Coming From Left of the Dial

The Replacements are long gone, but their sound is bigger than it was during the group’s 1980 to ’90 life span. The revered and unruly role model for much of today’s rock music and attitude combined melodic hooks, punk-derived aggression and youthful vulnerability in a formula that has fueled many of the bands at the creative center of ‘90s rock.

So six years after the Minneapolis band ended its exhilarating, tension-riddled, colorfully futile run, former leader Paul Westerberg finds himself in the odd position of looking for a piece of the action he created.

Westerberg, 36, is an exquisite chronicler of his generation’s restlessness, confusion and yearning, and his first solo album, 1993’s “14 Songs,” was eagerly received by the cultists who regard him as one of the great songwriters in American rock. But it sold a meager 160,000, despite the support of his first post-Replacements concert tour.

Westerberg is back for another round, with a new Reprise album, “Eventually” (see review, Page 65), and another tour on the horizon. On the eve of the album’s release Tuesday, the musician struck a relaxed and confident tone as he assessed his prospects and reflected on his craft.

Question: What were your goals going into this album?

Answer: I think I eased up and I relaxed in many ways. I felt that I had nothing to prove this time. I went out of my way last time to herald myself as a songwriter--I was no longer a frontman or a bandleader, and so I felt like I had to make the most out of the songwriting thing.

After the tour I felt more comfortable just being a musician. I think you can even hear it in my singing on this record. It’s more relaxed; nothing is really forced. What I concentrated on mainly was writing simpler than I had. I wanted the songs to be as simple and concise as possible. I hadn’t realized how truly difficult it is to write simply.

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Q: Is there a theme to the album?

A: I think so. I have a hard time pinning it down. There’s a thread. I would think there’s an optimism and a sense of survival, maybe?

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Q: What’s been going on in your life that generated these themes?

A: When I was done touring, I was certainly ready to go home and recuperate physically and mentally. I did sort of normal people things. I bought a house and I moved, and I got a new manager and stuff like that. Had some meetings with the record company and did some publishing things. The same stuff. I haven’t come up with a new hobby or a new thing that I’m drawing from. I’m just more comfortable. . . . I wasn’t in a hurry to make a record. I mean, no sense in striking when the iron’s cold.

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Q: Meaning that your last record didn’t sell too well. What was your reaction to that?

A: I was disappointed. . . . I told [Reprise Records] I wanted off [the label], and they said no, and we found a compromise. I don’t want to talk about it too much, because we’re on good terms now. But no, I let them know it was unacceptable. I think it was a really good record. . . . I think a lot of it had to do with the change there with all the [executive turnover], and I think I kind of got lost in the shuffle.

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Q: Are you tired of being a cult hero?

A: No. I mean I would prefer that to not being anything. But I’d rather be a national failure than a local hero. I will never go back to the corner bar. But I’m not worried about that. I have a good feeling.

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Q: Part of your appeal during the Replacements days was the defiant attitude, which included a resistance to things like interviews. Are you more accommodating to the music business machinery now?

A: Probably, yeah. I understand that there’s maybe three phases. One is when I’m writing the tune or when the song is being born, and that belongs to me. And then recording, I have to go beyond that. I have to think, “Well, am I gonna make something that just I like and no one else does?” And if that’s the case, then there’s no reason to record it, so I will take other people’s advice--producers, other musicians.

And then the last is doing this kind of stuff. This is business. Time Warner is a company and they’re gonna move units, and are they gonna move mine or Nick Cave’s? . . . No, I don’t have any qualms about that. I mean a lot of that [resistance] was a pose back when you’re growing up and you make a record and you think it’s gonna be like the Beatles. And it isn’t. You gotta work really hard if you want to sell records.

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Q: Do you listen to much current music?

A: No, I’m afraid I don’t. . . . I listen to classical and jazz. I also listen to bluegrass on the weekends. And I still listen to my old records. The Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye and stuff like that that I’ve always listened to. I tend to go back to my very first favorites, like early Rod Stewart records and stuff.

I think you have to ask yourself, “Why do you listen to music?” And I think I listened to music for a different reason when I was 10 and 20 and now. I think when I was young I listened to music to dream--you know, “One day I’ll do that and I’ll become that.” And I sort of did in a way. And it was an escape when I was in my 20s. You would listen to something and try to escape--from what, I’m not sure. But now I listen simply for the joy of a style that maybe I’m not familiar with. . . . Something that soothes me rather than makes me think, “Oh, do I have to go write one of those now?”

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Q: Do you find that the issues you deal with as a writer change as you reach different stages of your life?

A: I find the same topic creeping up. . . . I feel some of the same adolescent angst feeling, only I’m 36 now and I don’t naturally feel it toward Mom and Dad, although it comes across like that. I think my general feeling is that I don’t quite fit in to society and am out of step, and am comfortable with that. I’m not the perfect model citizen, and I don’t want to be. I guess, if anything, that’s what you hear in the music now, where I know my place and I followed my own drummer, and, hell, I’m sort of a kook.

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Q: Do you worry about giving the appearance of mellowing out?

A: No, not in the least. Worrying about that would be the most dangerous thing I could do. I mean I even [wimped] out by actually putting electric guitars on the [album]. The worst thing I could have done was make a big, loud rock record. I’ve done that; I don’t need to prove that to anyone anymore. And even if it’s doubts like “Well, can I still make loud music?” it’s, like, believe me, I can. Take my word for it, I still can shout, and I still can probably be mad at someone.

Obviously you need spirit in the music. But these songs are coming from a guy who wrote them by himself. I don’t have a band anymore, I don’t have that three or four guys to bounce them off and go down and jam. I sort of grew out of that. So the music you write on piano mainly now or by yourself is different than the tunes you might write with a band waiting in the next room for you.

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Q: Do you ever wish you could have stabilized the Replacements and taken it to a breakthrough?

A: No, I don’t, honestly. Because I think the band is held in high regard today because we did break up. Had we run it through the muck those last few years, we may have spoiled it. No, it was time to quit. The other guys wanted to move on in a major way. They all wanted to write and sing, and I just simply wasn’t about to play bass.

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Q: How do you feel about all those bands that sound like you making it big now?

A: I like when I get credit. I like when a band says that I was an influence on them, and I dislike when I’m not mentioned. But maybe that’s not even their fault. I’ve said this, but maybe they learned how to play like the Replacements via someone else. I think if someone were to think that I was copying the Goo Goo Dolls, that would probably hurt my feelings, yes. But that’s gonna happen, and I can only laugh and figure everyone else in the know knows, so, what can you do?