Here Comes a Regular

Tommy Stinson

by Peter Aaron and photographs by Fionn Reilly, January 30, 2012

Last month marked the second anniversary of the horrific earthquake that devastated Haiti. It’s difficult to believe two full years have passed since the disaster that killed an estimated 316,000 people and leveled nearly 280,000 buildings. It seems like it was only a shocked heartbeat ago we were glued to our TVs in disbelief at the scope of the tragedy. Time does have a way of surprising us. It may also be surprising to learn there’s a line that links the beleaguered Caribbean nation with the frozen climes of the Minneapolis punk scene, runs through three of the biggest American bands of the last 30 years, and finishes in Hudson. The line, as it were, is Tommy Stinson, current bassist of Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum and formerly of the Replacements, as well as a talented solo artist in his own right.

Having seen the heartbreaking news reports, Stinson visited Haiti the summer after the tragedy and learned about Timkatec Schools, a Port-au-Prince institution for homeless children founded by Father Joseph Simon in 2002. Moved by the 82-year-old priest’s continued efforts in the wake of the catastrophe to house and provide vocational training for the epidemic numbers of orphans, the rocker sponsored a fall 2010 charity auction that raised nearly $50,000 in assistance, and he remains committed to helping the facility. “When Tommy contacted us out of the blue wanting to help I told him if he really wanted to understand the situation [in Haiti] he should come see it for himself—not thinking he’d really do it,” says Patrick O’Shea, who founded the schools’ parent organization, the Friends of Timkatec. “With the relief efforts we’ve met a lot of people with good intentions who never follow through. But Tommy came down right away, and I could see he was emotionally impacted by it all. He’s done everything he said he was going to do, and more.” “I guess I was kinda feeling like I wanted to give something back,” Stinson says. “I’ve had a pretty good run in life.”

Tommy Stinson has literally grown up playing rock ’n’ roll. In 1979, not long after he’d picked up the bass at age 11, he took to jamming on classic rock tunes in the basement of his mother’s South Minneapolis house with his older, guitar-playing brother, Bob Stinson, and drummer Chris Mars. One day, a would-be singer and guitarist named Paul Westerberg was waiting outside the Stinson house for the bus that took him to his janitorial job at underwear maker Munsingwear. Westerberg heard the trio and knocked on the basement door. He immediately talked his way in and helped steer the band, then named Dogbreath, away from the Yes covers the Stinsons and Mars had been playing and into the rootsy punk rock songs he’d been writing. After one gig as the Impediments, the quartet changed its name to the Replacements and became the terrors of the local scene, early on establishing the trashy, falling-apart-drunk live reputation that became their calling card.

“They were pretty wild, and it was clear even then that Tommy was a great punk rock bass player,” says Phoenicia’s Steve Almaas, bassist of Minneapolis punk godfathers the Suicide Commandos. “It was also quite striking to see someone as young as him on stage. [Replacements manager] Peter Jesperson actually had to sign on as his guardian when they started touring.” “Our mom was single and I’d been arrested three times by the time I was 11, for shoplifting and stuff like that,” Stinson recalls. “She was really supportive of the band because it kept me out of trouble. Plus, Bob was there to watch out for me.”  The group signed with local label
Twin/Tone and released two slabs of hoarse, clattering, Faces/Johnny Thunders-derived garage rock—Sorry Ma,
Forgot to Take Out the Trash (1981) and Stink (1982)—at the height of the tradition-rejecting hardcore explosion. “We loved hardcore and we played with a lot of those bands,” says Stinson. “But we didn’t really fit in with them.”

Indeed, it was Westerberg’s way with a hook that would set the Replacements apart from their less tuneful peers. An asset that became more apparent with 1983’s Hootenanny and reached its full flower with the following year’s Let It Be (both Twin/Tone Records), the singer’s astonishing skills as a melodic pop songwriter soon saw the band top the best-of lists of prominent critics. It also attracted the undying respect of compatriot alternative acts like R.E.M., whose Peter Buck played on Let It Be, a landmark now hailed as one of rock’s most influential albums.