by Bob Mehr
Joey was placed in the foster system. At eighteen, he became a ward of the state, and Anita Stinson was named his legal guardian. She and her husband Tom Kurth would care for Joey tenderly until the end of his life, which came on December 1, 2010. Joey Stinson had lived to be twenty-one. His funeral service was held in the same chapel as his father’s.
“Until you have the opportunity to love someone the way I loved Joey, you don’t know what love is about,” said Anita, teary-eyed. “And yes, caring for him, it’s what I missed with Bobby. I miss them both every minute. I miss Joey, and I miss Bobby more because I miss Joey, if that makes any sense. But you remember them, and they go on in your heart.”
Slim Dunlap was barely sixty, but for several years he’d shown dramatic signs of slowing and aging. He shuffled his feet around the house, seemed almost disengaged from his own life. His wife Chrissie pushed him to go to the doctor, but he refused. Later it would come out that he’d suffered a pair of strokes, in 2007 and 2011. He’d fallen at work and knew there was something wrong, but stayed silent. He didn’t want his wife and family to worry.
In February 2012, Chrissie and her grandkids were getting ready to leave the house to go ice skating when they heard a thud from the bathroom. The littlest child, Audrey, ran in to see what the sound was and found her grandfather lying on the bathroom floor.
Chrissie and the kids somehow managed to drag Slim down the hall and into bed. “As I tried to get him up, I realized he couldn’t stand, couldn’t move his leg. I knew something bad had happened,” said Chrissie, who ran to call an ambulance.
Dunlap had finally suffered a major stroke; he was hemorrhaging from the left side of his brain. “He didn’t open his eyes for three weeks,” said his wife. “We didn’t know if he was going to live.”
Paul Westerberg was among the first to visit Dunlap at the Hennepin County Medical Center. Paul and Slim hadn’t spoken in years, having fallen out over something that seemed so stupid and pointless now. When Westerberg saw the stricken Dunlap lying there, hooked up to a phalanx of tubes and machines, his heart sank. “Then he crawled into bed with Slim and held him close and kissed him,” said Chrissie.
Slim would spend nine months in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities and nursing homes. Chrissie finally quit her job and brought him home to look after him full-time. Slim was paralyzed on his left side, his speech and motor function dramatically affected. Unable to swallow and fed via IV, he was prone to infections and pneumonia and would return to the hospital a staggering forty times over the next few years. The medical bills were piling up, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth, and tens of thousands more would be needed to continue care.
A friend of the Dunlaps, Brian Balleria, emailed Peter Jesperson suggesting the idea of a tribute record to help defray Slim’s medical costs. That led Jesperson to develop the “Songs for Slim” benefit, a singles series featuring various artists covering Dunlap’s songs; it would result in a double album. An array of Slim’s old friends and admirers would contribute, including Soul Asylum, Lucinda Williams, the Wallflowers’ Jakob Dylan, the Pixies’ Frank Black, X’s John Doe, and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. All the artwork would be done by Chris Mars.
The project would kick off with an EP of Dunlap’s songs and covers done by Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson, billed as the Replacements. They started with a limited vinyl pressing of the record, auctioning the copies off before a general release. All told, “Songs for Slim” helped raise over $200,000 for Dunlap’s medical fund. “What they did putting the band back together . . .” said Chrissie, “there’s no words for how grateful we are to Paul and Tommy.”
Inevitably, Paul and Tommy’s work on the “Songs for Slim” benefit began to stir thoughts of a full-scale Replacements reunion. Perhaps it was a clear sense of their own mortality, but this time there seemed to be real momentum.
For years, Westerberg had quietly nursed a hope that Chris Mars would change his mind and be part of a reunion in some way. Chris had contributed his own solo track to the Replacements’ “Songs for Slim” EP, but he was clearly done with the band. “In a way, Chris puts the Replacements on a level with his paper route as a kid,” said Westerberg. “He had a paper route, then he played drums in a rock band, and then went on to become an artist, which is what he always dreamt of. But I can’t quite dispose of it that easily.”
Even so, Westerberg was leery of taking the Replacements back out on the road, of possibly spoiling the legend that had built up around the band. Slim Dunlap would be the one to finally convince him.
“We were talking to Slim when he was in the hospital,” said Westerberg. “And I was like, ‘Should we play?’” Back in 1987, Slim had given the Replacements new life, had made them whole again with his loyalty and tenacity. Now he would do it again.
“Yes,” Dunlap told Westerberg, his slurred words suddenly crystal clear. “Go play.”
It wasn’t just Slim’s encouragement that compelled them to re-form.
After twenty years together, ten of them married, Paul Westerberg’s relationship with Laurie Lindeen was over. Meantime, Tommy Stinson’s young marriage to Emily Roberts had come to an end as well. Both men were separated, headed for divorce.
Once again Paul and Tommy found themselves together, their lives at loose ends—just as they’d been when they first met, a nineteen-year-old dropout janitor and a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent. “Paul pointed out that we’ve kinda always been in this situation,” said Tommy. “When we started talking about playing together this time, I really got the feeling that we needed each other in a way that hadn’t been there in the other years when they were offering us [reunion] shows. I know I needed to come do this; we both felt like we needed to hang out.”
The Replacements would reunite with a trio of concerts in late summer 2013 as part of the traveling punk-rock-rooted Riot Fest, headlining dates in Toronto, Chicago, and Denver. Paul and Tommy would be joined by their mutual friend Josh Freese on drums and Boston guitarist Dave Minehan—it would be a quasi-reunion of Westerberg’s 1993 solo band: the group’s bassist, Darren Hill, was also behind the scenes helping manage things.
Predictably, there were those who questioned the validity of the band’s return. How did only two original members, Paul and Tommy, constitute a “real” Replacements reunion? The math made it clear: only six people had ever played with the ’Mats; two were dead, one was incapacitated, and another had left the band behind emotionally. Paul and Tommy were in the group from beginning to end, the ones still playing when the ship went down. Now they were back to raise it. They were the Replacements.
With the first concert in Canada, on August 25, drawing closer, some questioned if Westerberg would really go through with it. But as showtime approached, Paul “was unnaturally calm. I can’t explain it. We weren’t drinking, we weren’t worrying. We didn’t have any wardrobe, we just ripped up a few things before we went on,” he said. It helped that the ’Mats would be forced to follow Iggy Pop and the Stooges. “You watch Iggy and you realize you better not get up and suck.”
Toronto would set the tone for their return. While the band occasionally sounded rough, they were so adrenalized by the moment and the affection of the audience that they carried through triumphantly. “The crowd for that show was really forgiving and beautiful,” recalled Stinson. “It was touching.”
In the midst of their reunion, the Replacements would be named among the finalists for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—though they ultimately would fall short of election.
“I think we happened to coincidentally like all of the funky quirks of the classic rock bands—the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Ramones—to a certain extent,” mused Westerberg. “We didn’t have the things that made those bands huge; we had the thing that made them infamous and decadent and, perhaps, great.”
Two decades after handing their instruments off to the roadies in Grant Park, the Replacements returned to Chicago, this time to Humboldt Park, where a
crowd of 20,000-plus would be gathered to witness their comeback.
Among the backstage contingent was Tommy’s ex-wife Daune and their daughter Ruby, as well as the members of his old band Perfect. Westerberg, too, would come with a retinue of his own. “My son was watching from the side of the stage with his buddies,” said Westerberg. His boy Johnny was fifteen years old now. A good-looking kid, an athlete, he’d come with a gang of his high school pals to finally see his pop’s famous band. “He immediately pointed out the stuff that sucked in the show. He thought ‘Swingin Party’ sucked,” laughed Paul. “I don’t know where he gets that negative shit from.”
Paul’s and Tommy’s kids were with them when the Replacements played NBC’s Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon the following summer. Their appearance was trumpeted as a triumphant return to Rockefeller Center, the ’Mats’ first time back since being banned following their Saturday Night Live performance in ’86.
Among the other guests that night was Keith Richards. Twenty-five years after they’d opened for him, the Replacements would reunite with the Stones guitarist, posing for pictures, a beaming Paul and Tommy looking like his long-lost sons.
Hanging around the studio hall with his daughter Ruby, Tommy did a double take as Barbara Streisand—rehearsing for a special next door—passed by them.
“That’s Barbara fuckin’ Streisand!” Tommy exclaimed.
Without breaking stride, Streisand exclaimed: “At least someone gets my name right.”
While Richards was taping his segment, Westerberg and his boy poked their heads into his empty dressing room. Keith had left behind a burning spliff and the remnants of a whiskey. Paul pointed to the glass, then to Johnny. “There,” he said. “That’s your first drink.”
The kid grinned, but shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so.”
The Replacements would spend 2014 on the festival circuit, playing a slate of multi-band bills from Boston to Seattle. The only dud was the first of two weekends at the Coachella Festival in the California desert. It was a big payday, but a bad gig—Coachella had largely turned into a dance festival, and the Replacements were out of place. “There’s four thousand people in the front who are stoked and fifteen thousand kids with glowsticks, scratching their heads,” said Josh Freese.
Before the second Coachella date, Westerberg’s back troubles returned. He enlisted Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong to sub on guitar, help sing, and save the day. The experience would be a rock-and-roll fantasy camp for Armstrong, who continued to turn up and play with the ’Mats at several more shows—until Westerberg decided the extra help was no longer needed. “Billie, I’m firing the whole band,” he told Armstrong, “but we’re going in alphabetical order.”
As the fall of 2014 arrived, the Replacements staged the first shows on their own, playing sold-out dates at St. Paul’s Midway Stadium and in New York City’s Forrest Hills Tennis Stadium. The band’s two biggest champions, Peter Jesperson and Michael Hill, were there. They watched the ’Mats perform as tens of thousands celebrated their return. The songs once considered radio flops had become anthems for multiple generations. When they played “Can’t Hardly Wait,” the sound of the crowd singing along nearly drowned out the band. At long last, Jesperson and Hill had proof: their faith had not been blind.
The offers came pouring in to do more shows—a US theater tour, dates overseas. The band even made a couple of attempts to record new material at studios in Boston and Minneapolis. “Once you open this Pandora’s Box, it’s open for a while,” said Stinson of the reunion. “The amount of fun we have doing this . . . you gotta keep it [going]. We’d have to kill each other to break it up again.”
By the end of their spring 2015 tour, Westerberg and Stinson seemed ready to at least maim one another. The same issues that had marked their first breakup—control, respect, and money—cropped up again. Westerberg griped that the reunion had become a money grab for others, that he could be making more playing solo gigs. He didn’t like the studio tracks the reunited Replacements had cut, preferring his own home demos of the songs. The ’Mats’ entire life cycle had played out in twenty months instead of twelve years.
During the final show of the tour in Portugal, in June, Westerberg announced that the gig would be their final performance ever. The comments caused a major stir online. Fans and pundits lamented that the ’Mats, finally enjoying their long-overdue success, had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory once again.
But despite Westerberg’s words, despite all the speculation, the band was not done.
The Replacements had become bigger than their personal squabbles, bigger than Paul’s power to banish the music they created. The emotional connection that people found in the ’Mats, the legacy they’d forged—along with the myths, realities, and deaths—couldn’t be dismissed so easily. The band had transcended Paul and Tommy—yet it wasn’t enough to raise them above the history and flaws and failings that made them who they were.
The essence of the Replacements remains immutable: it’s the unmistakable air of juvenile halls, Catholic schools, and basement keggers; the smell of mop buckets, filthy tour vans, and burning money; the sound of drunken laughter, of overdriven amps, and rock-and-roll.
In the end, the pain and desperation, the chaos and the noise, it had meant something.
“However finite and small,” observed Tommy Stinson, “we left a mark.”
“We did leave a mark,” said Paul Westerberg. “And no one can take that away. We were a great little band.”
NOTES
This book is based on interviews conducted with some 230 people between 2009 and 2015. Additionally, I was given access to the Replacements’ archives at Twin/Tone Records and the Warner Music Group. My research also draws on an array of published pieces, transcripts, documents, and audio/video material from the band’s career and subsequent solo endeavors. Interview sourcing is provided in the notes for each chapter, followed by a selected bibliography.
INTRODUCTION
Author interviews with Tommy Stinson, Paul Westerberg, Lori Barbero, Ray Reigstad, Mike Leonard, Anita Stinson, Lonnie Stinson, and Carleen Krietler.
Other Sources
Bream, Jon. “Replacements’ Ex-Guitarist Found Dead.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 20, 1995.
Channen, David, and Neal Justin. “Guitarist Stinson’s Friends Recount Full, but Tragic, Life.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 23, 1995.
Walsh, Jim. “Replacements’ ‘Lunatic Guitarist,’ Bob Stinson, Dies.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press, February 20, 1995.
Wilonsky, Robert. “No Mere Replacement.” Dallas Observer, May 11, 1995.
CHAPTER 1
Author interviews with Anita Stinson, Lonnie Stinson, and Tommy Stinson.
Other Sources
Birmingham, Steve. Interview with Bob Stinson, April 3–4, 1994 (transcript).
Hennepin County Welfare Department. Case file: “Robert Stinson,” March 13, 1975.
CHAPTER 2
Author interviews with Paul Westerberg.
Other Sources
Valania, Jonathan. Interview with Paul Westerberg, April 30, 2002 (transcript).
Walsh, Jim. The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting: An Oral History. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2007.
CHAPTER 3
Author interviews with Lonnie Stinson, Tommy Stinson, Anita Stinson, and Robert Flemal.
Other Sources
Minnesota, State of, Department of Corrections. Uniform case report: “Robert Neil Stinson,” June, 30, 1975.
———. Monthly progress report: “Robert Neil Stinson,” October 3, 1975.
———. Transfer summary: “Robert Stinson,” June 15, 1976.
———. Uniform case report: “Robert Neil Stinson,” May 4, 1977.
———. Uniform case report: “Robert Neil Stinson,” December 5, 1977.
Vorrath, Harry H., and Larry K. Brendtro. Positive Peer Culture, 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1985.
Zellar,
Brad. “The Walls of Red Wing.” City Pages, December 3, 2003.
CHAPTER 4
Author interviews with Paul Westerberg, Ben Welter, Dave Zilka, Mary Rose Zika, Maggie Gray, Bruno Pellagalli, Jeff Johnson, Jef Jodell, Jack Jodell, and Paul Bolin.
Other Sources
Bream, Jon. “The Faces Had Smiles at Concert.” Minneapolis Star, November 3, 1975.
Schmickle, Sharon. “Holy Angels: No More Eyebrow Pencil Seams, but Educational Traditions Persist.” Minneapolis Star, October 8, 1981.
Valania, Jonathan. Interview with Paul Westerberg, April 30, 2002 (transcript).
CHAPTER 5
Author interviews with Tommy Stinson, Curtis Olson, Andrea Olson, Lonnie Stinson, Anita Stinson, and Robert Flemal.
CHAPTER 6
Author interviews with Chris Mars, Paul Westerberg, Andrea Olson, Robert Flemal, Tom Byrne, and Jeff Johnson.
Other Sources
Bahn, Christopher. “Interview: Chris Mars.” The A.V. Club Blog, February 28, 2006. http://www.avclub.com/article/interview-chris-mars-16470.
Calderone, Tom. Chris Mars, “Modern Rock Live” interview, April 6, 1992 (transcript).
Gentry, Lana. “Interview with Chris Mars.” beinArt, January 30, 2010.
George-Warren, Holly. Interview with Chris Mars, 1992 (transcript).
Hallett, Tom. “Chris Mars: An Intimate Portrait of the Artist.” Round the Dial, January 2010.
Mars, Chris. KROQ “Lovelines” interview, June 11, 1992 (transcript).
———. “MN Original” video segment, January 11, 2015 (transcript).
Walsh, Jim. The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting: An Oral History. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2007.
———. “On Art(s) and Artists: A Conversation with Chris Mars.” Minnesota Post, November 13, 2008. https://www.minnpost.com/arts-culture/2008/11/arts-and-artists-conversation-chris-mars.
