(Soul Asylum)
While forever remembered for “Runaway Train,” Soul Asylum shared the punk “Fuck it!” spirit of fellow Minnesotans The Replacements. Never comfortable in the mainstream, front man Pirner was more comfortable fighting audience members than appearing on MTV.
This is so hard for me to do, because there’s such a shitshow of memories that I’ve suppressed. There were so many things that went wrong that I’ve tried to forget, but there’s also the “look back and laugh” factor, which is a good thing for keeping sane. Twenty years ago, that shit wasn’t funny at all. One thing that immediately comes to mind was a gig we played in Iowa City at a bar called Amelia’s in the early ’90s. It was a punk show, and everyone was slamming around. We were playing most excellently, of course, and someone threw a lit cigarette at me, which bounced off my face. I saw who did it, and I saw red. I flew off the stage and wrestled the dude to the ground.
It was an immediate reaction, which was kill. I tossed my guitar and attacked. Chaos erupted, and it turned into this huge hog pile. We were sitting backstage after the gig, and I was still pissed off. I’m grumbling to the band, “Who the fuck throws a lit cigarette?” This woman came into the dressing room, and said, “I’m so sorry about the kid that threw the cigarette. It was my son.” Turned out, she owned the bar. Then, she pulled out the biggest bag of cocaine I’ve ever seen in my life. She said, “Maybe this will make you feel better” and handed it to me. My only thought was, “This is a weird fucking life that I’ve chosen.”
It was very chaotic when we did gigs with The Replacements. We were two bands that would drink any other band under the table. During the Bob Stinson days, there was a lot of hilarity and irreverence. The attitude was, “We don’t give a fuck. Where’s the beer?” I still have that attitude, and I’ve never really grown out of it. Even in the MTV days, we had that punk attitude and wouldn’t put up with bullshit. We wanted to do everything our way and wouldn’t let anyone tell us what to do. It became a challenge as we were increasingly asked to do more things. I never really knew where to draw the line because people are always amused by tomfoolery and debauchery. We didn’t give a shit about anything, but we still had to do the job. We still wanted to play our music and not fuck it up.
People start to talk, and when you get a reputation for being crazy people, that doesn’t really help. I can’t name names for this story, but we were playing the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., back when it was the old 9:30 Club. We were playing a show with some good friends of ours, and one of the band members had some coke. I wasn’t aware because no one had offered me any. However, one of the guys in my band did a big, fat line, and about three minutes into our set, he turned to me and said, “Uhh…that wasn’t coke.” I’m like, “What’s going on? How do you feel.” His eyes were glazed and he muttered, “I don’t know…I don’t know.” I think it was the first and last time he had ever done a big line of heroin. He was so disoriented that it was kinda funny. Man, get a roadie to test that shit!
This one still makes me cringe. We were playing a huge festival in Holland called Pink Pop. It was the biggest crowd we had ever experienced. These festivals happen all the time now in America, but back in the early ’90s, it was a European phenomenon. There was one of those ramps that extends into the crowd, which we called the “ego ramp.” I’m not the lead guitarist, but for this gig, we decided I’d have a solo. I’m psyching myself up, as we were just a little punk band from Minnesota. I’m thinking, “I’m gonna walk out on that ego ramp and just rip this solo.” It was a long ramp, and right when I get to the end where I’m gonna rip this amazing solo for Holland the cord comes out of the guitar. I’m standing on this ramp, thinking I’m some guitar God, with no power coming out of my instrument.
When I realized what had happened and I turned to the band, they were all laughing at me. I was completely isolated on that ego ramp, thinking, “Well…so much for this gig.” I did the slow walk of shame back down the ramp and walked straight off stage. It got to be a grind, where we’d go to Paris and play “Runaway Train” on five different TV shows in one afternoon. It was very alienating. It’s not a song that is difficult for me to play, thankfully. It was way out of my range or something like that, things would have sucked a lot more.
We stopped playing it. We did a whole tour where it wasn’t in the set. We ended up putting it back in because I started getting the whole, “We drove all the way from Alaska and just wanted to hear one song, and you guys didn’t play it.” I started to think how stupid our refusal to play it was. Why not just play the goddamn thing? One night the booking manager from First Avenue in Minneapolis, who had seen us play eight million times, came backstage with his new baby. He said, “My baby and I were listening to “Runaway Train,” and it was such a special moment.” At that point, I realized it wasn’t really my song anymore. It really meant something to people.
I remember seeing a guy in a pub once that was playing traditional Irish songs by request on guitar. He had a little sign that read, “Danny’s Song. $10.” He got requested that song so much that he was completely sick of playing it. I began to think that I should wear a “Runaway Train” sign around my neck. I’m past all that. Now, it’s just another three minutes and forty-five seconds out of my life. I can handle it. I’m calloused to touring now. So much has gone wrong over the years that I still want to laugh and cry at the same time. But I still love it so much. Once we’re locked in and playing, I’m comfortable. The rest of it still sucks.