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From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Garage to Stadiums Podcast
Hosted by Dave Anthony
The Story of R.E.M
Featuring Peter Ames Carlin, author of The Name of this Band is R.E.M. R.E.M.
Tue, Nov 26, 2024 10:12AM • 45:55
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
R.E.M. origins, college radio, alternative music, mainstream success, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Bill Berry, Mike Mills, Athens influence, artistic independence, Letterman appearance, mental health, Bill Berry aneurysm, alternative bands, lasting legacy
SPEAKERS
Peter Ames Carlin, Dave Anthony
Dave Anthony 00:01
Dave, Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the garage to stadiums podcast rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Today's episode is the story of R.E.M.. R.E.M. was a four piece band from the small college town of Athens, Georgia, where the University of Georgia and other small colleges are located. R.E.M. was considered an alternative band, and as you will hear, they became very popular on the college radio circuit that emerged as a key radio launching pad in the 1980s through endless touring of college towns, R.E.M. leveraged that success into becoming the first alternative band to reach mainstream commercial success, paving the way for bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In fact, Kurt Cobain cites R.E.M. as one of the key influences in his developing melodies for the Nirvana sound mysterious lyrics and beautiful melodies spawned several mainstream radio hits, like losing my religion that was
01:12
Just a dream that's me in the spot life illusion.
Dave Anthony 01:20
Bar life. R.E.M. has sold over 90 million albums and been nominated for an astonishing 140 major music awards, and as you will hear, a secret to their success is their steadfast commitment to sticking to their principles. And we'll do it our way. Approach here to discuss the journey of R.E.M. from small college town to global success is Peter Ames Carlin. Peter appeared on our Bruce Springsteen episode. In addition to writing a best seller about Springsteen, he's chronicled Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Paul McCartney of The Beatles. His new book, The name of this band is R.E.M., has just been released, and garage to stadiums has the pleasure of being one of his first stops to discuss the story of R.E.M.. Amazing book, by the way.
Peter Ames Carlin 02:13
Thank you. We
Dave Anthony 02:14
had you on talking about Bruce Springsteen, obviously, and how he shook up the music industry in the 70s. We I know you've written on Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Paul McCartney Beatles, all transformational figures. I'm guessing that R.E.M. falls into that category and why you chose them. But I'm going to let you tell us why,
Peter Ames Carlin 02:35
why I chose R.E.M.. I was around and aware of their work throughout their career, and as they really began to pick up momentum and the toward the end of the 80s and then into and through the 90s, I was impressed by just exactly how they seemed to be at the center of everything, in terms of not just in terms of music, but culture and politics. And by the time I saw them perform in 1995 on the monster tour, when I was living in Portland, there was this incredible feeling when they came out and began to play, that this was absolutely the epicenter of what was going on in popular culture. And to me, that was really interesting, and also their ongoing influence on on on popular music, and particularly independent music, in not just in the the meat, the sound of the music, the texture of the music, but also in the people's dedication to experimentalism, the way they build their careers, the independence that they, that they, that they seek and often manage to get from record companies or whoever puts out their records these days. I can see it even in the career of Taylor Swift, in terms of exactly how fiercely independent she is, and the way that she follows her muse in whatever direction she feels like going in that moment. And so all those things put together made me feel like there was something really extraordinary happening, or that had happened with R.E.M. that in some ways, hadn't really been explored, certainly not in the the existing literature about them.
Dave Anthony 04:29
I'm going to get to the guys in the band in a bit, but I want to talk about the fact that these guys famously came from a small town called Athens Georgia, which is, what an hour and a half west of Atlanta, probably, yeah, northwest, I think, take us into Athens, circa 1978 79 and paint a picture of what kind of place this is.
Peter Ames Carlin 04:50
Well, it's a small college town in the state of Georgia, down there in the deep south. Actually, you would imagine that that type of place is, is, you know, got that kind of crusty, sort of southern conservative vibe. But what's interesting about Athens and the University of Georgia, which is located there, is, while that is a huge, you know, Southern College with a you know, university with a lot of emphasis on business and football and sports and a lot of very traditional things. There's also this art school there, the Lamar Dodd school of art that became hugely influential because the fellow it's named for now, Lamar Dodd, who was the chairman of the department for some time in the second half of the 20th century, had this idea that he wanted to infuse the department with artists, you know, who are actually working and kind of at the forefront of their practice. And so he began to recruit and hire a bunch of really sort of offbeat, eccentric aesthetic, essentially, who had wild ideas about all sorts of things. And a lot of these bands that came out of Athens in the late 70s and early 80s, who became, in many ways, super popular and were influential, sort of throughout, you know, pop music, and we're talking about the B 50 twos and R.E.M. and love tractor and pylon, just band after band after band. Most of these bands, maybe all these bands, had members who came out of the art department, and a lot of their aesthetic was defined by what they learned from their professors about, you know, the practice of visual art. And, you know, unexpectedly, sort of changed, changed popular music,
Dave Anthony 06:44
yeah, little known fact, B 50 twos are also from there. As you said, that's, uh, quite an accomplishment for a small town. I guess a lot of listeners will recognize that our college connection. When you think of some of the British acts, you know, Townsend and the who, and others who came from that sort of art background, the like, like, like,
Peter Ames Carlin 07:02
80 plus percent of all the this, you know, the British, the British kids that got into rock bands in the 60s were Art School students or graduates. Mm,
Dave Anthony 07:14
hmm. Tell me a little bit about the four guys. Where did they come from? How did they get to Athens.
Peter Ames Carlin 07:21
One of the things about R.E.M. that's interesting is that, like you know, virtually all great bands, what def, you know, what made them, what they are, is this chemistry, this, in some ways, many sort of unexpected blending of very distinct personalities. And so Michael Stipe got to Athens from he grew up outside St Louis, and his folks had originally been from Georgia, and then moved back there right around the time he graduated high school, and he was an art student. He was very, very engaged in that kind of high art culture and avant garde art and, you know, and also very deeply in the music. And you know, intriguingly, was as fired up about becoming a rock star as he was about, you know, creating paintings and other kinds of visual art. So there was a really interesting balance with him. Peter Buck came out of the family. He had grown up, or spent his adolescence in another, I think, a suburb of Atlanta in Georgia, and grew up very deeply involved in rock and roll. Was loved buying records. He became, started working in record stores. Was just a one of those guys that you meet who has the encyclopedic knowledge, not just of the big bands, but of tiny, little, obscure outfits that came out of Scotland or something, right? And so when he met Michael, he was actually he had dropped out of Emory University in Atlanta and had moved to Athens to work at one of the record stores there, and was working behind the counter when he met Michael, who came in looking for obscure punk records, which of course Peter knew in and out. Bill Berry, the drummer and Mike Mills, the bassist, grew up in the same part of Macon, Georgia, where they met in junior high, I think took an immediate and overpowering dislike to one another. Yeah, that was the funny part. Mills was this very kind of, I mean, I don't geek. He might not be the right word, but he was a very studious and well behaved and clean cut young man and Bill Berry was more of a rabble rouser, kind of grungy kid who didn't care about school and had contempt for people who did. And so they, you know, shot stink eyes at each other for a year or so a. Until they wound up somehow both at the same jam session. And Bill Berry said that the only reason he didn't walk out was because he had already carried his drums in there, and it would have been too a big, too big of a pain to load everything up and leave. So he just stayed. And the moment they started playing together, they clicked in. They talked about like, like they were shooting stink eyes at each other for the first little while, but after the music took hold, by the time it was over, Berry said that he looked over his cymbals at Mike and said, This is ridiculous. We've got to be friends. And from that point forward, they were and so you can kind of see these four people coming from very different angles, in a way, and coming together into this, this weird hole, which is, you know, as they say, greater than the sum of its parts. Yeah, it's
Dave Anthony 10:56
really interesting. You got this sort of record store guy. You've got the, you know Michael Stipe, he's a quirky guy, and then you've got Berry and miles, the odd couple, coming together like it's a real fascinating confluence Let's turn to their influence on the music, on their music. It was interesting to read, that's Michael Stipe, probably the most recognizable band member and sort of the prototypical quirky front man of an alternative band was playing in a cover band doing classic rock kind of covers as his first sort of gigs. What were some of the influential acts or bands or that they loved? Okay,
Peter Ames Carlin 11:32
well, the interesting thing about like, let's start with Michael Stipe. On the one hand, he was super into punk music. He was super into Patty Smith. But on the other hand, he also grew up as like a huge fan of the monkeys and the Archies. Oh. Oh, God. You know that kind of trashy pop music that was big in the in the late 60s and early 70s, because that was what he heard as a kid. And speaking of the monkeys, another huge monkeys fan was Peter Buck, you know, growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, you know, the super duper rock and roll completist loved that type of pop music, but also was super into glam music. Was super into every kind of rock and roll. I mean, he just absolutely loved rock and roll music in all, in virtually all of its forms. Mike Mills and Bill berry grew up in Macon, kind of in the shadow of the Allman Brothers and the other kind of Capricorn records, Southern rock stuff, you know, they absorbed that stuff. They absorbed the, you know, that kind of southern white boy blues, but along with the great r&b That was coming out of Macon at the time. So
13:08
all these
Peter Ames Carlin 13:21
different influences kind of come together and are sort of merged under this, this sort of philosophical ideal about, you know, artistic independence and doing things in an offbeat way,
Dave Anthony 13:35
right? These guys start touring like Mad Men. I mean, you write in the book of like, just how hard these guys work to get to the next level. And you know, they're playing bar after bar, college town after college town. And you tell a great story of how they started to become the darlings of, sort of, the college radio scene. What went into that? How did they build those relationships?
Peter Ames Carlin 13:58
Well, on the one hand, I mean, I think it's obviously, it all comes down to the music in a lot of ways, you know, because their sound was so distinctive and so distinct from what was going on in mainstream music. I mean that we're talking about the very early 80s right now, and I R.E.M.ember it well, because I was in college at the time. And, you know, in pop music and rock and roll were sort of in this awkward moment where, you know, it was the dawn of MTV, you know, it was kind of this transition, a sort of clumsy transition from the 70s into the 80s, where the sort of definitive forms of music are, like punk on one hand and disco on the other. And one is very raw and very, you know, unfiltered, and, you know, basic, and the other is super sophisticated. And I think you know, and you know, at the time, there was a lot of, if. Were a rock and roll kid, there was a whole lot of disco sucks type of energy out there, you know, which, at the time, felt like a reaction against the slickness of disco. But on the other hand, in retrospect, you look at it and you go, Well, maybe there was a certain amount of homophobia and racism in that whole disco sucks thing. And so R.E.M. came out of sort of that kind of tumult, but sort of with their own sound and idea, and that blending of kind of pop melodicism with with punk energy and vitality and those things together, I think resonated heavily for kids in college, those types of kids, and also they were very much a college band at the time. The first year or two that they were touring, they kind of had to build it around. Definitely, Michael stayed in college longer than anyone else, but around his class schedule so they could tour on weekends, but they kind of had to get back to Athens so he could go to, you know, school until he eventually dropped out. You know, they were so close in age and in values, and so the way they built that audience was, you know, they would tour relentlessly. They were on it from day one, and they made no secret of it. They were not going to compromise their music or their vision to get popular, but what they were going to do was work their asses off and play every night anywhere people would have them play. So they would play pizza parlors, they would play frat parties. They would play gay bars. You know, they would go anywhere that had a new way of night and needed a band to come in, and when they were there, they would connect with their audience, because there was this kind of fellowship between the college kids in the band, or just recent, you know, college dropouts in the band, and the, you know, the college kids and the people who lived around the universities, where they tended to kind of, even if they weren't playing on campus, they were generally close to them, And so they got to know the kids that worked in the college radio stations. And this is at the dawn of the moment when college radio became a definitive kind of, you know, a definitive kind of power source for popular culture. A lot of a lot of bands, a lot of energy was coming up through college media, and so R.E.M. became, really the first super popular, almost like college radio superstars. Yeah, that was way before they began to sell records and quantity. Yeah, they met people. They were nice. You know? They'd go from town to town, and they would R.E.M.ember people and hang out with them.
Dave Anthony 17:41
Yeah, you talk about how they partied with people afterward, and the people in the crowd, and everybody got together after, and it was like they built these relationships, literally, town by town. It's incredible.
Peter Ames Carlin 17:52
There was a natural niceness about them. Band guys can be dicks. It's almost like a birthright of the rock star, but they weren't interested in that. You know, they didn't want to be those guys. One
Dave Anthony 18:05
of the turning points, I guess, is David Letterman has a following among college kids. And in 1983 after they put out murmur with the hit Radio Free Europe. You and ultimately, they're about to put out reckoning, which I guess has the hit so central rain, I'm sorry, and pretty persuasion, they make an appearance on the Letterman Show.
Peter Ames Carlin 18:52
It well, at the time, the Letterman Show had been on for maybe a year and a half, and it was very much, you know, and it's on at 1230 at night. It's a very kind of college type of show. I mean, that's I started watching it when I was a freshman in college, the first year it was on. And it had a lot of kind of offbeat characters on there. It was, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, they had, yeah. It was very kind of outsidery, and their staff was very young and very tuned in. And so R.E.M. were opening for the police at Shea Stadium in the summer of 1983 and they made Peter and Mike Mills went on this talk show in New York City called Live at Five, that taped at NBC that was, you know, and it was right across their studio. Was like, right across the hall from the late night studio. And they were walking out of their taping, and they got cornered by these kids who were writers for Letterman. And they were like, We love your band. Will you come on our show? And they were like, Sure, fine, you know. And so then. A couple months later, or whatever they, you know, they went out there. But Letterman would have these kind of edging bands and, and, you know, and, and so there was this deep connection with them. And the Letterman Show on the Letterman, you know, and that was their first national TV exposure. And it was key. I mean, obviously, suddenly, you know, you're performing for millions of eyes.
Dave Anthony 20:21
In your Bruce Springsteen book, you talk about Bruce's principles of not wanting to be a sellout. He doesn't want to sort of play the big venues. He doesn't want certain things. He wants to kind of keep the integrity and the I you know that sort of you know that that original vision that they have R.E.M. has similar hang ups that they kind of don't want to compromise. Can you speak to some of those and how they got over
Peter Ames Carlin 20:47
that? Oh, sure. You know, there's this tension with bands and artists who are as fiercely independent and fiercely devoted to their artistry, but who also want to be hugely successful. And this happened to Bruce. It happened to R.E.M. where you you know, get your legs underneath you and get to know the industry well enough and that you begin to realize how you can reconcile your independence and your artistry with the demands of popular acclaim. And R.E.M. sort of walked that same road in their own way. And so for the first few years, you know, you see these interviews Michael, and he's saying, you know, radio doesn't deserve me yet, you know. And of course, a year later, they had a huge top 10 hit with the one I love, this one goes out to
21:48
the one I love, this one goes out to the one I've left behind.
Peter Ames Carlin 21:53
And so the key word in that sentence was yet. Do
Dave Anthony 21:58
you think it's a sense of unsureness or lack of confidence. It's the early defensive mechanism to go, Hey, I don't want to play the big venues. I don't want to. But really, what they're saying is, if I fail, I guess, you know, it's not going to be a big thing. Like, you know that defensive posturing?
Peter Ames Carlin 22:15
Yeah, I think the wariness is, is healthy. I think it's, it's actually evidence of intelligence and good character. Because you see a lot of people, obviously there's, there's a million horror stories in, you know, having to do with people who get to be too famous, too fast, and you know, and then you know, and it kind of ruins them, you know, it happens over and over again. I think it's also important for these guys to ultimately come to terms with the fact that they do want to be successful. They do want their music to be heard. When I was working on my book about the biography of Springsteen, I spoke to Wayne Kramer from the MC five. The MC five here, he had a really cool observation, you know. He said, listen, all these people that get up there and say, Oh, I don't want to be famous, you know. He goes, That's bullshit. He said, Any kid who straps a guitar on doesn't just want to be a rock star, they want to be the biggest rock star in the world. And he goes, like, you know, people talk about at the MC five like we were these brave gorillas, you know, who were opposed to fame. He goes, that's nonsense. He goes, the only reason we didn't get big is because we failed
Dave Anthony 23:32
right the mid 80s, the hit start coming for these guys fall on me. Superman. You know, they really start to kind of tap into that, into that sort of mainstream. People are starting to dig this stuff. I have to say, this may be the first act since Donnie and Marie that doesn't have the standard issue of rock and roll drug addictions and personal scandals. However, Michael stite feels some mental health challenges in the late 80s, early 90s, for something he'd rather keep private, which flows into exactly what you're talking about. Well,
Peter Ames Carlin 24:22
you know, he's, you know, he's super smart, he's artistic, and he is, he's queer, yeah, which, which, which is, you know, by his own definition, you know, I mean, he kept his sexual orientation kind of to himself for the first 10 or so years, or the first half of the band's career, and that created a kind of tension. I think he probably was, was, you know, coming, trying to come to terms with that, yeah,
Dave Anthony 24:50
and you have to R.E.M.ember, like, for younger members of the audience, the late 80s, early 90s, it wasn't exactly like people were out, no, well,
Peter Ames Carlin 24:57
I mean, it was difficult then, because there. Was less social acceptance of it. And also, and, you know, and then there was the AIDS crisis, which was, you know, which became an even bigger crisis because of the social and political implications of it and what it, you know, how it allowed mainstream society to further marginalize, you know, the gay community and to essentially, you know, I mean, and there was serious talk at the time of sending gay people off to concentration camps, you know, because nobody was sure, like, exactly how you know, you know what the eight, you know what the eight? You know, AIDS and HIV, like, how it was transmitted, and whether, this money was ridiculous, yeah, but at the time, it was a good excuse for your fears and hatred to you know, it was a good way to justify that stuff, if you if you wanted it that way,
Dave Anthony 25:50
right? Let's talk about the early 90s and the climb to fame. What are the forces that are content combining to propel this alternative ban? The darlings of college radio, they start having the hits, but, man, the whopping sales numbers and mainstream success just start adding up. Was it to do with, you know, alternative radio started to pop up in most major cities. I mean, was that must have been a factor? Was there other things that kind of came together that just other than producing some awesome songs, but what like this is an alternative act that becomes a mainstream success, right?
Peter Ames Carlin 26:23
And as we said earlier, you know, as an alternative act, they, you know, they cultivated their college following, and they really worked at it. They worked incredibly hard. Meanwhile, they're, you know, they're focused on this college audience at a moment when the culture at large began to focus on college media. And so the interest in college media and college culture happened at a moment when R.E.M. was really at their height as a college band. And then there is this growth in alternative radio that's happening at the same time. And at the same time, they're beginning to develop more of a comfort level with the demands of mainstream media. And so, like, for instance, like this was the moment when MTV was kind of the defining force for popular music. And for the first, you know, half dozen years or so, you know, seven or eight years, they absolutely would not make a video, you know, they would make videos, but they never wanted to make videos that were anything like what was on MTV. Michael refused to lip sync they, you know, they didn't want to mine their performances. They didn't want to do that thing, you know, which is what so many of the most popular videos were all about. But then gradually, they just began to feel like, well, you know, there's actually a way to do a performance video, or a, you know, a quasi performance video that sort of distills the idea in the song and the idea of the band in a way that is, in fact, you know, sort of artistic on its own terms. And I think when they began to figure out, I think Michael's realization in the early 90s, when he saw Sinead O'Connor's video for nothing compares to you, that even a lip sync performance could have an esthetic value unto itself. Nothing. Because that it was as legitimate a performance as anything else, if you did it in a particular way. That was huge. That then he started to feel more comfortable miming the songs and coming up with ways to kind of draw out their meaning in a way that was super powerful, and really sort of sense the emotional power of of these things, and at which point they're, you know, they exploded as, you
Dave Anthony 28:58
know, as a popular band, the whopping numbers. I mean, 12 million for out of time for an album sales automatic for the people, which contain drive. Everybody Hurts silence. Man on the Moon. 18 million copies, Monster, another six million in 94 with What's the frequency Kenneth, Crush with Eyeliner? Bang and blame, bang, bang. Then, just as we're getting to peak popularity, drummer Bill Berry suffers a brain aneurysm on stage at a concert in Lausanne, Switzerland, and they do one last album in 96 before Berry leaves the band. What? What impact do you think looking back now? What losing Berry? What did that do to this band.
Peter Ames Carlin 30:20
Well, it altered their chemistry, because he was such a significant part of, you know, their, their, their, their, sort of, you know, creative, cooperative. I mean, generally, you know, a lot of bands, drummers can come and go and doesn't make that big of a difference, you know. And even in bands where you know, the drummer sound and field is so definitive, like in the Rolling Stones with Charlie Watts or the Beatles Ringo Starr, you know, the drummer still is not a part of the creative front line. You know, he's very significant. You know, he contributes a lot. You know, that wouldn't be as great without it. But in R.E.M., Bill was one of the key songwriters. I mean, they all wrote songs. They were all key songwriters. Yeah,
Dave Anthony 31:03
that's a unique thing about this band, is they all wrote the music, or at least contributed.
Peter Ames Carlin 31:08
And Bill, you know, I mean, Bill's a multi instrumentalist and an extR.E.M.ely musical guy, and also really understands song structure, and was always, you know, within four he became, in a lot of ways, his role was sort of as the editor in chief, because other guys would come in with with, you know, songs or bits and pieces of songs, and he would be the guy that they all turned to to say, this works. That sucks. Like, not this, not this, or this is great, except it goes on for too long, so we need to cut like half of it out, you know. And he was the guy that they all trusted on that level, thinking emotional, you know, and sort of an emotional crisis of, I've gotten everything I want, but I feel like I'm done, you know, it's like, I don't feel like doing it anymore, yeah,
Dave Anthony 31:57
the energy is kind of lacking, maybe, yeah, exactly.
Peter Ames Carlin 32:01
And he sort of was like, I could fake it and phone it in, or I can just leave, you know, and live my life in the kind of quieter, more grounded way that I feel like I need to do right now. And that's, you know, that's what he's gone and done. I mean, he was the one guy, intriguingly, you know, was both one of the most driven and in terms of becoming successful and really understood what the demands were. Bill was the one who went to all, you know, the guys that were still in school in the early 80s, and said, We have to drop out, like, if we're going to do this seriously, everybody needs to drop out and focus on this and convince them all eventually to do that, and he was the one who had actually had experience working in the industry for a booking agency in Macon, and got to know, came to understand what it took to build a career. Like how do you it's one thing to be in a college band and play parties and stuff. It's another thing to know who you need to call and what you need to do in order to start playing shows out of town.
Dave Anthony 33:05
That's a great point in terms of metaphor,
Peter Ames Carlin 33:07
you know, you get to be as they were superstars in the mid 90s. And it was, it went to the point where there were crowd, you know, when they were touring, there were crowds at the airport. There were crowds outside the hotel. Everybody wanted to get a glimpse, or get a, you know, some kind of piece of them. And you know, that was the tour where the guy's head exploded on stage, which is an overly dramatic way, and yet, as a metaphor, it's what happened.
Dave Anthony 33:34
Yeah, it's funny, because when you're one of the top bands in the world, I mean, towards the end here, the last few albums don't sell that well. Is that just a combination of file sharing and the crazy things that happened in the late 90s, early 2000s or did the music change? Like, what do you attribute that sort of decline? Or did they just have their time and it was time for everything to roll over into a new era?
Peter Ames Carlin 33:57
Everything you just said is exactly right? All of those things kind of coming together by the time Bill left the band in the late eight, excuse me, the late 90s, and they began to work as a trio. You know, they have to kind of rediscover themselves. Meanwhile, there's file sharing. Meanwhile, you know, the cultural wheel never stops spinning, right? And you can always be on top of what's going on. Yeah. And also, the one constant in this band is their commitment to, you know, to experimenting and to trying new things and doing whatever they felt like doing at any given time. And you know, sometimes it worked great, and sometimes, you know, sometimes it didn't. And so they made some records that maybe weren't quite as powerful as the others, though, you know, but the good news was, you know, every album that they made was defined by their actual, you know, artistic impulses, and not by some sense of well, what are the kids listening to today? Let's just try. Let's just do that, you know, which was never their jam. And so all these things kind of coming together
Dave Anthony 35:07
in doing all the meticulous research for this book. And now looking back at, you know, what you've accomplished with the book, is there anything that you've learned about the band that surprised you, that you sort of went I didn't realize these things. One
Peter Ames Carlin 35:22
of the most delightful things that I learned was how what a kind person Michael is, which you don't you know and and most times you like rock, rock stars, and particularly you know the you know, the central figure, you know, the lead singer in a rock band is generally not the nicest guy. It takes so much drive and fierceness and ruthlessness to become that successful, and a lot of guys don't manage to do that with their souls intact, but I think Michael really did, and I think just
Dave Anthony 35:55
rock acts, please don't tweet us and text us. Don't
Peter Ames Carlin 35:59
at me, man. But um, you know, I just think, you know, I mean, one of the things that I think is cool about this band is that, win or lose, they did what they felt like doing, basically the entire every step of the way, and they built themselves, you know, an astounding career based around that and the fact
Dave Anthony 36:23
that they came sort of the late 80, mid to late 80s, and then the 90s, in that sort of superstar category, did they as an alternative act? I mean, did they pave the way for Nirvana, Pearl, jam and the rest, like the alternative kind of rock that came, the grunge, the whatever it's called,
Peter Ames Carlin 36:40
well, that's definitely the opinion of the guys in Nirvana and Pearl Jam and, you know, and a lot of these bands, you know, even now, you know, decades later, are still point to R.E.M. as being, you know, a definitive influence. You know, a definitive influence on them because of the way they went about their work because of their ability to reconcile their, their, you know, their their artistry and their independent spirit with the demands and, you know, and needs of a mainstream industry. We're getting
Dave Anthony 37:15
to the end here. What is the lasting legacy of this band? What will they be R.E.M.embered for?
Peter Ames Carlin 37:19
Well, you know, obviously you have dozens of great songs, and a lot of, you know, a lot of popular songs that still make an impact. I mean, the bear, the TV series, the second season, was built to the soundtrack of like, two or three R.E.M. songs, right? That kind of distilled the spirit of what, you know, what they were trying to do with their characters and their story over that season. And so there's R.E.M., kind of in prime time, or whenever you watch, you know, whenever you streamed it. And it was the voice of Michael Stipe, it was the sound of R.E.M. that was kind of expressing something super important for the show that was at that moment, kind of, you know, at the forefront of, you know, television that's lasting. I think every time that you see a band or you see somebody like, again, you know, talking about Taylor Swift, it's like, well, now I'm gonna make an indie or I'm gonna make an indie record. I'm gonna work with these indie guys, and I'm gonna have a sound that's gonna be, you know, a lot more off beat, you know. And then the next album goes in a completely different direction, that spirit, that that dedication to your own vision and to making, you know, doing exactly what you what you want to be doing. You know, a lot of that flows straight out of what R.E.M. did.
Dave Anthony 38:36
Here's the hardest question you're going to get on your upcoming boat book to her. Yeah, give us a rapid fire one to three words to describe each member of the band. So tell us, if you had to describe Michael Stipe in like five words or less, what
Peter Ames Carlin 38:52
would you say? Gotcha minimalist, baby. We're going minimalist. We're
Dave Anthony 38:56
gonna go back to basics. This is your your unplugged set here. So Michael Stipe, give us just three words, five words,
Peter Ames Carlin 39:08
poetic, electric and and magnetic. Peter Buck is explosive, deep and vaguely troubled. Well, hyphenate that just Yeah, so it's so anyway, Bill Berry is driven and shy and conflicted, and Mike Mills is musical and joyous and gregarious.
Dave Anthony 39:48
Great answer. Last time we had you on, we made you do the three picks of Bruce Springsteen. What if we had to pick three songs of R.E.M. for the audience, whether they're lesser known, whether they're popular? Doesn't matter, what three picks would you make that the audience should give a listen or a re listen to
Peter Ames Carlin 40:08
if you want to kind of get a sense of of their evolving career. I think you know Radio Free Europe is a great place to start trying.
40:27
Yeah,
Peter Ames Carlin 40:28
that's a great one. And then when you're talking about the work they did in the 90s, it's like every album has three definitive songs on it. I really love, you know? I mean, maybe, what's the frequency cat, was it so grungy and loud and really captures sort of that kind of, that kind of punky grungy energy they had in their 90s. Yeah, then I realized, Oh, crap. Now we're missing the whole all the aughts. And they made some great music during the aunts as well. So three songs are never going to do it. People, you're going to have to, you're going to have to go for another, another three, at least.
Dave Anthony 41:14
I urge everyone to go out and pick up the name of this band is R.E.M. by Peter Ames Carlin. It is a meticulous look at the journey of the band from its alternative roots in the college radio scene to its absolute mainstream monster success. And Peter, I want to thank you today, because it's been a lot of fun to have you back.
Peter Ames Carlin 41:36
My pleasure.
Dave Anthony 41:40
Some closing notes on R.E.M., we discussed R.E.M.s role as a trailblazer in leading alternative music the mainstream, paving the way for bands like Nirvana and R.E.M.s impact on Kurt Cobain's musical approach, it turns out there was even deeper connection. Michael Stipe, lead singer of R.E.M., revealed in 2011 that he attempted to try and save Cobain's troubled life by sending him a plane ticket to join him in Georgia to do some writing together. Even sent a limo to Cobain's house to pick him up. Kurt, deep in depression, refused to leave his house, according to Michael Stipe quote, I sent him a plane ticket and a driver, and he tacked the plane ticket to the wall in the bedroom, and the driver sat outside the house for 10 hours. Kurt wouldn't come out and wouldn't answer the phone. R.E.M. was named best band in America by Rolling Stone magazine in 1987 songwriting credits and royalties are shared equally regardless of who wrote an R.E.M. song, this may have been one reason they've been around for so long as many bands have broken up over who gets writing credits together, the four members were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2024 R.E.M. didn't print lyrics with their albums. Michael Stipe, lead singer, explained, the fans often have better interpretations than the actual words. We mentioned that drummer Bill Berry quit the band in 1997 after he suffered a near fatal brain aneurysm, he decided to take life at a slower pace and became a farmer. Lead singer Stipe also had a few close calls. He nearly died of scarlet fever when he was two of hypothermia when stranded on a mountaintop aged 14 on a boy scouts trip, and of a lightning strike at age 26 Stipe, interestingly produced the 1999 movie being John malkovic, and apparently he's often mistaken for malkovic. Here's another interesting example of R.E.M. sticking to their principles. Warner Brothers television initially wanted the theme song where the TV show Friends to be R.E.M.s, 1991 hit, shiny, happy people. However, R.E.M. rejected the Warner Brothers request to use their classic hit using their musical arm. Warner Brothers Records, the company enlisted the only available ban on their roster at the time the Rembrandts to write an original theme, which ended up being, "I'll be there for you" theme song. The Rembrandts have made $5 million in royalties from the show, but in interviews, have admitted that the TV theme song became an albatross around their necks by damaging their cool vibe and forcing them from the independent circuit, to quote, playing matinees with parents and kids, which ultimately led to their breakup. So again, another example of R.E.M. sticking to their principles and sustaining the longevity of their own band. Thanks to you, our listeners, for helping make garage to stadiums one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our show so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. You can even send us your comments at info, at garage to stadiums.com. For more on R.E.M.s career, visit garage to. Stadiums, where you can see our bonus coverage of the band, which includes video clips of various stages of their career. You can see our notes and transcripts from all of our episodes at the site, we've made it easy for you to even build a killer playlist for every performer featured on a garage to stadiums episode, including a playlist on today's band R.E.M.. Find the link to the apple and Spotify playlists in our bonus coverage section of our website. We hope you enjoyed our show today. Special thanks to our guest Peter Ames Carlin. Author of the name of this band is R.E.M. and also, thanks to our fabulous producers, Amina Fauci, Connor Sampson, and our program director Scott Campbell, you've been listening to garage to stadiums, another blast furnace, labs, production. I'm Dave Anthony. It's theodx. Time for another garage to stadium story. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai