Chris Mars: With Horseshoes And Hand Grenades, The Replacements Drummer Releases A Truly Solo LP

Originally published in American Music Press (1992)
By Devorah Ostrov

Chris Mars

Smash Records publicity photo

Towards the end of 1990, following the tense recording sessions for All Shook Down, Chris Mars left the Replacements — the band he'd co-founded with no master plan and little ambition in a Minneapolis basement a decade earlier — under an acrimonious black cloud.

And after a grueling tour to promote the album, what remained of the splintered group CREEM readers once voted almost the best band in the world (only U2 and R.E.M. ranked higher) also called it a day.

With Horseshoes and Hand Grenades (the title comes from Mars' cover painting, which depicts a nightmarish assemblage of figures playing a game of horseshoes; the hand grenades are disguised as pineapples on the back), Mars has become the first of the former 'Mats to release a solo album.

Recorded in the "cheap room" at Prince's Paisley Park studios, the LP is a confident piece of work, filled to the brim with quintessential Midwestern pop sensibilities. And it finds the drummer not only writing and singing lead on all the tracks but also playing guitar and keyboards.

Inevitably though, the first question Mars is going to be asked by every rock journalist is: What broke up the Replacements?

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Smash Records (1992)

"I don't know," he says vaguely with a barely audible sigh over the phone. "It was just one of those things. We were sick of each other; sick of the Replacements. Everybody wanted to do different things."

Did it start going downhill when the heavy-drinking outfit, famous for its crash-and-burn live shows, was tagged as "important"?

"Yeah... It shouldn't have been that way. We tried to hold true to what we were, and I think we did hold true pretty much through Pleased to Meet Me [Sire 1987]. But right around Don't Tell a Soul [Sire 1989], things started changing. After that, everything was different in the studio — and out of the studio."

Mars is soft-spoken and a genuinely nice guy. He's obviously uncomfortable talking about his last months in the group.

"There were a lot of bands taking off who started around the same time as we did — U2, R.E.M..." he explains. "Not that we were going for that huge success. I was pretty content with things as they were. I never thought it would go as far as it did. But I think Paul [Westerberg, vocalist] wanted a bigger piece of the pie, so I think he started listening to the label more than he should have."

The Replacements

L-R: Paul Westerberg, Chris Mars, 
Tommy Stinson and Bob Stinson

Switching the conversation back to his new album, I marvel that he did everything (except play bass) himself. 

Did he just have a lot of spare time, or did Mars already know he was a talented multi-instrumentalist?

"To tell you truth, I didn't know for sure what I could do," he admits. "I knew I could play rhythm guitar and, of course, drums. But some of the other things were new territory, and I wasn't really sure of my capabilities in those areas. That was one of the things I found out for myself once I got into the studio. And the time allotted in the studio made it easier than I thought it would be."

Mars is an inventive lyricist with a keen understanding of the human psyche, and his voice has a natural charm that imparts a real honesty to the material. Looking back, he realized that one of the things he most missed with the later day Replacements was the opportunity to contribute song ideas.

Chris Mars
Smash Records publicity photo

"We used to write songs together as a band when we'd practice," he says, "but that wasn't happening anymore. So, I got a four-track machine and started messing with that, just to have fun. Four-tracks are good to bounce things off. You can write something and live with it for a while. You think it's really good when you first put it down, but a couple of days later it stinks!"

"It's kinda like bouncing it off a band," he adds.

Several of the tunes on Horseshoes and Hand Grenades wrestle with feelings of loneliness and alienation wrapped within simple pop beats, such as the bittersweet "Last Drop" in which "the jukebox spins a has-been tale" and "nothing changes but the weather, never worse, never better."

Other tracks explode with quirky humor, while "Popular Creeps" (the first CD-single release from the album) seems to take a swipe at his ex-bandmates: "Popular creeps are riding high until the day they get burned/Who's gonna love 'em when they're unknown?"

"Popular Creeps" c/w "Before It Began"

Smash Records CD single

But where does the inspiration for his fabulous surrealist freaks and monsters artwork come from?

"My songs tend to deal more with realistic social commentary-type themes," notes Mars, "but when I paint, I'm somewhere on another..."

Planet?

"Yeah! I like Bosch, and I like Francis Bacon — way, way out there very imaginative stuff!"

Mars remains happily Midwest-based ("I couldn't live in LA," he states) and currently splits his time about fifty-fifty between art and music. At the moment, he's beginning work on a second album and preparing canvases for showings in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

"It keeps me busy!" he laughs. "I don't anticipate any huge success. If it happens, fine, but that's not where my head's at. I didn't think I'd get the opportunity to go into the studio and record again. And now that I have, I'm just enjoying it!"

Is there anything else Mars wants his fans to know about? He mulls over the question for a couple of seconds before declaring: "I just got a new lawnmower. It's a Snapper mulching mower, and it works real fine."

* * *

The Relinquishing

Phipps Center for the Arts — offset lithograph

Since the late '90s, Mars has mainly concentrated on his artwork. These days, he's a celebrated artist, and his paintings have been shown in major exhibitions in the US and Canada. For more info, visit his website:  www.chrismarspublishing.com