Nicky Campbell's 'Into The Night' show
	BBC Radio One, 1991
	NC: R.E.M. are in the studio and I'll be speaking to them in just a second, and they will be playing live. They've got a new album out, which I've been featuring on Into The Night, and very good it is, too - it's called Out Of Time. They're not going to be touring with it, so this is a rare opportunity to hear them across the nation. From that album, first of all, this is Endgame. [recorded Endgame is played] NC: It is my unbridled delight to welcome into the studio R.E.M. - Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, and with them on this occassion for the promotional visit, a man who has played extensively on their material, Peter Holtsapple. Well, welcome, and I think the first question has to be "Why aren't you touring?" I think a lot of people would be getting a lot of joy from your work. JMS: We spent most of 1989 touring, and decided after eleven months that we didn't want to do it for quite a while. This record would, of course, be the record to tour behind, but we just weren't ready for it. NC: Is it the tremendous exertion of previous tours that has put you off the whole thing of touring, or what? MEM: For the time being. JMS: [In an old man's voice] Well, we're pretty old now, you know? We're getting up there. NC: Well, ten years, of course. I suppose life has changed in those last ten years, hasn't it? JMS: Life has changed a great deal, yeah. NC: Moving from cult status, joining a major record company, a multinational multimedia conglomerate. Do you think that's going to make life difficult? JMS: Warner Bros. actually, and WEA in Europe, the reason we joined up with them, actually, is because they have the best distribution in Europe. It's great to be an American phenomenon, but I think that as a band we have a lot more to offer than that. I think that what we have to offer surpasses, you know, cultural and even language barriers - that's why we're so great! [the band laughs] And we're about to knock that one right off the shelf [PLB: You're sending him right to sleep] with the next song! NC: Well, just before you do, I mean, you're from Athens, Georgia. I'd like you, if you could, to paint a picture of Athens, Georgia, because to most people listening it's a world away. JMS: Athens is a world away. It's a very small town. It's been built up, in the meidia, to be a lot more than it is, really, it's a college town. You know, it's home to us, so it's an exciting place to back to, but there's really not a whole lot that happens there - the streets are not lined with gold [MEM sniggers], people son't walk around with guitars and flowers coming out of their hair. It's a pretty simple place. NC: You'd be deserved and, I'm sure, proud of your reputation as radicals, or that term 'liberals'. [JMS: Liberal - the 'L' word], which seems to be a very rude term in America in some quarters. But is place, Athens, Georgia, which you paint as being quite unexciting, is it as implacably conservative and racist and so forth as a lot of places are in the south of America? JMS: You know, I think the racist tag kind of comes to most peoples' mind when they think about the south in the United States and it's something that's really not quite fair. I think that, culturally speaking, blacks and whites have lived together there for a long long time, and even native Americans, American Indians. The cultures and the way that they inter-swap with one another, and historically have done so in that part of the world make it difficult to make that easy a division. I would go so far as to say that there are a lot of places in the United States, and certainly in the world, that have much worse and much more obvious racial problems than the south. NC: Are they are a large percentage of the 93% who are supposedly, or proportionally, behind George Bush at the moment? He's getting these enormous approval ratings. JMS: That 93% that I think everyone on this side of the ocean anyway has been hearing about us is of course [MEM: It's backwards. It's actually thirty-nine] wildly propogandistic and we can thank the media for that. I think that the media machine has gone into full tilt behind this war clearly, and the one thing that we've said to peeople that we've talked to on this promotional tour, as Americans, as ambassadors for America, is that the amount of anger and hopelessness, helplessness, the amount of frustration that a lot of people in the US feel because their not being heard because they never supported the war, never supported Mr. Bush's and the military strategy, the inititives that they took and the way that they went about conducting themselves in the name of the United States and the 'allied forces'. There are so many people there that are embarassed, angered and really feel helpless about it. NC: Do you think, as you become more and more successful, great as you are at the moment and we're about to hear it, and you've confirmed it [JMS and MEM snigger] - as you become more and more successful and you move into the mega-buck league, selling not only millions of records [JMS: Mega-Buck? Buck], but billions of records [JMS: Yeah], do you think it's going to be difficult, do you think your radical stance and your avowed liberalism might be compromised? JMS: Well, we're not really, you know, that wildly liberal. I mean, I think that we're fairly moderate really in our ideas.We pretty much base ourselves on common sense and I think, unfortunately in the US after the Reagan years, what seems to be good sense, good common sense, appears to be radical or liberal. The 'L' word, of course, came out of the Bush campaign as being something bad. Mike? MEM: Yes JMS: Would you like to agree with me? MEM: [sniggers, JMS laughs] I will, as usual. As I've done every day for the past week. JMS: We're not that radical, you know. We speak our minds and sometimes we kind of overstep our boundaries, but again, you know, I would overstress, especially concerning the war, that there are so many people in the US that never supported it and never supported Mr. Bush. NC: So, we're not getting the true picture? JMS: No, of course not. I mean, CNN, of all the networks in the US, is the most liberal. You should see what the other ones had to say about everything; and the idea of a entire nation of Americans marching patriotically behind George Bush and the government and the military and industrial complexes that are making out pretty big after this whole fiasco. Significant to say that the biggest anti-war protest in the history of the States, as far as I know, occurred in front of the White House and was not even reported in the Wahington Post, the newspaper that's less than a block away. NC: Well, I suppose what you're saying about the 'L' word becoming a dirty word under Reagan, I think it became a dirty word under McCarthy, didn't it? But maybe you're saying that there's a new McCarthy-ism around. JMS: I think, you know, I think McCarthy never died [laughs, MEM sniggers], he's been Exhumed by a number of people [sniggers]. NC: The words of Michael Stipe. We're now going to hear Michael singing and the band playing. What's the first one? JMS: This song is called World Leader Pretend, and it's not about me [MEM laughs]. MEM: Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4... [World Leader Pretend is played live] [clapping, cheering, JMS laughs] NC: As you can hear, we're in very intimate surroundings here... studio five, Maidevale, and it's R.E.M. playing [someone coughs] live and coughing onto the carpet [JMS mimicks the cough, MEM laughs] as well. The new album, having said what you said before, isn't as political as some of your previous studd, is it? JMS: No. We kind of decided the role of political activists was kind of thrust onto us with the last couple of records, and we've never wanted to be categorised in any way, much less as a political band or myself as a political writer, so Iset out to do the one thing that I've always despised, the one form of pop song that I find the most odious and that's, of course [MEM sniggers], the love song. And I set out to challenge myself to write album love songs. NC: Why do you find it so odious? Have you never been in love before? JMS: There's so many of 'em, and they're so badly written. NC: Yeah, have you been in love, though? JMS: Have I been in love? NC: Yeah. JMS: Can't say I have. NC: No, so you haven't experienced it [JMS: No, I can't say that I have], so... maybe if you fell in love, Moons In June would flow out of your pen [MEM laughs]. JMS: Moon and June, yeah. Those are two things that I think about when I think about love, but, umm, errr... anyway... [MEM and JMS laugh] NC: But, is the next song being recorded even? JMS: The next song has been recorded, but it didn't go on the record. It's a bizarre love triangle kind of song. [NC: Love again] It's a good one. Huh? [NC: Love again, eh?]. Love again, always fiction... here we go. MEM: Okay. 1, 2, 3, 4... [Fretless is played live] [clapping, cheering] [recorded Me In Honey is played] NC: That was Me In Honey from R.E.M.'s Out Of Time - with Kate Pierson of the B52's. That's great - why didn't you do that for us live? PLB: Well, we can't play it, we don't have Kate to sing it and, boy it sounds horrible when we [MEM: Probably forgotten it. JMS: I can't hit the notes] do it in mandolin. [JMS: And I can't remember the words] Michael can't remember the words [JMS: That's right]. So... good enough reason [NC laughs]. [recorded Shiny Happy People is played] NC: I know you have had a very hectic schedule on this promotional trip. It's a shame you'renot playing any gigs, but you've been all over the continent, prmoting this new album. In what way would you say that it varies significantly from your previous work? PLB: Given that we wrote the songs that we played on it, how much can it vary, you know? It's different in that we have a lot more outside musicians, it's probably the most arranged record we've ever made. We had actual string charts and very strong arrangements for the songs before we went into the studio, I suppose to accomodate the outside players... when you get the symphony players there, you can't very well say 'Gee, it's an A', you know - JM [JMS sniggers]. Symphony players don't do that. So, we had things very well written out, which we've never done before - we tend to make it up as we go along. NC: Were you surprised at the lyrical content of the songs, being an album repleat with love songs? PLB: Well, no. I mean, Michael's done that before, not necessarily for the length of an album, but there have been songs dating back to the first album which dealt with that - maybe a bit more obliquely, but... JMS: Obliquely would be the order of the day with Michael. PLB: Well, South Central Rain - I thought that was a very clear love song [JMS: Yeah, I agree]. And You Are The Everything is just, I mean you can't get much more than that [MEM sniggers, JMS laughs], I mean you'd be Tom Jones if it was much more of a love song [all laugh, JMS: God help us all]. So, for me it wasn't a big change, just maybe the only change was that we approached so many at once. NC: Do you understand all his lyrics? PLB: Sure. I mean, not maybe every person, place, thing, date, time and, you know [JMS: Reference], reference certainly, but, you know - I guess, being like any other fan, I tend to know exactly what the songs are about. But being unlike any other fan, I'm in the band, I do tend to know [an unknown female, possibly the producer, laughs] [JMS: A little bit about...] a little bit about what goes on in our lives. JMS: You know, I think it's okay every now and then to throw a little bit of nonsense in. As a lyricist, I like to have that ability to just write a nonsense song every now and then. NC: It's your perrogative. JMS: It is my perrogative. Thankyou. NC: Yeah, but the lyrics are very elusive and alusive, aren't they? JMS: Umm, I don't know the difference between those two words [sniggers], except that one starts with an 'E', and... NC: One eludes and one alludes. [MEM laughs] PLB: I think the meaning is eluding Michael. JMS: Thankyou, Peter. NC: I think you'd better play a song. Which is the next one? JMS: Umm, the next song is a great, wonderful song called Half A World Away. NC: And are the lyrics free association? JMS: They are not, no. The lyrics make a great deal of sense. Very very sad. PLB: 1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3... [Half A World Away is played live] [clapping] JMS: Thankyou NC: An enthusiastic clap there from the crowd! [JMS laughs] What do you think of our country? What do you think of our little country? You can tell us. Be honest. JMS: I like England a great deal. [NC: What about Scotland and...] I love coming to London. NC: Well, our country isn't just England; it's Scotland, and Northern Ireland, and Wales - they're all listening tonight [JMS: the United Kingdom]. Okay, yeah. It's important for some people. JMS: Sometimes we say America, and we really mean the United States. NC: Yeah, okay. But you do like it, genuinely, yeah? JMS: I do, yeah. NC: What do you like about it? JMS: I like the fact that it's so small [MEM: The food. JMS sniggers]. Yeah, the food. NC: Mike likes the food. Are you being sarcastic? MEM: Yes, I am a little sarcastic. NC: And your mic's not on, but... JMS: Mushy peas. We don't have those in the south. MEM: [possibly through a rolled-up piece of paper, to compensate for the mic not being on] I don't like the food! [all laugh] NC: He likes the food, and he says he's being a little sarcastic. You like the mushy peas, yeah? JMS: I don't like mushy peas, no. NC: No, they are disgusting, aren't they? JMS: I like corn chips. You can't get corn chips here, that's one thing that's a little weird. I think you feed your corn to your pigs, right? NC: Yeah, while we're on the subject of [JMS: Corn chips] food, and corn chips, what would the staple diet of a Georgian be? JMS: A staple diet of a Georgian [PLB: Which Georgian? PLB sniggers] depends on whether or not they're vegetarian. This Georgian eats a lot of... collored greens, black-eyed peas [MEM: Yeah], corn-bread [PLB: Yep], that's standard. NC: You're a vegetarian. JMS: I am, yeah. PLB: He leaves out the pork bits which [JMS: I leave out the portk bits, yeah. JMS sniggers] the rest of the non-vegetarians tend to... [JMS: the wiggy bits] NC: Does that come of principal or just taste? JMS: It came of taste to begin with, and then the principal came later. It's been eleven years, I think, ten years. NC: Because you do have an environmental concern in the band, don't you? You're very green-minded. JMS: Yeah, I guess we are - collectively and individually. As regular people or just citizens, we're a lot more forward about the causes and the issues that we support. We happen to be pop stars and media figures, so we're able to channel some of those causes or some of the things that we think about through that and bring it to the attention of more people, which can be a good thinkg, I think. NC: Well, it's pleasing for you tonight that the cups you're drinking coffee out of, or whatever is in it, is paper. JMS: Paper - and I re-used it three times. [NC: Oh, brilliant] Now i'm using a new one. NC: That's good news for the planet. What's the next song? JMS: The next song is called Radio Song. It's the first track off the new record... You want me to wrap or something? [sniggers] PLB: Oh, uhh, no, I don't think the world is ready for that [all laugh], at least not the United Kingdom. JMS: The world is not ready for that, no. PLB: I don't think we have to count this one off. JMS: Nope. [Radio Song is played live] [clapping] JMS: Thanks. NC: And very nice, too - more later on. I'm going to play track from the album, this is Near Wild Heaven, which has some very nice Beach Boys-type harmony. [recorded Near Wild Heaven is played] NC: Listen, why are you still together after all this time, Bill, as a band? What is it, ten years? WTB: Mmm, it'll be eleven in April, next month. NC: What's the secret of your togetherness? WTB: Well, we started out as friends - you know, we didn't find each other through newspaper clippings. It was something that just, kind of happened and it kind of overrides everything else in the band right now, too, so... we were friends first, professional musicians second [all laugh, maybe third]. JMS: Accent on the word 'professional' [all snigger]. NC: There must have been a few tanrtums along the way, though, Bill. WTB: Yeah [MEM sniggers]. One or two of us was almost thrown out of the van at one point in the early days [JMS: Thrown out of the band?]. The van... V-A-N... the small lorry [NC laughs]. JMS: Who's the worst of all of you for tantrums, then? PLB: Please! [band laughs] WTB: I'm going to be diplomatic and say me [all laugh]! [PLB: Perfect answer, Bill] Don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. PLB: One of the reasons we've stayed together all these years is diplomacy. NC: It's something you don't see in other bands. I mean, earlier on, I noticed that you went across and you played the bass [all laugh] WTB: Yes, I did that [JMS: You're right!]. NC: It's something you don't often see, this shifting around and changing. Like Mike playing the bass and also playing the organ, you playing the bongos there and the shakey thing, and also the bass. Maybe that helps, you all appreciate each other's roles, and Mike taking lead vocal. WTB: It gets boring otherwise. I mean, I get really tired of playing the drums [MEM sniggers, [JMS: I get tired of hearing my voice]. It's a pretty stupid thing to do [JMS: Yeah]. JMS: Bill's got the best voice in the band, actually, I think - technically speaking. Don't you agree, Mike? MEM: Oh, absolutely [JMS: Yes]. As I always do [all laugh]. JMS: I agree with my wife. NC: They say, Michael, that you were born of the British punk movement. If that is true, what bands did inspire you round about then? JMS: Yeah, Wire - the first Wire record, Pink Flag; Patti Smith; and Television were the three records I bought when I was, I guess, my my sixteenth birthday. NC: So, it was really the American stuff which had been influenced by the British stuff that influenced you. JMS: Uhh, if you want to put it that way, yes [MEM sniggers]. NC: Well, I just have [JMS: You have, haven't you], and I probably will again at some stage. What about the Sex Pistols? JMS: That was a little bit later. That was about '78, wasn't it? '77? [NC: Yeah] PLB: They're a great band, but the bands that we saw more, as people we could relate to, were someone like Wire, who - I mean, the Sex Pistols are great, but they're kind of like the angry monkeys; they were put together and they were - well, you know, it was a package, and we tended to like the stuff that was just a little bit more... out there. I mean, Wire was one of the first bands where we kind of played each other's records and said, you know, 'This is a really great record' [JMS: Amazing, yeah]. We actually did a cover of a Wire tune on one of our records, which escapes me right now. JMS: The tune or the record? [PLB: The record] The tune was Strange, the record was Document [PLB: Right], because I have a signed copy that Colin Newman and all the guys signed for me. NC: On the new record, Out Of Time, Michael, you annunciate all your words absolutely beautifully, as you have been doing recently. In the early days, of course, you had a name for, I think, rather indecipherable lyrics - mumbling a little bit. JMS: Yeah, I know. I think that people who wrote about the band didn't know what to write about because we don't have a real set image, and so they kind of picked on the vocals, and to be fair I did insist on mixing the vocals down and not having big disco drums like every other band that was coming out in 1982. NC: Why was that? Was it your natural endearing shyness? JMS: I didn't - [laughs] very endearing, thankyou Nicky!] - I just really didn't know what I was doing. You know, what you've seen over the last decade if you've been watching R.E.M. grow up as a band in public, the first three albums were us learning how to write songs and throw tantrums in amongst ourselves. NC: But now you're moving toward the mainstream. JMS: I don't think so. I think the mainstream has kind of moved towards us. I mean, if anything, the reason that the vocals might be clearer is that I've become a better lyricist, I've become a better writer, I think, and I'm a little less shy than I was in 1982. I mean, I would think that in nine or ten years time change is inherent, and I'm accepting of that; I would not wwant to be the same as I was when I was twety-two years old. I think I'm probably much younger now and much happier of a person. In general, and I think I could say this about the band - myself specifically, and the whole band - we're just a lot more sure of ourselves at this point and willing to take risks, and so including people like Kate Pierson, KRS-1, Kid Jordan and the Altanta Symphony String Quartet [sniggers], you know, the whole thing. NC: Yes, hearing R.E.M. with strings is quite something. JMS: I like those string a lot. Yeah, I think they really work. PLB: I think we're really proud of the fact, too, that this is probably the only record in the world that has KRS-1 [NC: He's the rapper. Right], us, Kid Jordan and the Atlanta Symphony on the same track. I'm sure it'll never happen again, so... [JMS: The world can only hope not. All snigger] NC: What's your penultimate number going to be? JMS: Our penultimate number is going to be Losing My Religion, which is, of course, our new single. NC: What does it mean? JMS: 'Losing my religion' is a phrase, a slang term, thanks, in the south. When we wrote the song - I didn't even want to call the song that because I thought it would be a little bit too controversial, but the band insisted on it. In the south, in Georgia, where we live, if you say that you're losing your religion, it basically means that you're at the end of your rope or you've had it, you're fed up. A DJ who was conducting an interview, perhaps, with a band he didn't like [MEM sniggers] and giving him a hard time would walk out of the booth and say 'I almost lost my religion, they were total midless idiots... and they stink, too [MEM laughs], so that would... NC: Toni-? JMS: The phrase- No, I don't think you would have to say that tonight, one would hope [all laugh]. NC: No, I was saying, tonight I'm born again. JMS: Oh, you're born again. Yeah, it's a secular song. It has literally nothing to do with religion, but the actual meaening of it, of course, is that it's something that is so powerful or something that occurrs or happens to you that it can challenge your spiritual convictions - of course, it's used very casually in everyday slang. So, coming from the idiomatic south, here is Losing - My - Religion... NC: Apostosise. MEM: 1, 2, 3, 4... 1, 2... [Losing My Religion is played live] [clapping, cheering] JMS: Thanks. NC: The instruments are changing round even as I speak. MEM: This is a matter of necessity here, though. NC: Why's that, Mike? MEM: String broke. NC: Oh, I see [all laugh] - technical reasons. PLB: We never make mistakes, that was a string that broke [all laugh]. NC: Well, I suppose the cycle of making an album and touring has been broken on this occasion, not promoting Out Of Time by means of a tour. But a new product will be forthcoming very shortly, will it? MEM: We hope so.When we get home and do this same sort of thing in America, the US [JMS: Thankyou], we're going to start writing songs immediately for the next record. NC: How do you write songs, by the way? I mean, all four of you are credited, so... MEM: That's how it's done. We sit around in the sudio and persons bring in bits of what they've done at home and throw out ideas and we just work with those ideas until we have a song. JMS: It's kind of like musical armwrestling [MEM sniggers]. We have a place that we do it, and a giant table. MEM: Whoever wins gets to write the next song. WTB: Turn on the mic [MEM and JMS laugh]. JMS: Jello. WTB: Jello. NC: When do the lyrics come? Do they come last? JMS: I think they come along with, probably. I think I've become legendary for the amount of notebooks I carry round with me that have little scribblings, and I've even at one point gone so far as to say that Iwould be publishing one and I just have to say that I would never subject the worl to the stuff that doesn't make it to R.E.M. records. I think that that's just tooo unfair [sniggers]. NC: Because you like to Document and record the world that goes around you, don't you? JMS: I've read that, yeah [NC and JMS laugh]. NC: I haven't. You just strike me as the sort of guy who would like to document [JMS: Thankyou, I take that as a compliment] and record the world that goes around him. Well, thanks for coming in tonight [JMS: Thanks for having us, it's been great], it's been very very special. MEM: Thanks, our pleasure. WTB: Thankyou, Nicky. NC: And the last one... JMS: The last song... NC: Not one of your own. MEM: No [JMS: No]. A cover song by The Troggs [JMS: As sung by Mr. Mike Mills]. Thankyou. JMS: Who's also playing bass, so listen for bass mistakes [laughs]. MEM: Bass clams, okay. 1, 2, 3, 4... 1... [Love Is All Around is played live] NC: Oh, yes! JMS: The End! [clapping, cheering] WTB: Bye! JMS: Thankyou, Nicky. JMS: I keep rattling this [a maracas used during the song]. NC: Thankyou Peter, Peter, Mike, Bill and Michael - and this Mr. Buck, nice bit of Irish there [PLB is strumming some chords]. PLB: Yeah [NC: Yeah]. Yeah, we could end with this, right? MEM: [laughs] Fade to black. Somebody: Yeeea-wooo!

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