Episode 395 - Tommy Stinson

Episode 395 • Released June 5, 2013 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Guest:Really?

00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:12Guest:Pow!

00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:14Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF?

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:25Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:26Marc:What the fuck, buddies?

00:00:27Marc:What the fuck in the ears?

00:00:28Marc:What the fuck, Nicks?

00:00:30Marc:Welcome to the show.

00:00:31Marc:I appreciate you coming.

00:00:33Marc:I'm smoking a cigar right now.

00:00:35Marc:Someone gave me a really good cigar from Cuba.

00:00:39Marc:Cuba.

00:00:40Marc:So I'm smoking it.

00:00:41Marc:Do I have reason to celebrate?

00:00:43Marc:Perhaps.

00:00:44Marc:Is it the reason you think?

00:00:45Marc:Maybe, maybe not.

00:00:47Marc:Am I going to tell you about it?

00:00:48Marc:Yeah.

00:00:50Marc:Hmm.

00:00:52Marc:I like cigars.

00:00:52Marc:It's not an effective thing either.

00:00:54Marc:I actually have a taste for them, and I know which ones I like.

00:00:57Marc:I'm not a phony.

00:00:58Marc:I don't smoke them a lot because you know why?

00:01:00Marc:They'll give you mouth cancer.

00:01:02Marc:But what can I tell you?

00:01:03Marc:Right off the bat, Tommy Stinson, the bass player and original member from the Replacements, the Matts, anybody?

00:01:10Marc:Anybody?

00:01:10Marc:Indie rock?

00:01:11Marc:One of the best rock and roll bands that ever lived?

00:01:13Marc:Replacements out of Minnesota, my friends?

00:01:16Marc:Yes, I think you know Tommy Stinson is here.

00:01:18Marc:I'm going to talk to him in a few minutes.

00:01:20Marc:What else have I got to tell you?

00:01:22Marc:All right, I'll tell you.

00:01:23Marc:Look.

00:01:24Marc:You know what's going on with me.

00:01:26Marc:You know what's happening.

00:01:27Marc:A lot of you are up to speed.

00:01:28Marc:Yeah, there's some bad stuff and mostly good stuff.

00:01:30Marc:Things are looking up.

00:01:32Marc:The patent troll thing is not a good thing, but I'm fighting that fight.

00:01:35Marc:I'm going to fight that good fight.

00:01:37Marc:I'm hoping other podcasters will fight the fight.

00:01:39Marc:We've made some stuff available to them to talk about.

00:01:42Marc:It's a real fight and it's a righteous fight, but that's not what I'm talking about.

00:01:45Marc:That's not why I'm smoking a cigar.

00:01:46Marc:Am I smoking a cigar because I'm going to be at Stand Up Live tonight in Phoenix, Arizona?

00:01:51Marc:No, not really.

00:01:53Marc:I mean, I'm excited about that, but I'm not smoking a cigar because of that.

00:01:57Marc:Actually, I'm just smoking the cigar because I want to smoke it.

00:01:59Marc:Hold on.

00:02:02Marc:Yeah.

00:02:03Marc:Am I smoking it because I'm going to be at Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C., doing a politics and prose book event on June 11th?

00:02:12Marc:No, no, that's not it.

00:02:13Marc:I'll tell you what happened.

00:02:14Marc:I'll explain it to you again.

00:02:16Marc:It might not be what you think it is.

00:02:17Marc:But look, it was Jessica's birthday on Monday.

00:02:21Marc:OK, so I wanted to do something nice for her birthday.

00:02:25Marc:We made reservations at the at the craft restaurant.

00:02:30Marc:Colicchio's restaurant.

00:02:32Marc:And I'd never been there before.

00:02:33Marc:She'd never been there before.

00:02:35Marc:But here's what I'll tell you.

00:02:36Marc:Here's what else I did.

00:02:38Marc:I woke up.

00:02:39Marc:I had a problem because I had to get her out of bed.

00:02:43Marc:And she wanted to be in bed and she wanted breakfast in bed.

00:02:45Marc:And that's nice.

00:02:46Marc:Breakfast in bed is a nice thing.

00:02:48Marc:But I had something I had to do.

00:02:51Marc:So I wanted to make her pancakes.

00:02:53Marc:And I had this plan and it wasn't working out.

00:02:55Marc:I had a plan for a very specific thing and I didn't know...

00:02:59Marc:You know what to what what to do.

00:03:00Marc:Well, OK, so I had the stuff to make her pancakes.

00:03:04Marc:So I made her some pancakes.

00:03:06Marc:And then I had to get her out of bed to serve the pancakes for a reason, for a reason.

00:03:13Marc:So I got her out of bed and then I went into the bedroom after she got out of bed for a reason.

00:03:19Marc:And she asked me, why'd you go in the bedroom?

00:03:21Marc:I said, because I need to get something for my cock.

00:03:23Marc:That's what I said.

00:03:24Marc:So that's the preface of a very exciting event.

00:03:28Marc:I stuck in the moment.

00:03:30Marc:I said I had to get something for my cock from the bedroom.

00:03:33Marc:Then I went into the kitchen where I made her a short stack of pancakes, three of them.

00:03:38Marc:And in the middle of the top pancake, I stuck a diamond engagement ring right in the middle of that top pancake.

00:03:45Marc:A beauty, a beautiful ring.

00:03:48Marc:And I took those pancakes out and I set them on the table in front of her.

00:03:51Marc:And she had no idea.

00:03:53Marc:And she went, what?

00:03:55Marc:And she got all excited and started tearing up a little bit.

00:03:58Marc:And I got down on my knee and I said, uh...

00:04:01Marc:You want to get married?

00:04:03Marc:And she says, are you asking me to marry you?

00:04:05Marc:And I said, yes.

00:04:07Marc:Will you marry me?

00:04:08Marc:And I squirted out a few tears and she squirted out a few tears.

00:04:11Marc:And then we took the ring out and I put it on her finger and it burned her finger because the pancake was hot.

00:04:17Marc:So we had to take it off.

00:04:17Marc:I don't think that's an omen.

00:04:19Marc:I don't think it's a negative thing.

00:04:20Marc:A hot engagement ring from pancake.

00:04:23Marc:But eventually it cooled off and we put it on.

00:04:26Marc:I put it on her finger.

00:04:27Marc:Now the backstory to that, so I'm engaged.

00:04:30Marc:Okay, so I'm smoking a cigar.

00:04:31Marc:Not because I'm engaged because I had the cigar, but I'm engaged now.

00:04:35Marc:Some of you are like, oh, he's having a baby.

00:04:37Marc:No, I'm going old school.

00:04:39Marc:I asked her to marry me first.

00:04:41Marc:Doesn't mean I'm going to wait to get married to have the baby.

00:04:45Marc:Nothing wrong with getting married to a pregnant person.

00:04:47Marc:I think it's kind of hot.

00:04:48Marc:It's kind of good.

00:04:49Marc:Good pictures.

00:04:51Marc:Memorable pictures.

00:04:53Marc:But what happened was, I think I told you Jessica wanted an engagement ring.

00:04:58Marc:So I took her out and we looked at rings because there's no fucking way in hell I was going to buy that woman a ring based on my own judgment.

00:05:06Marc:All I know is that since I got Jessica that ring, I hear this a lot.

00:05:10Marc:I love my ring, but I love you more.

00:05:13Marc:I love you more.

00:05:14Marc:It's the second thing she says, but it's okay.

00:05:16Marc:I get it.

00:05:17Marc:All right.

00:05:17Marc:It's not my first rodeo, but this is the best rodeo I've been at.

00:05:22Marc:So we go shopping for rings.

00:05:24Marc:She finds one she likes.

00:05:25Marc:And it's at a it's at a great store down on Beverly.

00:05:28Marc:What's it called?

00:05:29Marc:Want to buy a watch?

00:05:30Marc:My buddy Coop had bought an engagement there ring there and woman there.

00:05:34Marc:Christine, I think her name is.

00:05:36Marc:She does good stuff.

00:05:36Marc:And I trusted her.

00:05:38Marc:So we look at rings and she finds one she likes and she's like, oh my God, that's it.

00:05:42Marc:That's the magic ring.

00:05:43Marc:That's the magic one.

00:05:44Marc:And the woman who owns the place, she's like, that is kind of a magic ring.

00:05:46Marc:I'm like, look, I just relax.

00:05:48Marc:So then we go look at a couple other places.

00:05:50Marc:She doesn't see rings she likes.

00:05:51Marc:And I'm like, all right.

00:05:52Marc:So then we go home and I know she likes that ring.

00:05:54Marc:That's the ring.

00:05:55Marc:And then she's bothering me for you, not in a serious way, but she keeps holding up her hand ring.

00:06:00Marc:I like, you know, if you're going to get me a ring, I hope you got that ring.

00:06:02Marc:If you got that ring.

00:06:03Marc:And then it went away.

00:06:03Marc:This was weeks ago.

00:06:05Marc:She stopped talking about it.

00:06:06Marc:But look,

00:06:08Marc:I know what the situation I'm in.

00:06:09Marc:The day after I looked at that ring, I called that woman up and I said, hold that ring for me.

00:06:13Marc:What do I got to put down to hold that ring?

00:06:15Marc:Because if I'm going to do this, I need that one.

00:06:18Marc:So.

00:06:20Marc:Basically, I bought the ring and I brought it home and I stuck it in my desk for two and a half weeks.

00:06:26Marc:And during that two and a half weeks, I just looked at Jessica.

00:06:30Marc:Every spare moment I had, I scrutinized her.

00:06:32Marc:That poor woman, I was sitting there just looking at him and she's looking at me occasionally going, what?

00:06:37Marc:And I'm like, nothing.

00:06:38Marc:But I was going, am I going to marry her?

00:06:41Marc:I was looking for some reason not to.

00:06:43Marc:I was looking for things that she was doing that I was going to think, how the hell can I handle that my whole life?

00:06:50Marc:Quirk of behavior that I hadn't noticed before, some disposition, some emotional flaw that was going to make the entire thing crumble down.

00:06:59Marc:And you know what?

00:07:01Marc:I couldn't find one.

00:07:03Marc:The day before I was going to propose, maybe two days before, I did have a moment where I'm like, holy shit, this room is never going to get cleaned up.

00:07:11Marc:She's just like this.

00:07:13Marc:What are you going to do, man?

00:07:14Marc:It's over.

00:07:15Marc:I'm not doing it.

00:07:16Marc:Then I sat here and I talked myself down and I said, what are you going to do, man?

00:07:21Marc:You love her.

00:07:22Marc:You care about her.

00:07:24Marc:What are you going to do?

00:07:25Marc:Have you ever loved somebody like this?

00:07:27Marc:Have you ever cared for somebody like this?

00:07:28Marc:Have you ever been this decent a man to anybody else?

00:07:32Marc:Have you ever had this much joy in your life from another person?

00:07:35Marc:And I speak to myself in this tone, and I add, you asshole, what are you going to do, Mark?

00:07:41Marc:What are you going to do?

00:07:41Marc:And my heart's like, I don't know, man.

00:07:43Marc:I'm nervous, and I can't really trust myself.

00:07:46Marc:I've gotten in trouble before, and I'm still a little wounded, and I just don't know.

00:07:50Marc:Shut up, Hart.

00:07:52Marc:Shut up.

00:07:54Marc:I'm taking you with me on this one.

00:07:56Marc:And I decided.

00:07:58Marc:And then I put that ring.

00:07:59Marc:I knew I was going to do it Monday morning, but I didn't know how.

00:08:01Marc:My idea was I was just going to put it in the bed so she rolled over on it and said, what's this?

00:08:05Marc:And then pulled it out and go, oh, my God.

00:08:07Marc:And then I realized, I don't know.

00:08:08Marc:And I told Jonah Ray about that.

00:08:10Marc:He's like, you're lucky you didn't do that.

00:08:11Marc:She might think you fucked somebody else in your bed and they left a ring there.

00:08:14Marc:I'm like, well, that's not possible because she's always home right now.

00:08:17Marc:It's summer.

00:08:18Marc:She's not in school.

00:08:19Marc:So that didn't seem like a good way.

00:08:22Marc:Then the pancake idea hit me.

00:08:25Marc:The pancake idea.

00:08:27Marc:Stick that ring in the fucking pancake and deliver it to her.

00:08:31Marc:A hot ring.

00:08:32Marc:Well, no, I bought it, but it was hot.

00:08:34Marc:It was actually physical.

00:08:35Marc:You know what I'm saying.

00:08:35Marc:So that's it.

00:08:37Marc:That's the story.

00:08:39Marc:That's part one of what I think is going to be a long unfolding narrative.

00:08:43Marc:What I hope to be a very good story.

00:08:45Marc:But you know...

00:08:47Marc:You never know, do you?

00:08:49Marc:Right now, it's a good story.

00:08:51Marc:The other thing I wanted to hip you to is that I know I was talking about the patent troll business, and I'm in it, you know.

00:08:57Marc:You know, I have gotten threatening letters.

00:08:59Marc:The president is now on board.

00:09:01Marc:He's taking some executive actions against this heinous business of predatory scumbags who are shaking down people that can't afford to defend themselves against bogus patents that they've pushed through the system, that they retrofit onto everything

00:09:16Marc:anything they want so fuck them fuck them and thank you President Barack Obama for at least heightening awareness and taking some action if you guys want to educate yourself on what me and Adam Carolla and Jesse Thorne Sam Seder guys over at the Bugle

00:09:33Marc:And others are going through.

00:09:34Marc:Obviously, Adam has been sued.

00:09:36Marc:I have not.

00:09:38Marc:But we're being shook down, terrorized and threatened to fork over some bread.

00:09:44Marc:So listen to me.

00:09:46Marc:You can you can find information on this.

00:09:48Marc:I want you to educate yourself because it could happen to your business could just happen to you for turning your fucking computer on.

00:09:54Marc:All right.

00:09:55Marc:So you should really check out NPR's Planet Money and Ira Glass's This American Life.

00:10:00Marc:They both did great shows on this patent troll, the one we're dealing with.

00:10:04Marc:They interviewed the guy.

00:10:05Marc:They interviewed me.

00:10:06Marc:You should listen to them and understand what we're really up against, because this is real shit.

00:10:12Marc:And I might need your help in the future right now.

00:10:14Marc:We've got a lot of things going on, but this is a decent fight.

00:10:17Marc:It's the right fight.

00:10:18Marc:Go to NPR.org for Planet Money.

00:10:20Marc:and thisamericanlife.org to hear those shows.

00:10:24Marc:Ira did two shows on patent trolls.

00:10:27Marc:It's fucking disgusting.

00:10:28Marc:What an abuse.

00:10:30Marc:What a misappropriation of capitalism.

00:10:33Marc:What fucking scumbags.

00:10:35Marc:Right now, it's my honor to bring to you an interview I did with Tommy Stinson, the bass player of The Replacements, one of the greatest rock and roll bands in the world ever, Paul Westerberg and the rest of them.

00:10:46Marc:The Replacements were great, and I miss them, quite frankly.

00:10:50Marc:So let's go and listen to me and Tommy Stinson.

00:10:54Tommy Stinson.

00:10:55Marc:So your record was some sort of doorway in for me into what Power Pop was and into understanding that fucking music.

00:11:05Marc:Do you ever put that much thought into it?

00:11:07Marc:Like, this is a Power Pop record.

00:11:09Marc:Nope.

00:11:11Guest:guess it'll be a short interview questions like nope no no but you know what i mean yeah no no i and there's a lot of that i mean big star perfect example of right that kind of that kind of thing just chord structure it's all the same crap but it's just you know twisting up a chord to make it something interesting and give it you know finding another voicing that gives makes your brain think of a different vocal melody of yeah yeah kind of how that works for me you know

00:11:36Guest:yeah and and like big star that's another example of like one of these seminal bands that never were huge yeah and it's like it's it's heartbreaking isn't it you know the fucking history of art has them though yeah yeah you know think of van gogh if he he didn't fucking know what he was doing yeah he's like i'm a fucking painter and this is what i do and fucking who gave a shit that's right i'm doing this for the sake of doing this and and so we'll all probably be famous when we're dead yeah

00:12:04Marc:hopefully yeah we hope i don't know i think you're pretty famous the way it is i did your guy sent me the um the mutiny of one record well one man mutiny one man mutiny yeah it was a mutiny of one definitely but i had i didn't have it now you know now i'm all i'm all up in the vinyl so i listen to that thing that's a great fucking record oh thanks man appreciate it's so exciting just to put on a record where you're like and then like within the first two chords i'm like holy shit this is it i'm into this

00:12:31Guest:Were you playing guitar on that?

00:12:35Guest:I played most everything on it.

00:12:36Guest:There's a few songs.

00:12:37Guest:I've got different drummers.

00:12:39Guest:My friend Kirsch plays drums on some things.

00:12:43Guest:Jeez, I think Frank played drums on a few things, two things.

00:12:47Guest:But most of it's me on guitar and bass and other weird stuff.

00:12:50Marc:A few friends filling in here and there.

00:12:52Marc:It feels like there's an element to the way you play and I think the way where you come from where it just feels like it's all just hanging together and it's just perfect.

00:13:02Marc:There's space in it.

00:13:03Marc:It feels raw.

00:13:04Marc:It feels like dude's playing music.

00:13:06Guest:Having a good time.

00:13:07Guest:The good part of that one that is sort of a new staple for me is Uncle Sippy.

00:13:13Guest:Uncle Sippy's my guitar player, my slide player.

00:13:16Guest:It's my wife's uncle.

00:13:19Guest:Yeah.

00:13:19Guest:And he's great.

00:13:20Guest:He's kind of, he's come from the same school of like sort of haphazard music making.

00:13:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:13:27Guest:Sort of like on the verge of completely falling apart or it's great.

00:13:32Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:33Guest:That's right where you want to be, right?

00:13:34Guest:That's right on the cusp of something.

00:13:36Guest:I don't know what you're going to call it, but it's on the cusp of something that could be something good someday.

00:13:42Guest:Maybe a little more dead.

00:13:42Guest:but wasn't that sort of the vibe like you know i don't when did you start playing with the when did the replacements officially happen we officially i think i officially happened in 1980 and how old were you uh let's see 66 46 14 15 years old that's crazy we made our first record what in 80 1980 sorry my thing 80 81 maybe

00:14:05Marc:And you were like 15 years old?

00:14:06Guest:Yeah.

00:14:07Guest:And your brother... Actually, I was a little younger than that for that one.

00:14:09Marc:And how'd you get roped into that?

00:14:11Marc:I mean, how'd that all go down?

00:14:13Guest:You know, that bastard.

00:14:15Guest:No, he had come out of a group home scenario.

00:14:20Guest:He was in a lot of trouble as a kid.

00:14:21Guest:Who, Bob?

00:14:22Guest:Yeah, didn't like moving to Minneapolis.

00:14:25Guest:Wanted to stay in Florida where his guitar was and all his friends and shit.

00:14:30Guest:So he was rebellious and fucking tried to kill himself, all that stuff.

00:14:33Guest:Can I swear?

00:14:33Guest:Yeah.

00:14:34Guest:Okay.

00:14:34Guest:And when he came home from that whole- He's your half-brother?

00:14:40Guest:Yeah, yep, yep.

00:14:43Guest:He caught me monkeying around one of his guitars, his bass, actually, up in his bedroom, and he asked me if I wanted to play it, and I was like, sure.

00:14:50Guest:And then I started trying to play it, and it hurt, and I wasn't into it.

00:14:53Guest:And then he goes, no, keep playing it.

00:14:55Guest:I'll buy you a candy bar.

00:14:56Guest:And then it was like, I'll buy you a Coke.

00:14:58Guest:And then when it hurt my fingers, I want to quit.

00:14:59Guest:And I'd start crying.

00:15:01Guest:I had upped the ante, you know, and I kind of bribed him.

00:15:04Guest:So what he got out of it was a bass player.

00:15:07Guest:When I got out of it, it's fucking, you know, a bunch of candy and pop.

00:15:10Marc:A career in music.

00:15:11Guest:Yeah.

00:15:11Guest:And then, of course, it cuts to.

00:15:13Guest:And I actually had a therapist tell me once, going through some stuff I was going through that, uh,

00:15:17Guest:Because I'd always talked about my mother and how my mother, you know, you know, really kind of, you know, kept it together for us, you know, under the, you know, stuff that she knew and the best she could do it with and that.

00:15:28Guest:And I had a therapist tell me, you know, it's really your brother that actually saved your ass.

00:15:31Guest:It wasn't really your mom.

00:15:32Guest:Your brother was the one that said, I'm going to get you out of here.

00:15:34Guest:And that's why he showed, you know, she put it to me that way in terms of.

00:15:37Guest:That's why he showed you how to play bass.

00:15:39Guest:He wants you to get the fuck out of that stuff.

00:15:41Guest:Well, what was going on?

00:15:43Guest:You know, we just grew up, you know, in a fucking alcoholic family.

00:15:45Guest:And I just had the whole nine of just, you know, growing up in a, you know, sort of an unstable, you know, survivalist kind of, you know, lifestyle as little kids, you know.

00:15:55Guest:And it was up in Minnesota?

00:15:57Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:15:58Marc:And your old man, like, Bob is your half-brother, so you share a dad?

00:16:03Guest:No, we shared my mom, that's it.

00:16:04Guest:Yeah.

00:16:05Guest:His father was, you know, from Minnesota.

00:16:07Guest:My father was actually, I think my mom met him in California and moved to Florida with him.

00:16:12Guest:Weird, they didn't were married, so I'm an original bastard.

00:16:15Marc:Yeah.

00:16:16Guest:As my little sisters.

00:16:17Marc:Florida's always a weird choice.

00:16:20Marc:If you end up in Florida and you're not old, there's something.

00:16:23Guest:You know, I have my friend Danny Murphy, man, from Soul Asylum.

00:16:28Guest:He's into Florida.

00:16:29Guest:And I'm like, dude, you're not that old, brother.

00:16:31Guest:You're just not.

00:16:32Guest:you're not but it's a freak show you start to appreciate it it's like it's like a free-for-all down there it's a wild fucking west half the time he likes it down there i mean he you know he's got this little community hangs out he's got a beautiful beautiful apartment with like all the best you know vintage you know art deco trees involved and it's really great so he's doing high-end for it

00:16:53Marc:So you got, so you, okay.

00:16:55Marc:So Bob drags you into the base and he got you off the streets kind of.

00:16:59Guest:Yeah, he did.

00:17:00Guest:Cause I had been to jail three times by that time already.

00:17:02Guest:From what?

00:17:03Guest:Stealing shit.

00:17:04Guest:Yeah.

00:17:04Guest:Running away.

00:17:05Guest:Yeah.

00:17:05Guest:Doing bullshit.

00:17:06Guest:And he was breaking houses and shit.

00:17:08Guest:Oh really?

00:17:08Guest:Fucking crap.

00:17:09Guest:I was just a creepy little kid.

00:17:10Marc:But wasn't Bob sort of half a criminal too?

00:17:13Guest:Yeah, he was half a criminal.

00:17:17Guest:And then I got in the band and then we were both completely criminal.

00:17:19Guest:But that's a whole other story.

00:17:21Guest:And then when did Paul come along?

00:17:23Guest:Paul came along, you know, we met up with Chris because Chris was, see, Bob was dating my friend's sister who lived next door to Chris.

00:17:32Guest:Yeah.

00:17:32Guest:And Andy Olsen, God, she was batshit.

00:17:35Guest:yeah my god everyone's bad shit oh man they were all the good ones are bad shit yeah that wasn't a good one uh and chris came along first and chris knew of paul lived down the street and played guitar and you know he they all kind of fell together like that yeah yeah and uh and in terms of like just the reputation you guys had for just fucking off how did that uh unfold you know it just kind of went with our flow yeah our flow was not real good yeah

00:18:05Guest:it was you know i mean young and crazy and sort of all all fucking broken kids i mean all of us come from a broken background you know just sort of you know one thing or another alcoholism you know abusive you know childhoods whatever you know yeah um

00:18:24Guest:And, you know, I guess it kind of breeds crazy people.

00:18:28Marc:And when you guys were working out songs and writing songs, I mean, was it a group effort?

00:18:32Marc:Because I know that like, you know, Westerberg, I don't know much about him.

00:18:36Marc:I've listened to a lot of his records.

00:18:37Marc:You know, I know things.

00:18:39Marc:I don't know how they ended.

00:18:40Marc:Maybe we can talk about that.

00:18:41Marc:But, you know, a lot of people think that, you know, you and Bobby were like the driving forces of that thing.

00:18:48Guest:uh you know early on i think he kind of took over the songwriting before we from the replacements like he came in when we kind of had this singer guy um who was that guy oh god what the hell was his name i can't even remember so long like classic teenage singer guy yeah no he was no he wasn't even a good singer or nothing he was just a friend of a friend that sold weed you know and um

00:19:09Guest:You know, and... That guy.

00:19:11Guest:Yeah, he was that guy for sure.

00:19:13Guest:Paul kind of, you know, came in with some songs and kind of moved him out.

00:19:16Guest:So he, you know, he kind of had a few things up his sleeve when he came in.

00:19:19Guest:And from there on, you know, the way the songwriting went down, we'd hash things out.

00:19:24Guest:And I guess as history would show, some of that stuff he gave us credit for, some of the stuff, you know, he just considered he wrote on his own.

00:19:30Guest:And there was really no...

00:19:31Guest:There was really no talking about it.

00:19:32Guest:We didn't really sit down and go, hey, well, I wrote the bass line for that song or whatever, because really, no one really knew anything about what the fuck we were doing, except this is what we're doing here.

00:19:41Guest:We're just going to do this, get in a van, go play a gig, get drunk, go back.

00:19:45Guest:I mean, it was like, you know, whatever.

00:19:48Marc:And so when you guys started to record, where'd you start to record?

00:19:53Marc:Where were the first...

00:19:53Guest:There was a friend of ours.

00:19:57Guest:There was actually more of a friend of Paul's that had a little recording rig that we kind of used out in this ballroom for the first demos or whatever.

00:20:04Guest:Four track?

00:20:04Guest:I think it was a four track, yeah.

00:20:06Guest:Some kind of a tape reel-to-reel thing or some shit.

00:20:10Guest:Old school stuff.

00:20:12Guest:And that's where the first demos came from.

00:20:13Guest:And then after that, we did a place called Blackberry Way Studios, which was in...

00:20:18Guest:It was all the way on the other side of town by the University, Northeast Minneapolis, and we made like the first four records, three, four records there.

00:20:26Guest:And what label were they on?

00:20:27Guest:Twin Tone Records, which... And that was in Minneapolis?

00:20:30Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:20:31Guest:Yeah, local Minneapolis record company.

00:20:32Marc:Who were the other guys?

00:20:33Marc:Who screwed you on there, too?

00:20:36Guest:No, they were SST.

00:20:38Guest:That's right.

00:20:39Guest:Soul Asylum, The Suburbs, Suicide Commandos were on there.

00:20:43Guest:A load of Minneapolis bands that a lot of their names I'm blanking on right now, but there was a bunch of them.

00:20:48Guest:And they had a record before we put our stuff out called Big Hits of Mid-America, I think Volume 2 or something like that.

00:20:55Guest:It was a compilation of two LPs with The Suburbs courtesy of all these local bands on it.

00:21:01Guest:and they kind of they had enough i guess enough success with that to kind of launch you know more of a record company thing after that and slowly built it up twin tone actually lasted for a pretty decent amount of time for a little indie label from from shitbagville and like i'm wondering how the can i uh replace or find again like i'm replacing vinyls i don't know what happened to and no one no one's reissued let it be

00:21:25Guest:Yeah, they have.

00:21:26Guest:Warner Brothers.

00:21:27Guest:Did they?

00:21:28Guest:Warner Brothers reissued all of our records because what happened was Twin Tone got bought up by another company and by another company, and the catalog got put up by Ryco Disc at some point, and then Ryco Disc got bought out by Warner Brothers.

00:21:45Guest:So now all our Warner Brothers records and the Twin Tone records are all distributed through, in effect, Warner Brothers.

00:21:51Guest:So they did a repackaging...

00:21:53Guest:I did some remixes of some outtakes and shit.

00:21:56Guest:From a Let It Be?

00:21:58Guest:From all the early Twin Tone records.

00:22:00Marc:How do you approach that?

00:22:01Marc:Because I always wonder that.

00:22:03Marc:Is there any part of you that thinks, no, this sounds shitty, but that's the way it's supposed to be?

00:22:09Guest:Yeah, it was funny.

00:22:10Guest:I had to pull this stuff up in a digital format because it was all done on fucking eight track.

00:22:15Guest:I think Let It Be might have been 18 tracks or something.

00:22:19Guest:But I had to pull this stuff up in the digital realm so it all had to be dumped down into the digital realm so I could do exactly that, listen to it, and kind of come up with some of the outtakes.

00:22:30Guest:And the earlier record, like Twintown, like Saruman stuff, had more outtakes than the later records because as we started touring and shit, there was less time to sit.

00:22:39Guest:Right, right.

00:22:39Guest:you know write songs and shit but it was interesting you know some of it sounded bleak and then there's some of it that I was listening to like a bleak in tone or just bleak in the way they were produced just you know just you know cruddy and they didn't transfer very well either so that had to be dealt with a little bit too but it was funny to pull up Paul's guitar and Bob's guitar

00:23:02Guest:And solo them up and listen to them, how they actually played off of each other, which I'm sitting there in my studio.

00:23:07Guest:This is like almost six or seven years ago now.

00:23:10Guest:I'm sitting there listening to this going, man, like they really played off each other.

00:23:14Guest:And I don't even fucking think they knew it.

00:23:16Guest:I think they were both just playing.

00:23:18Guest:And you put them up together and they sounded great together.

00:23:21Guest:Really?

00:23:22Guest:They're really bouncing off each other and shit.

00:23:23Guest:And I was like...

00:23:24Guest:God, this is kind of like what you hear the Stones do.

00:23:27Guest:Right, right.

00:23:28Guest:It wasn't even a concentrated effort.

00:23:31Guest:It was innate.

00:23:32Guest:It was just there.

00:23:32Guest:Yeah.

00:23:34Guest:That's fucking awesome, man.

00:23:35Guest:It was killer to pull that stuff.

00:23:36Guest:It was young and just slamming it out.

00:23:41Guest:There was a few extra songs that I had to remix with my buddy Phil...

00:23:45Guest:philip broussard and um and then they put all that stuff on vinyl and you know cd so you can get that stuff reissued on pretty decent sounding vinyl on warner brothers i don't know if it's still you might have to ebay or some shit right right so that was uh that was like seven years ago my timetable might be wrong it might have been sooner than five or six years ago he's got it down the street for 30 bucks and i'm like really for let it be like a warner brothers version or like an original it must be an original original probably an original twin tone version would probably be more than that i think

00:24:13Guest:It must be the Warner Brothers one.

00:24:15Guest:And then I think the only delimited run of the vinyl.

00:24:19Guest:I'm not exactly sure.

00:24:20Guest:I can call someone and find out for you.

00:24:24Guest:If you really give a shit.

00:24:25Guest:I'll do the research.

00:24:27Marc:Well, I just picked up Tim on vinyl, and I had that, and I don't know what the hell happened at my records, but now everybody, that seems to be the current midlife crisis of choice for people in their late 40s and early 50s is to like, I need my records again.

00:24:40Marc:I need a tube amp.

00:24:42Guest:i've been looking i've been looking for a good stereo man check me out my i'm so used to sitting in my damn studio listening to stuff and trying and recording that way and i don't even have a decent like stereo i ended up buying a rogue audio they're out of pennsylvania it's a tube i'll show it to you after yeah it's a tube amp

00:25:01Marc:It's got nothing, man.

00:25:02Marc:It's got a built in phono preamp, but it's got no tone control.

00:25:06Marc:So it's just volume balance tubes.

00:25:08Guest:Cool.

00:25:09Marc:Yeah.

00:25:09Marc:And you just run the turntable into that.

00:25:12Marc:And that's it.

00:25:13Marc:The sound that comes out is the sound you get.

00:25:15Marc:Turn it up or turn it down.

00:25:16Marc:That's it.

00:25:16Guest:Wow.

00:25:17Guest:So there's no imaging on that.

00:25:19Guest:That's awesome.

00:25:20Guest:It is pretty awesome.

00:25:22Guest:That's kind of what I'm looking for.

00:25:26Guest:My oldest daughter works for John Bervados in the shop in the Bowery.

00:25:31Guest:He's got all these Macintosh old stuff.

00:25:34Guest:It's actually not that expensive for this stuff anyway.

00:25:38Guest:I don't know what's good.

00:25:42Guest:What's a good stereo now?

00:25:43Guest:Whatever you get off on.

00:25:44Marc:It's a rabbit hole, dude.

00:25:46Marc:I interviewed Jack White, because it fucking never ends, man.

00:25:50Marc:This whole thing started with me.

00:25:51Marc:I go down to Nashville, and I interviewed Jack, and he's got a wall of fucking Macintosh.

00:25:55Marc:So I'm thinking, like, hey, he's got a wall of those.

00:25:57Marc:How much could it cost?

00:25:58Marc:So I go price Macintosh.

00:25:59Marc:I'm like, that's too fucking much.

00:26:01Marc:Yeah.

00:26:02Marc:I can't spend $15,000 on a fucking amp, because I'll never enjoy it, because then you'll just sit there and be like, does it sound like $15,000?

00:26:09Marc:I don't fucking think so.

00:26:10Guest:You start listening to your records, definitely going, you know, I think it sounds...

00:26:12Guest:They used to sound better when I played in my car, you know?

00:26:16Guest:That's right.

00:26:17Guest:And that's the innate problem with any stereo I've had is that, you know, I've had people give me cool stuff and it's supposed to sound great.

00:26:24Guest:Yeah.

00:26:24Guest:I just go, fuck, it sounds better than the Ford, you know?

00:26:27Guest:Yeah, on the radio.

00:26:28Guest:Yeah, yeah, well, that's it.

00:26:29Guest:Yeah.

00:26:29Guest:That's the big problem.

00:26:30Guest:But you're saying the Rogue Power App is the way to go.

00:26:32Marc:What do you got for speakers?

00:26:33Marc:Anything good?

00:26:33Marc:Yeah, they're called, they're Sonos Toy Towers.

00:26:37Marc:They were Italian made.

00:26:38Marc:I just went to a place.

00:26:39Marc:I finally just like, I don't know.

00:26:40Guest:Is that the shit I just walked through?

00:26:41Guest:Yeah.

00:26:42Guest:I'll play you something on there afterwards.

00:26:44Guest:Okay.

00:26:44Guest:Play me my record.

00:26:46Guest:I'd love to hear what it sounds like on an actual stereo.

00:26:49Guest:Okay, I'll do it.

00:26:49Guest:I got it right there.

00:26:51Guest:I haven't heard it.

00:26:51Guest:I got it right there.

00:26:52Marc:Killer.

00:26:54Marc:So you're listening to Bob and Paul play off each other, and you're the one holding the backbone of the thing together.

00:26:59Marc:But it seemed like Bob, he was one of those guys who his rhythm was all lead.

00:27:04Guest:Am I right?

00:27:05Guest:No, no, he played his part.

00:27:08Guest:And then he would start his solo before the solo came in.

00:27:11Guest:Right, right.

00:27:12Guest:Just go.

00:27:15Marc:And was he like, he's one of these great rock and roll mythic madmen.

00:27:19Marc:I love that.

00:27:22Guest:That's exactly my brother.

00:27:23Marc:Yeah.

00:27:24Marc:I mean, he was just balls to the wall all the way through?

00:27:27Guest:Yeah, he was zero to a thousand pretty much at all points of the day.

00:27:33Guest:He wouldn't...

00:27:35Guest:It's the only guy I ever saw walk down the street in the dead of winter and simultaneously drink a 40-ounce and piss at the same time while still walking down the street.

00:27:47Guest:I mean, he'd just be pulling the dick out and he'd just be drinking, pissing, walking, talking.

00:27:52Guest:It's like, what are you doing over there?

00:27:54Guest:I got pissed.

00:27:55Guest:Not even stop, you know.

00:27:56Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:27:57Guest:Killer.

00:27:58Marc:And when the replacements were like, because you guys were really, I mean, you guys sort of defined American punk that wasn't punk rock, but it was like the spirit of the thing.

00:28:09Marc:And then people sort of credit you for you being like the quintessential indie rock band.

00:28:16Marc:But you guys were just a fucking rock band.

00:28:17Marc:You had no consciousness of that shit, right?

00:28:19Guest:No.

00:28:19Guest:No, I mean, we kind of got, you know, during the hardcore, you know, stink era or whatever, we got kind of limped into playing shows like, you know, Circle Jerks and Black Flag and shit like that.

00:28:31Guest:And we, you know, I don't think there was ever any intent on Paul or my brother's, you know, behalf to try and be a hardcore band.

00:28:40Guest:We just played things fast.

00:28:41Guest:Yeah.

00:28:42Guest:And that was kind of our bit.

00:28:44Guest:Yeah.

00:28:45Guest:as time went on you know it got to be you know too much work to keep playing shit that fast so you know the song you can hear the songwriting kind of evolve into more you know a little more complex structures and things like that and kind of uh and a little more you know a little more soul as opposed to speed right uh you know more melody yeah more melody and more and you know more of a you know we kind of grew from that it's like if we didn't get

00:29:08Guest:If we'd gotten lumped into that, we would have just gotten pigeonholed and we would have gotten stuck.

00:29:13Guest:Whereas we just said, fuck it.

00:29:16Guest:And unconsciously, we got to kind of grow from that.

00:29:19Guest:And Paul's songwriting got to grow from that as well.

00:29:21Guest:And that's the best thing that really could have happened to us is that we were able to do that.

00:29:25Guest:Chose to slow down.

00:29:26Guest:well not even chose to slow down it was just you know the the songwriting evolved we evolved we evolved until a point where my brother wasn't able to evolve sadly and that's why we had to get rid of that had to fire him essentially um but you know we we instead i mean a lot of bands at that time were like you know they they stayed their course you know and as bands do now i mean they try and recreate the same hit they had you know

00:29:52Guest:Two years ago, whatever.

00:29:53Guest:And, you know, there's just that never works.

00:29:55Guest:You know, you get your vibe by exploring and trying new things and always, you know, trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

00:30:03Guest:And I think we kind of had our chance to do that.

00:30:05Guest:And the problem with that is the record industry really wasn't on.

00:30:09Guest:into that scene either.

00:30:11Guest:They kind of wanted to mold us a bit and we were unmoldable.

00:30:15Marc:Right.

00:30:17Marc:But you kept your sound.

00:30:18Marc:I mean, it's weird because if you listen even to the evolution of all the Replacements albums, I mean, the lyrics and the sort of tone of it

00:30:25Guest:is uniquely yours yeah but that's not enough for a record company they're looking for one hit and then they want you to write that hit 10 times on a record yeah and that's not to say we didn't have any hits because i think what happened when we might have possibly had a hit we you know fucking flipped the fucking finger to the fucking record company and pissed them off you know i don't think we're the easiest people to work with is kind of what that comes down to

00:30:47Marc:When do you remember that first happening?

00:30:50Guest:Well, we got signed to Warner Brothers.

00:30:53Guest:After which record?

00:30:55Guest:Before Tim.

00:30:55Guest:So right after Let It Be.

00:30:58Guest:Yeah.

00:30:58Guest:So we make Tim and they want to have a little meeting and fucking talk about how they're going to help our career and we just fucking lock ourselves in a room and get hammered, you know?

00:31:06Guest:That's basically it.

00:31:07Guest:But for that reason.

00:31:09Guest:Yeah, it's like, you know, we're just going to sit here and fucking be idiots that we were.

00:31:13Guest:Do you regret that?

00:31:14Guest:No.

00:31:15Guest:No, you know what?

00:31:16Guest:We did what we did, and it's part of what became the history.

00:31:22Guest:I mean, I don't think we could have done it any different.

00:31:25Guest:We saw firsthand how bands like R.E.M.

00:31:28Guest:were able to play the game, you know, how they were able to kind of, you know, handshake with the devil, basically, that we just couldn't do.

00:31:35Guest:You know, we couldn't...

00:31:37Guest:We couldn't conform to any of those standards or any of those, you know, sort of ideals that they had that they wanted us to do and the way they wanted us to be.

00:31:45Guest:I remember one time they, you know, I can't remember who it was that sat us down to show us a fucking video of Metallica's, what's that song, One?

00:31:55Guest:Yeah.

00:31:57Guest:They showed us, you know, they're trying to get us, we're getting ready to go make a video.

00:32:00Guest:I can't remember what record it was, but they're showing us, check out this video, this is fucking huge, it's Metallica, and we're watching this thing and we're just going...

00:32:06Guest:What the fuck is wrong with you?

00:32:08Guest:And we just walked out of there scratching our heads back to the bar like, fuck these people.

00:32:14Guest:What in the hell are they talking about?

00:32:16Guest:Had nothing to do with us.

00:32:18Guest:In hindsight, I can look back and go, yeah, they're just trying to show us the kind of, check this out, this director, something along those lines.

00:32:27Guest:Yeah.

00:32:28Guest:But what they did, in effect, was just completely turn us off to anything they had to say about anything.

00:32:34Guest:And implied they didn't understand you.

00:32:37Guest:Yeah.

00:32:38Guest:And it kind of was that way.

00:32:39Guest:I mean, we did our best, I think.

00:32:41Guest:I mean, I'll say, I think we did our best to try and...

00:32:44Guest:to play along as far as like press and stuff like that we did all you know all the press you know they fucking threw at us and all the radio that would have us which wasn't much um due to the nature of our beast i think but you know i i think it's a two-pronged thing i think part of it is we we didn't weren't able to work the game yeah like our you know some of our peers and i think that um the game didn't want to play us either you know well yeah i mean you you and dave perner go back way back right yeah we go back to high school

00:33:13Marc:Well, I mean, that's a good example of a dude.

00:33:16Marc:Like, I knew the dude briefly, the dude who signed them originally, I think.

00:33:19Marc:Benji, what's his name?

00:33:20Guest:Benji Gordon.

00:33:21Marc:Benji Gordon.

00:33:22Marc:That was the third record deal they had.

00:33:24Marc:Right.

00:33:25Marc:I knew him briefly at a different point in my life.

00:33:27Marc:But that was sort of a thing that they had to contend with, too, is that they had that huge record.

00:33:32Marc:And then I imagine that he had to sort of deal with that.

00:33:34Marc:How come you're not making that record again?

00:33:36Guest:No.

00:33:37Guest:I've heard the story from Dave about it.

00:33:39Guest:It's like, you know, and Danny.

00:33:41Guest:It's like, you know, they...

00:33:42Guest:You know, they did Grave Dancers Union, sold a shit ton of records, and fucking a big old success.

00:33:47Guest:They make the record after that, only sells a million records, and they're like, okay, now we're going to drop you.

00:33:51Guest:It's like, well, we just sold a million fucking records.

00:33:54Guest:What's wrong with you?

00:33:54Guest:Well, it's not enough.

00:33:55Guest:It's like, well, what do you mean that ain't enough?

00:33:57Guest:It's a fucking million records.

00:33:58Guest:It's a million records.

00:33:59Guest:What the fuck is wrong with you?

00:34:00Guest:And now, and all those kind of fucking people.

00:34:03Guest:I mean, Benji works for MTV now, apparently, but all these fucking people that were the ones that were fucking...

00:34:10Guest:you know, holding the fucking powers that be back, then they're all fucking, they don't have jobs anymore.

00:34:15Guest:No, the A&R guys are done.

00:34:16Guest:And it fucking warms the cockles of my heart.

00:34:20Guest:Only fucking people I care about that have any goddamn knowledge of music that really fucking care and are totally just music people are still there doing it.

00:34:30Guest:Peter Jespernson's a great example of that.

00:34:31Guest:He signed the replacements, you know, we're kids.

00:34:34Guest:He's still working in the business and he still just loves fucking music.

00:34:39Guest:He's a perfect example of that.

00:34:40Marc:you know well that back in the day i mean there were people that that were fortunate enough to see you guys live in in your heyday and that was like the that was the thing that people be like do you ever see the mats alive i'm like no i missed the whole fucking thing and that was like that was the shit because we just never knew what was going to happen that was the shit a lot of times yeah for sure

00:35:00Guest:What was it?

00:35:03Marc:It was completely unpredictable, huh?

00:35:05Guest:Yeah.

00:35:06Guest:You know, it's taken a while for me to get over.

00:35:08Guest:When I first moved to L.A., I'd have... It was really weird.

00:35:12Guest:I was all creeped out.

00:35:13Guest:When was this?

00:35:14Guest:93.

00:35:14Guest:When I first got out here, I'd go to clubs and stuff, and I'd have these people come up to me, and I was still getting over the whole Matt's...

00:35:23Guest:fan crazy stuff and it was like you know people would walk up and approach me and i'd just kind of shake what do you want what are you doing to me yeah and people would come up to me like man you fucking played the best show i ever saw in my whole life man you guys didn't play one of your own songs it was great i'm just thinking man you were fucking robbing you don't even fucking know it you know but you know whatever man they bought it you would do all covers sometimes

00:35:47Guest:More than once.

00:35:48Marc:I know you did Another Girl, Another Planet.

00:35:52Marc:I heard that one.

00:35:53Marc:But what other covers were the ones you liked doing?

00:35:55Marc:Oh, man.

00:35:55Marc:We did all kinds of just, I mean, shit, it's the fans.

00:35:59Guest:Stones?

00:35:59Guest:Did you do Stones?

00:35:59Guest:We did Stone stuff.

00:36:00Guest:We did just anything we felt like doing in a moment's notice.

00:36:03Guest:I remember we were opening for Tom Petty one time, and we did Whipping Post.

00:36:06Guest:And it was just kind of, Paul saying his ass off on his grave.

00:36:09Guest:And I'm like, what the fuck are we doing, man?

00:36:12Guest:Yeah.

00:36:13Guest:you just wing it you just never he just started playing it who did oh yeah bob was gone at this point but um yeah let's just you know we would just just uh a hair you know well he's a he's a great example tom petty is a guy that you know i think that for a lot of years made roughly the same record you know or the same sound i mean i love him

00:36:36Guest:i love all his records but it didn't seem like till way after he sold a billion records that he was like it i'm gonna do what i want you know did you have a good time with him did you guys get to know him at all yeah he's a good guy i mean he did when we met him yeah i remember talking to him one time he just was telling me you know he just he loves making records loves writing he just hated touring oh really i was like god i hate i just i hate having to leave home i mean and and

00:36:59Guest:shit now that i'm 46 years old i get it you know i'm dead fucking sick to death at fucking airports and everything else but uh you know you don't live in la anymore right no no i live in uh upstate new york now but uh you know at the traveling all the aspects of traveling they've just they've they've they've gotten to be old and tiresome sure my age you know

00:37:22Guest:Yeah, absolutely.

00:37:22Guest:Doesn't mean I'm going to stop anytime soon.

00:37:24Guest:It just means I'm going to complain about it.

00:37:27Marc:Complain about it.

00:37:28Marc:Yeah, I'm going to go to Columbus tomorrow morning.

00:37:31Marc:Good luck with that, dude.

00:37:34Marc:Columbus, yeah.

00:37:35Marc:Six o'clock flight, man.

00:37:37Marc:I'm doing Cincinnati and then Columbus.

00:37:39Guest:Nice.

00:37:39Marc:Good times.

00:37:40Marc:Yeah.

00:37:40Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:42Guest:Columbus used to be kind of a cool little scene back in the day in the 80s.

00:37:45Guest:Yeah, I had a good little vibe.

00:37:48Guest:The little rock club there, Stash's, I think it was.

00:37:50Marc:It was good.

00:37:51Marc:Yeah.

00:37:52Marc:Did you guys play Boston and play the rat and do all that shit?

00:37:54Marc:All that crap.

00:37:55Guest:Boston was kind of our first home away from home.

00:37:57Guest:I mean, that was the first place.

00:37:58Guest:Big scene, man.

00:37:59Guest:Yeah, it was crazy.

00:38:00Guest:It was fun.

00:38:02Guest:Fun town back then.

00:38:03Marc:So your brother, the last record he was on was Tim?

00:38:07Marc:Yep.

00:38:07Marc:And how that shit hit the fan?

00:38:10Guest:Well, it kind of came down to Paul sitting us down and saying, you know, I either want to quit the band or I can't play with Bob anymore.

00:38:19Guest:It's like, you know, I like playing with you two guys, but I can't play with them anymore.

00:38:23Guest:Because Bob really at that point was sort of a loose cannon and a...

00:38:26Guest:um you know he drug and alcohol problems were starting to get really out of hand and we actually put him through treatment that didn't take and uh just had to kind of move on you know and it was kind of a it was a bummer but we also at the same time we're like well we like playing with you too so i guess guess my brother's got to go and it kind of had to happen you know yeah and did you like ultimately you know sound wise did you miss him

00:38:50Guest:We always missed him.

00:38:52Guest:I think even Paul always did, but it was like, I think at that point, it was after Tim, and it just got to be like, shit, this is becoming more of something I really want to do.

00:39:05Guest:I think the realization that came into that is like,

00:39:08Guest:well this isn't just us fucking around anymore just goofing around making records this is like this is what we're doing now we want to and so if we want to do that and continue to go and make make records and you know do this for real we gotta you know we can't do it that way right not that we changed a whole lot but but um you know it wasn't as a degree of over the top that he went that we just couldn't deal with anymore

00:39:33Marc:And then the next couple records, how did Tim and then Pleased to Meet Me and Don't Tell, how'd they all sell?

00:39:40Guest:I think that Pleased to Meet Me might be the bigger seller of those.

00:39:49Guest:I'm not sure exactly.

00:39:51Guest:I think Benny pulled it up the other day, and I was saying something on the effect of...

00:39:58Guest:Pleased to meet me as far as SoundScan goes.

00:40:00Guest:I don't really know before SoundScan.

00:40:02Guest:So there's a big gray area there.

00:40:05Guest:How many records were sold or not?

00:40:08Guest:But yeah.

00:40:09Marc:And then how many band changes did you go through?

00:40:11Marc:Who took your brother's place?

00:40:13Guest:Well, Slim Dunlop took my brother's place.

00:40:15Guest:And he played on pretty much the rest of the records after Tim.

00:40:19Guest:and did he play like your brother no no completely opposite he was very much more of a careful kind of um you know melodic guitar player i mean he didn't um he didn't walk the same same walk yeah and he's he's ill now yeah he's uh sadly he had a series of strokes last year that has left him um in pretty rough shape he's not you know he's not able to play guitar you know he's kind of his left i think it's his left side that's kind of

00:40:46Guest:is still trying to recover from it and um recently we did a songs for slim ep paul and i and chris kind of got together as not as a replacements the three of us but paul and i recorded some songs how was that with some guys oh it's a lot of fun we did one of slim songs and we did four other covers and um and then chris did one of slim songs at his studio and we put that in there together and uh

00:41:11Guest:Made an EP out of it and we just auctioned them off.

00:41:13Guest:We made them like $105,000, you know, out of 250, you know, 10 inches made.

00:41:17Guest:Yeah, and they're all numbered and stuff.

00:41:20Guest:It's kind of a cool thing.

00:41:21Guest:But, you know, it kind of starts the ball rolling.

00:41:24Guest:There's going to be some more of those with other groups like Steve Earl did a track.

00:41:28Guest:Steve Earl.

00:41:28Guest:With some, you know, a bunch of other people, like different A and B sides, different artists and all that.

00:41:34Guest:There's going to be a series of them throughout the year that are all going to go to benefit him because he's going to need a lot of money to get, you know, to offset the out-of-pocket, you know, rehab costs and all that.

00:41:44Marc:Sure.

00:41:44Marc:But he's kind of functioning.

00:41:46Guest:He's kind of functioning.

00:41:47Guest:He's slowly, you know, making progress.

00:41:49Guest:And, you know, hopefully he'll make more progress as time goes along, you know.

00:41:54Marc:Isn't it fucking wild?

00:41:55Marc:I mean, I can't imagine just being from your side of it, just the taxing life and the amount of casualties there are in fucking rock and roll in terms of people.

00:42:05Marc:They don't make it to 60 or they run into trouble.

00:42:08Guest:Yeah, and it's so weird.

00:42:11Marc:You never got strung out?

00:42:13Guest:no well you know i've had my bouts of shit and um and i i don't think i ever really had a full-on like drug problem necessarily yeah but um you know i've never luckily i mean i'm still here i mean i doesn't mean i'm not gonna pop off tomorrow i could fucking die in my sleep tonight who knows but um you know it's weird there's no there's no rhyme or reason other than that's you know it's kind of a hard living kind of occupation it's not one that's you know i recommend yeah yeah um

00:42:41Marc:If you had it, when you look back on it, do you wish you had done something else?

00:42:48Guest:I wish I'd done things better.

00:42:49Marc:Yeah.

00:42:51Marc:In terms of labels and everything else, how much bitterness do you have about that?

00:42:55Guest:I don't really have any.

00:42:56Guest:I think back and I'm actually... When I get nostalgic about it, I'm actually...

00:43:02Guest:Just proud and stoked that I was there.

00:43:05Guest:We did our little thing.

00:43:06Guest:We left a little mark there for people to look at and go listen to and fucking yap about whatever.

00:43:11Guest:And I think it's cool.

00:43:13Guest:Not a lot of bands get to do that.

00:43:14Guest:Even bands that make big records don't actually make the fucking history books.

00:43:18Guest:That's right.

00:43:19Guest:People forget about you.

00:43:19Guest:So I think we left our little mark.

00:43:24Guest:So that's cool.

00:43:25Guest:And the business was what it was.

00:43:27Guest:And there's no changing any of that.

00:43:29Guest:So why bother complaining about it?

00:43:31Guest:yeah yeah and in terms of uh i like what i do now i do all kinds of different crap now and i've got the freedom to do it because i was lucky enough to make it to 46 and be and you still doing stuff and you still honor you know it seems like you still honor the sound that you love like you know that you've evolved as a songwriter and as a player but you still do you know you can still hear where you come from and you can't really shake that shit though i mean you know what it's it's ingrained in you

00:43:59Guest:yeah yeah which songs do you think should have been fucking huge songs that you that weren't like which ones do you think like i can't fucking believe that that song didn't take off you know there's a bunch of them really if i think back on it you know like left of the doll i always thought was a really great song and bastards of young i thought was a really good song yeah yeah yeah yeah um merry-go-round i was surprised that didn't you know do something of such a

00:44:26Guest:do you think that was that was a record company's fault and radio play and just the politics you know i don't i mean i think it's we were what we were and we you know we're at where we're at and that was that that was it i mean there's really i yeah i think a lot of guys could sit here and spin all kinds of theories all kinds of you know theories and and ideas i just i don't i don't buy into it i think it's what it was i think we probably could have like i said we could have

00:44:53Guest:Played the game better probably and sold some more records by doing that.

00:44:57Guest:But I don't think it had to change anything.

00:44:59Guest:I don't think we, you know.

00:45:00Guest:Yeah.

00:45:01Guest:We would have lost our soul a little more, you know.

00:45:03Marc:And how did the breakup go down exactly?

00:45:06Marc:How did you decide?

00:45:07Guest:Honestly, we never really broke up.

00:45:08Guest:Yeah.

00:45:09Guest:We just kind of walked away from it, you know, and left it kind of sitting on the bus, you know, after that last Grant Park gig and just left it sitting there.

00:45:18Guest:It's probably still floating on it.

00:45:19Guest:somewhere the ghost of the replacement still lingering somewhere out there so there was no heartbreak involved or any of that fighting no no you know there really wasn't I think you know on the last record Paul was kind of already indicating that he wanted to kind of have more not more control but like more wanted to get more involved in the producing of that record because he had some ideas he wanted to explore and I was like on Don't Tell a Soul no on the last record all shook down yeah

00:45:47Guest:Which I was totally down with.

00:45:50Guest:I think in hindsight, the three of us, really, me and Chris, I think we're kind of backing it until it really started to happen.

00:46:00Guest:And I don't think Chris really liked that someone else was playing drums on stuff.

00:46:03Guest:I think it kind of...

00:46:04Guest:That kind of screwed with him a little bit.

00:46:06Guest:And I know a bunch of bass players came in and played different things on different songs or tried to anyway, which I was cool with.

00:46:12Guest:Because if you listen back to all the Stones records, there's all kinds of different people playing on shit that you think is the Stones.

00:46:18Guest:And like, no, man, that's not even Charlie on drums.

00:46:21Guest:I mean, that's fucking the producer.

00:46:23Guest:Bill's been gone for two years.

00:46:24Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:46:25Guest:So...

00:46:26Guest:I was kind of down with it.

00:46:27Guest:And as it turned out, you know, a lot of the bass parts that other people play didn't work out anyway.

00:46:31Guest:So I had to go play them anyway.

00:46:33Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:46:34Guest:But, you know... So no Bad Blood, really?

00:46:38Guest:No, no.

00:46:38Guest:I mean, it was with Chris a little bit.

00:46:40Guest:And, you know, time has healed that one a bit, I think.

00:46:45Guest:Yeah.

00:46:45Guest:you know he just didn't want to play the drum parts the way they were on the record that he didn't play on he was not down with that it's like well but that's the way the song goes whether you played it or not i mean shit charlie goes out and plays all these fucking songs hey do you not get that and he didn't really he didn't really like that and so that kind of was the that was not the total caveat there were things that were happening but you know other than chris you know leaving the band i mean paul and i never really you know

00:47:10Guest:Yeah.

00:47:11Guest:You guys are.

00:47:12Guest:We were probably more ready to kill each other early days than the end, you know?

00:47:16Guest:Yeah.

00:47:16Guest:Over what?

00:47:18Guest:Just, you know, stupid shit.

00:47:21Guest:Yeah.

00:47:22Guest:I think I tried to quit the band, like, on our first tour because they were so fucked up when I was just a kid.

00:47:26Guest:I'm like, you guys suck.

00:47:28Guest:And, you know, instead of quitting the band, I joined the party, sadly.

00:47:33Guest:And you still talk to Paul?

00:47:35Guest:Yeah.

00:47:35Guest:That's cool.

00:47:36Guest:He's doing all right?

00:47:37Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:38Guest:Yeah.

00:47:39Guest:You know, we...

00:47:40Guest:we're always going to chat about crap we're always going to play together in some fashion and when you came out here after the after the mats got done what was the expectation i mean was the first record bash and pop yeah i mean i think we left it kind of like you know i'm gonna go do my thing now and you go do your thing and whatever that is we'll see each other someday

00:47:59Guest:You know, if I played on, I played on, I think almost all his solo records in some way or another, he'd call me up and just, you know.

00:48:06Guest:Westerberg's?

00:48:07Guest:Yeah.

00:48:08Guest:Call me up.

00:48:08Guest:Hey, what are you doing?

00:48:09Guest:Come play on a song.

00:48:10Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:48:10Guest:Why not?

00:48:11Guest:You know.

00:48:12Guest:But he was still in Minnesota?

00:48:14Guest:No, he'd call me because he did most of his records after the match out here.

00:48:17Guest:Yeah.

00:48:18Guest:And so he'd call me when he was here and have me come goof off just to bring some vibe.

00:48:23Guest:And when you moved here, what was the plan?

00:48:25Yeah.

00:48:25Guest:well my plan when i moved here was to kind of get more on the record company to try and help what my little cause was which is that bashing pop record because i knew that um you know bands that break up their solo records afterwards you know don't really have much of a chance as it is so i thought well from minneapolis i'm not gonna be able to cut this so well so i got to get out and kind of in it i'd kind of fallen for another lady which was a part of the the

00:48:51Guest:Sure.

00:48:51Guest:The thing as well.

00:48:52Marc:It's always a motivator.

00:48:53Guest:Yeah, kind of had that going for me.

00:48:56Guest:Yeah.

00:48:58Guest:And I kind of wanted to, you know, if I moved out here and kind of rode the company a little bit, I might get somewhere with that.

00:49:04Guest:And what I found is that that wasn't going to happen.

00:49:07Guest:They were just, it was exactly as I thought I made my record.

00:49:11Guest:And instead of sticking it out and getting, you know, having them let me make another record that they do nothing with,

00:49:18Guest:I actually asked to get off the label, and they let me go.

00:49:21Guest:And then you left L.A.?

00:49:22Guest:No.

00:49:23Guest:I stayed here for, fuck, 17 years.

00:49:25Guest:I was just talking to him about it.

00:49:28Guest:It's like, God, I lived here 17 years.

00:49:30Guest:Jesus.

00:49:30Guest:And you were playing on a lot of other people's records?

00:49:33Guest:You know, I played on some other stuff.

00:49:34Guest:I did sessions now and again, and then joined Guns N' Roses in 98.

00:49:41Marc:So that's been that long already, huh?

00:49:42Marc:Yeah.

00:49:43Marc:So you've been there longer than the original bass player.

00:49:47Marc:Yeah.

00:49:48Marc:what's wrong with me look man i mean all i know is i'm trying to get you here and they're like okay he's coming out and then and then you get the next email like it's not clear whether he's coming out uh then the next email it's like yeah it looks like he's coming out but we got to wait to hear from axel and then the next email okay we're doing it we're doing it

00:50:09Guest:Well, what happened?

00:50:10Guest:It was supposed to be a stripped-down show, and I wasn't sure if I was even going to be needed on it.

00:50:18Guest:It was going to be that stripped-down, maybe just the guitar players would do it, and then it just kind of kept coming back and forth, and then the venue changed, and I was like, no, you've got to come out now.

00:50:25Guest:It's like, okay.

00:50:26Guest:Where's it going to be?

00:50:28Guest:It's at the Soho House.

00:50:29Guest:It's for some Tommy Hilfiger party.

00:50:31Guest:I'm not sure exactly anything more than that, except it's kind of a one-off.

00:50:35Guest:You're just going to show up?

00:50:37Guest:You know what, man?

00:50:39Guest:I'm just going to show up.

00:50:41Guest:I don't know what I'm going to do yet.

00:50:42Guest:I don't know how I'm going to do it.

00:50:44Guest:I'm going to show up.

00:50:46Marc:Oh, God.

00:50:47Marc:So you toured...

00:50:50Marc:You toured a lot with Guns N' Roses in.

00:50:52Guest:Yeah.

00:50:53Guest:I've been all over the world, and the world has been all over me.

00:50:57Marc:Which GNR records?

00:50:58Marc:You're on Chinese Democracy?

00:51:00Guest:Yeah.

00:51:02Marc:But what other ones?

00:51:04Guest:That's it.

00:51:04Guest:That's the only one we've made in the whole 15, 16, 17 years I've been in the band.

00:51:08Marc:So you can play the catalog.

00:51:10Guest:Yeah.

00:51:11Marc:Yeah.

00:51:11Marc:And you go out like, what?

00:51:13Marc:In my sleep.

00:51:14Marc:Yeah.

00:51:15Yeah.

00:51:18Guest:why why is it that he can find or he can find it in himself to tour everywhere but here um well we toured the states we did we did a bunch of that like 2010 oh so okay and and some other stuff and i think oh six or something like that and who's on guitar now

00:51:38Guest:there's a bunch of them there's like 20 guitar players no there's uh as uh richard fortis bumblefoot and dj ashba uh-huh and they all swap back bits and so there's no like none of the original guys dizzy reed yeah on keyboards and you play with him as well sometimes yeah i have dizzy i've had richard dizzy frank ferrer play on my stuff

00:52:03Marc:And do you, like, I always wonder this about bands.

00:52:05Marc:I mean, do you guys talk, like, what happened to Izzy Stradlin?

00:52:08Marc:No, we see him.

00:52:09Guest:He comes out once in a while and plays with us.

00:52:11Guest:Yeah?

00:52:11Guest:Totally great guy, yeah.

00:52:15Guest:He's a funny dude, man.

00:52:17Marc:He's a great player.

00:52:18Marc:He's kind of Keithy.

00:52:18Guest:Yeah, you should check out his new record.

00:52:21Guest:He played us, we just saw him recently.

00:52:23Guest:God, where did we see him?

00:52:25Guest:We saw him in Vegas.

00:52:26Guest:He came out, and he played us a couple songs from his new stuff.

00:52:29Guest:He's got, like, Rick Richards from the Georgia Satellites playing with them.

00:52:32Guest:He's got the...

00:52:32Guest:I think it's the same band as the Juju Hounds he had going on, but his new stuff sounds great.

00:52:37Guest:Yeah?

00:52:37Guest:Yeah, I think he made an EP, just out of it on his own, a little video clip of him and the guys just playing in the studio.

00:52:45Guest:It's great.

00:52:46Marc:Now, when you deal with Axl, I mean, see, in my mind, because my buddy Jonathan was a bass player, that bass players are fairly diplomatic, and they know how to handle the egos of front guys to some degree.

00:53:01Marc:Yeah.

00:53:01Guest:Oh, the things I could say.

00:53:03Guest:The things I keep inside me.

00:53:06Guest:I'd encourage you to say some of those.

00:53:08Guest:Nah, nah.

00:53:10Guest:You know what?

00:53:10Guest:Guitar players are a pain in the ass.

00:53:12Guest:Whatever.

00:53:13Guest:All of them are.

00:53:14Guest:Every fucking one of them.

00:53:16Guest:Have you been able to identify what causes it?

00:53:19Guest:Fucking six strings, brother.

00:53:21Guest:You got six strings, you got a fucking pain in the ass.

00:53:27Guest:Sorry.

00:53:28Guest:That's the rules of the road, buddy.

00:53:30Marc:What about lead singers?

00:53:32Guest:You got a microphone, you're pain in the ass.

00:53:34Guest:Ha ha ha ha.

00:53:36Guest:No, you know.

00:53:38Marc:Yeah, that's a good gig for you.

00:53:39Marc:But, I mean, he's an odd bird.

00:53:41Marc:I mean, Axel is anyways.

00:53:43Guest:You know what, though?

00:53:44Guest:The fucking most amazing thing about this guy, about playing with him, is that he gets up there and fucking does a fucking thousand percent of what he's got every time he shows up.

00:53:54Guest:And fucking people come out in the fucking thousands all over the fucking world to see that.

00:53:59Guest:And it's...

00:54:00Guest:You know, I think we all, I think we put on a good show for him, you know, and stuff.

00:54:05Guest:But when you really think about it, it's kind of all about Axl.

00:54:07Guest:And I'm just going to be, you know, be honest about that.

00:54:10Guest:And it just still, it just amazes me just how rabid they are to see him up there doing his thing.

00:54:18Guest:And he, you know, he puts on a fucking great show.

00:54:20Guest:He's a great singer.

00:54:21Guest:Yeah.

00:54:21Guest:Great rock singer.

00:54:22Guest:Yeah.

00:54:22Guest:I think he's probably a better singer now than he probably was back in the day because I think he's gotten more used to working with his voice and stuff like that.

00:54:30Guest:I think he's a lot stronger in a lot of ways.

00:54:32Marc:And in terms of his erratic behavior, is it just insecurity or perfectionism?

00:54:38Guest:I don't think he's as erratic as people think.

00:54:40Guest:I think he's just real, and you just don't know.

00:54:43Guest:It's like he runs on his own feel, man.

00:54:48Guest:He does his thing the way he does it, and that's all he's doing.

00:54:52Guest:so with a gig like this it's a private function you know it's like a you don't know who the other players are going to be necessarily you just know no i know it's going to be the band just kind of stripped down you know the acoustic guitars and you know oh yeah yeah there might be a you know digity do in there or something i don't know we'll see if i can egg shaker

00:55:15Marc:Yeah, you just never know.

00:55:18Marc:So in terms of living in Hudson, how long have you been out of here?

00:55:23Guest:I've been out of here three years.

00:55:24Guest:I think I moved... I don't know.

00:55:25Guest:Yeah, it must have been three years ago that I moved back east.

00:55:28Guest:You know, and I kind of... I left a really great supporting cast of friends here that I miss dearly every day.

00:55:35Guest:But it was...

00:55:36Guest:It came a point when all my friends were, you know, starting to have kids and get busy with their jobs and things like that.

00:55:44Guest:And I'd done everything I could do out here in my mind that pertained to, you know, my future musically and things like that.

00:55:50Guest:And I just thought this place is getting so goddamn expensive.

00:55:53Guest:I'm bleeding money trying to just, you know, record and live.

00:55:56Guest:I'm like, I got to get out of here.

00:55:58Guest:And it really kind of came down to that.

00:56:00Guest:It's like a...

00:56:01Guest:when you start looking at, okay, I can afford to buy a house now, and you're looking at a 1,500 square foot house in a crap neighborhood for $700,000, you kind of go, you know what, I got to get out of here.

00:56:12Guest:It's just a little bit much.

00:56:13Guest:And I knew that I needed to have a place

00:56:18Guest:to live i need a place to record and set up my stuff so that i could keep making music because really that's all i do i don't really you know i i do other things within and around music you know that interests me and stuff like cooking and stuff like that even but i it really comes down to i have to place to work otherwise i can't do what i what is now my work yeah yeah i've been up there i had a friend who uh louis ck used to have a place up there i don't think he has it anymore that guy is funny as shit

00:56:44Guest:yeah yeah he had he got a place in hudson i think it's just some deal yeah yeah what do you just saw him i just saw some special he was uh on and guy you just fucking yeah my wife and i were watching it we were just fucking rolling yeah yeah he's hilarious but it's a beautiful area up there yeah oh we got you know what we moved up there and we got you know it's for all intents and purposes it's a great sort of gay art music community really great people real diverse um

00:57:10Guest:A lot of real talented people and it's just this weird little one mile by one mile strip on the Hudson River.

00:57:16Guest:Yeah.

00:57:17Guest:But, you know, we've really grown to love it and, you know, I got all my shit set up so I can do what I got to do.

00:57:22Guest:How many kids you got?

00:57:24Guest:I have a 23-year-old and I have a five-year-old.

00:57:27Marc:You got a five-year-old.

00:57:28Guest:Yeah.

00:57:29Guest:I like to keep it interesting, Mark.

00:57:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:57:32Marc:And the 23-year-old's out.

00:57:33Marc:She's in the big city.

00:57:34Guest:She's living in the Big Apple.

00:57:36Guest:She's fucking working her ass off.

00:57:38Guest:Kid's got the world by the balls already.

00:57:40Guest:And you get along?

00:57:41Guest:Yeah.

00:57:41Guest:No, we love each other.

00:57:43Guest:My kids.

00:57:44Guest:My big baby.

00:57:46Guest:And your mom, is she still around?

00:57:49Guest:My mom?

00:57:49Guest:Your mom, yeah.

00:57:50Guest:My mom is still around, yeah.

00:57:52Marc:And does she come out?

00:57:53Guest:Yeah.

00:57:53Guest:Her and her husband just came out, you know, in October.

00:57:57Marc:Wow.

00:57:58Marc:It's so weird, you know, when you talk to rock dudes, you're just like, what is their life?

00:58:03Guest:Dude, I wake up and I jump into both pant-legged at the same time.

00:58:07Guest:Have some coffee.

00:58:11Guest:I put on my beer hat and I go at it.

00:58:14Marc:How long has your brother been gone now?

00:58:17Guest:He died in 94, I believe.

00:58:19Guest:94.

00:58:21Marc:In the circumstances that surrounded that, he'd just gotten away from everybody?

00:58:25Guest:No, what happened was my brother, I mean, he abused himself pretty good during the end there, and what happened was he finally sobered up.

00:58:32Guest:He sobered up and called my mom.

00:58:34Guest:My mom was still working at the Uptown Bar then, and he called up and said, I'm really doing it this time.

00:58:37Guest:I really want to sober up and straighten my shit out.

00:58:41Guest:got himself a little apartment and you know was trying to put himself together he was sober for two weeks and then his heart just said done really yeah yeah that's fucking horrible i know yeah he made the commitment he was he fucking committed to fucking changing it because i would imagine now that we know you know he died pretty much for heart attack now that we know he probably was feeling pretty terrible to just go okay i i gotta stop now

00:59:05Marc:right because this i'm fucked up this hurts painful yeah yeah done and that was it yeah uh sorry man yeah you know what an app it's part of it's part of life and death they're all intertwined you know yeah yeah in in in like i see like i went to look at some videos and stuff what is your uh you seem to have taken to haiti

00:59:26Guest:Yeah, you know, of all the weird things, you know, when I turned 30, I started getting sort of a social conscience.

00:59:35Guest:I really started seeing things happening in the world that were starting to trouble me and it kind of like just snuck up on me because I'd been pretty much...

00:59:41Guest:just way out of it not really caring about much of anything except what's in front of me you know and i started to kind of think about stuff and when katrina happened i you know i felt really bad but i was traveling a lot and i didn't have time to like go get involved so i donated money to the red cross like everyone else thought was a good idea and then i saw what they did and didn't do which which was totally heartbreaking to me

01:00:05Guest:And was really just bummed out by it.

01:00:08Guest:So when the Haiti earthquake happened and all those people lost their lives in that, I was watching this kind of from my TV, just going, Jesus, what the hell can I do?

01:00:20Guest:And so...

01:00:21Guest:I had a friend of mine in Philly that headed an organization called Kids of Kajon, which is a non-profit that helps get school supplies to different tribes in Senegal and different parts of Africa.

01:00:38Guest:It's actually expanded quite a bit since he's been doing this.

01:00:40Guest:He did it right out of high school, but I called him up and I said, Luke, so do you know anybody...

01:00:45Guest:that I can call to try and find out what I can do to help in Haiti.

01:00:49Guest:I don't want to just send money somewhere.

01:00:51Guest:I want to find out where it's going to go and try and make sure I can do something good with my time and what money I can raise.

01:00:58Guest:And he actually knew somebody.

01:00:59Guest:So I got a hold of this guy, Matt, and he turned me on to this foundation that works with a school called Tim Katek down there and Father Simon who runs it.

01:01:10Guest:And I went down there with my manager, Benny.

01:01:12Guest:Saw the school, met the guy, Father Simon, this 80-year-old saint, basically, that takes these kids off the street, you know, as young as five years old, homeless kids that don't have family, anything.

01:01:24Guest:Takes them, gives them housing and shelter, educates them, turns them out with a trade of some sort, whether it's a mechanic.

01:01:31Guest:of some sort, you know, electrician, a mason, whatever stuff, tools that, you know, education that they can actually use in their community to help rebuild it in effect is the goal.

01:01:40Guest:Right.

01:01:40Guest:And I just got, you know, I fell in love with it.

01:01:42Guest:I met the kids and, you know, it just took my heart.

01:01:44Guest:So since then, I've been trying to do everything I can to raise money for them because...

01:01:49Guest:Everyone's forgotten about Haiti and their plight.

01:01:51Guest:And now there's a bit of a civil war happening down there.

01:01:55Guest:And they're just getting fucked.

01:01:57Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:01:58Guest:There's no way.

01:01:58Guest:And there are people trying to help.

01:02:00Guest:Like Sean Penn's down there trying to do the best he can with whatever he's got.

01:02:04Guest:And he's got probably more resources than anyone to do the work he's doing down there.

01:02:09Guest:But it's just not enough.

01:02:10Guest:There's so much...

01:02:12Guest:You know, and but, you know, I haven't gone in with the idea that I'm going to help Haiti, per se, and try and help the whole country.

01:02:21Guest:I found a little pocket of kids that I can help by raising money.

01:02:26Guest:Yeah.

01:02:26Guest:So that's what I've been doing.

01:02:28Marc:Well, that's great, man.

01:02:29Guest:Yeah, I'm trying to raise money for them every year.

01:02:31Guest:And last year we got some tools for them.

01:02:34Guest:But I'm still trying to find out how to get down there because you try and get them through customs and they're going to steal them.

01:02:39Guest:So I've got about $19,000 worth of tools sitting in Philadelphia with the Mennonites organization that's waiting for a window of opportunity to get that stuff in.

01:02:49Guest:And hopefully it'll happen this spring.

01:02:52Marc:See, who would have known that rock and roll would lead you to this place where you're concerned whether the Mennonites can smuggle some tools into Haiti so the kids can learn a trade.

01:03:02Marc:I know, right?

01:03:04Guest:Fuck.

01:03:04Guest:What's wrong with me?

01:03:07Guest:Jesus.

01:03:07Guest:All the kooky crap.

01:03:09Guest:But you know what?

01:03:10Guest:You know what?

01:03:11Guest:No, it's great.

01:03:12Guest:You're not concerned about a shipment of blow.

01:03:15Guest:Yeah.

01:03:15Guest:No, no, exactly.

01:03:17Marc:And you feel that, like, it's an interesting wall to hit, but, like, you must have just, like, well, you had, like, almost a spiritual moment where you're like, I've done nothing.

01:03:27Guest:You know, I, yeah, I mean, it actually came to that.

01:03:32Guest:I'm thinking to myself one day, like, God, you know, if I died right now, what do I leave fucking as a legacy?

01:03:37Guest:Oh, he just tried to fucking sell records.

01:03:39Guest:And, I mean, this, you know, asinine, you know, sort of, you know,

01:03:45Guest:lifestyle you know that we live to try and fucking do this one thing which is to be fucking pop stars or whatever it's like well that's great legacy to leave behind right yeah he lived to rock you know what would the tombstone say like derp yeah but uh no i just i just started thinking about you know i've got kids and and um at that point i had a kid uh

01:04:07Guest:And I just, I just, I went, my heart got into wanting to help these people with any way I could.

01:04:13Guest:I got down there and then I, you know, was heartbroken and really wanted it to help.

01:04:18Guest:And I think I'll always, you know, have that mind because I've always loved kids and I've always, I've always been that guy that, you know, gets along with kids and, you know, has them.

01:04:28Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:04:28Marc:Apparently.

01:04:29Marc:Yeah.

01:04:30Marc:Yeah.

01:04:30Marc:I don't, I don't have any, but I'm being, I'm being pushed to the edge with it.

01:04:34Marc:My girl wants to have them.

01:04:36Marc:Yeah.

01:04:36Marc:I'm 49, so.

01:04:36Marc:there's only one way to do that mark i'm doing that i've just been doing it very carefully up to this point yeah so what what do you think you guys uh are you and what's left of the replacements ever gonna go at it again just for fun what would it be you and tommy and uh and paul

01:04:57Guest:You know, I think Paul and I are always going to play together in some fashion at some point.

01:05:04Guest:Like I said, we didn't break up, but what's to say we wouldn't start a new band together either.

01:05:10Guest:You never know.

01:05:10Guest:But we had a really good time doing the Songs for Slim thing, and I think we might go and try and record some more stuff live like that.

01:05:17Guest:I mean, the thing that we did was really fun.

01:05:19Guest:We met at a studio with a drummer guy that we know and this other guitar player that we've known forever.

01:05:26Guest:And we just started hacking out some songs.

01:05:28Guest:And we did it for an afternoon and came up with, you know, five, four songs for this EP.

01:05:33Guest:One of them was Slims.

01:05:34Guest:Had a great time doing it.

01:05:36Guest:Great vibe.

01:05:37Guest:And kind of came to the conclusion, we should do this again with some original songs one of these days.

01:05:41Guest:I was like, yeah, let's do it.

01:05:42Guest:I'll call you in a couple months.

01:05:44Guest:We'll fucking book some time and go do it.

01:05:45Guest:So, you know, without any, you know, without any...

01:05:50Guest:Fanfare.

01:05:52Guest:Yeah, without any fanfare.

01:05:53Guest:We're going to record again at some point soon.

01:05:54Guest:And I don't know what we'll do with it.

01:05:57Marc:Do you ever think about just like touring?

01:05:59Marc:Because, you know, if you think about like the fans of the replacements, the diehards have got to be about my age.

01:06:05Marc:Yeah.

01:06:05Marc:Right?

01:06:05Marc:So you think you could even do a respectable theater gig, just you and Paul.

01:06:11Guest:I'll tell you, they keep every fucking year from Coachella down, they always call us up.

01:06:17Guest:They call up Paul's manager, and they want a replacement gig, and they're offering us silly money to do it.

01:06:24Guest:It's like we couldn't just...

01:06:26Guest:you know we talk about it every fucking year we have the conversation you know it's like we can't just do it that way it would just be kind of it would be beneath us to just go and do a money grab and just you know like a nostalgia act yeah it's i mean you know we were never about the money otherwise we would have probably been able to you know handshake our way to the top you know or blow our way to the top as it were yeah as others were doing at that time um you know yeah

01:06:54Marc:Is there any of the guys from that era, that scene, like even the Minneapolis scene that you talk to?

01:07:02Guest:Yeah, I talk to a lot of those guys.

01:07:04Guest:Are you friends with Mold?

01:07:06Guest:I haven't seen Bob in a long time, but we're friendly.

01:07:08Guest:If I saw him, we'd probably sit and chat for a bit.

01:07:11Guest:All the old suburb guys, I see those guys around once in a while.

01:07:14Guest:A lot of bands.

01:07:17Guest:I see Keith Moore, some Circle Jerks.

01:07:19Guest:It seems like I see him every time I come out of here.

01:07:21Marc:And people were holding up all right?

01:07:24Guest:Yeah, man, everyone that I still know.

01:07:26Guest:It's like... I saw Frank Black at the Dinosaur Jr.

01:07:30Guest:show in New York, I don't know, a month and a half.

01:07:33Marc:Jay came by here.

01:07:34Guest:Yeah?

01:07:35Guest:Yeah.

01:07:35Guest:Okay, so I saw him at Jay's show, and we just got to talking, and he's actually going to sing a track for this song for Slim Stuff, and he's going to do it actually at my studio, like on the 24th or whatever.

01:07:48Guest:But he...

01:07:50Guest:just got to talking about like god it's just still great that we still like still like to come see bands that we've you know liked back then and i checked out and like you know yeah i still like writing songs yeah you too well it's killer you know it's it's kind of it's kind of goofy in a way but you know we're getting older we get kids and lives and houses and you know responsibilities to some degree but it's like there's a handful of guys that i still know that

01:08:14Guest:Still can eke out a living.

01:08:17Guest:Although Charles ain't eking out no living.

01:08:20Guest:He's doing great.

01:08:21Guest:But still have the inspiration.

01:08:24Guest:They're not bitter about it.

01:08:25Guest:There's a couple guys that I know that are still fucking bitter about it.

01:08:29Guest:It's never going to go away.

01:08:30Guest:Dude, you got to just get the fuck over yourself.

01:08:32Guest:It's not worth it.

01:08:34Guest:You're just that guy sitting there complaining about what should be and it ain't.

01:08:38Guest:Locked in that mode.

01:08:41Guest:Yeah, you know.

01:08:42Guest:That's, you know, what are you going to do now?

01:08:44Guest:They're bitching, moaning about it.

01:08:46Guest:No one gives a fuck.

01:08:47Marc:Yeah.

01:08:47Marc:As a matter of fact, not only do they not give a fuck, but they'll avoid you.

01:08:50Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:08:52Marc:Well, I'm glad you're doing all right, man.

01:08:53Guest:Thanks for coming.

01:08:54Marc:Thanks a lot.

01:08:55Marc:You bet.

01:09:01Marc:Rock and roll, people.

01:09:02Marc:Rock and roll.

01:09:03Marc:That dude has lived the life.

01:09:04Marc:I appreciate him coming by.

01:09:06Marc:Hey, look, folks.

01:09:07Marc:That's it.

01:09:08Marc:That's our show.

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01:09:53Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.

01:09:56Marc:Get on that mailing list.

01:09:57Marc:Buy some merch.

01:09:59Marc:Gonna have the coffee mug slash coffee deal soon with the hand-thrown mug by my guy up in Portland, Brian Jones.

01:10:07Marc:The amazing Brian Jones.

01:10:08Marc:He's amazing on a wheel.

01:10:09Marc:Throw in those pots.

01:10:10Marc:Throw in those mugs.

01:10:12Marc:We're gonna put a package together.

01:10:13Marc:That's exciting.

01:10:14Marc:But enough business.

01:10:16Marc:I hope you're well.

01:10:17Marc:I hope everything's okay with you.

01:10:18Marc:Okay?

01:10:20Marc:I do.

01:10:21Marc:Boomer lives!

01:10:26you