Perfect

Following the Replacements’ dissolution in the early 1990s, Tommy Stinson launched Bash & Pop and issued the lone album Friday Night Is Killing Me. Because Stinson had written the entire record alone in his attic, the project never functioned as a genuine band and lacked the expected rock energy, a shortcoming that became obvious once he assembled a touring lineup. He therefore abandoned the venture and, in August 1995, assembled Perfect, a group whose sound aligned more closely with his established style. The lineup featured Stinson on bass and vocals, Marc Solomon on guitar and vocals, Dave Philips on guitar and vocals, and Gersh on drums.

The band began performing immediately and attracted the interest of Medium Cool Records after label founder Peter Jesperson, a former Replacements manager, witnessed one of their explosive hometown shows in Los Angeles. Medium Cool first released the EP When Squirrels Play Chicken in 1996; produced by Don Smith, whose credits include Keith Richards and Cracker, the record marked a return to Stinson’s loose, roots-rock approach. In 1997 the group entered the studio with producer Jim Dickinson, who had previously helmed the Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me, to record the full-length Seven Days a Week. Before the album could reach stores, however, Medium Cool’s distribution partner Restless Records came under the control of Regency Pictures, which placed the finished LP on hold. The resulting impasse prompted Perfect’s breakup in 1998.

Stinson later joined Axl Rose’s reconstituted Guns N’ Roses as bassist and released a solo album, while Philips collaborated with Frank Black, Solomon performed with both Clumsy and Solly, and Gersh established a drum sales and rental business. Rykodisc eventually issued a remixed and reordered version of Seven Days a Week under the title Once, Twice, Three Times a Maybe in 2004. Guitarist Dave Philips succumbed to cancer on February 22, 2021, at the age of 52.