Paul Westerberg can't catch a break. Throughout his career, as a frontman for the Replacements or as a solo performer, he's either been too far ahead of the curve, thereby allowing a protege to hit paydirt in his stead, or somewhere on the periphery where artistry earns critical praise and little else. |

And that just wasn't good enough for Westerberg, who, after recording an indie EP under the alias Grandpaboy, packed up his acoustic guitar and surly reputation and headed from Warner/Reprise to Capitol Records, where label head Gary Gersh vowed to personally represent the former 'Mat. Then Gersh was forced out and Westerberg was without an ally and a decidedly non-commercial album, Suicaine Gratifaction, to hawk. "For a split second it made me feel like, 'Ah man, what an unfair place this world is,'" he says. "Then I was immediately excited, 'cause it threw me back in the, 'Ah, chaos again. Love it.' I love it when things go wrong. It's when I thrive and it's when things happen best for me."

Westerberg's skewed view of the glass half-empty is the paradox that underscores much of the placid Suicaine. On the fugue "It's a Wonderful Lie," he wonders, "How am I looking/I don't want the truth/What am I doing/I ain't in my youth/I'm past my prime/Or was that just a pose." And on "Tears Rolling Up Our Sleeves," he muses, "People swear opposites attract/I don't care about all that/Is it fiction or fact/We're identically sad." From disparate phrase to phrase, it's clear Westerberg is far from homeostatic. Thank God.

It's been about three years since Eventually came out. Were you writing new material all this time?

Yeah, I was ... I didn't really take any time from the end of the last tour. I think the last date we did was The Larry Sanders Show and I came home and I started writing then. Before [I finalized the deal with] Capitol I took the opportunity to get the Grandpaboy thing rolling. I don't have the patience or the strength to pretend it's not me this morning.

Do you sometimes pretend [Grandpaboy]'s not you?

Well, if I'm feeling kittenish I'll go through the whole mysterious, "Yeah, fuck it, yeah, right."

Obviously, the decision to work with Don Was on Suicaine Gratifaction must have been a good one because you renamed yourself Paul WASterberg on the album credits.

Yeah, Don and Paul WASterberg. We got to be great friends, which is more important than anything. It's by accident as all good things that ever happen, they happen by accident. I [originally] met him in a parking lot years ago when he was working with Bob Dylan and Dylan's car was blocking our car so we couldn't get out. So it's like, "Get somebody out to move this car." Dylan sticks his head out [and says], "Well, I'll see if I can find someone." So Dylan invites us in and I got to meet Don and [we] hung out and got to be friendly and, over the years, Don has called me for various projects and I've always turned him down. And this time was the same. I think he had some sort of Jewel thing he was doing, a live thing that I wasn't terribly interested in at the time. And I kinda suggested, "Hey, let's make a record one of these days."

There was a comment on the bio that there are no jokes on this record. There seem to be a few, yet you're saying there's not.

I wasn't feeling terribly humorous, and any songs that sort of lent themselves to any levity didn't make the cut. The quality songs, the best songs, were serious. There's a little bit of wit there and word play but there isn't stupidity ... there isn't comic relief. It's all kinda one mood -- intense, I guess. And I've never really done that. I have kind of a polar personality where it goes up and down but it was definitely on a steady down spiral for the whole writing on the thing.

Was that because of problems with Warner/Reprise?

I think it's more biochemical in my own brain. I could have sold six million records the last time and I still probably would have come home depressed. It was my time.

Was it the most depressed you'd been?

Yeah. I'm finding as I get older it gets a little stronger and it stays a little longer. And rather than fighting it really, I kind of [succumbed] to it. Through that I think I was able to write some of my best tunes just because I became isolated and obsessed with the sort of isolation, the loneliness of "Sunrise Always Listens." So, ya know, good comes of it I guess.

Is it at least therapeutic to write still?

Uh-huh. It's therapeutic. I don't just do it for therapy. I mean, I write ... I scribble stuff down. I don't keep a journal or anything like that. I don't feel like, "Oh, I have to get my thoughts down." I tend to let them fester. I tend to let them fester 'til they come out in bitter hateful snippets.

Do you ever feel you'd have gotten more respect as a solo performer if you weren't constantly referred to as a former Replacement?

I prefer the Future Nobody ... or the Current Nobody. In a funny way it makes me feel like ... I can't even explain it. That's the only part of me that's part of the rock & roll history book, [where] I have to be referred to as that.

What are your thoughts on the Replacements retrospective [All For Nothing/Nothing For All] that came out in '97?

The thing that mystified me that I think summed it up was they had the Titanic on the cover of the thing and they couldn't even cash in on the Titanic craze and somehow accidentally sell a million records. Even, fuck, put it next to a big picture of ...

Leonardo DiCaprio?

Exactly, as a joke. I mean, God, maybe that was the problem. [Bad] marketing or something.

Of course, I have to ask the question, is there a chance for a Replacements reunion?

(Long pause) Never say never, but I don't think so. I think the only way we would is if we get together, sell tickets, show up, take a bow and leave. You know, some sort of stunt.

I suggested it the other day just as putting the feeler out to somebody who loved the band, and they said, "No, you can't ever do that. That'll wreck, whatever ..." If I heard enough of that, we probably would. To just drag it through the mud and show how pathetic we really are. That would probably be a perverse kick for us.

BLAIR R. FISCHER(February 23, 1999)