The Replacements: A rooftop and a 'Dare'

Editor's note: The Replacements were Minnesota's most fabled and star-crossed band. Leaders of the 1980s indie-rock revolution, they captured lightning in a bottle, then drained it to the dregs before calling it a night in '91. In an excerpt from the new oral history "The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting," insiders recall the band's 1984 breakthrough album:

Paul Stark, co-founder of Minneapolis-based Twin/Tone Records: I think everyone realized with "Let It Be" the band had a perfect chance to do something major. And I think Paul [Westerberg, the band's frontman] felt the pressure on him, and he did quite well with it.

Peter Jesperson, the band's manager: [Westerberg] called me saying he had just written the best song he'd ever written, he thought it was "a hit" and he wanted to record it immediately. I could hear the excitement in his voice and that got me excited. But I had to tell him that recording right then was probably not in the cards as "Hootenanny" [the band's third record] was done but not out yet. ... A week or two later the band was doing a show at Goofy's Upper Deck. About five or six songs into the set, I heard the opening chords to a song I'd never heard them do before. It was unusual for them, bouncy and instantly catchy, and I knew immediately that this was the song Paul had called about. And that was "I Will Dare."

Peter Buck, guitarist for R.E.M.: More people bring that up to me than anything else. And I mean way more than anything else: "You played on 'I Will Dare.' What was that like?"

Jesperson: We'd sold boatloads of the first R.E.M. single at Oarfolk [the Minneapolis record store, now Treehouse Records, that Jesperson ran then] and the band hung out there when they were in town, so we naturally became friends. Peter [Buck] was a record hound, like me, so we hit it off especially well. He was also a Replacements fan. The two bands did some touring together in the summer of '83 and the idea for Peter to play on a new song of Paul's was hatched then.

Buck: Paul sang "Color Me Impressed" with us [R.E.M.] at the Orpheum [Theater in Minneapolis], and I just remember him being really nervous. But it was the total hometown crowd, he was this local hero, and it was just great. Around then, the suggestion came up that I come to Minneapolis and help out. So I did, and I ended up playing [mandolin] on "I Will Dare."

Bob Stinson, the Replacements' lead guitarist, who died in 1995: I was not there when [Buck] did his overdub. ... If you listen close, there's another lead underneath it.

What I remember then was when we toured with [R.E.M.], and that's when we became friends. They did give us like beer and we'd wait until they'd go on stage and ... their dressing rooms -- there was no lock, boys. We ate all their food and drank their booze. They're like doing one of their real pretty hit songs and we're just sitting there drinking their booze. And they're playing in front of a thousand people. You can't stop and come and grab it from us. We really had mean fun with them.

Buck: The thing I remember most about Bob [Stinson] is that he didn't know the names of the songs. Paul would just say, "The fast one," or "The sorta fast one," or "The one that goes like this, Bob," and with the other guys he'd call out the [song] titles. But Bob would just rip into 'em. It was like this little thing they had between themselves.

Steve Fjelstad, recording engineer: They were a lot of fun to work with [on "Let It Be"]. Paul was more focused than the other guys, and that helped. Sometimes you'd be pushing bands, trying to get a little tension going, and with them it worked because if they got a little bit pissed off, they played harder.

Stark: In those days, college radio was a huge thing. We were able to mail out [promo copies of "Let It Be"] to three or four hundred college radio stations, track them, and really work the record. And two years earlier, we wouldn't have been able to do that much. We had doubled our staff, and we were working directly with the stores. Plus, Peter [Jesperson] had toured with the band and had gone to most of the stores. Everything was in place. "Let It Be" came out right at the right time.

Dave Ayers, Twin/Tone publicist: [The band members] weren't interested in doing interviews, and Peter was smart enough to know that things had to be really controlled by ideal circumstances to go well, so they just didn't say yes to much of anything. So my relationship with the band was like, collecting names for guest lists and clipping reviews out of publications and building relationships with members of the press who would go see them and be transformed and become lifelong fans and supporters.

Daniel Corrigan, local rock photographer: I was hired by Ayers to do promo pictures [for "Let It Be"], and they were being their usual selves -- they weren't cooperating, and all that stuff. So they were playing a show at the Great Hall [of Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota] and I was supposed to go there and do a portrait of them. And they wouldn't do it. So I told 'em I had coke, "but we can't do it downstairs here. We have an office up on the top floor. Let's go up there and we can all do lines." I didn't have any coke, I just wanted to get 'em in the elevator because they'd be trapped.

My friend Iver was kind of assisting me, and we stopped the elevator between floors. And that's where I got that sort of crazy picture where they're all packed together. I really like that picture; out of the 20 or 25 frames I shot, that's the only one that turned out. But Ayers didn't like it.

So we reshot it at [the Stinsons'] house. They were having a practice and I did portraits of them and all that. I made some great pictures that day; the classic basement-band-in-the-basement -- cramped, asbestos-coated heating pipes. And then I thought [about shooting on] the roof, just for something different. They were a little more cooperative that day. ... We crawled through that bedroom window -- Bob's window, I think.

Ayers: He captured a moment. The one overriding thing that's always been in the back of my head: It's a great shot, and it's become iconographic and it says "the Replacements" and everybody recognizes it. And from a completely pedestrian, clinical point of view, from the very first time I saw it I was like, "What the [bleep] are they doing on a roof?"