Chris Mars
| Chris Mars | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Christopher Edward Mars |
| Born | April 26, 1961 |
| Genres | Alternative rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, producer, painter |
| Instruments | Drums, vocals, guitar, keyboards |
| Years active | 1979-'96 |
| Labels | Bar/None, Smash, Sire, Twin/Tone |
| Associated acts | The Replacements |
| Website | chrismarspublishing |
Chris Mars (born April 26, 1961) is an American painter and musician. He was the drummer for the seminal Minneapolis alternative-rock band the Replacements from 1979 to 1990, then joined the informal supergroup Golden Smog before beginning a solo career. Mars more or less left music behind in the late '90s in order to concentrate on his artwork.
In Rolling Stone's Alt Rock-a-Rama Mars detailed the kind of hell-raising that he and the other Replacements—singer-guitarist Paul Westerberg, lead guitarist Bob Stinson, and bassist Tommy Stinson—indulged in when they were together. Among other incidents, Mars was thrown in jail for playing chicken with an unmarked police car. Also, in conjunction with Bob Stinson, he sabotaged a gig where he knew there would be a lot of record-industry personnel in attendance by going to a novelty store and purchasing some bottles of stink juice.
Mars appeared on only a few songs on the Replacements' final album, All Shook Down (1990), and left before the subsequent tour, unhappy with Westerberg's increasing control of the band. The Replacements disbanded on July 4, 1991, the final date of the All Shook Down tour.
In late 2005 Mars rejoined Westerberg and Tommy Stinson to record two new songs for a Replacements best-of compilation, Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? (2006), but he only sang backing vocals on the tracks—Josh Freese did the actual drumming. Mars also contributed a cover of Slim Dunlap's 1996 song "Radio Hook Word Hit" to the 2013 EP Songs for Slim, a recording made to help pay the hospital bills of the former Replacement (Dunlap replaced Bob Stinson in the band's lineup in 1987), who had suffered a stroke one year earlier. Songs for Slim is credited to the Replacements, but neither Westerberg nor Tommy Stinson appears on "Radio Hook Word Hit," just as Mars doesn't appear on the EP's other four tracks. Mars didn't join Westerberg and Stinson for the Replacements' 2013-'15 reunion tours.
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