Paul Westerberg Quotes
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I didn't wake up one morning and not be in the Replacements. We're all that forever, and I've just grown older. I mean, I haven't lost anything. I've gained a few things.
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Falling on your face when you’re young and good looking is one thing, but when you’re an old man it can be quite humiliating.
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Actually, I've done it the other way so many times where you rehearse the band and you do the whole thing with lights, the show and the crew - everything. Then you see what happens and you're already committed to dates. I'm just sort of putting out feelers this way.
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I try to write for highest common denominator. I don't write for dumb people. I figure if everybody doesn't get it, that's OK. Someone bright enough will get it, and that's who I write for. It's probably not the way to make million-sellers. What can I say? I won't apologize for trying to write for smart people.
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So I figured in keeping with the record, I'd do something off the wall which is show up for free and wing it... I don't know, I'm just going to play some songs. I think it'll be fun.
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Each album we The Replacements made was the one we were capable of making and wanted to make at the time. Each one was a progression or, depending on your opinion, a sidestep or tumble forward. I don't know what.
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The soul of rock 'n' roll is mistakes, and making mistakes work for you. The people who shy away from mistakes and play it safe have no business playing rock 'n' roll.
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We The Replacements formed as a rock and roll band, and that was the path we chose to take. Whenever we deviated from it we felt, unless everybody was into it, there was tension.
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I sat through Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones like three times at the Skyway when it came out.
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Any musician who can stop may be a musician, but they're no artist. If it's in your blood, it can't stop flowing.
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I think you’re hard pressed to find another group that had as many facets to them as we did, and going through the songs now there’s an unlimited variety of everything from quasi showtunes to fake speed metal. God almighty, what were we trying to prove?
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People like to see human error when it’s honest. When people see you swing and miss, they start to root for you.
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Nobody can miss you unless you go away.
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You know, he likes me because I'm his son. I have to go long and far to find someone who knows me just as me, rather than me the songwriter or whatever.
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Since starting up with the band again it’s kind of shaken every cobweb out of my head and got me rattled in a way—probably in a good way. I can’t relax any more. I can’t sit down and watch the television. I’m torn between the world of being a father, a homeowner and a creative artist and a rock ’n’ roll singer.
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There is that unpredictability of the seasons that I enjoy. I like the threat of a tornado. I like the threat of four feet of snow.
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Having a diverse sense of taste - or lack of taste - I loved so many different things. I was drawn to the stupidity and excitement of glam, I had a thorough upbringing in rhythm and blues.
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I listen back, and I hear what's there, and I know in my heart, in my gut, that we The Replacements were the real deal. No one can take that away. You can call us buffoons, or clowns or whatever. But when we wanted to, we were as good as anybody.
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Nobody gets married to a clever song, let alone falls in love to one.
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Don’t Tell a Soul was our least honest record and we made it under duress.
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The sheer volumes of songs have come from the hours of cold and darkness that one spends inside with the lights on.
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We play for free. We get paid for waiting.
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I'm constantly recording and playing down in the basement, and my voice is starting to sound really good. There's cracks and scratches in my voice that have been there since I was 19. It hasn't changed that much.
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I used to write things that might have sounded better coming out of an older person's voice or vision. Hence, "grandpa-boy." I'm an old man, but I'm a boy. A really old boy!