Westerberg Interviews

There's a new interview with Paul posted on Pitchfork. It's a long interview, and while it touches on a lot of the same points that his other recent interviews have, there's some very interesting stuff here. A couple of bits:

» On the last tour and the breakup of the Mats: "Not all bands know it when it's happening, but that last tour was our traveling farewell. It was not very fun, and by the end we knew it. By then, it was Steve [Foley] on drums and Slim [Dunlap], who apparently cared less about the band than he pretended to back then. He and I were already going our own ways. Tommy wanted to go solo. Everyone thinks it was me, but that's not true, really. That's essentially how the band sort of broke up."

» Pitchfork: Do the Replacements make you any money?
PW: A little bit. They asked me if they could use "Can't Hardly Wait" for a Toyota commercial. I sort of hemmed and hawed, because basically they don't have to ask my permission. They own the mechanicals, and they own half of the publishing, so if I say no they can do it anyway. That kind of stuff will generate a little income for me, the writer. The records have actually picked up in the last ten years, as far as sales go, so for as much as we put into them we're certainly getting it back. We never made any money on tour. None of us came out of the school of economics. We took it for granted that a rock and roll band gets ripped off.

Ok, moving on from the horror of CHW possibly being used to sell cars, Filter Magazine has a Mats feature in their most recent issue (Spring 08, with Flight of the Concords on the cover). Paul, Tommy and Peter Jesperson are interviewed. The article is not posted on their web site so I excerpted a few quotes below:

» Filter: You've had numerous solo albums. Anything currently in the works?
PW: I did give at least 60 songs to my manager, Darren. I was at the point where I had to give them to someone or I was going to start erasing them. If I drop dead, he's got, like, five albums in the can. Since doing that, I started writing more...I was talking to Darren about Guitar Hero and Rock Band; we turned it down before because I thought it was stupid. I was watching my son do it - him and his buddies all play it - and I figured, "Why not? What the hell? So, they want 'Kids Don't Follow'...let'em have it".

» Filter: Has time mellowed you out at all since the "roller coaster" ride of the old days?
PW: I don't know. Last night I pulled out my son's trumpet and I had a riff from this song, I was saying "Show me this in an A-flat and a B-flat.". I'm still the crotchety bastard I was when I was 19, but in a loving way. I'm manic-depressive, and I seem to be more manic than depressive, which is good, I guess.