R.E.M.Archive: Wales On Sunday souvenir newspaper

Back To The End Of The Beginning, Wales On Sunday

Souvenir newspaper article from Monster tour, Cardiff, 23 Jul 96

Suddenly, a side door swings open and four guys amble through. They're each clad in some of the most banal shirts and jeans you could ever hope to see. One of them has a shaven head, another has mutton chop sideburns, the third has glasses and a whispy goatee and the fourth an eyebrow that seems to circle his entire skull.
Yet, the very instant this quartet arrives, the room goes so quiet you could hear the price of a pin drop.
Their names are Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry and they are talking about Monster, the first R.E.M. album in two years.
Seeing Michael Stipe in the flesh for the first time, you find yourself staring at him for a couple of seconds longer than maybe you should. He seems to be well used to the attention and quietly busies himself with his cigarette papers and his ounce of Drum tobacco.
He looks frail, slop-shouldered and very thin, but there is also a sheen about his skin.
But the most striking thing about Stipe's current appearance is his bald head.
He is in characteristically enigmatic mood. After a protracted initial silence, he gets up to get himself a bottle of Volvic mineral water and begins answering questions in quickfire one-liners.
Did the band members meet much between the making of albums?
"Only in court."
What does he do when he's not writing or recording?
"I'm a slumlord. I own a series of hovels and I like to collect and count the rents."
Then suddenly, he declares that he's finally realised what his favourite R.E.M. song is.
"I've been wandering around this huge estate this morning singing this brilliant song in my head," he proclaims. "It was Sweetness Follows. I forgot it was one of our's." He says that Monster was made primarily to challenge the band themselves. "Everybody else can listen in, of course," he chuckles.
"I Took Your Name was the first song I put words to, in September of last year when we were in New Orleans and that pretty much set the pace for me in terms of lyrical content."
What was the inspiration behind King Of Comedy?
"It is directly stolen from Leonard Cohen," Stipe replies, before breaking out in a broad grin and turning to Mike Mills. "Hey, that's a rhyming line that I should probably use somewhere. It'd be great to mention Leonard Cohen in a song, I'll write it down."
From beneath a cushion, Stipe produces a very tattered Filofax and proceeds to scribble out the line in black biro on a page that already seems blanketed with short disjointed phrases and odd doodles.
By no, it is widely known that, for Stipe himself, the two most traumatic events of the past year were the deaths of his close friends, River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain. Monster is actually dedicated to Phoenix, while the disturbing and brilliant Let Me In is "about, for and to Kurt."
Nevertheless, in spite or maybe because of this, the melancholia and obsession with death which made Automatic For The People such an emotionally searing experience have been displayed on Monster by preoccupations with sex, sleaze and the inner thoughts of some real bull goose loonies.
Has Stipe lost faith in the regenerative powers of channelling his own hurt and loss into his work?
"I never had much faith in that," he said. "Most o the songs that I've written are not even from my perspective. I have a truly monstrous ego but I am not so multifaced and endless that I have experienced all I have written about. My 34 years on this planet have not been that rich, thankfully. If you can put yourself into another person's head and sing as them but not be them, and at times hit common chords, that's when you're a successful songwriter."
Stipe is in deflective mood now and becomes even more so when I raise the unpleasant spectre of the rumours of his advanced HIV infection. Elsewhere, he has categorically denied that he is dying of AIDS, and admitted that, perhaps naively, by not making such a statement earlier, he was expressing some sort of solidarity with those who genuinely are HIV positive.
Today though, he leaves it to Mills to repeat the official R.E.M. line that such rumours are "unfounded and ludicrous."
Seated once again, Stipe is both indirect and firm.
"Life is too short and nothing could make me do something I don't really want to do," he proclaims. My bottom line philosophy is that we're all only here for a certain short period of time and there's no time to waste. There's a degree of compromise in everyone's life but we should all try to keep it as low as possible."
The R.E.M. who bring you Monster are very different from the band who plucked their last stadium string in 1989. All four now point out that they feel that they have at last grown up.
Musically, these past five years have been R.E.M.'s most successful ever. Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, their two low-key and untoured albums, chalked up combined sales of almost 20 million. It was the worst of times and the best if times. A perfect opportunity to let the credits roll.
"Yeah, the last record definitely could've been the last record," admits Peter Buck. "It would've been a good way to end. It wouldn't have been a surprise to any one of us if any of the other four had said, 'hey, that's a good note to end it on. Goodnight'."
Gradually, however, absence began to work it's fonder trick on all four hearts and, at a special band meeting in Acapulco, they decided to continue. Another album would be made; it would, according to Buck, "rrrrrock"; it would also form the basis for a worldwide tour and R.E.M. Ltd. would continue to trade, at least until the end of 1996.
"We called this album Monster because it threatened to consume us all, both before and during it's making," asserts Mike Mills. "I realised that I still get incredibly excited every time I write what I think is a good song. And then, when we meet up as a group and see what we can do it's incredible, and as long as that is there then we will have no problems making records."
Last February, the band began work on what ultimately became Monster. It was recorded in Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans and mixed in Los Angeles.
Buck asserts: "Over here, some people seem to consider us to be some sort of mellow folk-rock band. We're like the young James Taylor or something but nothing could be further from the truth."
In the end, after all the trepidation that preceded it, Monster also turned out to be the most fun they'd had in a recording studio for years.
Berry said: "We had this really strong work ethic where we had to go in and work for eight to nine hours. At first, I dreaded it because it sounded like a job. But, very quickly, those eight hours turned into 12 because we were having so much fun.
"We'd order pizza instead of going out to eat. Our best work was done late in the evening where, in the past, we would never even wait around for that second wind. We never really applied ourselves that hard before. We never had much fun in a studio, maybe ever before." So with all their recent success, what's the best thing about having pots of money?
"Being able to help people who need it," suggests Mills. "Being able to help the Athens Homeless Shelter or contributing to our candidate for mayor, being able to help the Athens AIDS Clinic. Being able to help out my parents who definitely needed it. The worst is probably that a lot of people think that because you have money you've done something evil to get it."
And Mr Stipe, what tickles him the most about having loads of dosh? "You wanna know the truth, I don't even think about it that much," he says. "That's the honest to God truth. It's all I can do to keep up with the time. Or the day of the week. I mean that.
"Like, I've just remembered that I really meant to shave today."

Brains Behind Aneurysm Tour
Sixteen weeks ago R.E.M.'s drummer Bill Berry was at death's door.
Tonight, he will step out at Cardiff's National Stadium to cap a remarkable fight back to health.
The American rock band has finally reached the UK following threats of cancelling the tour completely after Berry suffered a brain haemorrhage on stage at the Patinoire De Malley Auditorium, in Lausanne, Switzerland, earlier this year.
He began to feel light-headed and eventually blacked out as he sang falsetto during the ballad Tongue.
"It felt as if a bowling ball had hit me," he told Q Magazine's David Cavanagh in their latest issue. "Just unbelievable pain. It was so bad that I fell over and they had to carry me off."
Everyone, including the venue's doctor assumed that Berry was suffering from a migraine and he was given painkillers and advised to sleep.
The nest morning, he was in so much pain that he was taken to hospital for a scan. It was then that he realised he had two aneurysms, weaknesses in the walls of his arteries.
One of them had ruptured, causing a brain haemorrhage and he underwent immediate surgery, which proved very successful.
During his stay in hospital, Berry was moved by the card and messages from fans all over the world, wishing him well.
And now he is back behind the drums for what has been renamed "Aneurysm Tour" after his illness.
"I've got to really take this opportunity to thank the fans in the UK," he says. "I had an inordinate amount of well-wishing cards from people in the UK, just thousands and thousands... it was mind-boggling, the amount of support, and it helped."
He has made a speedy recovery and so far has shown no signs of epilepsy, which can happen after a brain haemorrhage.
The hospital said he could carry on playing the drums and that loud music would not impede his recovery.
He said: "Don't worry about it. Go and live your live, they said. So that's what I've done.
"No pun intended, but I've tried to put it out of my mind."
He is now enthusiastic about continuing the tour and their Cardiff appearance, and is living a normal life once more. "I feel fine. I'm living just the day I did before I went in."
© 1995 Wales On Sunday/Liam Fey

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	Back To The End Of The Beginning, Wales On Sunday
	Souvenir newspaper article from Monster tour, Cardiff, 23 Jul 96
	Suddenly, a side door swings open and four guys amble through. They're each clad in some of the most banal shirts and jeans you could ever hope to see. One of them has a shaven head, another has mutton chop sideburns, the third has glasses and a whispy goatee and the fourth an eyebrow that seems to circle his entire skull. Yet, the very instant this quartet arrives, the room goes so quiet you could hear the price of a pin drop. Their names are Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry and they are talking about Monster, the first R.E.M. album in two years. Seeing Michael Stipe in the flesh for the first time, you find yourself staring at him for a couple of seconds longer than maybe you should. He seems to be well used to the attention and quietly busies himself with his cigarette papers and his ounce of Drum tobacco. He looks frail, slop-shouldered and very thin, but there is also a sheen about his skin. But the most striking thing about Stipe's current appearance is his bald head. He is in characteristically enigmatic mood. After a protracted initial silence, he gets up to get himself a bottle of Volvic mineral water and begins answering questions in quickfire one-liners. Did the band members meet much between the making of albums? "Only in court." What does he do when he's not writing or recording? "I'm a slumlord. I own a series of hovels and I like to collect and count the rents." Then suddenly, he declares that he's finally realised what his favourite R.E.M. song is. "I've been wandering around this huge estate this morning singing this brilliant song in my head," he proclaims. "It was Sweetness Follows. I forgot it was one of our's." He says that Monster was made primarily to challenge the band themselves. "Everybody else can listen in, of course," he chuckles. "I Took Your Name was the first song I put words to, in September of last year when we were in New Orleans and that pretty much set the pace for me in terms of lyrical content." What was the inspiration behind King Of Comedy? "It is directly stolen from Leonard Cohen," Stipe replies, before breaking out in a broad grin and turning to Mike Mills. "Hey, that's a rhyming line that I should probably use somewhere. It'd be great to mention Leonard Cohen in a song, I'll write it down." From beneath a cushion, Stipe produces a very tattered Filofax and proceeds to scribble out the line in black biro on a page that already seems blanketed with short disjointed phrases and odd doodles. By no, it is widely known that, for Stipe himself, the two most traumatic events of the past year were the deaths of his close friends, River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain. Monster is actually dedicated to Phoenix, while the disturbing and brilliant Let Me In is "about, for and to Kurt." Nevertheless, in spite or maybe because of this, the melancholia and obsession with death which made Automatic For The People such an emotionally searing experience have been displayed on Monster by preoccupations with sex, sleaze and the inner thoughts of some real bull goose loonies. Has Stipe lost faith in the regenerative powers of channelling his own hurt and loss into his work? "I never had much faith in that," he said. "Most o the songs that I've written are not even from my perspective. I have a truly monstrous ego but I am not so multifaced and endless that I have experienced all I have written about. My 34 years on this planet have not been that rich, thankfully. If you can put yourself into another person's head and sing as them but not be them, and at times hit common chords, that's when you're a successful songwriter." Stipe is in deflective mood now and becomes even more so when I raise the unpleasant spectre of the rumours of his advanced HIV infection. Elsewhere, he has categorically denied that he is dying of AIDS, and admitted that, perhaps naively, by not making such a statement earlier, he was expressing some sort of solidarity with those who genuinely are HIV positive. Today though, he leaves it to Mills to repeat the official R.E.M. line that such rumours are "unfounded and ludicrous." Seated once again, Stipe is both indirect and firm. "Life is too short and nothing could make me do something I don't really want to do," he proclaims. My bottom line philosophy is that we're all only here for a certain short period of time and there's no time to waste. There's a degree of compromise in everyone's life but we should all try to keep it as low as possible." The R.E.M. who bring you Monster are very different from the band who plucked their last stadium string in 1989. All four now point out that they feel that they have at last grown up. Musically, these past five years have been R.E.M.'s most successful ever. Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, their two low-key and untoured albums, chalked up combined sales of almost 20 million. It was the worst of times and the best if times. A perfect opportunity to let the credits roll. "Yeah, the last record definitely could've been the last record," admits Peter Buck. "It would've been a good way to end. It wouldn't have been a surprise to any one of us if any of the other four had said, 'hey, that's a good note to end it on. Goodnight'." Gradually, however, absence began to work it's fonder trick on all four hearts and, at a special band meeting in Acapulco, they decided to continue. Another album would be made; it would, according to Buck, "rrrrrock"; it would also form the basis for a worldwide tour and R.E.M. Ltd. would continue to trade, at least until the end of 1996. "We called this album Monster because it threatened to consume us all, both before and during it's making," asserts Mike Mills. "I realised that I still get incredibly excited every time I write what I think is a good song. And then, when we meet up as a group and see what we can do it's incredible, and as long as that is there then we will have no problems making records." Last February, the band began work on what ultimately became Monster. It was recorded in Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans and mixed in Los Angeles. Buck asserts: "Over here, some people seem to consider us to be some sort of mellow folk-rock band. We're like the young James Taylor or something but nothing could be further from the truth." In the end, after all the trepidation that preceded it, Monster also turned out to be the most fun they'd had in a recording studio for years. Berry said: "We had this really strong work ethic where we had to go in and work for eight to nine hours. At first, I dreaded it because it sounded like a job. But, very quickly, those eight hours turned into 12 because we were having so much fun. "We'd order pizza instead of going out to eat. Our best work was done late in the evening where, in the past, we would never even wait around for that second wind. We never really applied ourselves that hard before. We never had much fun in a studio, maybe ever before." So with all their recent success, what's the best thing about having pots of money? "Being able to help people who need it," suggests Mills. "Being able to help the Athens Homeless Shelter or contributing to our candidate for mayor, being able to help the Athens AIDS Clinic. Being able to help out my parents who definitely needed it. The worst is probably that a lot of people think that because you have money you've done something evil to get it." And Mr Stipe, what tickles him the most about having loads of dosh? "You wanna know the truth, I don't even think about it that much," he says. "That's the honest to God truth. It's all I can do to keep up with the time. Or the day of the week. I mean that. "Like, I've just remembered that I really meant to shave today." Brains Behind Aneurysm Tour Sixteen weeks ago R.E.M.'s drummer Bill Berry was at death's door. Tonight, he will step out at Cardiff's National Stadium to cap a remarkable fight back to health. The American rock band has finally reached the UK following threats of cancelling the tour completely after Berry suffered a brain haemorrhage on stage at the Patinoire De Malley Auditorium, in Lausanne, Switzerland, earlier this year. He began to feel light-headed and eventually blacked out as he sang falsetto during the ballad Tongue. "It felt as if a bowling ball had hit me," he told Q Magazine's David Cavanagh in their latest issue. "Just unbelievable pain. It was so bad that I fell over and they had to carry me off." Everyone, including the venue's doctor assumed that Berry was suffering from a migraine and he was given painkillers and advised to sleep. The nest morning, he was in so much pain that he was taken to hospital for a scan. It was then that he realised he had two aneurysms, weaknesses in the walls of his arteries. One of them had ruptured, causing a brain haemorrhage and he underwent immediate surgery, which proved very successful. During his stay in hospital, Berry was moved by the card and messages from fans all over the world, wishing him well. And now he is back behind the drums for what has been renamed "Aneurysm Tour" after his illness. "I've got to really take this opportunity to thank the fans in the UK," he says. "I had an inordinate amount of well-wishing cards from people in the UK, just thousands and thousands... it was mind-boggling, the amount of support, and it helped." He has made a speedy recovery and so far has shown no signs of epilepsy, which can happen after a brain haemorrhage. The hospital said he could carry on playing the drums and that loud music would not impede his recovery. He said: "Don't worry about it. Go and live your live, they said. So that's what I've done. "No pun intended, but I've tried to put it out of my mind." He is now enthusiastic about continuing the tour and their Cardiff appearance, and is living a normal life once more. "I feel fine. I'm living just the day I did before I went in." © 1995 Wales On Sunday/Liam Fey