For Tommy Stinson, there were two things that were very important to him when he went to record his next record: for it to be recorded live as much as possible, in the studio with the musicians together, and for it to be a band, not just him banging out the songs on different instruments. And that is how Anything Could Happen became a Bash & Pop project instead of a solo album.
Resurrecting the moniker from the band Stinson had formed in 1992 following the break-up of The Replacements, Bash & Pop features Stinson doing vocals, guitar and bass. There are twelve tracks on the disc, from the catchy first single, “On The Rocks,” to the country twang feel of “Anytime Soon,” the riled up rockabilly flavored “Unfuck You,” the frisky new single, “Never Wanted To Know,” and the acoustic “Shortcut” with a surprisingly Dylan-esque essence that makes you wonder if Stinson has settled down from the Minneapolis delinquent that gave the Replacements their punk/alternative authenticity.
Although Stinson has spent the last eighteen years kicking up his heels in Guns N Roses, he is still often referred to as the kid from The Replacements, which he was in from age fifteen to their breakup following the release of 1990’s Grammy nominated All Shook Down album and tour. People forget he has also done two solo albums, formed the bands Bash & Pop and Perfect, and was in Soul Asylum for about five years.
With the GNR reunion tour in full swing with no signs of slowing down, Stinson is enjoying his time making music he has been working on for a while. Enlisting friends like GNR drummer Frank Ferrer and North Mississippi Allstars guitarist Luther Dickinson, whom he first met when Dickinson’s father Jim produced the Replacements’ Pleased To Meet Me in 1987, the album sounds fresh with a hip giddy-up.
With Anything Could Happen coming out this week on the 20th, and a short tour just getting started, Glide spoke with Stinson prior to Christmas about working on his new record as he watched his youngest child get streaks put in her hair for the holidays. “She’s eight and normally a little too young for me to think about that but luckily they do it in a shampoo now so it’s not like you have to bleach her hair and that crap.” When I tell him he doesn’t sound very punk saying that, he laughs. “Yeah, well, the thing is her friends and all the kids in her class, they do it and I’m thinking, you fucking people, this is way too soon to start this ball rolling, because soon you’ll be paying for hair salon bills that are a hundred bucks a pop.”
So there you go, folks, the preeminent punk kid is now a father with the same concerns about his children as us normal people. Makes one wonder, has punk grown up? Not yet.
You have the wonderful Luther Dickinson playing on your new record, Anything Could Happen. When did you first meet him? Was it when you were working with his dad?
Yeah, that was it. Worked with his dad in 1986 on that Pleased To Meet Me record. I might have seen him once or twice somewhere in there but not really; it was kind of in passing, crossing paths. I ran into him playing with Soul Asylum in Spain. We were doing Soul Asylum and he was in the Black Crowes and I ran into him at a festival and we got to hanging out. I hadn’t seen him in forever and we got his dad on the phone before he died and got to chat with him a little bit from Spain. It was fantastic, it was magical and cool, and then we kind of stayed in touch after that. We kept talking and after that I went down to Memphis to do some recording with him and his brother Cody. We recorded a bunch of stuff. At some point I’ve got to resurrect that stuff and do what we’d planned on doing with it cause it was fun stuff. We just went and hacked out some songs together, just the three of us, and I scatted on them and we came up with the premise of a side band or band of some sort. But you know I was doing the Guns N Roses stuff so I kept getting distracted by stuff so I haven’t had a chance to go back. But there’s some good stuff in there. It was fun. Those two boys are good.
Did he come and play or did you send files back and forth?
No, no, no, I called him up, called all my friends up to come up to my place, my studio here in upstate New York, and do some recording and he came on up and we all met and hung out and we just had a blast. I just said, “This is kind of how the chords go to the song, here’s the melody and let’s play it like a band.” And we kind of just threw it up against the wall and the songs on Anything Could Happen that he’s on we did in like three takes. It was that kind of thing, that quick, in and out, live as much as we could, keeping the sort of sonic integrity as best we can so it didn’t sound completely crappy. I had to kind of redo some vocals and stuff, effects, to get rid of some of the room sound a little bit but I kept the live vocals in, kind of buried in another more, you know, better sounding vocal, I suppose. But we had a ball and that got the ball rolling for the Bash & Pop record. It was a band vibe more so than just me making a solo record again and it worked out really good.
How many songs does Luther actually play on?
Let’s see, two or three I’m thinking. I haven’t listened to it in a while. But there is also stuff we did that’s not on the record that I’m probably going to piecemeal out as we go.
Did you do the whole record like that?
The whole thing. I deliberately wanted to make a band rock & roll type of record. My last two solo records were pretty much me and I’d get a drummer friend or a couple of people over to play a couple bits and then I’d finish up on my own. I’ll end up doing it again at some point because I also still like doing that once in a while. But I’ve done enough of it that you know you tend to think too much, do too much and it takes longer cause you’re doing it all yourself. So I kind of wanted to do something that would be less laborious and more spontaneous and sort of live sounding.
Do you like to get in the studio and tinker around or do you prefer to just get in there and see what happens?
I like it all but I wanted to do something more along the lines, let’s do this live and throw it in there and see what happens, see if we can capture lightening in a bottle. If we can capture that, it’s great. And I think I did good with some of that stuff. It sounds like it’s got a vibe to it. It doesn’t sound like dudes in a studio reading charts.
How did you do it when you were in the Replacements?
It was kind of the same way. That’s kind of the vibe of it. Back in the early 1900’s, or late 1900’s I should say, when the Replacements were making records, the best ones we made really were the ones where we just sort of learned the songs and hacked them out and those are the songs people know and love. I mean, that was the way we knew how to do it, the way we were most comfortable and it worked out well. So that was kind of what I was aiming for, to kind of go back to that kind of vibe of getting more of a band feel and a cohesiveness of dudes in a room sweating it out.
Almost like being back in the garage
Yeah, if you think about it in terms of the best records, the greatest records of all time, most of them, the Beatles and the Stones, they recorded that stuff live. They might do a fucking hundred takes of a song before they get it just right but it was always done kind of altogether. So along those lines except I wouldn’t do anything a hundred times. Not that dedicated to that (laughs).
And that is the reason this is a Bash & Pop record instead of a Tommy Stinson solo, because you wanted that band feel.
Exactly, that’s exactly the reason
And you knew this before you went into it?
Yeah, I knew. I had these songs that we were working up and I was working on them as I went along and writing new stuff as I went along and just knew that after playing with Luther and Frank Ferrer and stuff, I just knew that was the way I wanted it to go down.
What happened with the first Bash & Pop? It didn’t last but a couple of years and then you disappeared. What happened?
Well, what happened was the record company really didn’t give me a whole lot of help on that and then I moved to LA and two of the guys that I was playing with didn’t work out so I got two other people and by the time I had run the course of that record it just seemed like, why? I started playing with some other people and it just seemed it was starting to turn into a whole other thing so I asked to be let go of my contract with Warner Brothers cause it didn’t seem like it was a good thing. I just kind of went, yeah, let me do something else here.
Are you one of these guys who has an endless well of lyrics and riffs always popping in your head?
Not endless but I have enough. Someone was asking me, how many songs do you think you’ve written in your life, two or three thousand? And I was like, no, a few hundred at best. I think about music everyday but I’m not the most prolific person on the planet and my life with family and all that stuff kind of hinders that creative thing once in a while but I get it done when I get it done.
When you were this young kid getting into music, were you more interested in being a musician or a songwriter?
You know, I kind of wanted to be a little bit of everything. I wanted to play drums, guitar, bass, all this different stuff, you know. I had aspirations to sing. So as time went on I kind of just wanted to be all of it.
You started playing bass when you were about thirteen. When did it become natural to you?
My fingers were small at thirteen but by the time I was fourteen. It’s still not natural, to be honest with you. I flop around so many – from guitar to bass or drums, whatever. It all has kind of come natural in some ways but in other ways, not so. I can’t play everything. I can play from feel what I know and what’s in my head and I can emulate other people’s stuff but if you put me in a jazz band or disco band or funk band or something, I wouldn’t be able to cover that. But in my own little world I can play what I need to play.
What instruments did you play on the new record?
I played guitar, bass, percussion stuff, sang; nothing too kooky (laughs). And all pretty much live. The only songs that I played bass on were the only ones I played guitar on when we cut the track and didn’t have the bass player in town. So I had to kind of put the bass on top after the two guitars and drums were down.
How long has this album been in the can?
It’s been in the can for a little bit, for a couple of months anyway.
What is the oldest song on the record?
The oldest song on the record is called “Shortcut” and I wrote it about twenty-five years ago. It just took that long for me to decide what way I wanted to put it out.
What was not right about it?
You know, I just never had it laid down in a particular way that was going to work for a particular record until this one. I did it acoustically and was like, this will work. It’s sort of intimate and simple.
Did it start off electric?
It was a wacky version of it that’s just got all kinds of weird samples and strings and shit on it and that will come out at some point. A good friend of mine actually sang the beginning of it and we did it as a duet.
I was wondering why you wanted to end your record with an acoustic song.
You know, I thought it needed a breath. The record kind of goes up and down and is more high energy and upbeat and I thought the last song should be like a sort of sigh of relief, if you will.
What do you see as the biggest difference from that first Bash & Pop album to Anything Could Happen?
I’m evolving in sort of a weird way. I don’t know what it is but I’m coming into a different place than I’ve been before and that’s a thing I can grasp onto the most right now.
Do you think the punk influences that you’ve always had are kind of fading away and you’re pulling in new influences more?
Maybe a little but not completely. You’re always going to have what you have in your skin. It’s like whatever your background or upbringing is it’s always going to be a part of you so you’re always going to go down that crash and burn kind of highway with an upbeat punk rock song one way or the other. They come to me and it’s like kind of my fabric, I suppose. But there are so many other things that are part of my fabric that I pull from. They’re all in there.
What song was on the borderline of not making it onto the new record?
None of them. They kind of all steered themselves right on the fucking thing. The stuff that I finished at the gate is the stuff that stuck. There’s a bunch of stuff that still needs to be finished up, quite a bit actually; probably a whole fucking record worth but we’ll wait until that happens to go there.
Are you going to be playing shows?
Yeah, we’re starting on the 12th of January in Minneapolis and working our way east to New York and Boston for about two weeks. The record comes out on the 20th.[They will also be playing SXSW in March].
Which guys are going to be coming with you on tour?
Joe Sirois, the drummer from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, we’ve got Steve Selvidge, the guitar player from the Hold Steady, Justin Perkins playing bass and Tony Kieraldo, a buddy of mine up here that plays keyboard. I’ll have him out whenever it’s feasible. He’s a busy guy and some of the places are a little bit smaller but that’s pretty much the lineup from top to finish.
Anything happening in the future with the Replacements?
Never say never but I’m going to have my hands full in the very near future. But you know, we did that. We came and went and it was fun and all that. Now you move on to other fun shit.
Anything with Guns after the reunion gets through?
I don’t think they’ll need me after this one (laughs). It’s just a hunch. I’m just glad I had a good run with them and I’m glad they’re out there playing. I’ve seen them a couple of times and they’re great. We’re still all friends and everyone is doing great right now and that’s all anyone could ask for.
I was at both of the residencies for a weekend each time and you got to sing one of your songs but I’ve also seen you do a Sex Pistols song. Did you get to pick what you wanted to sing?
I picked my own songs and Axl was cool with whatever as long as I was doing something (laughs).
What was your first big “I can’t believe I’m here” moment?
It might have been Rock In Rio with Guns N Roses. It was like 500,000 people, or something crazy like that. It was ridic. It was so loud we couldn’t hear any of our amps or anything we were playing. The crowd was that crazy loud.
How do you handle a situation like that?
You just kind of jump around and have fun with it and just kind of pretend (laughs). Honestly, I couldn’t hear nothing so much I had to go kind of by muscle memory and just hope for the best on that. It was pretty nuts.
Where were you when you first heard one of your songs on the radio?
It might have been in Minneapolis the first time. Had to be. Probably in the car, most likely. I listened to oldies stations mostly when I was a little kid but yeah, probably in the car going somewhere.
Did it impress a young kid like you or were you more blasé?
The first couple of times you hear it it’s kind of impressive and kind of fun but then you go, okay, cool. How much better was I doing yesterday? Not really a whole lot (laughs).
What was your most painful injury that has happened to you onstage?
I slipped on the deck at a Guns N Roses show in South America and broke two ribs. It was raining out and my feet just went right out from under me. Fell on my back kind of at the end of the set and broke two ribs. It was really fucking painful.
Did you continue the show?
Continued the show. Didn’t go to the hospital till I got to the States about a week later and that’s where I found out I had a couple broken ribs.
You asked me about Tipitina’s in New Orleans earlier. Is there a story there I should know about?
Man, we played there way back in the day, when my brother was in the band. We came down to New Orleans and coming to New Orleans was a scary fucking bit. We came through from the Biloxi side, from like Florida, right, so traveling down in the south, and mind you this might have been about 1984 or 1985, somewhere in there, and when you’re going through Mobile [Alabama] on your way to New Orleans, at that time it was a lot of rednecks and things like this.
So cut to us rolling into a McDonalds right on the Gulf on our way to New Orleans and I’ve got like, you know, OshKosh B’Gosh red and white striped overalls on, makeup on from the night before, my hair is going crazy and I go to the phone booth on the Gulf side of the Thruway. I walked across this little freeway, whatever, to go to the beach where the phone booth was to call my sister. I get my sister on the phone, I’m chatting with her and I’m watching this guy walk all the way from the beach. He just looked at me and he must have been a fucking hundred and fifty yards away. He saw me walk to the phone booth and he came up there right in the phone booth and said, “You better get the hell out of here, fag, or you’re going to die.” I was like, “I better go right now.” (laughs)
And I go back to the van and my brother was like, “Fuck that, man, where is he?” And he’s ready to jump out of the van now and they were restraining Bob: “We’re not doing that. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” And then we get to New Orleans where it was like a safe haven in this weird part of the country. I mean, I don’t say this in a disrespectful way. There are a lot of nice, kind people down there. But at that time, going from point A to point B, going from like Birmingham and you cut down and go through some of these really southern places, these small enclaves of people living in the melting pot somewhat peacefully where we would play gigs and it wasn’t so much we’re playing like a redneck roadhouse or something. But in those middle places, you just got to stay in the fucking van and not get the fuck out.
But I remember when we got to New Orleans, and it was like the first time coming through there, I’m pretty sure we played Tipitina’s the first time. I might be wrong on that but I remember just walking around with my brother a little bit and just going, wow, the graves are above ground, look at that! And we’re mesmerized. And we met really great people and it was a cool place.
So cut to when I played with Soul Asylum for a while. I played with them for like five years after Karl Mueller had died and I came down there to record with Dave Pirner, he had a studio down there, and I remember going out, and he told me where to go, and it was like, man, this is something and it really kind of grabbed me, grabbed me right by the throat. I was loving it, it was great. We recorded some cool stuff and it’s never come out yet! (laughs)
Didn’t you go to school with Dave?
Yeah, we went to high school. I was in ninth grade and he was a Senior, I think. He’s three years older than me. We used to all kind of hang out and stuff. There wasn’t a whole lot of inner band jamming so much but we used to play shows together when he was in Loud Fast Rules.
Was Dave a bad boy like you were in high school?
I wasn’t a bad boy, I just dropped out before it got real bad (laughs)
Are you happy with how Tommy Stinson has turned out from a delinquent kid who started playing rock & roll to now?
I’m getting there (laughs)
Would the young delinquent Tommy be surprised at who you are today?
Oh the young delinquent Tommy would be surprised I made it to fucking fifty years old, are you kidding! (laughs)
Live photographs by Leslie Michele Derrough; portraits by Steven Cohen
