Crash, Burn and Rise Again

It’s not that he’s a glutton for punishment, but Paul Westerberg is back for another round. Whether it ends in more rejection, in long-overdue glory or, most likely, something in between, one thing’s sure: The days of corporate record business frustration are behind him. Thanks for the memories.

“I kept waiting for lightning to strike and something magical to happen with my life that didn’t happen,” says Westerberg, talking amiably at a West Hollywood hotel, drinking cappuccino and smoking a cigar, a notable contrast with what he smoked and drank in his wild youth.

“On the last record, I knew I wasn’t going to tour, and it felt like the end of something,” he says. “Not to get too deep, but it felt like the end of my musical career, or Chapter 1 was put to a rest.... I got rid of my lawyer and manager and everyone. It felt very refreshing to have no one to tell me what to do or to suggest what to do. I had only myself, and it was as if I was 17 again with a fresh slate.”

It rarely comes to that for artists with the credentials of Westerberg, who led his star-crossed band the Replacements out of Minneapolis on a spectacular crash-and-burn career across the 1980s’ post-punk landscape. In an echo of the famous Velvet Underground syndrome, only a few thousand people bought their records, but it seemed as if every one of them started a band. Or wrote about the music. Or played the songs on college radio stations.

It added up to a legend, and Westerberg crawled out of the wreckage at the start of the ‘90s as a consensus great American songwriter and true-cause rock ‘n’ roll crusader, if a little heavy on the self-destruction.

Westerberg’s resume bulged with lost-generation anthems such as “Bastards of Young” and the aching introspection of “Here Comes a Regular” (both from the Replacements’ first major-label album, “Tim”), and fans figured he would get his due on his own.

But despite being in fine form and on his best behavior, he watched his three big-label albums, first on Sire/Reprise, then Capitol, die increasingly rapid deaths. By the end, with his 1999 release “Suicane Gratifaction” selling just 52,000 copies, it was seeming a little futile.

“I think he went through a period where he was kind of questioning what he was doing and where he stood in the music world after the disappointment of the last record,” says Darren Hill, an old acquaintance who played bass on Westerberg’s first solo tour and became his manager last year. “But that sort of fueled him to start recording on his own, and I think the results have encouraged him to follow his gut at this point.”

Those results come out formally today in the form of “Paul Westerberg Stereo,” on the Los Angeles independent label Vagrant Records. The mostly acoustic collection comes with a bonus disc, “Mono,” a more rocking companion album (under the pseudonym Grandpa Boy) that Vagrant originally released in a limited edition in February.

Whether soft-boiled or hard-edged, Westerberg’s music retains its signature melodic breeziness and effortless rise-and-fall shape. In his sometimes tough, sometimes tender character sketches and diary-like observations, he’s again a voice of reassurance for those who have a hard time finding a place to fit in the world.

The difference is the records’ casual, intimate, spontaneous nature, reflecting their pressure-free creation in Westerberg’s home studio in Minneapolis. The sound is unvarnished, and a couple of songs simply end in mid-verse.

“I think that’s what gives it character. We are putting out what he turned in,” says Vagrant owner Rich Egan, whose label is stocked with young bands that are artistically indebted to Westerberg.

“All those quote-unquote glitches, I think, are what make the record. It’s a really grounded, homespun, honest record. Like the song that just stops, it’s because the tape ran out. He was gonna play till the tape ran out, and that’s what he did. It definitely sounds like it’s lacking some big corporate ax hanging over his head.”

“The first reason I ever did it was for fun and my own entertainment, and it’s come full circle,” says Westerberg, who’s extending that spirit with his album-launch tour, a series of free, fan-friendly solo performances in record stores, including Amoeba Music in Hollywood on Thursday. (He’ll probably come back later with a band.)

Famously reclusive and sometimes agoraphobic, still fighting his two longtime nemeses, anxiety and depression, Westerberg, 42, nonetheless seems comfortable as he sits in the hotel’s dining patio overlooking the pool and a sweeping city view. He says he was in bed at 9 the night before, and the next morning he’ll be flying home to his wife and 3-year-old son.

“It’s nice to be back. It is, actually. I’m a lot more relaxed this time around and not as caught up in it. I’m older and I know better.... I liked the notion of going to a label where there was a fresh enthusiasm rather than maybe a tired aspect of what Paul used to be, as opposed to what he’s gonna be.”

What’s he gonna be? He may be a Replacement again, for a while, if longtime guitar sidekick Tommy Stinson can free up time from the never-ending recording sessions of his current group, Guns ‘N Roses, to tour with his old band-mate. What he’s not about to be again is a great hope that didn’t deliver.

“Did I feel bitter? Worthless? Yeah, yeah,” Westerberg says, recalling the darker days. “I blamed everyone, I blamed myself. Then I looked through my record collection, all the things that I like that never sold any records. How many records did Mott the Hoople ever sell? I still listen to that.

“Who sells 9 million records and why? Is it because it’s good? They sell records because they put the muscle behind them to make money. I’ll make their money back tenfold, but it’ll take 10 years. I’m not a cash cow that’ll be gone tomorrow.”