The Secret History of R.E.M.
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I'm Brian Hyatt. This is Rolling Stone Music Now. Today, I'm going to talk with the author, Peter Ames Carlin, about a great book he released late last year. It's called The Name of This Band is R.E.M., a biography. And as you might guess, it is, in fact, a biography of the band R.E.M., a very great and important band and a reminder of how great and important and interesting they were. Welcome, Peter. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

So one of the things that's great about this book is it's a reminder that you don't need access to the actual members of a band to write a great and revealing book about them. And in fact...

I think sometimes there's advantages to not having that access. That's great to hear because it can be a little daunting to get into a project and try to write about somebody and get to know them without direct access. But on the other hand, it also can be sort of freeing in the sense that you're not being influenced by what they want you to say about them or what they want you to know and what they don't want you to know.

But the guys in REM, I mean, they're an interesting and paradoxical band of folks because they, on the one hand, obviously, like any artist, they want their work to be well-known. They want people to hear their music. They want people to be impacted by it and to respond to it. And so getting their work as high profile as possible is terrific.

But on the other hand, they have never wanted to be personally famous. Probably the only one who came close to that was Michael Stipe.

who had more of a sense of comfort with the spotlight, wrestled with himself over that. But they had done a ton of interviews over the years. There was less information about their personal lives. When I write about somebody, what I want to know about their personal lives is how did it feed into the work and then how was it impacted by the work, particularly when they became successful.

It was relatively easy to find people who knew them, who were their friends, grown up with them or made music with them or just gotten to know them in some way, shape or form. And a lot of those people were eager to talk about these guys. And I think one of the ways that the guys in the band were quite helpful to me was that whenever anybody reached out to them and said, can I talk to this guy? They said, yeah, go for it. I knew Peter because I lived in Portland for a long time.

And Peter lived there for the last 12 or 15 years. So, I got to know him, and we had a lot of friends in common. I'd see him around. I knew their manager, Bertus, pretty well over 20-plus years. So, I'd seen the guys around, and I had a lot of friends in common with them. So, there was a sense that they knew who I was, they knew the work that I did, and they were relatively comfortable with me. Did they not want to talk because of that fear about their private lives? What was your sense?

I think it was because they left their band, you know, in 2011. And, you know, none of them are really trying to be famous, you know, or super well known. Peter plays music constantly with Scott McCoy in Portland. And they're in at least half a dozen bands producing and touring with other artists. Peter works constantly, but I've seen him so many times in Portland playing at my neighborhood tavern.

Doing the Minus Five, which is Scott McCoy's band, he was a bassist and sometimes guitarist, and had a residency, like a happy hour residency at the Laurel Thirst Tavern in Portland, Oregon. And I could go on Wednesdays and just buy a pint or whatever and stand 10 feet from Peter and watch him play guitar. I've seen him play shows, and that was a

fairly well-attended residency. But I saw them play shows in Northeast Portland on rainy Tuesday nights in February, where there were more people on stage than there were watching. Peter was ecstatic to be there, just because he loves to play music in front of people.

And he's playing music with his friends. His face was alive and lit up. And then he carries his amp back to the car and goes home. That's who he is, you know. And Bill plays music around Athens with his buddies, you know, with less performing. But still, Mike is doing his kind of quasi-symphonic stuff with his friends. Michael's running around the world singing.

seeing art, making photographs, and just being Michael, which seems like a lot of fun. Bill Barry left REM, obviously, in 1997, yet he has some new band that he recorded with just a couple years ago and even made music videos with. He didn't tour with it, but there he was back, and it really got under notice that this happened.

The Bad Ends. Yeah, that's a cool record, you know. But they're his friends, you know. I mean, they're his buddies from Athens. And I think one of the interesting things about Bill was, as hard as he worked, one of his contributions to the band, along with his musicality and his abilities as a composer and also an editor, which was key because he was the guy that they all trusted, one of their musicians,

The utility musician guys told me that like they'd be playing a new song or whatever. And when it started getting too long or Bill got bored, he'd just throw his sticks in the air and be like, no, no, no, no, no. We got to cut this back. This is too fucking long. He came in with this real ambition and a real solid sense of how the industry worked because of his work with the booking company in Macon when he was a kid.

where he met Ian Copeland for the first time. And so when they first formed their band in the spring of 1980 and began to think about getting shows not just in Athens, but also in Atlanta and elsewhere, Bill went back to his booking agency friends and basically they just gave him a sheaf of names and phone numbers. He already knew, having talked to these guys and worked in that office, what you need to do to get shows.

You call this guy, tell him who you are and what you've done. Maybe if you have a demo, you can send it to him. He was the guy that helped them get from the basement to being an actual professional performing band.

and was the guy who essentially insisted that everybody had to drop out of college if they were really going to do this. He made it very clear that if they didn't drop out, he would leave the band. The ultimate good/bad influence, yes. It was really interesting to get that picture of Michael Stipe as a Rocky Horror Picture Show kid. How supportive

Despite the fact that this was a guy who, you know, of course, took him years to fully talk about it, but he was, of course, queer. He would go on to have relationships with both men and women. He's described himself as gay and then 80% gay. He doesn't like the word bi. That's why I say queer. It's a little nebulous to precisely define it. I think he probably prefers queer. But this was a kid who grew up...

with that sexuality and was a pretty flamboyant kid and yet his father was in the Air Force, right? And a pretty squared away guy and yet was, you describe him getting ready to go out in full Rocky Horror Picture Show drag and his dad is like, is that how you're going out? Okay, well, have a great time. So it's nice that there isn't what you'd expect there. There isn't that sort of conflict and oppression in that household. Yeah.

It was interesting because some of Michael's childhood friends, this one friend of his who was a Boy Scout, described that Mr. Stipe, who was, I think, the scoutmaster in Michael's troop for a while, was always wearing his flight suit and a cavalry hat in the Air Force, recon pilots or whatever. Like the character Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now. This guy said that when he saw Apocalypse Now, he was...

suspected that character was based on Mr. Stipe because he had the same hat and he had the same... But on the other hand, he wasn't like a blowhard type of guy. He was very quiet in a way. But he also had been a recon pilot, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. And that was as dangerous a job as you could get.

because they flew over the enemy encampments. And then when the enemy would see you, they would blast away at you. And we had this incredible battlefield experience and this career in the military. But on the other hand, he was gentle and kind and didn't care that his kid was going out dressed in

in drag as a teenager and was very supportive when Michael began to try to build a career in music. One of the interesting things about those guys is that it just goes to show you how far ahead of the game you are if you come from a loving, supportive family, because they really all did. I think Peter had the roughest childhood of them all just because his dad, I think, was hard to connect with.

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Huddle up. It's me, Angel Reese. You can't beat the post-game burger and fries, right? Know what else you can't beat? The Angel Reese Special. Let's break it down. My favorite barbecue sauce, American cheese, crispy bacon, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun, of course. And don't forget the fries and a drink. It's gonna be a high C for me. Sound good? All you have to do to get it is beat me in a one-on-one.

I'm just playing. Get the Angel Reef Special at McDonald's now. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. I participate in restaurants for a limited time. Yeah, it was his dad who, even to his death apparently, even with Peter very successful in REM, just couldn't appreciate it. Yeah. Just was still mad that he didn't finish college and stuff. That is not a story you hear. You hear a lot of stories about musicians' parents who understandably aren't happy at the beginning. You don't hear a lot where they just refuse to accept even the success. That was sad. That was unusual. Yeah.

You know, I think Peter bears the scars in a sense, because I don't think he ever really, at least according to things that he'd said or whatever. I mean, you never really get the sense that they had a rapprochement that even as his dad was dying, I think.

I think one of the things Peter said about his family to the media was describing how while his dad was dying, he looked at Peter and said, "Listen, you better make a million dollars playing rock and roll because you cannot do anything else." Which on the one hand, you could see that as a supportive statement, but on the other hand, you could see that as a very diminishing statement.

You know, the implication that Peter got wasn't because that's who you are and that's what matters to you and you have to be who you are. That didn't seem to be the what he was saying. What he was saying was you're fucking loose. A couple other things about Stipe early on is, you know, the book reminds you of how much his appearance was a big part of his sort of.

early on. In high school, he was first asked to be in a band because he looked like he should be in a band. He had this luscious long hair and was dressing like, you know, there's pictures where he's walking around like sort of Robert Plant in The Song Remains the Same or something. I think for people who

who were more attuned to the visuals of 90s REM when he was presenting a more austere image and it lost his hair. He was a heartthrobby kind of guy early on, and that was a big part of the whole thing. And then also the fact that I just love the fact that his first band in high school covered the Rush song Working Man because I just love that there would ever be any crossover between those two bands is very funny to me.

Well, he was very, very early on, you know, I mean, that friend of his, Melanie, now known as Noni Crow, they were best friends in high school. They both wanted to be rock stars, you know, and she talks about like they would sit around in her bedroom, you know, and look at copies of Rolling Stone, Cream and Circus and everything and bet each other like who was going to be interviewed in Rolling Stone first, you know, or have this thing. And, you know, and she joined a

band as a singer and he was really envious but scared to try you know but then she encouraged him to audition for the band that he joined so it was like they both had this shared thing and I thought it was kind of a sweet story she told about the night before R.E.M. were going to be on Letterman for the first time in 1983 Michael called her out of the blue like they hadn't talked in a couple years because he had moved away he

He just called her out of the blue and goes, hey, guess what? I'm going to be a Letterman tomorrow. And she's like, you son of a bitch. Like, you did it. You actually did it. Like, I can't believe this. And she tells that story about, like, the next night, she's staying up late with her mom to watch Letterman. And her mom is shaking her head going and pointing to Michael going, that boy babysat for your nephew. Right.

And it was sort of-- but then again, he was so tremendously gifted. That band was sort of new wavy cover band. He was in The Bad Habits. And they had their one big show opening for Rock Pile. They just came out and played their set or whatever of Clever songs mostly.

Michael was so entrancing to these girls who were watching that the girl's boyfriends decided like, well, we better go kick that guy's ass. And so they like track the guys down, like when they're trying to load their stuff in the van and they're like, we're going to beat you up.

because our girlfriends think you're cute. Michael was having none of that and it became a whole street fight and somebody got cut with a bottle and it wasn't fun for anyone. But at any rate, just the fact that this kid can get up there at 18 years old with his first band and perform and be so magnetic on stage. You know, women's boyfriends are enraged.

It's like, that's a guy with some magnetism happening. I also thought it was funny that when his family moved to Athens, Georgia...

He was initially reluctant to move there, reluctant to go to school there because he assumed it would be some like Southern Hick town, which is funny given how closely, of course, they became associated with that town. Yeah. A hippie cow town, he said. He goes, I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. He wrote that letter to Melanie. Then he finally relaxed enough to look around him at art school and

And it was like it was full of cool people. Suddenly the penny dropped and it was like, oh no, this is actually great. Then he found Wuxstree Records where Peter was working and got to know him. It was like...

"Ah, I've got a community here. Maybe this'll be great." And of course, he still lives there, or at least part of the time. It was also interesting to me that he and Peter Buck were bonding over music they read about in The Village Voice. It's interesting that it was functioning as a sort of proto-Internet way of bringing people together and learning about -- you forget that an alt-weekly like that

supposedly local was actually being read all over the country and forming that kind of community. It was just really an interesting sort of period detail in the book. They both were reading Rolling Stone or, excuse me, Village Boys at the same time. And both of them in the hinterlands because Michael was in the suburbs of St. Louis when Peter was in some suburb of Atlanta. I forget what it was called. But they were both entranced by the music section in the back and the abs.

You know, and you forget like one of the things that we miss in our new everything's online world is how much cultural information you would learn from opening a magazine or a newspaper and looking at the ads or seeing an article that

you weren't intending to read, but something about the photograph or the headline or something catches your eye. You know, there's a lot of that kind of stuff that's like a bank shot that you're not expecting to be interested in. And then it sort of changes your life. But like Stipe talked about, I mean, just the names of the bands, um,

that were playing in lower Manhattan in the late 70s. All those punk bands had incredible names. And the photographs and the articles about Patti Smith and television and all those guys, you know. And then plus also for a guy with an evolving sexual orientation or one that he's becoming acquainted with as he moves through adolescence, the porn movies and the

ads, you know, in the gay clubs and this whole Demi-Monde universe that completely opened his eyes to ways of living and being that were totally possible. But you wouldn't know it if you lived in Collinsville, Illinois, outside of St. Louis. Or for Peter, if you're living in suburban Atlanta in this kind of executive space.

belt of fairly well-to-do middle manager types. The Village Voice was like a lifeline, the passport to a whole world that was like, holy shit, this exists. Like this is actually real and I can be a part of this, you know? And then of course they take that, the two of them took that first trip up to New York in the spring of 1980. I think right before that REM played their first show, it was like walking into a dream. They just couldn't believe it. They kept running into people.

And seeing Klaus Nomi, I think they bumped into and someone else from some other band. And then they got invited to a birthday party and Lester Bangs was there and told Peter he was a rotten cocksucker, which I think Peter thought was fabulous. Yeah, no, the Village Voice, you know, threw open the gates for them.

And then the other thing, of course, Peter Buck is the ultimate record store clerk made good. The ultimate music nerd who actually steps into that world is such a weird thing that he was very much that guy. You know, the guy who will tell you about the B-side really straight out of High Fidelity and yet became the guitarist in one of the biggest rock bands ever. Strange thing. Perhaps the only time that ever really happened.

Well, one of the guys in the Pet Shop Boys was a music journalist. Oh, that's right. Neil Tennant, I think. Some guys have been able to get over the wall from the nerd sector where we live. But it's a very rare thing. You're right. The moment that Michael walked into that record store in Wuxbury and started talking to Peter, even though he thought his name was Richard for the longest time, it was like, oh,

"Oh, you know these guys and that band." Peter finding common cause with this guy was like, "Oh, we're like brothers. So yeah, of course, if you're interested in this, we don't have any copies in the shop, but I'll bring over mine and you can borrow it." - I like how you catch Peter repeatedly lying about never having played guitar before and really just constructing this mythology when actually he wasn't confident in his ability, but actually had been playing for quite some time.

Yeah, nonstop too. But the one thing he wasn't lying about was that he had never been in a band. That part's true. One of the things in Athens that marked the art bands from the more basic rock bands was that these bands would come together, especially if their members had been studying

at the Lamar Dodd School of Arts. They had this sort of shared aesthetic that came both from folk culture and also from punk culture, which was that you didn't necessarily need to be able to play an instrument to join a band. And in fact, a lot of those bands

pylon b-52s love tractor and the side effects it was like okay we're a band what instrument do you want to learn how to play and then they would sort of create like their aesthetic their sort of shared aesthetic was like mastery is not important

What is important is having an original idea. If you don't know how to play an instrument, but you find your own way to it, you can create a sound that is wholly unique. If you listen to Pylon, they don't play covers because they can't. And the one song that they did use to cover, it just sounded like...

a pylon song, because that's the only way they could play. But they came up with really unique, Randy Buley and Michael Lahusky, the bassist and the guitar player, came up with super unique sounding music, because they didn't know how to play in the traditional way. The B-52s were the same. They got to their first rehearsal, except for Ricky Wilson, I think was a great guitar player. But the others were just figuring it out one step at a time.

That was kind of the measure of coolness because it meant that you weren't cynical about it, that you were truly in it for the art and the expression. There was something very cool and casual about saying, we didn't even know how to play our instruments until we formed our band. It just didn't happen to be true. Conversely, REM had a sort of cheat code in the fact that Bill Burry...

Their drummer and Mike Mills, their bass player, had actually played together throughout high school or even earlier. Yeah, they were great. I mean, that was the thing. They had played in this quite successful teen cover band in Macon when they were growing up, Shadowfats. And then they sort of evolved into the Backdoor Band, which was more jammy. But it was like, you know, they're playing Allman Brothers songs. You know, they're playing all the big hits of, you know, the FM rock era.

hits of the day, you know, the mid-70s and stuff. And they got real professional gigs. They were not screwing around. And Mike Mills is a highly trained musician and very conversant on virtually every instrument he picks up. I think Bill might be less trained, but also extremely talented, not just as a drummer, but plays guitar, keyboards, bass, and wrote a lot of the more sort of memorable musical moments in R.E.M.'s songs.

I think one of the many things the book is a reminder of is how important context was

to the successful bands of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and how much having a thriving world of bands around you could make all the difference. When they played their famous first show in a church, they were doing so in a context, as you just suggested, where Pylon was this big thing, B-52s were around. It was a thriving Athens scene where everyone seemed like they were hungry for the next band. And then on top of that, they were the classic band that

transcends the scene to the point where they instantly make people uncomfortable in the fact that they had you know, they were sort of because you know, they all Unlike as you just said all those bands who were formed on the spot and then decided what instrument to play even Michael Stipe who wasn't a musician per se at that point was currently in that other successful cover band playing like playing

crowd-pleasing cover band stuff. And they played, even in their first show, they played covers by, what, the Monkees, the Sex Pistols? That was also very unusual, right, for that song? Yeah, yeah. Well, and the Velvet Underground, you know, all the favorites that they used to do. But their sort of particular magic was...

the fact that they sort of, they identified the threads that connected the monkeys to the sex pistols, you know, and Peter hilariously, when he saw the sex pistols, because he actually did see the

first American show. I think that they had in Atlanta before he got thrown out. It was complicated, but he saw a bunch of the early part of their set. And he said that they were, he was sort of was picking up on the fact of how Malcolm McLaren had basically invented that band and put them together. And he said they were just basically the angry monkeys, you know?

But on the other hand, they wrote great. You know, it's like the same thing with the monkeys. It's like, oh, some of these songs are actually really good. But they did sort of have one of the guys. I can't remember if it was the drummer, Curtis Crowe or the guys from Pylon or the Glovetractor guys who were telling me that when they saw R.E.M. for the first time at the church on the opening night, the first sense they got was, oh,

"Wow, like these guys can actually play covers and you can hear what song it is." And it was like the sense of these guys are actually really good musicians. This is on a whole other order than what we're doing. And to some extent, people were thinking like these are the guys to watch. But on the other hand, there was a certain amount of resentment. Lahusky taking Anthony de Curtis around Athens

was saying like, yeah, they're a pop band. They're not like the rest. They're not an art band. They're a pop band. I think La Husky eventually, you know, maybe not even terribly eventually kind of realized like, no, no, no, they actually have a lot going on. That's interesting. And they became quite close. But at first there was definitely some

some competition and sharp elbows. It was pretty clear that there was this magic there. Women in the crowd were screaming before they even played a note at their very first show.

It was working instantaneously. Yeah, there was an energy with them. And I think the fact that they were cute didn't hurt either. Michael was so conscious of how he looked and dressed cool and in his way. I mean, I don't think he was obnoxious about it, but he was just a cool guy. And people really liked him.

Peter, you know, especially people who are interested in music would have known him. He's the cool guy behind the counter. Bill and Mike are college kids and live in the dorm with everybody else. But when they got together, there was definitely a vibe about that band, something magnetic about them. And I think they felt it too. You know, they talk about their early rehearsals being very eye-opening. It was like...

It's like, you know, you get together to jam with a couple of guys. They each came in as kind of two pairs. Bill and Mike were buddies and Peter and Michael were buddies. Catherine O'Brien bridged them and suggested they all play together. So they, you know, talked at a party or two and got together to play. And they said it was like, really from the jump, it was like, oh,

Oh, like, this is great. It was like, those guys are a great rhythm section. And Bill and Mike are thinking, these guys have interesting songs and that guy can really sing. Peter had such a distinctive way of playing the guitar, largely because he wasn't interested in being Eric Clapton or taking solos. You know, he's a rhythm guitar player.

and way more interested in being a part of a band as opposed to being the soloist in front of the band. They form in 1980, and then by '81, the original version of Radio Free Europe is out.

That does kind of suggest how quickly things coalesce for them. I mean, that's, you know, that's a song that embodied their sound for the next few years and they had it right away. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, but I think one of the secrets to that was the fact that once they got going, they worked incredibly hard and they never really let up.

Both Peter and Michael and Bill and Mike had been composing songs on their own. They each had pieces to sort of bring together. And I think it was just one of those things where they were all very talented in very complimentary ways. And one of the things that they had in common was their willingness to work their asses off often.

all the time and to throw their stuff in the car or van and drive from place to place to play anywhere. Those bands like Pylon made a point of not playing certain towns because they didn't want to have to deal with people that weren't going to get who they were. They wanted to play for sophisticated crowds who they didn't need to explain themselves to, largely because their band was, to a great extent, an art project.

It was almost like a traveling art installation about a rock band. They went into it with that understanding. We're going to do this. We're going to get a gig in New York. And once we get a show in New York and get written about in New York Rocker, we'll be done.

You know, that's the show. Then they got into it and I think they began to get more out of it than they thought. But REM from the get-go, once they got rolling, they'd go anywhere. They'd play pizza parlors, they'd play gay bars, they'd play frat parties. They did not have an attitude about appealing to the Greek communities in all these different places. Not because they wanted to be those guys.

But it was just like, these guys like to party. They like to dance. If they want to book us, their money spends as good as the gay bar money. So let's go there. They were... I mean, definitely one of the things I took away from the book is that they were more unambiguously ambitious than maybe I realized. And from the start, I think it's more...

if I had to pinpoint it, is they were always ambitious. They wanted to succeed, but they wanted to succeed on their own terms, which is maybe more precisely the vein that the 90s alternative stuff did pick up from them, which is, as opposed to 90s college rock like Pavement, it was more like 90s alternative. It was like, we do want to succeed. We do want to be big. We just need to do it

according to our own rules. They helped prove that that was possible. If you had to put the thread more finely, maybe that's the distinction here. They had a lot of really strong ideas about what they wanted to be and how they wanted to be in opposition to mainstream culture. But on the other hand, as long as they maintained control over their art,

as long as they maintained control over how they were presented. A lot of other compromises then appeal to mainstream culture to be resilient about maintaining control over the work, over the music. I think also the benefit of coming from solid families

really helped them the benefit of having strong friendships and connections within the band before they even began to get remotely famous or well-known. And I think the fact that very early on, Peter twigged to the fact his reading of the literature of rock and roll proved to him over and over again that there are always two things that break bands up.

One is credit and one is royalties. Sitting down with the guys before they had any songs published or any records out and saying, here's how we're not going to fight about money and credit. We're going to divide everything in equal shares. And that's all there is to it.

And it doesn't matter who wrote what or what. It's all going to be Ferry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe. And we're each going to divide the money in equal shares. In some ways, the person to really thank for sticking with that is Mike Mills because he wrote Don't Go Back to Rockville. Unambiguously, just him. Music, lyrics, melody, the whole bit. That's his song. But when it came out, it was brutal.

Barry, Buck, Mills & Stipe, and they divided the money. He knew that there were enough other songs where either he contributed a little bit or nothing at all that he was also going to get royalties and credit for. That was a very, very important thing. They just managed to steer clear of the traditional pitfalls and sources of agita that drag bands apart.

They were also very smart about who they brought on board to help them. Jefferson Holtz, their manager, Brittis Downs as their attorney. The fact that they said, "No matter how successful we get, no matter what happens, A, we're not firing our guys, and B, we're not moving our offices outside Athens. We're always going to be home."

And we're not going to get corrupted by the fast-paced worlds in LA or New York. Not that they didn't go to those places and enjoy the fast-paced worlds, but I think they also realized that was fun for a little while. You have to go home and catch your breath and catch up on your sleep. It's notable how long the first phase of their career really lasted.

First there was Chronic Town, which was what, like 82? 82. Often Forgotten, but which has some cool songs on it that bear re-listening. Oh yeah, I love Chronic Town. I prefer Chronic Town to Murmur. Don't at me. Sometimes I forget. I went back and listened to it reading the book and I said, oh yeah, Chronic Town, there's some good shit on this. Wolves Lower, great song. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

But then Murmur, which I do love, and I just, I think has this, you know, it just stands out of time to mention a later R.E.M. album, but it has this timeless haunted thing that's really incredible. And then they make one great record after another, all sticking with their indie label or IRS, Reckoning in 84, Fables of the Reconstruction in 85, and then they make another

Then with Life's Rich Pageant in 86, they get Don Gaiman, who was John Cougar Mellencamp's producer. So that was very controversial at the time. And they start to beef things up. You do a great job of evoking how controversial it was to get a Mellencamp producer for this very cool band. It was very frightening to their fans. And then Document. Document.

And things start to blow up. But then not till 1988 did they finally sign to Warner Brothers and release their major label debut. So it's like the whole of the 80s, practically. They spend as indie darlings. And the reason they managed the indie darlings was the fact that they lived in that van of theirs.

and went from town to town. They were super smart. When they got into town, they would go to the college radio station, do an interview and chat up the staff because they knew that was the bat signal in that particular town for their listeners. And also, it was a great place to make friends and meet girls or maybe boys, too, if you're Michael. I don't know if he was actively, you know, nobody's business in a sense. Hmm.

but whatever they found people to be friends with let's put it that way and they were super good at remembering those people so that when they came back to town they would go oh brian great to see you you coming tonight like we'll put you on the list and then come hang out with us and and they would go to parties and get to know people so they sort of built their the foundation of their audience hand by hand

like literally going to these places and getting to know people, having a beer with them and going to their house for the party afterwards, which was also a good place for them to find food and free drinks. So, can't underestimate that. But they built this big audience. And then starting in about 85 or so, it's when you get your first wave of stories of, will success ruin REM? There's that entertainment, ironically, an Entertainment Tonight

piece about, will success ruin these indie darlings, REM, you know, this college band. And one of the lines in the setup is, they even have a fan club, you know, who knew? On the other hand, they were so smart about it and their work just evolved. And it became, I think in a lot of ways, better. They became a lot better at writing songs and better at producing records. Murmur was

produced by Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, the first two full-length records, Murmur and Reckoning. Then in 1985, they went to London to work with Joe Boyd, who had worked with the Incredible String Band and Pink Floyd. He was an American guy, but he was and remains an expat in London. But then when they connected with Don Gemmon to work on Lice Rich Pageant, it's like, oh my God, you know,

Mellencamp's producer. Like, how is this possible? But on the other hand, it's like, listen to Mellencamp's songs. You know what I mean? From the mid-80s, unlike a lot of people, he did not do that big thing with the booming drums and a lot of synths. What Gaiman could do, which they valued, was his ability to interweave electric instruments, like a good crunchy electric guitar sound, with a strong but not overwhelming drum sound, while it

using accordions, mandolins, and a fiddle, blending them into a sound that was interesting and textured, top 10 hits. And Mellencamp in the 80s was hit after hit. And some of them are actually pretty good. I mean, I like a lot of that stuff.

And a lot of that is the stuff they were listening to from like Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee. Those are rock and roll pop hits with mandolins and accordions and violins on them. Fiddles, basically. Gaiman came in and respected what they were doing, respected their songwriting, respected the fact that they were coming at things from sort of left field. But on the other hand, he really leaned on Michael to educate

boost the vocals and the mix and be more clear about what he was trying to say. You write these cool lyrics, let's let people hear them, you know. And on the other hand, he'd say, you write these cool lyrics, but these lines here are half-baked. What the hell are you saying? Michael would get offended and mad and then come back the next day having rewritten them. And that's the point at which your sense of who they are as a band or what they're trying to say starts to come more into focus.

And there's a lot to be said for the earlier murky stuff. I understand why people love that stuff. You know, it's so different from what was going on in mainstream music at the time. That was hugely valuable. But on the other hand, as they evolved to the point where people could connect, you know, mainstream listeners could connect with them, they did not prostitute themselves to get there. They stayed very true to who they were and what they were trying to do every step of the way.

When you consider that they had five indie albums over the course of years, and whereas Nirvana a few years later had one indie album and then came out with Nevermind, you can understand why that was not handled as well, that transition. Yeah, they had 11 years to come up with their Nevermind.

By that time, they're in their early 30s. They're sophisticated guys. They've been working together. They know themselves. Look at how weird things got for them in the mid-90s when they went on to... They had At A Time that was sold like 15 million copies, and then they had

Automatic for the People, which sold 15 million copies, and both of those without touring. Mammothly successful. And Monster instantly sells 10 million copies. By the time they hit the road again in '95, there were kids at the airport waiting for them. It was like The Beatles.

Just the fact that our MTV covered the start of not only the first show, but then leaving to go to Australia for the first show, which wasn't going to be for another two weeks. And they did that live interview at LAX in the gate there with a special set. I remember seeing that and just feeling like, holy shit, these guys are the Beatles.

It was a great time to be a rock and roll fan and definitely to be an REM fan. It is wild. I mean, I guess my understanding from the book is that the reason they didn't tour after

after the Green tour for quite some time. Does it really come down to Bill Berry's ambivalence about touring? Was that really what it was, or no? By that time, by the end of the Green tour in 1989, they had been on the road basically nonstop for 10 years.

And I think they got themselves to a point where it's like, "Okay, now we're signed to Warner. Every record that we've made is bigger than the record before it. And this most recent one just sold 2 million copies or 3 million copies, whatever it was." They were huge. And that was an arena tour. So, I think they just figured, "Screw it. We're going to actually take a breather." And then they made Outta Time. That was so huge. We didn't have to tour for that, so let's just make another record.

And that was kind of the thing that I think felt most crucial to them at the time. And that was so fulfilling to them. By the time they started thinking about the Monster Tour, Peter suggested they just go back to the clubs. And no matter how popular they were, figure out a way where they could play intimate places again. And Bill, ironically, was the one who put his foot down and said, I'm not going backwards. If we're going to do this, let's do it the right way.

you know, and so for all that bill didn't want a tour, he was the member of the band who first said, we have to go back on the road. Cause you can't be a rock band and not play. And then when they began to think about the tour, he was the one who said, we got to play the biggest places we possibly can. Cause that's what a rock band does. And then of course he was deeply ambivalent about it. So at that same, uh,

you know that press conference you know the reporter asks him what are you most looking forward to about the tour and when she gets to bill he says the end of it he wasn't kidding i think he loves to play music does not like to travel does not like to do the pr stuff or deal with celebrity and of course infamously has a brain bleed mid show on that tour

And it does seem like nothing was really the, it's kind of what I assume, which is that nothing was really ever the same again for him. And it's unclear how much it changed his mentality, but it does seem like it changed the way he saw things. Someone in your book says he started seeing things as if he was like a 65 year old man. Like he became very cautious. Yeah.

But on the other hand, it's like he's also the guy that, you know, the whole thing of like, we got a tour, we got to do this. But on the other hand, the thing I'm most looking forward to is when we get to stop doing it. Even in the 80s, there was a certain amount of professional socializing. You have to do cocktail parties and get togethers where people would come backstage to chat about this, that or the other. And their nickname for him in the band was I Go Now.

because he was always the first guy to get, you know, to sort of put it in appearance, do what he had to do and then get out of there. Like he just wanted to go home. Even before he had his aneurysm on stage, he was the first guy out. Before the other guys had really left the stage, he would sprint back to his bus and be roaring out of the arena, either back to the hotel or points unknown. He did not want to hang around for the post show, grips and grins or whatever. Did not want to get

caught up in that scene. So he was always weirdly, both he and Peter, when you hear about or see Peter does so many interviews in the first 10 years of the band, and he's so bright eyed and energetic and so eager to be successful. And Bill was so eager to build the band and to become who they were becoming. But then the moment they succeed and they get to the point where they're mammoth

Both of them begin to lose it. You see Peter, he just seems weighted down. When you see those interviews with him from the 90s forward, he just looks, I don't want to say sullen. I mean, there are some interviews where he's more energetic, but it's not like... Him and Mike Mills would do any interview with anyone during the 80s. And you see him on like...

you know it was always cracked me up i spent so many years in portland there was this afternoon talk show at the abc affiliate am northwest it was a morning show i did that show when i lived in portland for a variety of reasons and there are mike mills and peter buck of rem you know talking to jeff gianola and taking questions from the audience but then once they hit it and they're that big

It's a rougher game. No matter how well shielded you are, you're playing the big houses, you're flying places, you don't have to spend all this time in the van, you're comfortable, you're making a ton of money, but it's still a rough gig.

And right before Bill Berry leaves the band, the band signs probably one of the most ill-timed giant record deals of all time, which was, you know, Warner Brothers. They had had such a great run. Warner Brothers was very optimistic. They saw nothing but blue skies ahead that this would just continue forever.

And that popular taste wouldn't change. The band wouldn't change. Let's sign them to another gigantic deal. Then they promptly released New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which was their first album in some time to kind of flop in some ways. And although there's good stuff on that album...

Bill leaves the band and then they are, as Michael Stipe says, a three-legged dog. It's hard to shed tears for Warners because they gave them, I don't know what it was, you know, these numbers you hear about when somebody signed a big record deal, aspirational, at best. The top line number is the one where you sell everything

X millions of all your records and hit certain marks and then certain payment structures come into effect. The first deal was 10 million or 8 million dollars for five records, which was good, but they had just come off their first platinum record. So that's a decent amount of money for a freshly pledged platinum band with a lot of promise. And then they outsold anyone's expectation by factors of what they were going to do over the next five records.

And right at the point where Warner was at a huge disadvantage, because they had just had this terrible period where there was a corporate shakeup, and the new guys running the corporation decided that it would be smart to basically pressure Mo Austin, who had been running the company to mammoth success for 30 years.

to leave, inexplicably. Warners is still basically at the top of the heap, and they're signing bands like Green Day and Red Hot Chili Peppers, bands that are still huge now that he had brought in and were big pretty much from the get-go for Warners. Moe left the company, Lenny Warnker left the company, there's chaos.

They're trying desperately, you know, the guys who spurred this change ended up getting fired within six months of Mo leaving the organization. And so, you know, Warner's is in chaos and they're trying desperately to not lose all their connection to their golden era. BM was their gold standard act.

In 97, they were desperate not to lose them because that would have felt like a death knell to the people they were trying to hold on to. So it was like they come to this negotiation basically going, please sign with us. And of course, you know, and those guys on REM side of the table are like, wow.

And so the numbers kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then they came away. I think the top line number was 80 million or something. Unfathomable amount of dough. And the other thing was that the Warners people had heard New Adventures, and they thought, like, there's four top 10 singles on this. I don't know.

what made them think that. That part was really funny when they were just convinced that this was this giant album. It's like what William Goldman says about the movie industry, which is no one knows anything. And I think that's... But it also was the 90s...

There's an argument that the 90s probably lasted from like 91 to 96, and then we were on to some other thing. And so it was about to be the Spice Girls and Hanson on MTV. The whole alternative 90s was about to end, and generational shifts were happening. So it just was the era, the world was changing around them.

Kurt Cobain was dead, grunge was dead, all rock was dying. It was just that everything was, this is a band who had released their first single in 1981 and it was 1996, 15 years is in eternity. So that's, you know, it kind of is understandable that the wheels

fell off a little bit at that point. Well, of course, New Adventures sold like two-plus million copies. It's all relative. Yeah, it goes to show you, when your multi-platinum record is regarded as a failure, or a commercial failure, it's like, well... But on the other hand, one of the things that I hadn't really focused on being an American is that in the 21st century, a lot of the biggest hits that they had overseas

We're like in the aughts, you know? So it's like, and a lot of the songs off of, if you go and you listen to the 1999 set that they played at,

First of all, it's fantastic. Everybody who is even partially interested in REM should listen to that. I mean, that's an amazing live show. One of the things that's cool is that they come out and toward the beginning, it's like the fifth song or maybe they play The One I Love, which was one of the greatest hits. And it gets a big ovation when they start playing it. But then maybe two songs later, they start playing Day Sleeper, which is a great song.

which is one of the songs off of the first post-Billberry album. Day sleeper, day sleeper

That didn't do much business at all in the U.S., but did an incredible amount of business overseas. One of the reasons why is that "Day Sleeper" was a huge hit, like a top five hit in England. So, when Peter plays the opening acoustic chords of "Day Sleeper," Glastonbury erupts. You would never hear that in the United States, which is a shame because it's a beautiful song and a great R.E.M. song.

But it was like, you know, The Great Beyond was a huge hit over there. Imitation of Life was a huge hit over there. That's cinnamon, that's holocaust.

Hit after hit after hit. Even if Warners wasn't doing well domestically, they were still moving more than a million copies of these records around the world based largely on how successful they were overseas. Scott McCoy told me that they would go overseas to play shows in 03, 05, and he said it was like the 95 tour never ended because there was that much...

you know, the spotlight was that bright. The halls were that big and the crowds were that crazy the entire time. Well, a couple of things. I mean, I do think up has aged really well. That's a great album. I don't think people in the States, like you said, we're looking for it. We're just even willing to give it a chance at that time. It's, it's a very cool album and there are a lot of great songs. Um,

during that period, that sort of the final years. And they were by, you know, around 04, were this great arena band. I saw them on several Vote for Change. One of the many times the United States declined to vote for change, alas. We're used to that now. They were amazing at that point. And Stipe was so extroverted as a front man by that point. Well, you see him becoming who he is as a performer on the Green Tour.

when he really embraced the frontman thing. Like, I can do creative and interesting stuff as a frontman. It was so interesting to see the Green shows because they were both arch commentaries on the aesthetics of an arena show, but on the other hand, they were also great arena shows. So, they're both very skeptical of the sort of band that they had become, and on the other hand, they had become a great band.

And of course, in 95, he's amazing. I mean, just astounding. And he never lost that. You can see that Glastonbury show. There's a video. And he's breathtaking all the way through. The vote for change stuff is amazing, watching him play. The interesting thing that I hadn't known was what a big Bruce Springsteen fan he was. One of his high school friends told me that in 1975, Michael turned him on to Patti Smith.

played horses for him, and this guy played him Born to Run. He said they were listening to this record, and Michael was shouting gleefully along to Born to Run and whooping and hollering because he loved it so much. And this kid's mom said, is he OK in there? I was so worried about him because he was so over the top. And then there's a documentary of the Music for Change thing

And Michael is anticipating that they're going to meet Bruce and maybe play some music with Bruce and how excited he is about that. During the 80s, he always liked to make it seem like he didn't really know rock and roll at all.

People would say he'd say things like, who played bass in the Beatles? Right. Yeah, that was a big, you know, a lot of posturing. There was some posturing. What are you going to do? But yes, anyone who saw those shows could see how excited he was and had the bizarre sight of Bruce singing A Man on the Moon with R.E.M., which is one of those things you can't believe you saw, but did in fact happen. Tell me who you're locked in upon

Andy, are you giving all your...

Yeah. I think they come to the end of their contract. I think it was the last album they owed Warner on that mammoth deal. And they've been at it for 30 years at that point, 31 years. So it was just kind of like, are we done? I kind of feel like maybe we're done. Yeah.

And they had been so much more successful than anyone imagined. When we talk about 21st century R.E.M., it's really easy for people to go, yeah, it was the long, slow slide. But on the other hand, even Around the Sun, which is arguably overproduced and too slick, it's still got three or four songs on it that I love. I like Leaving New York very much on that album. It's easier to leave than to be

So there you go. Even New York and Electron Blue. Electron Blue.

When there's one called The Ascent of Man, which I actually really like, they're cool, interesting songs. Maybe they could have recorded them better. Maybe they could have, or whatever. I mean, are there better songs? Yeah, arguably. But Accelerate, which was the record that came out next, is just like a hurricane in a bottle. It's like a 33-minute album that just begins at a sprint and doesn't let up the entire time.

I go back to that record all the time. Accelerate is super duper great. And then the last one, I feel like at that point, they're just sort of sweeping up a little bit on getting ready to close up shop because it's like the one time that you really get a sense of them consciously revisiting different eras in their career and doing a song that sounds like it

could have been on out of time and doing a song that sounds like it could have been on reckoning and a song that sounds like it should have been on, you know, automatic or something. And it's like, and they're not bad songs. They're not cynical or whatever, but that's the one album of theirs where I kind of feel like, you know, they're still there, but the circus has left town, you know, at the same time, collapse into now begins with discoverer, which is one of my favorite REM songs.

It's the most explicitly autobiographical song that Michael ever wrote for R.E.M. That is explicitly about his experiences going to New York as a very young man and suddenly sensing the possibilities and feeling, as he puts it in the song, called.

I have never felt so called. And he's just reliving that moment of discovery in New York and realizing that not only does this world exist, but he can be there and he's being called to be a part of it. And it's huge. It's got an amazing guitar sound. It's just a brilliant R.E.M. song. Some of the other songs on that record, duh!

I don't like that much, but that's just me. Peter still says it's the best record they ever made. I have no idea what he's talking about, except for that. They always, they always say that whatever their most recent record is, is the greatest REM album they ever made just reflexively. So I guess that's the one they're going to carry with them to their graves. But yeah,

I would have said a couple years ago that maybe they'll get back together. Now, after they did the Songwriters Hall of Fame thing and then said they're never doing it again, I kind of think they're never doing it again. Well, it sort of depends. My hope, and the book on this note, is that the four of them get together to play all the time, but just for fun.

at home in Bill's basement, where he's got the stuff set up and it's outside Athens and no one would see. Just because they love each other and they love to make music together. Bands get back together sometimes because guys need money and sometimes because they did something extraordinary when they were young, and now their kids are grown up and they want the kids to see them being what they were when they were at their best.

And so that's, you know, whether they have that impulse to do that. I don't know, like whether Peter wants his daughters and Bill and Mike want their kids to see dad on the big stage with thousands of people cheering. I can understand why people would want to do that. Michael doesn't have kids, but he's got family and children that he's close to. On the other hand, maybe they will stick with it. They've always been set on not

doing what all the other bands do. And since basically all the other bands whose members are alive eventually get back together, except for the Kinks, maybe they'll do that. I selfishly want them to get back together again because I want to go to another R.E.M. show. I think they came out to Portland and played when Peter got married in '13. It was after the band broke up and all the guys came into town. But when three of them were on stage, the fourth guy would leave the room.

After Scott McCoy had his stroke, they all came into town to do, there were a couple of benefit shows that people played. And all four of our REM members were there when Peter, Bill, and Mike were on stage. Michael went to watch.

And I think Michael sang some songs, but not with the other guys. I had to actually rewrite that relevant paragraph in my book when they played the Songwriters Hall of Fame thing. Right. On the other hand, they just go and play one song at the Songwriters Hall of Fame, then make a point of doing an interview altogether where they say we're never doing it again.

So very strange, very strange move for a very singular band. What can one say? They said they never were going to do that. But then it turned out that the Songwriters Hall of Fame and getting into that proved so meaningful to them.

They wanted to participate in the event and they wanted to do what people do. You know, I think they just felt so chuffed to be tapped for this thing. So who knows? You know, maybe something else will come up. I don't know. I doubt it. I wouldn't bet on it. But on the other hand, I wouldn't rule it out. They're humans. People grow and change and evolve. And sometimes something that didn't make sense suddenly makes sense. The last thing I'll say is that...

It's interesting that Michael Stipe, despite years of promises, has not manifested this solo album that he's supposedly been working on at least as long as Zach DeLaRocca from Rage Against the Machine has been working on his solo album. Actually, no. Sorry, Zach has been working on his since 2001. So Zach wins. But yeah, I mean, where's the Michael Stipe solo album? The fact that he can't get it together, for me, makes it more likely that maybe they'll reunite someday or who knows.

Well, you know, Michael, do you follow his Instagram feed? It's great. He goes around and he makes photographs, visits his friends, travels the world, sees art and finds cool things to take pictures of and post them. You get the sense of this guy living his best life, having a ball, hanging out with his cool friends, seeing cool art and really loving it and finding cool arty things, images to make and

And he got really big early in life and made a ton of money. He's been spending the last 15 years enjoying it and good for him. They worked really hard. That's a lot of time to be in a van driving the nation's highways from one beer stinking club to another.

they live to tell the tale which is the best part yeah no it's listen they're they're all alive and if they they truly don't reunite that will be one of the most unique things in rock history that all the guys are around all can play all can do their thing and they just choose not to so they've always they've always been singular and this might be as you said just another way in which they'll end the story doing the same thing

I don't hate that ending. I saw a lot of great REM shows. I mean, they were spectacular and the music is incredible. And now I know it way better than I ever did just because I've spent the last few years listening to every note of it. And, um,

So there's part of me that kind of would love to go to another REM show. I bet they would be fantastic, but if they don't want to do it, there's no reason to do it. I think they've all got more than enough money to spend. I hope that's true. I hope it stays that way. And they all just seem to be having a ball doing what they're doing. The

The book is The Name of This Band is R.E.M., a biography. It's by Peter Ames Carlin. Peter, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. And that's our show. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, subscribe to Rolling Stone Music Now wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us five stars and a nice review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify because that's always appreciated. But as always, thanks so much for listening and we will see you next week.

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