There are at least two Tom Stinsons from Minnesota. One of them is Thomas Stinson, the state’s economist. The other, more famous Stinson, goes by Tommy, and was the bassist for The Replacements, the seminal ‘80s punk band from Minneapolis. While the two men could not have more different occupations, over the years Tom Stinson, the economist, has endured numerous phone calls from Replacements fans looking to chat with Tommy Stinson, the rocker.

“We would get phone calls at two or three or even four o’clock in the morning from people who had been heavily indulging in recreational chemicals and they were wanting to talk to ‘the greatest bass player in the world’ and when I would tell them I wasn’t that person they would get upset,” reports Mr. Stinson, the economist, who has a slow, careful speech that is much more economist than rock star.

The Replacements, for the uninitiated, were formed in Minneapolis in the late ‘70s by Mr. Stinson (the bassist, not the economist) along with his brother Bob, frontman Paul Westerberg and drummer Chris Mars. Some of their early shows were at now-closed Jay’s Longhorn Bar, which, like Tommy Stinson, also shared a tenuous economics connection: The downtown Minneapolis venue was just a few blocks from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve bank.