I was raised in California until high school. Question: So you got your start at Phoenix New Times?Īnswer: I did. We caught up with Mehr to talk about the book and the Replacements in advance of a conversation with Mehr, which I’ll be moderating this weekend at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix.
Looking at one another, they realized as Paul would recall, ‘that we had fallen in together.’” “When the last note rang out and the song was over, there was silence. It's the name of a Dave Edmunds songs they covered at one of their early rehearsals.Īs Mehr recalls the scene in “Trouble Boys:” The title is not from a Westerberg lyric. But the thing that most intrigued him was a single question: Why?Ī decade later, having talked at length to Westerberg and bassist Tommy Stinson as well as 200-some people who witnessed the legend unfolding, from the individual member’s troubled childhoods through Bob Stinson’s tragic death and the reunion tour that gave their tale the happy ending it deserved, he poured those answers to that single question into “Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.” That’s all part of what inspired former Phoenix New Times music editor Bob Mehr to write about the whole chaotic ride they took together.
And the fact that they had yet to truly “make it” by the time they played their final show in 1991 just made it that much more romantic for the members of their growing cult - like Big Star, whose praises they memorably sang on “Alex Chilton.” They were known for their drunken performances that could fly off the rails into beautiful chaos or provide the most cathartic moments of transcendence you could hope to witness at a rock show – sometimes both in the course of the same unhinged performance.Īnd they had songs to back it up, from such early punk classics as “Takin’ a Ride” and “I Hate Music” through more introspective ballads as Paul Westerberg matured into the self-effacing poet laureate of alternative-rock while giving voice to the outsider in us all. The Replacements wore their status as the only band that matters like a dirty lampshade, effortlessly filtering the spirit of Rod Stewart and the Faces through the more reckless abandon of punk.
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