Warner Brothers was sufficiently encouraged by the changes that it extended the band’s two-album contract to four or six records. In exchange, the label expects concessions. Like a video. The Replacements have been outspoken about their aversion to the medium, particularly in the song “Seen Your Video” and the “anti-video” to “Bastards of Young,” which consisted of a single shot of a stereo speaker. But in 1987, big time success has become contingent upon videos. This is not lost on Westerberg, but as an idealistic traditionalist, he still has trouble with what rock ‘n’ roll has become.
“‘Seen Your Video’ isn’t necessarily ‘every video sucks, all video is absolutely taboo.’ It’s ‘Seen your video/Your phony rock ‘n’ roll,’ and it’s pointed at videos that glorify how ‘cool’ it is to be in a band. You know, the chicks at your feet, the chains, the leather, that kind of stuff. But we might do a video. It’s a definite maybe.”
“But if you see our video,” he continues, “it’s not going to be anything you’ve seen before. It’s gonna be something that isn’t at all like the spirit of the band. The ‘Bastards of Young’ video was the attitude of the band, but the spirit of the band together is something that shouldn’t be filmed. Almost like—it might be stupid, it probably is—like the Amish people, or whatever, who won’t have their picture taken because it steals their soul.”
“I almost feel like that, too. Because it steals something that the cameras should not take away from the band. I think that mystery is far, far better than to splash it out in front of ’em, and show ’em exactly what the bands look like, and exactly what they do. I mean, that’s the fun of seeing a band live. [Record companies] see video as selling more records and making more money, but to me it’s crass and it’s wrong for the Replacements.”
“We don’t get down on our knees and say, ‘I want to be a star. I will look it, act it, dress it, be it. Make me one.’ We just say we don’t want to fail, and we’d like to go at our own pace. So we’ll probably end up being something really boring like fuckin’ REO, who were around for nine years before they made it. I can see that happening to us more than us ever being on the cover of Newsweek.”
Just a few years ago, the last thing the Replacements seemed was in it for the long run. Bob Stinson’s antics and Westerberg’s instinct for making the worst of a bad situation turned the band’s early shows and records into portraits of a band teetering on the bring of complete collapse. Part of the group’s appeal was the possibility that they might go over. How could they keep this up? But with each album, Westerberg’s songwriting has asserted itself and given the band confidence to work beyond their comfortably self-defeating image.
It’s also given Westerberg reason to keep at it. “If I were to quit,” he says. “I would come home to my job and turn on the radio and think, ‘fuck, I can play as good as them,’ or somethin’ like that. And that’s the thing that drives me. I think that if I quit now, how far could I have gone? What song could I have written? And I have enough of that in me that’s going, ‘don’t be a chicken, see what you can do.'”