Article in 9/26/93 issue of "The Atlanta Journal"
R.E.M. There's nothing "Automatic" about the band's new album
Expect another enigmatic encore from Athens
Athens - Now that R.E.M. has conquered the world, what does it do for
an encore?
Not exactly what anyone, including the band, might expect.
"We don't have any delusions about this record," says Peter Buck, musing
on the fate of "Automatic for the People" (due in stores Oct. 6). "I think
it's the best record we've ever done." The group's eighth album is the
soft-spoken successor to "Out of Time," the 1991 album whose rise to
Billboard's No. 1 spot made R.E.M. an unanticipated pop sensation.
Mr. Buck, garbed in black from head to toe, dark shades and a goatee, sits in
a small office at R.E.M. World Headquarters, an unlikely two-story nerve
center in sleepy downtown Athens. While the small bustling staff attends
to a laundry list of chores pegged to the new album's release, the shaggy
performer kicks back with a cup of mineral water ("can't have too much
liquid") and chats.
Michael Stipe - a former University of Georgia art student who has become one
of rock's most distinctive vocalists and consciously eccentric personas -
hangs out in the next room, gabbing with Jefferson Holt, the band's longtime
manager. Claiming overexposure, Mr. Stipe has declined interviews.
He lets Mr. Buck and bassist Mike Mills do all the talking.
And it's immediately clear that they're not here to sell hot cakes.
Always one to underplay hype, Mr. Buck is characteristically dubious about
"Automatic's" commercial potential.
"I dunno," he says, amending his earlier comments in a cadence at once rapid
and elliptical. "I don't really hear . . .I didn't think that the last
record was gonna sell either. [But] I don't really see it selling 10 million.
It's just kind of a weird record . .. It's not `The Rites of Spring,' it's
not gonna blow anyone's perception about what rock and roll is."
No R.E.M. album, from the subliminal cricket chirps layered across its
1982 debut "Murmur" to the unconventional instrumentations on "Out of
Time," is without its idiosyncrasies. But "Automatic" is so doggedly so;
anti-Nirvana.
Among the change-ups, members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, playing
arrangements by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, are featured on
four tracks. For much of the record, Mr. Buck's signature Rickenbacker
stays calmly in the background, texturizing vocalist Michael Stipe's
collection of unusual and direct songs. Topics include death, gonzo comic
Andy Kaufman, marching on Washington and the spiritual nature of
skinny-dipping in the moonlight.
R.E.M. has no plans to tour, and intensive video work is soon to be
completed. The clip for "Drive," a mega-production for a previously
no-frills act, employs 1,000 extras and an air-tossed Mr. Stipe.
"I hate 'em," says Mr. Mills, which explains why only Mr. Stipe looks
like he's having fun in the group's MTV clips. "I hate doin' videos.
Peter hates doin' videos. Nobody's thrilled about 'em. We're not actors.
But as long as you're gonna make 'em and spend the money . .. "
So the band will let the record rise on it's own quirky merits. If "Out
of Time," a curiously non-rock album from the most influential rock act
of the 1980s, broke the former college-radio cult favorites as video-savvy,
mass-market popsters "Automatic" beats an even more curious retreat from
the norm.
Having spend a decade nurturing a young alternative audience that now
thrives on the hard edges of thrash, hip-hop and dozen hybrid rock
genres, R.E.M. has taken a decisive step out of time.
Go figure, says Mr. Buck.
"I think the plan for this one was to write these songs that were more
rockin' live to DAT [two-track digital audio tape recorder]," he explains.
"And we end up with this body of spare, really moody songs. So _that's_
right out the window. We just kind of intuitively follow.
"You don't want to be too precious about this," he continues, "[but] the
best stuff we come up with is like `Where the hell did we get that from?'
. . . if Michael had picked 12 other songs, it would've been a different
record. But early on you realize which songs mean something to you."
As with previous records, Messrs. Buck, mills and drummer Bill Berry
compose and record the music, most often working with their steadfast
Athens engineer and fifth wheel, John Keene. The tunes then go to Mr.
Stipe who then writes the lyrics.
But the process is much more synergetic than that implies.
"If we can come up with 10 things, I can usually pick the five that
Michael will think are pretty great," Mr. Buck says.
The band was midway through recording the album when members decided
they wanted to slap some string arrangements on a few songs. Several ASO
musicians participated on short notice, with Mr. Jones the first choice
as collaborator - largely on the soaring drama of his music for Led Zep
classics such as "Kashmir" and "The Song Remains the Same."
"He stopped here for a week on the way to Los Angeles to produce the
Butthole Surfers," says Mr. Mills, whose easygoing manner marks him as the
perpetual boy next door. "Everybody loves his string arrangements. It
was a very natural thing."
Veering between subversive middle-of-the-road confessionals and surreal
wordscapes, the album is deceptively catchy, whether Mr. Stipe is
declaiming a hurry-up-to-catch-it political message on the anthemic
"Ignoreland" or surveying the nature of myth and celebrity on the
affectionate, "Man in the Moon" - which finds Elvis and his most arcane
impersonator, the late Andy Kaufman, living happily in the hereafter.
"It was a humorous picture, Elvis and Andy," says Mr. Buck. "We have
friends that swear Andy Kaufman is still alive. . .You know, nowadays
you're famous, you die, you got to live again."
Celebrity seems to have little effect on R.E.M., whose members still spend
much of their off time knocking around the small Southern college town
they've made world renowned. That laidback attitude, and the band's 1989
switch to major industry label Warner Bros., leaves the group with a clean
slate.
"I remember talking to some younger kids. And they go, `I've been into
you forever. I've been into you since "Green."' And that's cute, that's
good," says Mr. Buck. "We were lucky enough to have these years of working
when we weren't in the public eye. But Guns N' Roses, by their first record,
they were famous. We had five records out and no one knew who the hell we
were."
And the band is not about to sacrifice its breathing room.
"Being from the South influences the way we do what we do," Mr. Buck
continues, "If we decided to move to New York, it probably wouldn't matter.
None of us really deal with the music biz anyway."
r. Buck pauses for a flash, and then offers up an anecdote that summarizes
better than most critics could, the kernel of R.E.M.'s anti-aesthetic.
"Mike and I were sitting in Seattle, having a late lunch, and all these
people were rushing around and all of a sudden Mike looked at me [and said]:
"`I just realized, all these people have jobs!'"
By Steve Dollar, Staff Writer for The Atlanta Journal/The Atlanta Constitution
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