Tommy Stinson’s Cowboys in the Campfire Announce Debut LP ‘WRONGER’

Photo credit: Vivian Wang

Former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson’s latest venture is called Cowboys in the Campfire — a duo with good pal Chip Roberts — and its debut album, WRONGER, (due out June 2) is perhaps the most American album the singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer has ever made.

WRONGER’s 10 tracks ride a giddy trail of twang and grit, melody and (mostly lyrical) mayhem. The very first song, “Here We Go Again,” sets the tone; Stinson on ukulele, singing about the ardors of creativity, while horns swell and there’s not a hint of percussion other than the perceptible tapping of feet by the musicians in the room. It’s stark and immediate, like sitting right in the middle of the maelstrom. From there we encounter a broad and passionate range of feels, from the rough ‘n’ tumble rockabilly of “That’s It” to “We Ain’t,” a shuffle straight out of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. Stinson and Roberts take us from Nashville to Bakersfield on songs such as “Mr. Wrong” and “Fall Apart Together,” while “Schemes,” “Souls” and “Dream” are showcases of an ace pop songwriter.

“I’m not one to be pigeonholed — but I’m not putting a lot of thought into it that I DON’T want to be pigeonholed,” Stinson, who now resides in the out-of-the-way environs of Hudson, N.Y., says with a laugh. “For me it’s always been that the songs pretty much tell you what they’re going to do. I can sit there and work a song into the ground, forcing my will on it, or you can listen to the song and go, ‘What does this want?’ and do that. I’ve always done it that way. Ultimately it’s more about, ‘Let’s try and get the best 10 and take what we’ve got and make them the best they can be.'”

Cowboys in the Campfire was “a joke at first,” according to Stinson, dating back more than a decade. Roberts is the uncle of Stinson’s second ex-wife; he hails from the Philadelphia rock scene, where he was a gun-for-hire guitar slinger for visiting musicians who needed accompaniment. “We’ve been really good friends and writing partners pretty much since we met each other,” Stinson says. “We were writing rock tunes to ballads or country or Americana, but we’ve both come from that sort of singer-songwriter thing.” Neither man expected their association to become an ongoing musical concern, especially as Stinson had plenty on his plate.

Tracklisting:

  1. Here We Go Again
  2. That’s It
  3. Mr. Wrong
  4. Schemes
  5. Fall Apart Together
  6. Hey Man
  7. We Ain’t
  8. Karma’s Bitch
  9. Souls
  10. Dream

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