R.E.M. |
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Fri. October 10.2003 11:04 AM EDT |
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R.E.M.: Time After TimeOn the eve of their hits disc, Stipe, Buck & Mills glance back to explain a bit about their years together. From pre-stardom rehearsals to pre-show rituals... by Damien Drake & C. Bottomley |
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R.E.M. (Publicity) |
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Some songs seem to resound forever, and “Losing My Religion” still comes off as radical as it did in 1991, when R.E.M. zealots made it the band’s first Top Five record. A chiming mandolin, some dramatic Western movie strings, and Michael Stipe’s
In short: a long-awaited triumph for a unique group. Since their formation in Athens, Ga., in 1980, Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry have spun a remarkable mixture of the chiming guitars of the Byrds, the pop eloquence of the Beach Boys, and the backwoods mystery of the Band. Over seven albums beginning with 1983’s Murmur, favorite themes emerged - the environment, Southern fables, injustice, and, on college rock staples like “The One I Love,” the eternal fact that everybody hurts. Out of Time, from which “Losing My Religion” was taken, was R.E.M.’s crossover success, and for a while the band could do no wrong. If Nirvana inspired hundreds of lesser groups to embrace a certain rock formula, R.E.M. were singular enough to be considered mildly odd - pop songwriters who insisted on changing their sound with every album. By 1997 Berry had left and the remaining trio had begun to embrace drum machines and experimental electronic textures. In Time is the title of the band’s new hits collection. It throws a rope around the high-water marks of their stay with the Warner Bros. label, stretching from the gorgeous Green to 2001’s Reveal. If the jangling new single “Bad Day” - with its CNN-baiting video - sounds like a throwback to the days of tongue-twisting “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” that's because it is. The new track is a leftover from the group’s late ‘80s sessions. The boys got together with VH1 to pour over the past. Of course, they were quick to confess that after some rough spots they’re having more fun than ever - and they still can’t second-guess themselves. Stipe, Buck and Mills spoke about timelessness, the music that changed them, and keeping things fresh. VH1: Where did “Bad Day” come from? Michael Stipe: “Bad Day” was one of the songs we wrote and then shelved in 1986. It sat around for years. When we decided to do a greatest hits disc, we wanted to have some new songs, but felt like it would be fun to go back and see if there was something that was good that could be made great. We found “Bad Day” and said, “Wow, this would be really fun.” [Watch Clip] Peter Buck: Musically, it’s an older song. We worked on it around the time of Life’s Rich Pageant. It was one of those ones that got away that I always regretted we didn’t record. Michael wrote the lyrics in a day and finished it up. VH1: Who came up the idea for the video? MS: The “Bad Day” video was a little bit of a waltz between myself and [director] Tim Hope. I had a clear idea [of the video] because the song is a comment on the 24-hour news in the U.S., and how they’ve really pushed the boundaries of what is hard news and what is entertainment. I thought it would be really fun to play an anchorman. But Tim’s the one who took it to the level that it’s at. VH1: How did you go about picking the songs for In Time? Mike Mills: It was pretty easy in that all the songs we picked were singles. I wouldn’t call them all smash hits, which is why we’re not calling it the greatest hits. But they were all popular somewhere. MS: Our charge was 15 or 16 of the biggest hits that you have. That was easy. Then two new songs. I thought it was going to be really easy - two songs, piece of cake. Three weeks in the studio? No problem. We get to the studio and I realized these two new songs have to be as good as or better than the songs that we are best known for. It took significantly longer than three weeks to find those songs and record them. PB: We also looked at the fan web sites and took people’s suggestions and talked to people at the record company. In a lot of cases, we just picked the ones we liked. VH1: Why call it In Time? MM: Titles are always one of the most difficult things to come up with. It’s a play on words in that one of our biggest albums was Out of Time. Except for the big period in the ‘90s we’ve always been a little bit out of step with what’s popular. I’ve always enjoyed that. Maybe this time, we are “in time.” I wouldn’t read too much into it. It’s like the Replacements. People kept asking them, “What are you going to call your album?” They called it Tim, just because they were like, “Everyone wants to know what we’re gonna name the kid. Well it’s Tim.” VH1: Was it fun digging through the old stuff to find a song like “Bad Day”? MS: It was. We dug through a lot of tapes and bootlegs and found ten pieces that we then listened to and figured, “Would this make for a good pop song in 2003 or is it best left in the vaults?” VH1: Some songs can be timeless and some are very of the moment. MS: It’s funny, but through most of the ‘80s, timelessness was something I was looking for as a songwriter. I thought, what will this sound like 20 years from now? These songs would come out of me and I would question their relevance, because I thought I was the only person in the world who had this thought, this feeling and this emotion. I realized that if I’m thinking or feeling something, there are probably a whole lot of other people out there who are thinking or feeling the same thing. [Watch Clip] VH1: Was there an artist you saw or heard that made you decide “I want to do that”? MS: My epiphany came at the age of 15 when Patti Smith put out her first album, Horses. I bought it the day it came out and sat up all night listening to it. I had never heard anything that radically beautiful. It was profoundly passionate and flawed and brilliant. There was nothing anywhere close to that at the time. I decided then and there that that was what I was going to do with my life. [Watch Clip] PB: I’m of that generation that the Beatles were everything. I feel really lucky that in my life, I was able to buy Beatles records as they came out. I remember buying “Paperback Writer” when I was eight years old and the White Album when I was 10 or whatever. That was really inspiring. MM: There were certain things about the bass guitar that made me want to play bass. The way it would vibrate the top of the hi-fi if you set it just right. Or when I listened to a band in high school, you’d sit on those little pull-out bleachers and the bass player would hit certain notes and the bleachers would shake. I said, “Well, that looks like fun.” VH1: When did you meet each other? MM: I guess I met Michael and Peter in 1979 in Athens, at a bar called Tyrone’s where we ended up playing a lot. I remember the first time we played together in the church. It was February in 1980, and there was no heat and we could see our breath. I think I was trying to play the bass with gloves on. It was really cold. Bill [Berry] and I showed them a couple of [songs] we had from before, and we liked what they did with that. They showed a couple of their things, so we thought they were okay songwriters. We figured we’d give it a try. VH1: Do you remember your first gig together? MM: We opened up for [Atlanta new wave band] the Brains in Athens, once at Tyrone’s and once at Memorial Hall on the [University of Georgia] campus. I think those are the first two paying shows. Nobody was thinking of a career, but it was very enlightening to see that we could actually play for people and they would like it, and we could actually make some money at this and not have to do day jobs. All the doors started opening with those first few shows. It was a very heady time. VH1: When you’re writing, do you know in advance how an album will sound or what it will be about? MS: We always have an idea of what a record is going to be and we’re always wildly wrong. It’s never what we think it’s going to be. We’d set out to make a rock record with Green, Out of Time, and Automatic for the People - and those all turned into something very different. We have a real clear idea of what this record we’re making now is going to be, and I can tell you already that we’re dead wrong. MM: There’s no formula. Peter and I both write alone, because we live a long way apart. Every time I sit down at a piano or guitar, I’m hoping a song will come out. Then of course, when we get together to rehearse or to record, we end up writing music together, because that’s just what happens. You sit around and play guitars together and things come out. There’s no ritual to it. PB: It decides itself. You write a bunch of songs and then you put together the ones that are best. Michael gets excited about certain ones, he finishes them and then all of a sudden it’s a record. VH1: Are you still having fun together as a band? MS: We’re having so much more fun than we’ve had in years. Writing together and touring and working on stuff. It’s been great. MM: Oh yeah. I wouldn’t do this if I weren’t having fun. VH1: Is the same kind of fun you were having 23 years ago? MM: Well, it’s the same kind of fun except tempered by the experience that you’ve had over 20 years of doing it. You have to appreciate it even more in that you realize a) how lucky you are that you’ve this success and b) how it could all go away in a second. Even if it doesn’t have quite the same blind, visceral rush that it had when you’re 22, it’s still pretty powerful. VH1: Do you have any rituals when you go on tour? MS: We each have our rituals. Peter has to be at the show several hours in advance of going onstage. He gets really nervous and starts going like this [shakes head] and plays guitar a lot to warm up his fingers. I go crazy if I’m reminded of what I’m going to have to do, so I take off on my bicycle, and about 30 minutes before I go onstage is when I lock the door and pace around. I focus on dumb things, like, “God, I need to replace these shoelaces,” then slap on some makeup, have a smoke, and walk out. But I don’t do vocal exercises or spit at the moon three times or anything like that. I just do it. [Watch Clip] VH1: How does it make you feel looking out at those thousands of people when they’re singing right back at you? MS: I love it when people sing along, and especially to songs that haven’t been released yet. It’s kind of nice that they care enough to know the words. PB: It’s great selling records, but it’s nice knowing that no matter how many you sell, that there’s a certain kind of hardcore audience that really gets into them and it means something in their life. VH1: Do you think that everyone singing along to “The One I Love” knows what it really means? MS: “The One I Love” is not a sweet love song at all, but it’s a love song. I think people who listen to music are a lot smarter than many people give them credit for. It’s hard for me as a lifelong music fan to recognize that there are people who don’t really think about the music that they hear. Music is just that thing that plays in the background. Part of my job is to make whatever comes in as good as it can be. VH1: How do you still keep it fresh? Do you do things differently when you’re writing? PB: I’m still fascinated with the idea of picking up a guitar, writing a song and recording it. As stupid as that sounds that’s what makes us still do it. I get the feeling that a lot of people lose that interest. I see a lot of older musicians that don’t really make records any more, but I still find it a fascinating prospect. MM: Every time you write a song, it’s almost like the first one. It’s like, “Oh my God, I can still write a song. I can still come up with interesting music.” The process of discovery and creation never gets old. I don’t know why that’s never gotten boring. Maybe it’s because I think we’re still writing good songs. VH1: How would you describe music to someone that doesn’t know what music is? MS: I’d have to shoot at it from a personal point of view, which is, for me, that it was this phenomenally liberating thing, as a teenager and then as an adult. It provided me with a place of comfort and familiarity, and often shock and surprise. It’s the shock and surprise that I really look for when I’m investigating new music. I kind of want something that will have the same impact on me that Grant Lee Phillips had the first time I heard him, or Bjork or PJ Harvey or Hole or Nirvana or Pearl Jam, U2, Q-Tip, Madonna’s Ray of Light, T.A.T.U. … I mean, it’s goes on and on: Radiohead obviously, Patti Smith obviously, Television, the Velvet Underground, very, very much, Iggy and the Stooges … that stuff takes me to another place - it’s not background noise at all. It provided me with a framework through which I could move through my life. Whether what I was attempting to do was successful or not, the music would always be there for me. As it turned out, we worked really hard, we had a lot of luck, we had a modicum of talent and we did the best that we could with what we had and it turned out good. In fact, great! |
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