No. 1 With an Attitude

Stipe's public-service work — with regard to the environment and the ethical treatment of animals, among many other things — has brought the singer a great deal of attention in recent years. Now, he says, he'd prefer to work incognito. "I'm in the process of depoliticizing myself," Stipe explains. "I'm glad that people look at the band as politically active. I think that's healthy. But it's a lot to carry, and to quote myself, not everyone can carry the weight of the world. It's enough that people know that R.E.M. are thinking compassionate people — human beings who support a number of causes, publicly and privately. I don't have to jump on top of a building and scream — I'm not a very good speaker — that's the end-all of it. I'm not a Billy Bragg. I'm not a Peter Garrett."

Though Stipe claims to dislike being thought of as a spokesperson or as R.E.M.'s "resident oddball," as he was once described in these pages, there is clearly a part of him that loves to feed the myth. "He's smart, and he's manipulative, and he'll admit that," Bill Berry says. "He can twist something that's fairly ordinary into something that seems like it just has to be the new order. He's not afraid to chum up the water a little. And especially recently, I think he's actually reveling in the spotlight. He's used the word poster boy many, many times in the last six months."

It's true that the once-remote Stipe has been putting himself in the public eye a surprising amount lately — the singer even appeared, all slicked up, on the cover of Details not long ago. It's also true that he's been known to leak out bizarre or plainly misleading information. "Talking about yourself — it's not only boring, but who wants to analyze himself that much?" Stipe says. "It's all very Seventies, isn't it? I do what I do. You can't help but be flippant with someone when they ask if you have a refrigerator or not. "I don't actively lie," Stipe continues, then hedges. "Well, the whole thing about nailing two oranges together — that was a quote I gave someone years ago, about what Fables of the Reconstruction sounded like. That was absolutely ridiculous, and I couldn't believe they printed it. I think it was Rolling Stone , in fact. I had been in the studio twelve hours doing a mix, and to have someone call transatlantic and say, "What does it sound like?' — it's like 'Well, I don't know. It sounds like two oranges being nailed together.'"

"Sometimes Michael says things," Berry says of Stipe's occasional flights of fancy, "and the rest of us will be biting our tongues, trying not to laugh."

On Friday morning it rains, and Berry drives off in search of antiques. "Even at a fairly young age," Berry says, "I had an appreciation for antiques — even when I was a rebellious pot smoker and listened to Deep Purple and stuff. My friends and I would be driving around smoking pot, and they'd be going, 'Hey, man, that's some pretty good shit.' And I'd go, 'Wow, antiques!'"

At a store in Bishop, Georgia, Berry buys a ninety-inch saw upon which a local folk artist named Annie Wellborn has painted a scene called Peach Valley. The sixtyish man behind the register — nearly toothless and creaking back and forth in a rocking chair — thinks he knows the drummer from somewhere. He asks Berry if he's from Athens. Berry says, "Yes, sir, I sure am," and they talk about folk art for a few minutes. As Berry is turning to go, the man's face lights up: "You're in that musical group!"

"Yes, sir, I sure am."

"You've got the Number One record in America!"

"Yes, sir, we do."

Back in his Jeep, Berry laughs and shakes his head. "That was wild," he says. "That guy would never have recognized me three years ago."

Later, over country ham and iced tea at Ye Olde Colonial diner, Berry talks about the strange fact that R.E.M. suddenly belongs to the world, that Stipe is no longer the only band member whose face gets recognized. "I'll tell you the truth," Berry says. "You can only be a cult band so long. I'm thirty-two years old. I don't want to be a cult fucking hero. We went through that, and it's great and it's flattering, but those people should go out into their clubs and find the next new band. That's what alternative music is all about. It's like 'You were right that time. See if you can do it again.'"

And while some cultists may feel that they have lost R.E.M. to the world at large, very few of the band's alternative-music contemporaries have followed them out of the underground. "The machinery of big music is a very lethal thing," Mike Mills says later. "You have to deal with all the bullshit you get from record companies, from promoters, from writers. None of it is predicated on music. It's all predicated on money. And to maintain musical integrity while dealing with people who only care about money is very tough. The Replacements couldn't do it. They didn't want to put up with the bullshit — they wanted to live the rock & roll life and not have to deal with all the crap. We wanted to be a success doing what we wanted to do."

In regard to their future, the members of R.E.M. remain wary. There are guys that have had Top Ten hits that are fry cooks right now," Mills says. "They're in prison, or they're digging ditches, or they're living with their mom somewhere. It happens. You don't ever want to get overly confident in this business. The guys in Canned Heat — they had several Top Ten hits."

Sitting in his kitchen one bright afternoon, the ever-cynical Peter Buck puts it like this: "We're Number One, but I don't think it means anything. For us it's a vindication and it's kind of cool. On the other hand, we'll be Number One for a week and then some woman with really large breasts and a really high voice — someone who hired people to write and produce her record --will be Number One. And so what's the point?

"I think the days of rock & roll bands' being Number One on the charts are over," Buck continues. "Put it this way: A&R people won't sign them. There are no clubs for them essentially. It's over."

What about Guns n' Roses?

"Yeah, well, they're a Benny Hill band," Buck says. "They're a Benny Hill parody of what a rock & roll band should be."

Billy Bragg takes an equally dim view of the ways of the music world, but he's not as ready to dismiss R.E.M.'s success. "Is it just about cucumbers down the trousers?" he says of the music industry. "Or is it about genuine people trying to say something? Having R.E.M. in the Top Ten means something — it means a lot to guys like me who are trying to ride their beast on their own terms."

The members of R.E.M. have certainly done it their way. Some fans groused when the band launched its arena tour, others when Stipe lip-synced in the "Losing My Religion" video — chiefly because the band members had made pretty emphatic promises that they'd never resort to either.

Still, when all is said and done, R.E.M. has never pandered to radio or even come close to making a bad or lazy record. In fact, as Buck is quick to point out, the musicians have rarely heeded anyone's counsel but their own.

"Everyone gave us advice," Buck says of the group's early days. "Every day of the goddamn week. 'Get some hot chicks in bikinis! Get some disco drums!' You go, 'Really? On Murmur?' Disco drums! It's obvious that these people didn't listen to the records. It's great — people who have never, ever signed a band that has been successful will tell you how to make your band a success.

"I always thought that we were going to live and die on exactly the way that we knew how to make music," says Buck. "Taking advice or having someone tell you what to do — someone had done that on Murmur, we would have just broken up. Man, I spent years cleaning toilets to get to the point where I don't have to take people's advice. Basically, for me, other people's advice is like 'Yeah, fuck you, too.' We always felt we knew. We do, too."

Buck is quiet for a moment, his thoughts returning to the present. "For me, Out of Time was the right record to make," Buck says, getting up to leave. "And, good Lord, it's selling — that's the weird thing." Buck walks out of the house, noticing, as he does his Guns n' Roses WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE welcome mat. He looks up and smiles. "I wouldn't wipe my feet on anything else."

[From Issue 607 — June 27, 1991]