Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills paid Zane Lowe a visit on Music: Response last week, to discuss new REM album 'Reveal', their Trafalgar Square gig, politics and pretty much anything else you can think of.

ZANE: You guys have been over here rehearsing for this very special show at Trafalgar Square for South Africa's Freedom Day. How's the new record sounding live?

MIKE: It's working very well. We did a couple of songs in January in Brazil, we were very happy about how they turned out. And we've worked up six or seven and they sound great.

ZANE: Okay cool. So in terms of choosing the songs that you are actually going to play live and leaving the ones, the ones that you've been rehearsing is that a difficult process? Is it just a case of going through the tracklisting and saying 'well I want to play that one'?

MIKE: It's actually pretty easy. You can just tell by looking which ones might be the easiest to learn, which is your first indicator and then, since we sort of like them all its easy, which ever ones you pick we're gonna be happy with.

PETER: Some songs work really well in a live format and others, maybe not so much. But I expect the next time we go on tour some of the other songs that we haven't chosen for this week or for this month of promotion - we do a two hour set - we might pull some of those out then.

ZANE: I'd imagine that trying to take 'Up' - your previous record - on stage would've been much more of a challenge than taking the new record 'cause it seems a lot more earthy a lot more direct in terms of the way its been produced and put together. Do you know what I mean?

MIKE: There's a couple of songs off like 'At My Most Beautiful' and 'Lotus' and 'Daysleeper' that work really well live.

ZANE: And always will, yeah when I saw you guys at Glastonbury 'Lotus' was just, like, phenomenal, I remember that specifically.

MIKE: Most of our stuff, at the core of it, there's a song you can play on guitar, not all of them, but at the core of it there's one that you can take out and put into a live situation and it will work.

ZANE: Is that how you approach the writing of the album primarily? Just sitting down with a guitar and doing it that way?

PETER: Yeah, whatever instrument we're working on that week, we make demos and essentially, we don't go into the studio and jam. We write the songs first and then arrange them in the studio.

ZANE: The South American tour that you guys did and we had a little giggle about that last time - the fact that you decided to unveil a couple of new tracks and play your first show in a while in front of 200,000 odd people, which was challenging to say the least. What I noticed from the reviews I read was that you decided to play a selection of tunes from a good portion of your history of your back catalogue. Is that the way you're gonna do it this time round are you still gonna play a good selection of tracks from your back catalogue?

PETER: We're still putting together the set list for Sunday.

MICHAEL: The thing about South America was that we'd never played there before. And we wanted to just offer some diversity in terms of setlist since we hadn't been there.

PETER: We had an idea of a couple of songs that were big hits in Brazil particularly. But outside of that we didn't know if people in Rio would know songs like the one I love or sweetness follows or the end of the world as we know it. As it was they did know them quite well.

ZANE: So I hear! This promotional tour that you guys are doing - and I know you're gonna be undertaking various other activities through out the year in other parts of the world that you haven't actually lined up yet. But that's gonna be it really isn't it as far as touring goes, we established that last time as well, you don't plan to actually actively tour this album strenuously?

MICHAEL: We just didn't really want to. That's the one thing we've kinda earned with the 21 years now we've been together as a group, as we can decide when we want to do things, and instinctively know that that'll be a decision that we'll stick to.

ZANE: It's funny 'cause when you guys made that decision - I think it was around the out of time phase - is that correct when you guys decided that you weren't gonna tour in a regular way.

PETER: That's right.

ZANE: I remember reading articles about that decision and people were just shocked, absolutely blown away that you'd decided to do that and now I see a lot of bands attempting to find that position

MIKE: We had done it, y'know. It was our life for ten years, and making records was more incidental than the touring was. And once you've done it that much, you want to get a little perspective and take a lot more time off.

MICHAEL: I think songwriting is something that's garnered from experience, and if you've been doing it for a number of years and touring the whole time, the only experience you tend to have is that of a pop star on the road and we've all heard those records and those songs and that's something we don't ever want to do.

ZANE: Had you decided before you even started to record this record that you weren't gonna take it round the world in the way you had before?

PETER: No but we talked about it and in our minds we felt like we just did it. And I talked to friends of mine and they said 'it was great to see you play last summer' and I said well actually it was a year and a half ago that we played but it just seemed like it was really recently and we'd just done it at the age we are do we really get excited about playing Ohio for the 33rd time. And you start thinking about that and you think well I'd rather do something more creative with my time. We'll go back to Ohio next year.

ZANE: Again you're in a very lucky position to be able to say 'well, this South African Freedom Concert is a good occasion. Cologne is a good occasion'. Whatever. So how much preparation goes into actually getting you guys together to start work on a new record? Because you've all got so many other things going on in your life; Michael you're involved in the movie business, Peter you're involved in various other things musically, Mike I'm sure you are as well. So what's involved in actually getting you guys together? Is it hard work?

MICHAEL: Actually not a lot, I mean the main kind of thing between all of us is our own vacation time. Each one of us wants to go off and get away from working, and that's what we have to kinda work around more than anything. But it's phone call...

MIKE: Once we decide that we're gonna do it, then we just say here's the day it's gonna commence and just clear the books subsequent to that.

ZANE: Does it feel like a business now? Because obviously with Bertis and you guys you're very in charge of your own affairs and REM has been around a long time and there's a lot of people employed by you guys every time you go into the studio or go on the road. Does it feel as much of a business now as it does still a band?

MICHAEL: Well. It's driven by this creative thing we do, but we'd be completely foolish if we didn't acknowledge that there was a business element to it. We could be hippies and give all the money away, or lose it, or just y'know act completely idiotically. It's nice to have the latitude to do what you want to do, if that means keeping an eye on not wasting money... Y'know, it's not like we're trying to make tons of money, but there's no point in actually being an idiot about it...

MIKE: It's as much of a business as you want it to be. I mean, you can completely disassociate yourself and let other people make those decisions for you, but they'll tell you what to do, but it's better to have control of your life...

MICHAEL: We've been lucky to have Burton since 1981, so it's pretty much all our career, so we always took care of the things you have to take care of in terms of contracts or business deals with other entities and forged our own path through the business and as it turned out we were very, very lucky.

ZANE: Is it safe to say then that you actually enjoy then, the fact that you've taken on the majority of your own business affairs, but it does create a lot of other distractions apart from just being in a band and doing what you love the most which is making music I assume.

PETER: I don't know anyone in the world, unless their last name is Hilton and they're born with that, that is able to move around without having to work without having to think about the bills, without having to think about money. That's just not very realistic. It's a job. We love our job. We're very, very lucky to have our job. There's a business element to it, but we tend to downplay that, because as long as we've been together, we're music fans, and that's what drives us, that's the thing that keeps us together and keeps us making records and wanting to do stuff like this to support them.

ZANE: I can identify with that 'cause I too love my job and enjoy sitting here talking to you about the records you make...

PETER: Lucky bastard!

ZANE: How much did you guys discuss the direction of 'Reveal' before you went in to do it. Did you sit down and go last time was tough, 'Up' was tough. How are we gonna approach this record and how do we want it to sound at the end of the day?

PETER: I think that we talked more about how to make it a good experience rather than how to make it sound like any particular thing. It was important that we enjoyed each other's company in the work and after that the record will just make itself.

MICHAEL: I do remember having a dinner though, and correct me if I'm wrong we haven't really talked about this, but having a dinner where we all sat around and talked about stuff that you just said and after a couple of bottles of wine we were like well, y'know what? This is what I want it to sound like, and as it turned out, each of us were kind of on the same page. And we all had an idea of where, y'know sonically, we wanted the record to go, and how it could be an extension, but way beyond the last record that we made. I think we achieved that. How weird that we all kind of knew what we wanted.

ZANE: That's what I'm wondering, is it rare? Because aside from the fact that together the chemistry you have creates beautiful music you are three very separate people - and when Bill was involved - four very separate people. Was it rare that you would start a record all on the same page?

PETER: We usually didn't have a set game plan going in especially in the days when we were touring before and after and sometimes during every record. You played as a band and you went in and you had the songs and you cut the tracks as a band. And then later as you become more familiar with studios you realise that there are different ways of recording and that you don't have to just sit there all at one time and do it. And we tried those things especially on 'Up' which was built very much piece by piece. One thing we did decide on this one was to play as a group and have everyone in the same room playing instruments at the same time as often as possible.

ZANE: I love 'Up' by the way I think it's a fantastic record I know it took you a long time to make and it was really hard work for you but I think it was well worth it.

PETER: Thank you. I'm proud of it.

ZANE: I read actually on REM HQ.com you were saying that you guys were on a flight, I think it was, maybe to Florida, and you were both thinking about the same song, 'I'll Take The Rain' and it felt like an auspicious start to the making of this record.

PETER: Well Florida was actually, that was near the end of the making of the record. That song kind of happened lyrically in Dublin. And I think you guys had worked on it on the tour in '99 right. It had been around for some time.

MICHAEL: We played it almost every day at soundcheck.

ZANE: I just like the word auspicious...

PETER: I'm glad you fitted it into that very, very, very good sentence...

ZANE: But I do, I just like the way that the record started auspiciously. And to me it feels, listening to it, that fate had decided you guys deserved a break 'cause it had been tough for you through the departure of Bill and everything lie that and it feels to me listening to 'Reveal' that the pressures off. Is that how you feel when you listen to it?

MICHAEL: We made a lot of changes in terms of how we record that really took the pressure off of me. I'm the one who drags my feet, of the three of us, and it's more difficult and takes a lot longer for me to become inspired and to write something that's good enough to go with the music that these guys have given me to write to, but it changed. It changed from the last several records that we've made, and it really was a whole lot easier and a whole lot less stressful for me.

PETER: It took about a year but that's okay.

MIKE: We said it might.

ZANE: And there's a reason why it took a little longer - we've discussed this briefly before but for the people out there who haven't seen that interview - you followed your muse round certain parts of the world didn't you? You decided when times got tough to travel.

MICHAEL: It wasn't an escape route, this kind of thing, it was like, OK, I've exhausted this for you, in the words of Morrissey ...

ZANE: Yeah, he should be quoted at all available opportunity!

MICHAEL: That's right, he should! I've exhausted this view, so I'm going to look in another direction. And as we were in Dublin, I had the opportunity to fly round Europe, and really dramatically change my view and the weather.

ZANE: Just like that?

MICHAEL: Y'know, I went to the airport , I got on a plane, and landed in London, or went to Tel Aviv, I went to Copenhagen, and I went to South of France and went to parts of Italy...

ZANE: Did your desire dictate where you were gonna go or was it a case of where you could get a ticket to go?

MICHAEL: It just kind of jump started me out of one thing, and into another, and it staved off writer's block, y'know, which I was so terrified of from the last record. The real big difference is that we're all talking, better friends then we ever were I think.

ZANE: Beshame my tongue. Fat and fruitful all along... or something. Smashing Pumpkins fans are gonna kill me now 'cause I've incorrectly quoted Billy Corgan but I just got excited 'cause you mentioned Morrissey, just ignore that we'll cut that bit out. You guys also recorded in Vancouver, Dublin and Miami - making the most of your extensive recording budget, as you should. Why did you decide to move around so much, 'cause the record sounds so cohesive yet you've picked three different places to record it in.

PETER: We tried to make it not be a job. And for me getting up and going to the same place every day, slogging away at it you tend to feel like your clocking in. So it's nice to get excited about packing your suitcase, and going somewhere else - a fresh start is always good.

ZANE: You were in Miami for the election as well...

MIKE: Oh boy.

MICHAEL: Centre of the tornado.

ZANE: So just put us in the eye of the storm for a second because I was watching it on telly in London and I know where you guys were...

PETER: It's like one of those things that goes on in Haiti; there's a coup and you can't figure out why they let it happen in their country and then it happens in our country.

MIKE: We got to hear about a lot of things that were going on that still haven't made it out in the general press. And it was a very disturbing situation, some of the things that were done to ensure a particular victory in that election and if we hadn't been there I don't think we would ever have known.

ZANE: How do you feel about the state of American politics right now? I don't want to go too far down this road but just quickly, 'cause you're vocal about it...

PETER: I hate to say they're all the same, 'cause they're not, there's about a nickle's worth of difference. I would much prefer to have someone who's a bit more environmentally friendly as a President. On the other hand, you get a democrat in there, and they cut welfare, and they bomb foreign countries. I mean, I tend to vote on a local level. That's more important. Y'know, you throw away your Presidential vote and you say OK, whatever.

MIKE: Politics is best served on a local level anyway. You can have more change and effect in your own home town certainly than you can on any other level.

MICHAEL: It was really depressing, talking to [Canadian Author] Douglas Coupland, who's from Vancouver, and he and his friend told me that the most right wing politician in Canada, is far to the left of the American democratic party, we're neighbours of them, don't tell anyone in America that...

PETER: It's kind of embarrassing to travel over here, and have to go 'hey y'know, I'm sorry, we've got this President', and gee, y'know it's embarrassing!

ZANE: It's okay we'll let you off the hook this time. There's a purity on this album which I think was disguised on 'Up' because of the way you guys put it together, sonically. Do you find it hard, as REM, to keep it simple? To not want to go ahead and make a whole lot of 'E Bow The Letter's which is a very challenging single to release...

PETER: We are contrarians if nothing else.

MICHAEL: We are contrarians it's true...

ZANE: Is that Republican or Democrat, I'm confused...

PETER: It's all-encompassing unfortunately.

MICHAEL: I'm a failed symbolist and they're contrarians so put that all together and that's what you get. I think that at that dinner that I was talking about earlier on, one of the things that we kind of came to was that this is the way we always wind up having all the songs sound and that is that we have layer upon layer upon layer and strings and guitars and percussion things and synthesisers and vocals and we wanted to put all that stuff on each song but maybe break it down and work song by song and have it come down to the very essence of the song. I'd say about half the record is like that, the other half is just full on, every track going all the time.

ZANE: The most full-on track to me on the actual record is 'Imitation Of Life' - that's juts my opinion - and you chose it as the first single. It's the obvious first single when you hear it, wasn't there a temptation to say, well it's the obvious single let's go with something different?

MICHAEL: We almost didn't make the record!

MIKE: We were gonna leave it off the record. But we left this one up more to the record company than ourselves it just felt like it was time for them to make the decision, not us.

ZANE: Why were you gonna leave it off the record?

MICHAEL: It was too REM.

ZANE: It definitely sounds like early REM to a certain extent, but then again that's what a lot of people buy your music for...

PETER: Essentially, everyone who heard the record said, 'oh I love that song, it's really catchy', and y'know, if you've been writing these songs all these years, you try to invest all this meaning into the lyrics and everything, 'catchy' is probably just about the lightest weight praise you can ever get! it's like 'Oh, he's really nice!'

MIKE: 'Very interesting, yes!'

PETER: So you go, 'Catchy. Is that it?' But I mean, there's a place for 'catchy', there's a lot of songs I like that are just nothing but catchy, and that's acceptable.

ZANE: The lyrics for 'Imitation of Life' - again we talked about this earlier - and I said what's it about? And you just said I haven't got the foggiest idea. Is that common for you?

MICHAEL: It is common although since that interview I kind of figured out what it was about...

ZANE: You see we're helping you, by asking you this question over and over again we're helping you come to terms with what the song is about...

MICHAEL: Not quite, I mean I knew what it was about a long time ago but I let go of that before the record was heard by anyone. I always have to figure out what the lyrics are about before we put it out to the public or to the media.

ZANE: So do you use the process of creative visualisation when writing lyrics, or is it more of an instinctive thing?

MICHAEL: The best stuff comes out like a hairball, y'know, it just comes vomiting out of me, and I don't think about it, or overwork it. That's more of an unconscious voice, and that's the one I trust more than my thinking brain. My thinking brain is frankly kind of not that smart!

ZANE: But you're a movie producer Michael, that's a really scary thought!

MICHAEL: I repeat...

ZANE: Just to go full circle, the older stuff that you guys have been incorporating in the set for years and just the music you've written over time do these songs take on new meaning for you as you play them over and over again do you think?

PETER: I think it's more that the good songs tend to still pop up. We'll occasionally still do 'Central Rain' and I like that song as much as the day we wrote it - that's eighteen or nineteen years ago. But I wouldn't want to do five other songs from that record. The sings you hit right first time round - and I think we missed more than hit in our early career - tend to be the ones you return to.

ZANE: Have you made peace with 'Shiny Happy People' yet?

PETER: It never bothered me...

MICHAEL:: They almost challenged me with this piece of music like okay top that and I was like you will not beat me down.

PETER: It isn't anymore twee than a whole lot of songs I love by people like Donovan. I wouldn't want it to be the song that is played to remember us by. But on the other hand in the middle of these twelve albums it's fine...

ZANE: Mike, is there something you want to share with the rest of the class about this tune?

MIKE: Well, that said, we've never played it live and we never will. But I like the song it's a good song.

PETER: We did try to play it, but we just kept cracking up, we never made it all the way through.

MIKE: I think we only played it once in the studio, those time changes were just ridiculous and they're funny and we did it once and it was right. I'm glad we did it but then again it's not something I ever really need to think about.

PETER: It's like our 1998 version of Gorillaz.

ZANE: Once again you guys have skirted around the absence of Bill beautifully and it's not surprising you've got Joey Woronker - try saying that after a few...

PETER: Woronker? I've never heard that one before...

ZANE: Okay go on, how's it said?

PETER: Waronker.

ZANE: Okay I'll change my view on that from now on.

PETER: I think he's Woronker from now on though.

ZANE: Okay I'm proud to have made that observation. Joey Waronker, he's a fantastic drummer and you surround yourself with great players, but I mean, I don't want to get all Hard Copy on this but does it still feel like there's a hole left?

MIKE: No. We're just a different band. And that's a good thing. You know the band that was the band with Bill was a great thing but it was a separate entity and then Bill decided to stay home and now we're a different band and it gives us a lot of freedom.

PETER: And he's where he wants to be and we're where we want to be so it's not like there was any forced departure or any sort of acrimony or anything like that. So we're all just happy where we are.

ZANE: I'm assuming he likes the new record too?

PETER: He does. Mike had a party for the most incredible band in the world, U2 played in Atlanta and Mike had a party for them and it was great and Bill came.

ZANE: Cool.

PETER: It was really good to see him.

ZANE: U2 actually said in an article in USA Today that you guys were a threat to their application for biggest band in the world. Are you guys actually even applying?

PETER: No we screen the applications...

ZANE: Well U2 have got the job then from what I can tell!

PETER: They do. You can't beat them at what they do.

ZANE: Something you guys would like to be renowned for at this point?

MICHAEL: It's never been an ambition. The fact that we ever made it out of the state of Georgia is still stunning to me, so they can have the title if they like.

MIKE: And 'Beautiful Day' is the best single to come out in the past year. Hands down.

ZANE: Yeah. I think it is the best single. Off an album. Something that you've said about seeing Radiohead in concert and Patti Smith in concert and I know that you guys are still huge music fans 'cause you still own a record store and stuff like that. You said that these gifts shouldn't go unnoticed. This is a tough question and you probably won't want to answer this but can you off the top of your head thing of a special gift that you guys have given, perhaps even to yourselves, a special moment in your life as REM that springs to mind. One thing. Peter?

PETER: Oh God, I have to answer the hard question?

ZANE: Well you have to go first or you guys could draw straws and play paper, scissors, rock it's all six of one and half a dozen of the other to me.

PETER: I don't know. I honestly don't know. I never think of it like that. I tend to think of all the records we've done as yearbooks. I think to base my life like 'well '84 that was 'Reckoning' and that tour' so I never think of landmarks really...

ZANE: Isn't it hard sometimes, when you're sitting on the toilet not to reflect and thing god that was a great night or what a gig, you know?

PETER: You know the only time that occur is when one of our friends will say what was so and so like, and you'll think, yeah we've done some pretty incredible stuff. Not necessarily all good but we've had some pretty interesting experiences and having Joey and Ken in the band whose first bands played REM songs at their shows you kind of remember that this stuff meant something to someone else and so for us we can kind of rediscover that stuff. But I can go a year without thinking about it.

ZANE: well skirted. Mike, you've had time to think about this...

MIKE: I wasn't using it wisely I'm afraid...

ZANE: Michael, take note...

MIKE: It's such a self serving question; how can you answer that without saying 'yes we've given these great gifts to people'...

ZANE: Well more than that just one thing where you can think god that was a really special moment I'll always remember that...

MIKE: You know what, talking to the people who run Beat 92 in Belgrade. That's amazing, they were down there risking their lives to keep the music playing and the information flowing in the midst of Milosevic's bullshit and those guys that's heroism to me and our music meant something to them and they told us that it helped pull them through some tough times. That's fairly rewarding.

ZANE: Good answer. Michael?

MICHAEL: I cannot have an answer...