A road-worn alternative rock pioneer returns to Maine, inspires, and proves the kid is alright

Photo credit: Slade Moore

“Who the F–k is Tommy Stinson?” the neatly stacked and boldly lettered concert tees asked cheekily.

It’s doubtful that most of the people packed into Sun Tiki Studios on September 5th had to ask. Stinson’s band, Cowboys in the Campfire, had drawn fans from all over Maine and surrounding states. It was the Cowboys second visit to Maine in two years, this time to support their new album, Wronger.

Judging by the pre-show conversations with giddy strangers, I wasn’t the only one there who had devoured multiple, painstakingly researched retrospectives of Stinson’s old band, The Replacements, like Bob Mehr’s acclaimed Trouble Boys. Having run out of printed and bound material, I’ve also scoured the web for articles, interviews, podcasts like Yasi Salek’s excellent Bandsplain, and happy stumbled across the love letter documentary for and about Replacements fans, Color me Obsessed. I suppose accumulating this volume of arcane facts and anecdotes over the years confers some kind of unofficial, entry level megafan status. But it wasn’t until spending some time with Tommy and a handful of other fans in Sun Tiki’s green room, and then experiencing the Cowboy’s incendiary performance, that the process somehow felt complete.

Before launching headlong into the Cowboy’s first song, Stinson confirms he’s in the right city and then rasps matter-of-factly into the microphone, “I’m Tommy Eugene F–king Stinson”. Whether you know the name or not—and I assume most of my readers do not—the performance that followed validated everything I’ve heard about Stinson having some of the most innately flawless rock instincts of his, or maybe any generation.

Tommy cut his teeth during the tumultuous, ecstatic, and heartbreaking years of The Replacements, commonly referred to by their fans as the ‘Mats. As alternative rock pioneers whose influence continues to far outpace their renown, the ‘Mats deserve the hyperbolic but well-deserved title of the world’s greatest band that nobody knows. For 12 years their brilliance transformed the burden of their backgrounds, masochistic tendencies, and group struggles into something precious, and Tommy Stinson was central to all of it.

Anywhere’s Better Than Here

All great bands have legendary origin myths. The ‘Mats’ story starts in 1978 when 18-year-old Bob Stinson found his little brother sitting on the bed, clumsily holding Bob’s bass in his hands. In that moment, Bob recognized something important. If he could somehow see this through, it would change both of their lives.

By all accounts, the situation in the Stinson household had never been ideal. Anita Simpson did what she could for her kids despite limited means, lack of an adequate support network, and what developed into a drinking problem. The most profound damage came from a series of emotionally distant and abusive men in her life.

The thick, Minnesota juvenile system case file on Bob reported that one long-term boyfriend, Nick Griffin, subjected Bob and his sister, Lonnie, to years of physical and mental torment. The years of sexual abuse they endured wasn’t revealed until much later. Anita twice sought escape from her men the only way she knew how: grabbing the kids and some essentials, whatever money she could scrape together, and loading them into Greyhound or train headed into the night.

Despite physical removing themselves from these situations, there was no escaping the damage done. The prolonged exposure to abuse is thought at least partially responsible for Bob’s lifelong mental health battles and substance abuse. According to Anita, Bob was “a prince.” But his behavior grew increasingly erratic and sometimes violent. Ultimately it landed him in Minnesota’s juvenile system, where he spent years bouncing between group homes, psychiatric facilities, and Minnesota’s once notorious Red Wing Training School.

In a system ill-equipped to help him, Bob turned to music and his guitar. He spent uninterrupted hours listening and re-listening to rock songs, replicating each subtlety and bombastic attack note for note—then reverse engineering them to unlock the secrets of his instrument. His favorites were among the most complicated and difficult to master examples of rock at the time, like those written by progressive bands like Yes.

Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash

After returning home from his latest group home residency, Bob seemed to settle down enough to keep an eye on his little brother. By then Tommy had perpetrated a series of ambitious but thankfully petty thefts. At one point he stood before a judge who was a hair’s breadth from committing Tommy to a youth languishing in the juvenile system like his older brother. Now it seemed that he was poised for worse trouble.

Things turned around one day in the Spring of 1978 when Tommy found Bob’s old Silvertone bass stashed under his older brother’s bed and thought he’d give it a whirl. When Bob discovered Tommy with the instrument, he asked the 11-year-old if he might like to learn a few things on it. Tommy complained that the stiff strings hurt his fingers, but Bob persistently encouraged him to keep trying. After that day Bob made sure Tommy practiced, holding tight to the hope that music would somehow save them both.

Soon Tommy was practicing in the cramped, brick-lined Stinson basement with Bob and his friend. His repertoire included the bass parts of songs performed by some of the greatest virtuosos of rock. Chris Squire’s punchy, Rickenbacker-dominated sound in the Yes classic, Roundabout, was a favorite. Before long, local drummer Chris Mars complemented the trio by joining them on drums.

Now the only missing ingredient was janitor and aspiring songwriter writer and singer Paul Westerberg. On his long walks home from work, Paul routinely heard the earsplitting yet compelling sound of a band practicing somewhere along his route. The ungodly cacophony was so loud that it would knock over Anita’s kitchen trash can if the kids didn’t take it out before practices. Finally, Paul surreptitiously peered into the rehearsal basement’s narrow window wondering “who are these guys?” After introducing himself and joining the band he skillfully maneuvered his way into the already filled vocalist slot. The aptly named Impediments were now ready to test their mettle in a live venue setting. In a bit of foreshadowing, their stage antics rapidly earned the band a sketchy reputation that required a name change if they wanted to book new gigs. The Replacements were born.

A Swinging Party

Up through at least his mid-teens, Tommy somehow juggled life as a professional musician and a high school student. Confessing an early distaste for practicing, Tommy’s proficiency on the bass nevertheless grew at an astounding rate. After a few short years and several albums, the sophistication of his bass playing was, at times, breathtaking. Despite his gains, it’s hard to imagine what growing up in a rock band was like for him.

But the ‘Mats were not just any band. Starting out, they performed most of their music at a breakneck speed typical of hardcore punk acts, like their friends and competitors, Hüsker Dü. But there was something different with the ‘Mats. Their raw, garage-ey, first album, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, was undoubtedly punk but clearly the work of a band with pop aspirations. Following-up with the unclassifiable ménage of styles found in 1983’s Hootenanny and the irreverently named classic Let it Be in 1984, they created soundscapes that were clearly in the rock genre, but defied easy categorization. That was fresh and exciting for listeners but made it hard for the industry—from commercial radio stations to record labels—to understand what exactly to do with the ‘Mats. It’s something that never changed despite the consistently exceptional quality of the material.

Also working against them—what every ‘Mats fan knows only too well—is that the band’s penchant for self-sabotage is arguably unrivaled in the annals of popular music. Not the sort of overprivileged shenanigans involving motorcycles careening through hotel lobbies or TVs lobbed into Olympic sized pools. More like a band who persistently self-identified as losers and often punished themselves when success seemed within reach. Some assert that it was an extreme mutation of midwestern fatalism. “Not a degree or driver’s license between us” Paul Westerberg is often quoted as saying, as if these were the ‘Mat’s only credentials worth mentioning.

Before the show at Sun Tiki, Tommy shared that he and his bandmates were four young guys who were cripplingly maladjusted. “What happens when you take that and put it in the spotlight?” he asked rhetorically. There’s also the ‘Mat’s objective to achieve success as rock musicians without becoming rock stars. Each of those themes seemed to pre-program the way they behaved around “respectable” adults, dressed, blew-off steam, and met the world in general. Of course, it also permeates the ‘Mats and Tommy’s song catalogs and explains why they’re held in such high esteem by lovers of the underdog, the mistreated, the ignored, and all the other beautiful, broken things in this world that nevertheless choose to persist, and on good days, thrive.

All that explains much of the band’s troubles, but not the whole of it. Looming large in The Replacements canon are stories of Tommy and the boys’ shambolic, drunken performances where they played unrehearsed covers and consequently rarely finished a song before moving to the next. Here’s the thing: these onstage train wrecks alienated and angered audiences. They also made some of the exact same people fall for the band with all the maddening frustration and ecstasy of lovers knowingly entering a passionate yet doomed relationship. After all, attempting Hello Dolly six times during a single performance deserves some kind of respect. However, that wasn’t the response of record label talent scouts who packed CBGB to assess the band’s potential in December 1984. Yet in typical Replacements fashion, at a show shortly after—when there was no hint of record execs there to sign them—the ‘Mats performed a transcendent set.

One Man Mutiny

After 12 years of creating painfully honest, heartfelt, and innovative music, the ‘Mat’s had run their course. Relentless attempts to break through, awkwardly navigating the pitfalls of interpersonal and internal strife, and a series of painful personnel changes had all taken their toll. Bob and Chris were each given their walking papers and The Replacements’ discoverer, chief cheerleader, and manager, Peter Jesperson, was also shown the door.

After the 1991 breakup, Tommy’s writing, arrangement, and leadership skills had both the space and sunlight to flourish. The immediate result was first the formation of Bash and Pop and then Perfect, both critically acclaimed bands. When he needed a change of pace, a tenure with Guns and Roses, where Tommy acted as GN’R’s de facto music director in Axl’s absences, fit the bill. Solo work, a stint with Soul Asylum, more solo work, and reunions of various bands followed. He also worked on the side with artists as diverse as Puff Daddy, Old 97’s, the Lemonheads, and BT. His latest project, Cowboys in the Campfire, is a trio with crack veterans guitarist/songwriter Chip Roberts and upright bass slapper Chops LaConte.

Like the Replacements, Tommy’s music is too diverse to pigeonhole. It ranges from distortion-heavy rock that’s extra heavy on the roll (ala Chuck Berry and Keith Richards), to searing rockabilly, country twang-infused pop, and even the rare and rewarding exploration into desolate yet infectious post-funk soundscapes. He’s a storyteller and the lyrics often bear his careworn, bittersweet, self-deprecating stamp. In the highest traditions of his one-time mentor and partner in crime, Paul Westerberg, Tommy’s vocals can be sweet, desperate, or instigating, but never leave anything on table.

Despite his abilities, widespread record sales and renown elude Tommy just as they have the ‘Mats. Nevertheless, he has fans the world over. He and his bandmates have also inspired countless other bands, including some you know. Tommy also earned the respect of countless players, producers, and other insiders in a field known for its backbiting and cutthroat tendencies. Among them was the late, Memphis-based musician and producer Jim Dickinson, who famously contributed to recordings by the Rolling Stones, Big Star, Bob Dylan, and many more. Having worked with the best of them, producing the ‘Mats classic album, Pleased to Meet Me, held a special place for Jim. He was was famously quoted as saying “People say Keith Richards is the living embodiment of rock and roll? I’m sorry, but I know Keith, and it’s Tommy Stinson”. The grizzled veteran also said of the Pleased to Meet Me sessions: “If I was puzzled by a situation, I would put (18-year-old) Tommy in the position where he had to make a choice, because his instincts were so sharp.”

A Replacement Returns

Before the Sun Tiki show I sat with a few other fans in the green room with Tommy and his bandmates. We exchanged a little gossip and as expected, Tommy regaled us with some choice, legend-worthy road stories. Mostly though, it was just hanging-out with a friendly, funny, highly gifted guy. One of the topics was Tommy’s scramble a few nights before to move his stuff from one Hudson, New York apartment to another. Two years sober now, Tommy also told me with all sincerity that he genuinely felt weird about all the drunken and sometimes disastrous shows, despite the cult following they generated.

An hour later, he and Cowboys in the Campfire burned through a two-hour set representing the arc of Tommy’s entire catalog, with no breaks and only spare banter between songs. Tommy and the Cowboys came to work and work they did, as if it was their last show ever. Their leader’s bratty, foul-mouthed persona so beloved by fans is no act. It mercilessly held audiences in his thrall for decades just as it does now. But his professionalism and care are also striking.

So, back to the question asked by those last-of-the-lot, collectable concert tees. Of course, I can’t pretend to know Tommy. What I can say is that despite the stolen childhood, untreated family mental illness, decades of substance abuse, loss of his gifted brother Bob far too young, and travails typical of the most recklessly road-worn rockers, he’s not only still standing but thriving. He’s earned a respectable and loyal following, doesn’t need much, travels light, and answers to no one. Unlike the Replacements, who struck upon an alchemy that was brilliant but never meant to endure, Tommy Eugene Stinson perseveres, and much more.