Thirty-five years after the release of their debut album, comes the definitive biography of one of the last great rock ‘n’ roll bands of the twentieth century: The Replacements. Written with the participation of the group’s key members, including reclusive singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg, bassist Tommy Stinson, and the family of late guitarist Bob Stinson, Trouble Boys is a deeply intimate portrait, revealing the primal factors and forces – addiction, abuse, fear – that would shape one of the most brilliant and notoriously self-destructive groups of all-time.

Based on a decade of research and reporting, hundreds of interviews (with family, friends, managers, producers and musical colleagues), as well as full access to the Replacements’ archives at Twin/Tone and Warner Bros. Records, author Bob Mehr has fashioned something far more compelling than a conventional band bio. Trouble Boys is a heartbreakingly tragic, frequently comic, and, ultimately, triumphant epic.  

Bob Mehr is the author of the New York Times bestseller Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements. An NPR, Amazon and Rolling Stone book of the year, it earned the ASCAP Foundation’s “Timothy White Award” for Outstanding Biography, and was named one of Billboard’s “100 Greatest Music Books of All Time.

In addition to his roles as a music editor and critic for Village Voice Media and USA Today, Mehr is a contributor to The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and has been a U.S. correspondent for Europe’s leading music magazine, MOJO, since 2003. 

Since 2008, he has been an independent producer for Warner Music Group’s catalog division, Rhino Entertainment, conceiving, directing, and producing premier releases, boxed sets and series. 

In 2017, Mehr launched the highly successful catalog campaign for Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame nominees The Replacements, with titles including the Billboard chart-topping For Sale: Live at Maxwell’s 1986, the GRAMMY-winning boxed set Dead Man’s Pop and expanded versions of the classic albums Pleased to Meet Me and Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, and Tim.

A GRAMMY winner for “Best Album Notes” in 2021, Mehr has been an essayist for dozens of career-spanning retrospectives and projects from artists including Otis Redding, The Dixie Chicks, The Kinks, Warren Zevon, Al Green, The Staples Singers, and Big Star. 

In 2023, Mehr earned his second GRAMMY for the album notes to the 20th anniversary Super Deluxe Edition of Wilco’s landmark LP, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. 

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