I can remember seeing The Replacements in the mid-80s when they were super sloppy and all over the place and then seeing them opening for Elvis Costello in an amphitheater towards the end of their initial run as a band. In the latter instance, all those great songs were still there but band members were much more restrained and it was almost distracting.
It’s a fine line. You strive for consistency, you strive for quality, but also, one of the big things about a lot of the bands that we all go to see is that you have something that’s unique—”I was there, I witnessed this,” and it’s not exactly the same every night. That’s something that we learned, something that hopefully the audience wants, and that’s part of it, making that kind of connection. I guess having people know your personality a little bit more—maybe if you stopped doing that completely you’re losing something because people don’t feel as connected. I can definitely see that.
I would probably be bummed if I saw The Replacements in the heyday and then seeing them much more polished, to the point of, dare I say “professional.” It might be kind of a bummer. It’s like going to a punk show. You want that rawness or at least just that kind of personal thing when you hear, Paul Westerberg say something completely outlandish. As a fan, I think I would want to be seeing that a little bit more.
Speaking of which, I recall seeing a special moe. gig at Boston College in 1997. It was supposed to be for BC students [Thanks to Jonathan Healey for getting me in] and for some reason, it took place at a campus bar where people had to be 21, so it was almost empty. At one point during the night you guys took requests where people in the audience could name a moe. song and a style of music and you’d attempt to perform the song in that style. Do you recall that night?
I can definitely see us doing that. I kind of remember that, although I might be mixing it up with another show. There was another time where we felt almost outnumbered by the audience, so we just said, “Okay, who wants to come up and play? This is what you get tonight,” That kind of thing is a special experience one that people remember and talk about years and years later. It becomes part of the band’s personality. I would love to see that. If I went to see a band I would love to see a one-time occurrence like that.
People were just naming songs and then they would name a style and we would have to try and do that? The problem with being old and being me, some of those things kind of get blended together. Rob has a really good memory. He’ll say “Yeah I remember exactly what happened there and why it happened,” whereas I’ll just remember the funny parts. My memory isn’t quite so sharp and I like the funny parts. [laughs].
On the other side of all that, I can remember seeing you at the Orpheum in Boston, three days after 9/11. When you encored with “New York City,” it was overwhelming. I get chills thinking about it now. That was a situation where the music said it all and nothing more needed to be verbalized.
After 9/11, we didn’t play “Plane Crash” for about a year.
I imagine there was a unique vibe in the air earlier this year at The Cap, when you returned to the stage with Rob [Derhak, following his treatment for cancer].
It was extremely stressful. There was a lot of focus on it. Everybody wanted to be there and there were lots of well wishes from friends. There was a lot of excitement around it. It wasn’t necessarily stressful but it was high-energy. And then to play the songs was actually really fun because it felt really good to be back. Everyone who was there, they were just so completely involved in what was happening. It was hard to miss. There wasn’t a dry eye in the damn house.
There are so many people who have made that special connection with you over the years. Somewhat along those lines, you’ve always taken the effort to spotlight other artists at your shows and you continue to do that, particularly with younger groups.
It’s always been in some ways, a little difficult for us to ask other musicians to come play because we felt like we were throwing them in the deep end. Not because of technical challenges but maybe just because it was kind of weird and unique. It’s kind of odd like that. At the same time, we had a lot of friends and peers who we always wanted to play with us. One of the things that we thought of a long time ago was what we called it the “Hostile Takeover”—where each member of another band would come out one by one and take over instruments and then all of a sudden, there’s a completely different band playing onstage. That was our way of giving another band who’s maybe opening the night, another show in front of the full-on audience. It also was kind of saying, “We love these guys, we want you to see them. This is how we feel about them, we’re gonna let them take over the damn stage.”
That “Hostile Takeover” thing was really fun for us to do and we did that quite a bit for a while and then we stopped doing it. We started seeing other bands do it and then I think we just kind of forgot about it. We actually did it again like two years ago with Aqueous. They’re another Buffalo band, they’re great guys, they’re a great band, and they happened to be in town in Boston and we actually just said “Okay, why don’t you go out and do the first song [of the encore]?” They kind of looked at us like we were nuts and it was great. It was unexpected and people there, us included, will not forget it. It was this fun, unique part of that night.
Doing stuff like that is really fun. Playing with Pigeons at Red Rocks was great. They’re a great band and people love them and we love them and we want to have that be part of the night where we do something special and we say, “We like these guys, hopefully they like us, and we’re gonna try and do something unique.”
It’s something that took a little while to develop for us, like pre-’96. After doing Furthur Festival in ’97 we saw a lot of band interplay between everyone including us, getting up and playing with some of the other bands. That kind of started the whole process for us, where we were trying to think about it in terms of collaboration and kind of pushing it a little bit more. So finding other bands that you feel are talented, that you like, I think all of us are always on board with having sit-ins or takeovers or something like that because it’s definitely satisfying for everyone to just say, “We have this bond and we like each other and we wanna try and share that,” and hopefully everyone who’s there witnessing enjoys it just as much.
Looking ahead, you’ll be traveling to Jamaica in January for another Tropical Throe.down event. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Who doesn’t like vacations? We’ve done it a couple times in Jamaica, in the Dominican Republic. Every single time it’s been kind of crazy because you’re on an island, everything is on island time, and it’s completely different. It is like camping. You go out and you’re just doing things completely different. It’s just so much fun because it’s relaxed and everybody knows that they don’t have to go to work in the morning, they know that they don’t have anything pressing, the atmosphere is just really cool. It’s really fun for us to do. I look forward to it. Especially the Throe.downs in Jamaica have been really fun.
Finally, in terms of Halloween, which once again is a special themed show, how long in advance will you think typically think about it and start to put something together?
We’ve been talking about it for months. What we want to concentrate on, what covers that we could do, all of it. It’s kind of like planning a Halloween party at your house. Halloween shows always entail figuring out what the set is gonna be and how we’re going to carve up the theme throughout our own music and through covers. So it’s been something that we’ve been talking about for a while. And our awesome crew has been working diligently on the visual and audio presentation. It’s always something, a new set of challenges that you have to problem-solve to get to the final product. And that includes us too, playing the music, so it’s fun. It’s definitely an amazing experience to try and rethink how to do everything. Also, as soon as you put on a mask, things change. You start doing everything differently because you get into character a little bit and I think that’s the same for everyone who’s coming to see what we do. It’s a really fun experience. Especially when you really feel like you pulled it off to the utmost. It doesn’t always happen like that but when it does it’s really fun.
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