SXSW Music Interview: Bash & Pop

“The only reason I called this Bash & Pop was because this new album was more of a band album,” remarks veteran rock & roll warrior Tommy Stinson, 50, who claims consecutive membership in the Replacements, Guns N’ Roses, and the Replacements again. “My last two solo albums [2004’s Village Gorilla Head; 2011’s One Man Mutiny], I piecemealed together. I played way too many instruments, wore way too many hats, and over-thought quite a bit of it, honestly. I wanted to make more of a band record, the exact thing I was going for when the Replacements fell apart the first time.

“This record became more of a band record than the first Bash & Pop album, because I now have a band that can actually play, that can add something, that looks good – that sorta thing. It just made sense, and the people I played it for said it sounded like a Bash & Pop record.”

This is vintage Tommy Stinson, all right. Like 1993’s Friday Night Is Killing Me, its follow-up, January’s Anything Could Happen on Fat Possum, rolls the same ramshackle rock of literate, earnest songwriting the ’Mats specialized in. Essentially a continuation of that spirit, Bash & Pop now bears that standard.

“I went for it,” cackles Stinson.

Bash & Pop