| Few artists have reached the level R.E.M. have — that magical plateau in the music business where you can sit back and do whatever you feel like. Don't want to tour? Fine. The bandmembers don't live near each other and practice only occasionally? No problem. Don't feel like permanently replacing the drummer who left the group? That's fine, too. Want to release 72 live double albums from your European and North American tours? Wait, that's another band, but you get the idea.
It was the freedom of this unshackled approach that led to Reveal, R.E.M.'s 12th studio album. Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills sat down with Eric Demby to discuss how their long-distance relationship works, their love for the Beach Boys and how the group wouldn't mind the end of the music business as we know it.
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MTV: Now that you don't all live in Athens, how has that affected the way you compose songs? Do you guys get together and do it, or do you do it separately and then send stuff around?
Mike Mills: When we were in the same town, it was a lot easier to just go over to somebody's house and just sit and write songs. But even toward the end of the time that we did live in the same town, we were writing separately and then bringing it in and showing it to everyone. And that's just the same way it is today, it's just farther apart.
MTV: This record is pretty subdued. It's just a very introspective record. Is that something you were striving for?
Michael Stipe: Nowadays, people are much more focused on singles than on single songs, and the album or the idea of the album seems to have taken a backseat to the power of one song, which is really about radio and money.
I like it when I find an album that I can put on and leave on through dinner or through a party. So I consciously tried to steer stuff toward something that was cohesive from beginning to end. And then of course each song has its own thing ... and is its own piece. But I like the idea that you can put it on and leave it on, that there wasn't one song or two songs that stood out or made you want to change the record.
Mills: We're really interested in finding the beauty of music these days. It's not so much about hitting people over the head with anything, but taking a song and seeing how you can find something really lovely either inside it, or bring something really lovely to it. You know, heavy emphasis on melody and that sort of thing. I think that might tend to make it sound more introspective than it really is.
Stipe: I wanted the stuff to be really melodic, and so I worked hard to try and squeeze as much melody into each song as I could. And I worked really hard on the lyrics, which is ... that's my hardest thing that I have to do. Singing melody and singing is really simple, and helping these guys arrange the stuff that they've written is kind of simple, but the lyrics are really hard. I like the idea that you can listen to something like, you know, driving to work, or doing the dishes or whatever and not really give it much thought, just kind of hum along to it. Or, if you want to dive in a little bit deeper, you can do so, and if the words are put together in a good way, then there's maybe something there for you to find.
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