The following appeared in the fall issue of Pop
Culture Press magazine:
By Rachel Leibrock
Paul Westerberg is pissed.
Standing on a tiny, makeshift stage at San Francisco's Virgin Records
store one late afternoon, the former Replacements front man has just
finished making his way through nearly an hour of songs - both old
and new.
Everything has been going OK up until this point. Sure he's fumbled
with tunings, muffed a few chords and forgotten lyrics, but the audience
- more than 200 strong - is friendly and indulgent.
Except for one guy who has now spent the better part of the set calling
out needling jabs such "play something you know."
Westerberg has taken it all in stride -until now. He's just launched
into "Someone Take the Wheel" when the heckler yells out
"Sonny Bono!" and Westerberg snaps.
One. Two. Three.
Just like that. In a blur - half of a blink of an eye, if you will
- Westerberg's guitar is on the ground and the musician is in the
audience, his hands around the neck of the offender.
He pulls his arm back as if to throw a punch but then, just as fast
as he arrived there, something snaps again and Westerberg settles
for a light slap across the guy's face. In another half-blink Westerberg
returns to the stage and then makes his way to the escalator - his
back turned away from the scene. But, as he rides the steps to the
store's second floor the crowd beneath him erupts in applause and
Westerberg turns back to look, flashes the peace sign and then disappears.
He will emerge again, some 30 minutes later - flanked by his manager
and store personnel - sit down at a table in a corner on the second
floor and spend the next two hours signing autographs, chatting with
fans and posing for photos - all with a seemingly unfailing politeness
and cheer.
If you think there are two Paul Westerbergs you are only partially
right.
There are several Paul Westerbergs: the legend, the musician, the
father and the man who prefers to make music alone in his basement.
"It's the essence of why I chose to do this in-store tour,"
Westerberg explained earlier in the day while relaxing in a San Francisco
hotel room. "I wanted to ensure that I'd at least be in front
of people who were aware of me or knew me and liked me and would forgive
me if I couldn't play a song all the way though."
Wearing a hot pink shirt, navy blue vest and smoking a cigar - his
hair tousled to rock'n'roll perfection, Westerberg, 42, appears comfortable
and cheerful despite having spent the last week on the road. There's
a small duffel bag tucked into a corner of the room (Westerberg won't
be spending the night here, it's merely a resting place between gigs),
a Jelly Roll King CD spinning and an Anne Sexton biography on the
dresser.
Inside the book - a gift from a fan - is an inscription that reads
"To Paul, who saved my life."
Westerberg shakes his head and laughs when he reads it aloud.
"It's a horrible feeling," he says ruefully. "I almost
think 'God - I saved you? Can you save me?"
He's used to the feeling. After more than 20 years of writing songs
(both with the Replacements and as a solo artist) that on one level
are gut-wrenching, primal rock songs and, on another level, naked
and painfully honest, Westerberg has amassed a legion of devoted fans
and a musical legacy that's still slowly steeping its way into the
mainstream.
Now, with the release of not one but two new records on Vagrant -
the solo "Stereo" effort and "Mono" (recorded
under Westerberg's Grandpa Boy moniker) - Westerberg has a chance
to amplify his legacy - if not necessarily prove something.
Westerberg, whose last album "Suicane Gratification" was
released on Capitol, says he went with the label for two simple but
important reasons: they offered him the most money and they agreed
to take the albums as is.
"I wanted to find someone who would release it exactly as it
is - as two records," says Westerberg. "I didn't want to
shop it around and say 'oh listen to the potential here'."
To some however, the choice of Vagrant - a Southern California-based
upstart indie label best known for its emo punk bands - the decision
might seem odd. After all, Westerberg had already made his way around
the rock'n'roll block several times before members of other Vagrant
bands such as Dashboard Confessional and Saves the Day even started
high school.
Perhaps, but Westerberg isn't above admitting that he's enjoying
his new elder statesman status.
"It's fun, it feels natural because it makes me feel old properly.
I'm not so wise but I could teach them a thing or two," he says.
"They've never dealt with a full-fledged creep before. They've
never dealt with an artist who has 15 records and knows the difference
between doing an in-store - most people who have 15 records don't
do in-stores."
It's not that Westerberg didn't want to do a full-on tour. He just
couldn't round up the right players.
With rumors swirling around the Internet about the possibility of
a Replacements reunion Westerberg confirms that he's talked with a
couple of his old cohorts - Tommy Stinson, Slim Dunlap, Chris Mars
to be exact - about the hitting the road for a fast-and-furious tour.
The initial idea, he explains, was to recreate the infamous -and
fatal - Buddy Holly tour of 1959 - date for date, town for town.
"I called Tommy up saying 'listen, I've got this crazy idea',"
recalls Westerberg. "I (told him) I've got these songs we should
play and we should just wing and go out raise hell."
At first it seemed as if Stinson was game but at the last minute
he pulled out - claiming obligations to his current band, Guns'n'Roses.
"With Tommy it would have made a world of difference because
he is the other half of my brain," says Westerberg now. "He
functions where I can't."
As such, Westerberg won't rule out a future Replacements reunion.
He can imagine, he says, a scenario where he and Tommy gas up the
van, drop by Chris's house and say "come on - we're going out
for a week."
Nothing long-term, he says - not that the Replacements ever needed
long-term.
"We made 'Stink' in a night so we could conceivably play Madison
Square Garden, make a movie and make a record," he says. "We
could do it all - it's possible."
"I'm not done with the notion that I might play in the Replacements
again," he continues. "(But) I'm not done with the notion
that I might form a brand-new rock'n'roll band."
In the meantime Westerberg is content to make music alone in the
basement of the house he shares with his partner Laurie Lindeen (formerly
of Zuzu's Petals) and their three-and-a-half-year-old son Johnny.
Both "Stereo" and "Mono" were written and recorded
there - over the span of two years - in rough, sometimes hurried takes.
"No effort was made to fix what some may deem as mistakes,"
read the album's liner notes ("Stereo" / "Mono"
comes packaged together.). "Tape running out, fluffed lyrics,
flat notes, extraneous noises, etc. Many were written (or born, if
you will) as the tape rolled."
The resulting records are a mix of raw emotion, frenetic energy and
rough lyrical gems. The albums have received mostly positive reviews
in the press and among Westerberg's peers and fans - producer / singer-songwriter
Jon Brion even covered a track - the emotionally incendiary "Eyes
Like Sparks" at a recent show.
"Stereo" is the quieter of the two discs - filled with
melancholy numbers such as poignant "Boring Enormous" ("Here
with my headaches and cigars, my love for you has finally scarred.")
and the haunting "We May Be the One."
Conversely, "Mono" - recorded with full instrumentation
- is a spirited rock record that defiantly wears its emotions on its
tattered punk rock sleeve - much in the vein of an early Replacements
record. (Despite rumors to the contrary - Tommy Stinson went as far
to release a statement denying any participation on the record - Westerberg
insists he played all the instruments on "Mono"),
In particular, the album's closer "AAA" is a teeth-gritting
outburst of seething rage and resentment grounded on one simple refrain
"I ain't got anything to say to anyone anymore."
"The reality of it was just the depressing nature of just sitting
around by myself and saying it for myself - 'I have nothing to say
to anyone anymore," says Westerberg of the song. "It was
me realizing that 'I have nothing to say ...'. But I guess I have
some things to hide. It's like, maybe the point is 'why do I have
to have something to say?' - and then I follow it with something to
say."
If that sounds confusing and contradictory it's because the song
-as with all the songs on the two discs - were born out of a quasi
nervous breakdown.
Following the release of 1999's "Suicane Gratification"
- a vastly underrated album that received minimal exposure due to
shakeups at Capitol - Westerberg says he seriously contemplated the
end of his career.
"I came home to have a nervous breakdown but all I did was bend,"
he says of the last few years. "The experience taught me that
I don't break. I'm resilient."
"I'm fragile - I am a flower," he continues with an apologetic
laugh. "It's a cliché -but I'm not the strong oak tree,
I'm the delicate flower."
Westerberg credits much of this resilience to the birth of his son.
"I was ready to quit music - son or no son," he says. "I
think it was a matter of having reached the end and wondering what
to do next. I was encouraged by someone to become a father - it was
the best thing I ever did."
Parenthood, however, hasn't changed his approach to songwriting.
"Fatherhood hasn't edited me much," he says. "First
of all I put a picture on the (Grandpa Boy) album cover that would
horrify him. I didn't do it for that reason but it was like, 'I can't
not do this just because I have a little boy. I have to teach him
that these things co-exist. Daddy plays catch and does real things
and then Daddy goes and wears funny clothes and plays rock'n'roll."
For the future Westerberg is turning back to the past. He's working
on a covers record and says he spends a lot of time listening to old
blues records.
"While I was at home I recorded 'Nowhere Man'. I got to the
point where I thought whey don't I record my favorite songs of all
time," he explains. "I thought, if I don't do it now, maybe
I never will. I don't feel like I'm going to die, but I would I be
lying if I said I felt like I could see myself a long time from now."
As for the blues records, Westerberg says he's drawn to the roots
of rock'n'roll - both out of a love of the music and as a defense
mechanism against the latest breed of Replacements imitators.
"The way I can compete with my competitors is to go back to
places they don't know about," he says.
Over the years a number of Westerberg doppelgangers have appeared
on the scene - everyone from the Goo Goo Doll's John Reznick to this
year's model, Ryan Adams. Westerberg says he bears none of them any
ill will but "I think it's about time people started looking
at it through my eyes."
"I'm here, I'm staying. I'm the original," he says, taking
careful pains to explain that he understands what it's like to look
up to a musical idol.
"I certainly sought solace in my records," he says. "(But)
I'll never be Bob Dylan, I'll never be Keith Richards, I'll never
be Pete Townshend and I don't give two shits about any of the other
guys who sound like me."
Read the full Q & A with
Paul Westerberg