watch what happens next.