David Cassidy on the Web
Paul Westerberg still left of the dial
April 7, 2005
By Greg Kot
http://www.chicagotribune.com
Don't try to figure out Paul Westerberg. Just when it seemed the former Replacements singer had decided to confine his career to making basement recordings so he could spend more time with his wife and 6-year-old son at his Minneapolis home, he's out touring with a band for the first time since the 1990s.
Plus, he's working on music for a "Toy Story"-like animated movie, "Open Season," that has briefly reunited him with his estranged Replacements sidekick Tommy Stinson. For the first time in years, he's talking about possible future collaborations with Stinson. A solo greatest hits, "Besterberg" (Rhino), is due next month, the Replacements back catalogue will be reissued in the fall, and a Replacements box set is due next year. On the phone from his home, Westerberg discussed the state of his world.
On the song "My Dad" (from his 2004 Vagrant Records release "Folker"), written after his father died in 2003: "I don't believe I could have written that 10 years ago. It's hard to write about the girl with brown eyes when you're sitting there watching your dad die for a half a year. It's something I had to get out of my system. When he died, the legacy he left his five children and wife was $43, and I took his wedding ring off his dead finger, and I'm wearing that right now. He also left an overcoat and his leather jacket, and that's all he had. And that's cool. I think of him every day. He was a car salesman, a great dude. He understood what I did in his own way. Like it says in the song, he liked to see the family name in the paper, and he took it harder than the rest of the family when I got a bad review. But he had a hard time thinking of me sitting at home writing lyrics as work. He thought I was working only when I was out traveling, playing with a band. In his mind, I spent the last five years being a bum."
On forming a band with Minneapolis pals Michael Bland (drums), Jim Boquist (bass) and Kevin Bowe (guitar): "It was a combination of the fans saying take this thing on the road, and me making three phone calls to guys I'd known forever, and them all saying 'yes.' We had fun playing a few gigs at home last fall, and I thought this is the way it's supposed to be again. There is no pressure to it, no album to push or new single to play. We can play 'Dust My Broom' if we feel like it for 20 minutes, or we can play 'I Think I Love You,' by my greatest influence, David Cassidy."
