The Dark Stuff

Paul Westerberg is ambivalent when it comes to the the critical response to his latest album Suicaine Gratification.
Of course he s blissed that reviews are almost universally positive, even glowing, with one scribe claiming that Westerberg is now unquestionably one of the most brilliant songwriters of his generation. But Paul ain t exactly glowing in relation to claims that the album proves that he has mellowed since his days with the Replacements.
Sure the title mixing satisfaction, cocaine, gratification and suicide gives us a clue to some of the excesses of Paul Westerberg s past, but that doesn t mean he s ready to turn up on TV in some mindless Born-Again mode. On the contrary, he is even uncomfortable giving interviews to promote the album and refuses to tour.
That s probably in part because his days of excess were, primarily, during that period when he did tour with the Replacements.
Formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1980, they became one of the most celebrated bands of the post-punk era. However, the perfectly-titledThe Shit Hits The Fan captured, in part, one major reason for their downfall: they were pretty crap live. Or rather, too often too drunk to deliver on stage.
They split in 1992, since when Westerberg has released two albums, Fourteen Songs and Eventually. However, the story of the Replacements probably really came to an end in 1994 when lead guitarist Bob Stinson died as a result of a drugs overdose.
Not surprisingly, the subject of such excesses surfaces time and again on Suicaine Gratification. But even more central to the album is Westerberg s exploration of the clinical depression that, he now admits, has bedevilled his life. However, when it comes to talking to the man himself especially down a phone line you approach such subjects carefully. Not because of some form of misplaced sensitivity to his condition but because Westerberg has already gone on-record saying it can be a pain-in-the-arse writing about depression and then having to talk about it every time some jerko journalist comes to call. So, first off, he talks about the critical response to Suicaine Gratification . . .
Everyone is telling me that the reviews of this album are amazing but, to tell you the truth, I ve long since stopped monitoring the response to my work, he says, prompting the obvious question of why? Does it not matter at all to Westerberg what critics say?
No, it s not that. It s more that it got to a stage, about 12 years back, that I just couldn t take the negative press. At first we had that oh these guys are going to be the next big thing , then the negative stuff started dripping in, people tearing us apart for no good reason, except, perhaps, the fact that they felt they d put us up there in the first place so now they had to tear us down. So I decided if I m going to ignore the negative and only read the good then that s not fair, or truthful. So I just please myself then let it be. Besides, many s the time when I was a kid I went to the store and bought a record because it got a rave review, then I took it home and hated it. So I ve long since figured that a review is just one man s opinion.
One of the more interesting tracks on Westerberg s album is titled The Fugitive Kind after a Tennessee Williams script for a movie of the same name. Even so, the fact that the movie told the tale of a guitar player who is tired of his drinking, drug-taking and definitely his womanising is quite coincidental. At least, according to Paul Westerberg.
It wasn t like I saw the movie and, the next day, wrote the song! he says, laughing. I haven t seen the movie for about five years and I m not sure why it came to mind when I had these lyrics and wanted a title for the song. But I certainly remember that there was a guitar in that Brando movie, women and a fire! Wasn t it like Orpheus descending into the underworld? But I don t remember the rest. Yet I guess I made the connection because I know Tennessee s shit and it s always close to my heart. Or rather, I ve read and studied all his stories and am a big fan of the man. There s no denying that an element of total disillusion runs right through my album.
Particularly in relation to rock stardom, he continues. So, rather than pretend everything is hunky-dory and make a record that perpetuates those lies, I just let it all out of myself. And now I realise that the strongest material I could have found came from looking deep into myself in this way. I am saying I m sick of it all so here you go, this is the music that looks at all that .
Acerbically reflecting on some of the more vaudevillian rock n roll poses he adopted during his days as the so-called leader of a garage band, Paul Westerberg admits that even at the time a lot of that shit felt like a lie.
I think that, even then, I wanted to be playing more music like this, he says. But we were sort of trapped in that hard-rock garage thing. Of all the influences that each member of the Replacements brought in, mine were mostly the folk-influence, among other things. I d always felt strongest about that so, now, I ve kind of come full circle and shed everything other than what I started with. Which was playing the acoustic guitar, doing Dylan-esque folk stuff. Or Joni Mitchell. Joni s very much the reason you hear, for example, the dominance of piano on some tracks on this album. It s like that line I sing I ll never forget where I started from . And that is how I felt, even musically. You reach the end and you don t know what to do so you go back to square one. You ask yourself why did I originally like music? or why did I start to play? and you do end up back at basics, back to your strong suit.
Shifting back to the question of Westerberg s excesses one wonders was it all really just a vaudevillian rock n roll pose or did Paul and his buddies authenticate their songwriting?
That s all very well, in terms of that clichi about writers, but for us, it did all get out of hand and we were very close to becoming the F. Scott Fitzgeralds of rock n roll!, he reflects. We sort of wrote about that lifestyle then found ourselves trapped by it. So towards the end it became more of an albatross. But in the beginning, yeah, it was sheer fun. We didn t set out to be a huge band. We just set out to have a good time, a good, little time. And it got out of control. Especially when we got into those epic tours, supporting Tom Petty, all that.
All that being the legendary tour in 1990 where the Replacements did support Petty every night for three months but usually failed to win over Petty s audience, a rejection that deepened Westerberg s self-doubts at the time and hastened the band s demise. As did the failure of the 1990 album All Shook Down. But when was the moment Paul realised that he himself was living a rock n roll lie? Or more dangerous still, a lethal lie? When Bob overdosed?
No, he responds, emphatically. Five years into the group I could be up there on stage and suddenly realise I didn t belong there. Or, at least, feel I didn t belong there. But the whole thing, in terms of this overall sense of disillusionment, came to a head after the Replacements broke up and I put together a few bands to go tour. The act of going out and playing the old material with, more or less, a pick-up group even though I had written the tunes just felt pretty fruitless. It was like I ve done this before, with a band that was meant to play all this music so, now, to just recreate it all, in this way, seems cheap, false, a long way from the buzz I first got from playing with the original band, around 1980. And even though the audience seemed to want to hear what I was doing with this pick-up band, it had ceased to be fun for me.
Then again, it would be wrong to suggest that Suicaine Gratification is made up solely of back-to-basics folk music. On many tracks Paul Westerberg is backed by a killer band and, at points, even sounds like he s ready to party!
That s why I don t like this idea that the album is supposed to show that I m mellowing, he responds. The first collection of introspective songs I wrote came slowly, painstakingly, at a rate of one-a-year then, towards the end of making this record, I suddenly felt the need to strap on the guitar and rock a little! That said, I tried my best not to make this a touch-every-base record. I ve always felt that too many different styles might be difficult for people to digest. So I try to keep a thread running through the new album. And I did actually drop songs that I felt were too fickle, that didn t work, within the overall context of what I m trying to achieve with Suicaine Gratification.
Does Westerberg ever get flak from fans of the Replacements who want him to revert purely to the old style? Say during gigs?
No. But then the last gig was three years ago and I have no plans, right now, to do any other gigs. I went into doing this record really feeling, I ve had it with the music business, I m just going to create music that sounds good to my ear. Whether or not I ever play this again, live, really doesn t matter to me.
Then again, another part of the reason I don t want to go out on the road with these songs is that (laughs) I don t want to be left up exchanging depression stories with people! It s like I d have to say to them, or turn away thinking I ve felt it, I know it, I don t know that I can deal with yours!
But going back to those days when Westerberg wrote Replacements songs like Sixteen Blue , isn t part of the whole deal the fact that, whether he likes it or not, fans will invariably expect the singer to reflect their stories. Depression stories or otherwise?
Yeah, says Westerberg. And I ve gotten my share of that through the years. People who are in trouble and who come to me looking for answers or for inspiration. I do get letters that say don t give up because we are depending on you. As in we, the doomed or whatever. I don t quite know how to take those. I used to respond, write back, but I no longer do. Because, to tell you the truth, I just don t know how to handle those pressures. Myself.
So, how much did that add to Paul s own breakdown, this fact that fans do often turn their favourite rock star into a guru, whether that star is, or isn t, equipped for the gig!
It was all part of it, of course he admits. But my feeling now is that if anyone can pull themselves up by their boot straps, and out of their depression and rear back and rock a little, that does actually help. No matter what the songs are. Or whether or not fans are looking to those songs for salvation, for answers to their own problems. That s certainly how I see it. I believe that if I, myself, can get back to that point where I just want to play rock n roll to feel better, that is a basic tonic that works. So if I m looking to the music to deliver me in that sense, I can hardly criticise people who turn to my music in similar ways. But I really don t want to have to deal with what may be just the response to the serious, moody songs on this album. Just like I don t want to be singing serious, moody music for the rest of my life!
But does Paul Westerberg now have a handle on the depression that, in part, for a time, paralysed him. Even if it also lead to Suicaine Gratification?
I wouldn t say I have a handle on it but I, at least, have an idea of what it is and when it is coming, he says. As in, when to fight it and when to lie down and cover my head!
Does Paul have to take medication?
I do. But I know I m not the only one. The only downside to all this is that I know if you are clinically depressed it doesn t get better with age. It usually gets worse. So I m kind of preparing myself to live with that fact. But then many writers, many creative people have to live with this, so I ll learn to live with it too. Though, I must admit, even if it meant kissing the depression goodbye, I wouldn t trade what I do. Creativity is a gift and if it comes with its own pay-back, so be it.
But was the depression originally initiated or accelerated by drug abuse?
No, Westerberg responds. Probably a lack of drugs! (laughs) I have been sober, without drugs for ten years. Yet all this did shed a new light on why I had tried, so hard, to chemically alter myself, when I was younger. Not much of all that chemical indulgence was because I wanted to have fun. It was more because I just wanted to function. Though the thing is that when you do stop doing drugs you have to look at yourself more closely. And then when you go crazy without the drugs you re left even more confused, wondering what the hell is going on.
Because you had been told you will feel great when you stop doing drugs. Yet sometimes the stopping that can be just as frightening as any of the worst experiences you have while actually using drugs. But at least nowadays I know a lot more about such things. And about myself. n
Suicaine Gratification is out now on Capitol.