| The Replacements | |
| Landscape: | yes |
| Background: | group_or_band |
| Origin: | Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Past Members: | |
The Replacements were an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1979. Initially a punk band, they are one of the main pioneers of alternative rock. The band was composed of the guitarist and vocalist Paul Westerberg, guitarist Bob Stinson, bass guitarist Tommy Stinson, and drummer Chris Mars for most of its existence. After several acclaimed albums including Let It Be and Tim, Bob Stinson was kicked out of the band in 1986, and Slim Dunlap joined as lead guitarist. Steve Foley replaced Mars in 1990. Towards the end of the band's career, Westerberg exerted more control over its creative output. The group disbanded in 1991 and the members eventually found various projects. A reunion was announced on October 3, 2012.[1] Fans affectionately refer to the band as the 'Mats, a nickname which originated as a truncation of "The Placemats".[2] [3]
The Replacements' music was influenced by rock artists such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Faces, Big Star, Slade, Badfinger, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Bob Dylan as well as punk rock bands including the Ramones, the New York Dolls, Buzzcocks, the Damned, and the Sex Pistols. Unlike many of their underground contemporaries, the Replacements played "heart-on-the-sleeve" rock songs which combined Westerberg's "raw-throated adolescent howl" with self-deprecating lyrics. The Replacements were a notoriously wayward live act, often performing under the influence of alcohol and playing fragments of covers instead of their own material.
The Replacements' history began in Minneapolis in 1978, when nineteen-year-old Bob Stinson gave his eleven-year-old brother Tommy Stinson a bass guitar to keep him off the streets. In the same year Bob met Mars, a high school dropout. With Mars playing guitar and then switching to drums, the trio called themselves "Dogbreath" and began covering songs by Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Yes without a singer.[4] One day as Westerberg, who was a janitor in U.S. Senator David Durenberger's office,[5] was walking home from work he heard a band playing in the Stinsons' house. After being impressed by the band's performance, Westerberg regularly listened in after work. Mars knew Westerberg and invited him over to jam. Westerberg was unaware Mars was a drummer in Dogbreath.
Dogbreath auditioned several vocalists, including a hippie who read lyrics off a sheet.[6] The band eventually found a vocalist, but Westerberg wanted to be the singer and took him aside one day to say, "The band doesn't like you." The vocalist soon left and Westerberg replaced him. Before Westerberg joined the band, Dogbreath often drank and took various drugs during rehearsals, playing songs as an afterthought. In contrast to the rest of the band, the relatively disciplined Westerberg appeared at rehearsals in neat clothes and insisted on practicing songs until he was happy with them.
"They didn't even know what punk was. They didn't like punk. Chris had hair down to his shoulders," Westerberg told an interviewer.[7] But after the band members discovered first-generation English punk bands like the Clash, the Jam, the Damned, and the Buzzcocks, Dogbreath changed its name to the Impediments and played a drunken performance without Tommy Stinson at a church hall gig in June 1980. After being banned from the venue for disorderly behavior, they changed the name to the Replacements.[8] In an unpublished memoir, Mars later explained the band's choice of name: "Like maybe the main act doesn't show, and instead the crowd has to settle for an earful of us dirtbags... It seemed to sit just right with us, accurately describing our collective 'secondary' social esteem".
The band recorded a four-song demo tape in Mars's basement; Westerberg handed it to Peter Jesperson in May 1980.[9] Jesperson was the manager of Oar Folkjokeopus, a punk rock record store in Minneapolis;[10] he also founded Twin/Tone Records with Paul Stark (a local recording engineer) and Charley Hallman. Westerberg originally handed in the tape to see if the band could perform at Jay's Longhorn Bar, a local venue where Jesperson worked as a disc jockey. (The band's first performance at a bar was at the Longhorn on July 2, 1980.) He eavesdropped while Jesperson put the tape on, only to run away as soon as the first song, "Raised in the City", played. Jesperson played the song again and again. "If I've ever had a magic moment in my life, it was popping that tape in", said Jesperson. "I didn't even get through the first song before I thought my head was going to explode".
Jesperson called Westerberg the next day, asking, "So do you want to do a single or an album?" With the agreement of Stark and the rest of the band, the Replacements signed with Twin/Tone Records in 1980.[11] Jesperson's support of the band was welcomed and they asked him to be their manager after their second show. Later in the summer they played at the Longhorn on a Wednesday "New Band Night".
They also played several club gigs to almost empty rooms. When they finished a song, apart from the low hum of conversation, the band would hear Jesperson's loud whistle and fast clapping. "His enthusiasm kept us going at times, definitely," Mars later said. "His vision, his faith in the band was a binding force." After the Replacements signed with Twin/Tone, Westerberg began to write new songs and soon had a whole album's worth of material. Mere weeks after their live debut, the band felt ready to record the album. Jesperson chose Blackberry Way, an eight-track home studio in Minneapolis. However, as the band had no clout there, time spent in the studio was intermittent, and it took about six months to record the album. Although not important at the time, Twin/Tone could not afford to release the album until August 1981. Because they were suspicious of the music business in general, the Replacements had not signed a written contract with Twin/Tone Records. Before settling on a title for the band's debut album, Westerberg considered the names Unsuitable for Airplay and Power Trash.