MULTITASKING MUTINEER Tommy Stinson
Aug 31, 2011
From the Replacements to Guns N' Roses to a new solo record aiming to help benefit Haitian kids, the dude has had plenty on his plate over the years.
BY JOHN B. MOORE
It took seven years, but Tommy Stinson - probably best known as the plaid-suited, spiky-haired young bassist for The Replacements - has finally followed up his 2004 solo record Village Gorilla Head. On the bright side, that's only half as long as his current group - Guns N' Roses - took to complete Chinese Democracy.
Stinson deserves to be cut some slack though, as he's had plenty on his plate over the years. Along with his commitments to Guns N' Roses, he's also the bassist for that other great Minneapolis institution Soul Asylum (former scene mates to the dearly departed ‘Mats).
Despite housing songs that have been hanging around Stinson's head for years One Man Mutiny (Done To Death Music), his latest solo record, is incredibly cohesive, comprised of 10 tight barroom rockers with just enough punk influence to show he's not close to mellowing out yet.
Stinson plans to donate a large portion of the proceeds from One Man Mutiny to Timkatec, a nonprofit that houses and educates homeless children in the Port-au-Prince area of Haiti. The school also benefitted from an auction he held last year, a benefit that brought in more than $50,000.
Now that the record is finally coming out, Stinson plans some solos shows over the next couple of months, before likely heading down to South America with Guns N' Roses and then back on the road to support a new Soul Asylum record.
He took some time recently to speak about the new album, touring with Guns and whether The Replacements will ever play again.
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BLURT: It's been about seven years since the last solo record, and I know you've been a little busy...
TOMMY STINSON: A little busy, yeah.
Have you been planning on doing a follow up to that first record all along?
I'm always planning on doing some sort of record with some of my songs, but it always takes a backseat to other things I've committed to. But I'm always writing and putting stuff on the backburner until I've got enough to make a record. The last six, seven years have been a little too long. I think the goal here in the future is to make them a little closer together so that I can actually build on it and tour and shit like that.
So had you been sitting on a lot of these songs for awhile now or are most of them pretty new?
I've been compiling things for awhile and some of the songs go back to the old record. Like "Come to Hide" is one that we had since the last record but just didn't make it on for some reason. I compile songs as time goes by and try and pick the best lot when I'm finally ready to commit them to a record.
Your fiancé sings on a few of these songs doesn't she?
Yeah, a bunch of them. That's one of my favorite parts of the record right now is that it adds a whole melodic aspect to the record that I've never had before. I've been looking for that. You know how The Kinks' records always have a female background vocal in there and I've always liked that sound.
Did you know all along that you were going to want to include her vocals to the songs...
Yeah, I did. It took us awhile to figure out how it was going to work out and then it kind of started happening.
One song in particular that really stands out is the title track "One Man Mutiny". Do you mind talking just a bit about where that came from?
Yeah, it kind of came from a goofy experience in Europe. It was almost in jest the way it came up. It came from a conversation with me and one of the managers of Guns N' Roses and we were all talking about a bus call and there was some dissention in the ranks about the bus call and blah, blah, blah and I got lumped into this argument and I just kind of came up with the phrase, "next time you guys come up with an argument, don't lump me into it, I'm a one man mutiny." I thought, you know what, I'm going to have the lyrics before we get to the next town and as it happened I had the lyrics by the time we got to Brussels. I thought how fitting to come up with it, write it and play it with a couple guys from Guns who were around and had nothing to do for a couple of days.
Mentioning Gun N' Roses, you've obviously been involved with some big bands: The Replacements, Soul Asylum, Guns N' Roses. When The Replacements fell apart, what made you decide to go back and get involved with some other big named bands versus just go it alone?
They opportunities kind of presented themselves at the right time. The Guns things happened as The Perfect (one of Stinson's post-Replacements bands) thing was falling apart because the label was going to totally screw up the release and shelf it. By the time we did that and kind of had our hearts broken... I tried the Bash & Pop (another band) thing and that was such a beast and everything over that course of time was so taxing that I just said, "I just kind of want to play for someone right now." And the Guns thing came up sort of magically out of nowhere, and honestly it was sort of like a dare to even go to the audition. Axl seemed like he had a really good idea and was backing it which was cool.
Obviously it took a few years to work on the record (Chinese Democracy took about 15 years to finish) and then you toured the word. Any idea where the band is heading now? Are you working on any new music?
We're going to go to South American in October - I think. (Laughs) I think that's happening. There's some dates coming up and then I'm not really sure where it's going to go from there. I'd like to think that maybe there's another record coming that we're going to work on, but there's certainly a bunch of material that's sitting there that we could finish and probably get another out there. I've sort of been out of the loop, doing my own thing for awhile so I won't get back into that until September.
Let's talk about your record again. I'm interested to find out more about the school you are donating a portion of the album sales proceeds to. How did you first hear about the Timkatec school?
Basically what happened for me is I had the same feeling (after the Haiti earthquake) that I had after Katrina hit. Although when Katrina happened I donated money to the Red Cross thinking that was the right thing to do and found out later that was probably the stupidest thing to do because the bureaucracy probably ate that money up. So when the earthquake in Haiti happened I really wanted to do something, but I didn't just want to sit on the sidelines and throw money at it.
I decided to get involved and went down there and saw the school and kids and said I'm going to try and do something to help these kids out. So I raised some money through an auction... a little over $50,000 when all was said and that's worth a fucking couple hundred dollars to that school. It helps them a lot. I want to have another auction, but in lieu of having one ready by October, I thought why don't I just donate some of the proceeds of this record to Timkatec. That will keep them in the public eye and hopefully I can beat what I did with the auction, with my record... There are a lot of places that need help and I just choose to focus on Haiti.
You went there and actually visited the school?
I went there and saw the school, saw the kids and everything else. It was a life changing experience to say the least.
Let's talk about Soul Asylum for a minute. Did you just finish up an album with the band?
We're finishing it up. I think the next thing to do is have it mixed, then see who is putting it out. I think there are a couple of things in the works that I'm not at liberty to talk about but hopefully it will be out by spring.
And will you tour when it comes out?
Yes, we definitely will.
In reading the new Bob Mould book he makes it very clear that Husker Du will never get back together again. I get a sense that the door to The Replacements was never completely closed. Obviously you and Paul (Westerberg) left on better terms than Bob and his band. Do you ever anticipate getting back together to play some more shows?
You know, we never rule it out. (Laughs) We just don't ever do it!
Are you still in contact?
Oh yeah, yeah. Paul and I spoke last month. We talk every now and then about this that and the other thing. Usually fucking small talk, but it's there if we want to do it.
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