Caveat emptor to any Paul Westerberg fan hoping the soundtrack to Come Feel Me Tremble (Vagrant), a documentary created during the man’s 2002 solo tour (which is being simultaneously released on DVD), contains live material: Sorry, you’re out of luck. Thankfully, the new studio stuff interspersed throughout the film and included here is on a par, quality-wise, with the Westerberg/Grandpaboy triumph that was last year’s Stereo/Mono. The snarling “Pine Box” is Westerberg’s greatest-ever Rolling Stones move; his voice has never sounded stronger than on acoustic beauty “Meet Me Down The Alley”; and the clever, catchy “What A Day (For A Night)” ranks as one of his best folk-flavored songs. There’s also a nice, if unlikely, cover of Jackson Browne’s “These Days.” Missing live tracks aside, Tremble’s only real disappointment is that, despite the inclusion of two versions of “Crackle & Drag,” the film’s performance take (shot, like much of the non-concert footage, in Westerberg’s basement) is omitted from the disc; that’s a shame, as watching Westerberg sing the harrowing tale of what seems to be a young mother’s suicide—“As her baby slept, she took a long, deep breath/Now they’re zipping her up in a bag”—is the movie’s highlight. Come Feel Me Tremble is proof that Westerberg is on a winningly fertile streak of inspiration.

With Dead Man Shake (Fat Possum), an album credited to alter ego Grandpaboy, Westerberg’s run of quality prolificacy hits a bit of a wall. While there’s a certain kick to hearing him bash and wail through some fairly authentic blues originals—he certainly has a genuine respect for the genre—the tunes wear thin before the bluesman gimmick does. Better are moments like the country-ish cover of John Prine’s “Souvenirs,” the Stonesy title track and the chiming “Get A Move On” (which does contain the unfortunate line, “Come on, honey, let me drink your spit”). One cool surprise is that Westerberg’s crooning on Broadway standard “What Kind Of Fool Am I?” sounds rather natural, perhaps portending the next Grandpaboy project. Though weak in spots, the mostly fun Dead Man Shake shows Westerberg’s considerable skills remain alive and kicking.

MAGNET reached Westerberg at his Minneapolis home to discuss baseball, touring without a band and why he’s suddenly so prolific.

How’s your son Johnny doing?
He’s fine. He’s doing good. He’s in kindergarten right now.

So he’s, what, five years old?
Right. Yeah, he’s doing good.

One of the more touching moments from the Come Feel Me Tremble film was when that guy—I don’t know if you knew him or if he was a fan—gave you that baseball bat with Johnny’s name on it.
No, I didn’t know that guy. I met him right there in the street.

Have you given it to Johnny?
You know, I’ve hung onto it. I actually brought it over to my mom and dad’s to save for a while. It’s not the kind of thing I want to take out and break with one swing. I’ll probably hang on to it for clubbing burglars or something.

You seemed pretty moved by the gesture.
I was. The guy left a note with it that I won’t really go into, but it was all about how his father left him when he was a kid. I was feeling sort of the same way being on the road. But, yeah, it was very genuine.

You’re in Minneapolis and you wear a Minnesota Twins hat in the movie. Do you follow the Twins at all?
Yeah, I do. I’m a fair-weather fan, I guess. I haven’t watched for a couple of years, but the last two have been pretty exciting. I wish we could get right into the playoffs now and not have to play these last four games against the fucking Tigers. It’s probably a bad thing; it would be better if they could go play the Yankees right now. We’ll see what happens.

I think the Twins have lost something like 13 in a row to the Yankees.
I don’t know, but as of right now the Twins have won 11 in a row. They’re probably better off losing four games to Detroit—you know, have reality slap them in the face and come out shooting in the playoffs.

How was the experience working on the documentary? Did you enjoy it?
I didn’t enjoy it. [Laughs] I didn’t enjoy watching a whole bunch of footage of myself, really. Occasionally there was something that would catch my eye that was neat to see, but it was difficult. A lot of the performances were good, but the board sound wasn’t so good and the camera was really shaky, so we had to leave a lot of things out. In those instances, I wrote songs to fill in the space.

I think a lot of people might have expected the soundtrack to have live stuff on it, but here are these great new songs instead.
It’s just an excuse for me to release another record and call it a soundtrack, but essentially it’s a companion to the movie.

Did you give any thought to putting any of the live stuff on it?
At first we thought about it, and then once I started to write “What A Day (For A Night)” and—fuck, I can’t remember the names of them—a couple of the other tunes, it started to make sense that we should make it a whole new record unto itself. So if you want the live songs, you can buy the DVD or see the movie, and if you want the other tunes, you can buy the record.

How much footage did you go through? Wasn’t there some fan-shot stuff submitted?
Oh yeah, a good part of it is the fan stuff. I don’t think we would’ve had a movie with just our footage. The fans started sending in tapes and photographs and things, and once we started using that stuff, it really came to life and was sort of everybody’s movie. It belongs to everybody. My thought is that everyone who sees it will recognize one passage that their friend probably shot. It’s just a hodgepodge of everything that we got our hands on.

You said it was sort of an uncomfortable process to make the film, but what do you think of the final product?
I think it’s really good. I watched it a couple of nights ago, and I spent several nights where I watched it over and over again, and I think it really stands up objectively to a person who doesn’t even know much about me. It’s got enough different stuff in it, things that sort of demand your attention and other things that are frivolous and quick. I don’t know, I think it’s good.

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