HMV Peter's interview

R.E.M. artist of the month

by HMV.com

REM's latest (and some may say greatest) album 'Reveal' is not out until May 15, but you can pre-order it now...click here to find out more!

The opening seconds of Reveal, the latest offering from American alt-rock institution REM, set the tone for the rest of the album. A swirling cascade of sound enfolds the listener, giving way to the unmistakable softness of Michael Stipe's vocal delivery. These first seconds, kicking off lead track 'The Lifting,' offer a tiny glimpse of what it is that has made REM so damned special for 20-odd years. It's been said that the Athens, Georgia natives single-handedly invented alternative rock with their debut album Murmur in 1983, and while they may not want the credit (or the blame) for such a feat, they would have to acknowledge the position they've held high atop the modern rock plateau over the last two decades. Over that time, Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist/keyboardist Mike Mills (and, up to 1998's 'Up,' drummer Bill Berry) have made a career out of creating evocative constructions of colour that somehow also function as pop songs. And 'Reveal' may be their most colourful construction thus far.

"I think it's a really strong record, and I'm just really proud that we were focused and able to do this so late in our career," says Buck, weeks before the release of the album, and just prior to a whirlwind promo tour that will involve television tapings, free concerts and, in Buck's case, a rather uncharacteristic legal matter. But more on that later.

"Y'know, you're always kind of delusional when you're making a record," he continues, his words spilling out in rapid-fire bursts of enthusiasm. "This is one thing that I always try to remember when I'm talking about other records in public - nobody tries to make a bad record. People spend maybe as much as a year of their lives writing, recording, with nothing but the highest hopes. And we all do that. So it takes me a while after the record to kind of get it out of my head. Most people tend to think that Automatic For The People is our best record. And I think this is as good as that."

Agreed. It's interesting that Buck makes the comparison between 1992's 'Automatic,' a gorgeous, mournful album that whispered its way onto the airwaves in the midst of the grunge phenomenon, and 'Reveal.' Indeed, for such a quiet, unassuming album, 'Automatic' wound up casting a long shadow over the band's subsequent output that is only now, with the overwhelmingly positive response to the new album, starting to lift. Just as each new Bowie album will be stacked against 'Scary Monsters' to see how it measures up, 'Automatic' was a watershed moment in a career that already boasted quite a few. As a result, the albums and directional shifts that followed (1994's loud, sexy 'Monster,' 1996's sprawling 'New Adventures In Hi-Fi,' and 1998's experimental, electronically-oriented 'Up') were held under intense scrutiny by fans and the press alike. According to Buck, the band was also aware that its next move, following a muted response to 'Up,' had to be the right one.

"We don't feel we have anything to prove commercially, because that's never mattered to us," he says. "When we've had hit records, it's been a nice idea, but they kind of came out of left field. All of a sudden we were maybe the second biggest band on the earth for three or four years. We sold like 30 million records in that space of time. And then that kind of disappeared for a little bit, and that's totally fine. I just felt that, on a personal level, the last record was a really good record and it should have been an absolutely great record.

"But because of all the circumstances, like Bill quitting the day the recording was starting, we all kind of lost our focus, didn't communicate well. It didn't turn out to be as good a record as it should've been. The whole thing this time out that we talked about and talked about, was that this had to be a great record and it had to be fun to make. And it was both of those, which is definitely a refreshing thing."

"I guess if you'd asked me my very best hopes back then, it would've been that we'd be one of those bands that makes records on very small labels that nobody really remembers but sells two or three thousand, plays to a couple of hundred people, does it for a few years and then stops. But creatively we're in a really good place. I'm really happy to be working with these guys. And you know, almost all of it's fun."

'Refreshing' may be a bit of an understatement, considering that in the recent flurry of press activity for the new album, the band has been disarmingly candid about how close they came to calling it quits during the tumultuous 'Up' sessions. With Berry announcing his departure in favour of a quieter life, the band was left to figure out what REM was going to be in the 21st Century. And no one had any immediate answers.

"Nobody ever said 'Hey, I quit,'" says Buck about the cloud hovering over the band in '98. "But there was a point eight months into it where we didn't have an end in sight, and none of the songs were mixed, and we all kind of went home and said 'We'll see.' My feeling was 'Well, maybe we won't be a band anymore, or maybe we won't be a band for three or four years and we'll do it again.' But we got together and talked it out, and doing all the other stuff was great. When we got back together and we did the promotional tour and stuff, it felt like a real band. Everyone has their mid-life crisis, I guess."

Thus, if 1998 was the first appearance of a 'mid-life crisis,' it may be safe to assume that there's plenty of life left in REM. Buck maintains that bringing guest musicians (drummer Joey Waronker, and guitarists/multi-instrumentalists Ken Stringfellow and Scott McCoughey) on the road for the 'Up' tour and into the studio for the 'Reveal' sessions reinvigorated the three REM veterans, and gave them back the perspective they lost in the eye of the hurricane.

"After we did the Up tour, I had people coming up to me and saying 'Wow, you guys haven't played this well in 13, 14 years.' And it felt really good. We had essentially three new members - Scott played with us in '95, but we had people who were really excited about doing it. And we also had a good band chemistry, and that doesn't always happen. So going into the record we felt like we've got the right guys, we've got the right songs. It was just a much more positive experience."

You can hear the positivity shining through 'Reveal,' like sunlight through opaque curtains. From the trademark jangle pop of first single 'Imitation Of Life' to quieter songs such as 'Beat A Drum' and 'I've Been High,' the band seems once again to be relaxed in its skin, able to recall the sound of vintage REM and render Beach Boy homages like 'Summer Turns To High' and 'Beachball' as sugary treats with substance. The somber acoustic moments that recall the REM of old will be of great interest to longtime fans - 'She Just Wants To Be' features a Buck guitar figure that could've come off 1986's 'Life's Rich Pageant,' while 'Chorus and The Ring' and 'Saturn Return' achieve the rare distinction of being melodically beautiful, yet vaguely unsettling. 'Saturn,' in particular, has all the makings of an REM classic - an impenetrable but disquieting Stipe lyric ('Easy to poke yourself square in the eye/ harder to like yourself/ harder to try'), Mills' sparse piano recalling 'Perfect Circle' from 'Murmur,' and Buck's droning, atonal leads. Thus, with all the pieces in place and all the right buttons being pushed, it's no wonder that the advance buzz on 'Reveal' is that it's nothing short of a return to the greatness of past efforts.

"My feeling is that if people perceive this as a 'return,' it's really not musically a return to anything, because it's actually more of an 'out there' record than the last one," says Buck about the early response to the album. "I think the songwriting's more focused, and probably more melodic. Like with 'Saturn Return', we gave Michael that track and I said 'Michael, I love this piece of music. I don't think there's a chance in hell that you're gonna be inspired to sing it, but give it a listen.' And he goes, 'Oh no, I think I've got something...' and he comes up with these amazing words and melodic ideas."

While most everything seems to be coming up roses in REM's world at the moment, and the band, by Buck's estimation, is at its creative peak, there are still some concessions to the rock treadmill that the band isn't willing to make this time around. The band has stated from the outset that there will be no major tour for 'Reveal;' rather, they're preferring to perform special event-oriented shows, like the Rock In Rio festival last March, and the South African Freedom Day festival in London. Further appearances are being bandied about for North America, in the interest of giving fans a taste of the new, improved REM. In the rarified strata REM occupies (shared perhaps only with U2), grueling tours are not always a requirement to spread the word.

"I love rehearsing, and I love going out to dinners with the guys after rehearsals," laughs Buck. "But we've done this for so long and what we don't necessarily want to do is book a tour, look at the sheet of paper and say 'Oh, it's four months, and every single one of these places we've played around 15 times.' There'll probably be a couple of other things popping up here and there. Rather than just putting tickets on sale and things like that, we're going to try and do a lot of different things to keep it interesting for the people who come and see us. Doing those one-off things in South America (like the Rock In Rio festival) leads me to believe that yeah, we can do that. You can pick a show, and just do that one show. I kind of like that idea."

For a band that has eschewed traditional rock and roll behaviour throughout its career, it's not a surprise that REM bends the rules on occasion. But the recent arrest of Buck in the UK, charged with an alleged bout of 'air rage' on a British Airways flight en route to promo duties in London, is surprising on a number of levels. For starters, REM has never publicly succumbed to the boorish displays expected of the rock elite, preferring to involve themselves with worthy causes and political issues they've felt passionate about. And in conversation Buck comes off as an adult living the dream he's always cherished, but with both feet firmly planted on the ground, and a genuine appreciation of his situation. The band has recently celebrated its 21st Anniversary, and while reflecting on that fact Buck is downright humble, and typically self-effacing.

"I'm still pleased to be able to make music," he marvels. "That was my dream as a little kid. And all the things that I've gotten in my life from music, art, books - I feel really proud that I'm part of that world, that there are some people out there who are moved by what I've done. I meet them all the time. And that's why you do it - the money's nice, and not having a day job's really nice. But the fact that I talk to people and the work that I've done has influenced them, or at least made their life a little more pleasant - I just find that extraordinary."

5/1/2001