PASSIONATE FRIENDS
R.E.M., already almost legendary, are tackling their first major British tour. TOM MORTON, who appreciates the finer things in life, tracked them down in Edinburgh. Tom Sheehan, who doesn’t, tracked them down in White City.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Edinburgh, that restrained Calvinist city, has one or two moderately wild sides to its character. Anyone who has wandered into the George Hotel looking for adventure and decadence would be disappointed, however. When something happens in Edinburgh, the George is where it happens last.
Walking into the lobby wearing anything but a tweed jacket and plus fours provokes much swivelling of heads and bewhiskered snuffling. Leather club armchairs creak to the weight of ageing Presbyterian ministers and their fluffy wives. Buddahs in black, these denizens of theological debate, look as if they’re awaiting the Second Coming. Or maybe they want to interview R.E.M. too.
The moment of reckoning: I call Mike Mills in his room, expecting a slurred, Southern-fried Georgia voice. Instead, R.E.M.’s bassist and Jimmy Olsen lookalike sounds like … Jimmy Olsen!
"Hey! Hya Tawm! Hey Peter’s just comin’ down to get some beer in from the van…"
And in a flash of earrings and coloured scarves, very tall guitar player Peter Buck arrives in the foyer. You can almost see the coloured wake he leaves in the dry, monochrome atmosphere; an elongated Nils Lofgren.
"Hey how’re ya doin’? Listen! You gonna help me smuggle some beer into this place? It’s dry you know…"
How can I refuse? Moments later, laden with 12 badly hidden cans of Heineken, I’m following Peter to the lift, both of us clinking heavily. Nice hotel, I venture, somewhat insincerely.
"Aw yeah! Sure! It’s not so bad. It’s … neat," rapid-fires Peter, the total antithesis of the deep-South-drawling-hick. He’s fast, hyper-energetic and talks like a Georgian Woody Allen.
"You shoulda seen some of the places we used to stay in … four to a room, cockroaches on the floor …" Ah, that rock’n’roll lifestyle. Where would we be without cockroaches?
We stagger into the room Peter is sharing with Mike Mills, shedding beer cans in all directions. Mike proceeds to display the classic American obsession with cooling the already icy lager, preferably by dangling the cans out of the window. Peter, meanwhile, has emptied a suitcase onto the floor.
"I bought these BIZARRE clothes in Japan. We were just over there. …willya LOOK at THIS …"
"This" is a truly horrific pink-and-grey scarf labelled "Beat Boys" featuring lost of Japanese writing and blurred pictures of Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. Then: "Look at these SHOES!" (A foot is thrust under my nose.)"Aren’t these just the most horrible shoes you’ve ever seen?"
They undoubtedly are. Sartorial credentials established, we settle down to talk, Buck’s black-and-white, banana-like footwear dominating the conversation. One foot bounces up and down as he speaks, beating time to a torrent of words. He likes to talk.
EDINBURGH’S Caley Palais, venue of the second night of R.E.M.’s British tour, awaits the presence of Athens’ finest later on in the evening. Meanwhile, Michael Stipe, vocalist and the best spastic dancer since early Joe Cocker, is relaxing elsewhere in the hotel with drummer Bill Berry. They’ve just returned from a sojourn in Japan and Hawaii. That must have been rough, eh lads?
"Extremely relaxed, actually," says Peter. "Just four dates in Japan and a lot of interviews. They don’t really know our stuff over there."
R.E.M.’s "stuff" is essentially contained on two of the most consistently extolled LP’s of the past two years. "Murmur", their debut album, received enough praise to salve the most savaged ego. The slightly less accessible "Reckoning" will undoubtedly be among many critics "Album of the Year" selections. They’re a journalists’ band, appealing to the closet rock historian … and to increasing numbers of youthful punters.
The band’s chiming unbelievably resonant music is a time-traveller’s soundtrack. It traverses the blues/gospel of King Hannibal, The Velvets, Byrds, Band, Doors, MC5, Buffalo Springfield and the melodic edges of Seventies punk. I remember a friend saying R.E.M. reminded her of every band she’d ever liked. Quite an accomplishment.
So how do you feel about being the acceptable face of American music, at least in the UK? Peter: "I don’t think that we sound that much American. I mean we don’t sound English … we’re kind of international. Okay, so we had James Brown in our back yard, but my favourite group when I was thirteen was T Rex. And Richard Thompson is my favourite English musician ever…"
But surely your music does tend to incorporate a kind of historical approach to American rock? At least partially?
Mike nods immediately. "Sure." Peter qualifies it: "Yeah, sure.. without being incredibly reverential about it. People will say we sound like a Sixties band, which I don’t really agree with. We grew up with all types of music, from the Fifties to the Eighties., mostly American, but not all of it. Yeah, that’s a heritage we draw on."
Compared to some of the other "acceptable" US bands - random examples could include The Gun Club and Violent Femmes - R.E.M. produce a kind of inclusive, embracing, wholesome music. Peter and Mike both evince a distaste for the "nihilistic" elements of punk and hardcore, while showing great respect for some of the new bands like Black Flag and Husker Du.
Mike: "Hardcore’s okay if it’s done with the proper sense of humour. As for us, we really like what we’re doing, and that tends to come out. I just think rock’n’roll is the coolest thing in the world. Not all of it, but a lot of it."
Peter is equally dismissive of the rock’n’roll mythology, the live-fast-die-young trip. "F*** that," he says. "When you’re dead, you’re …"
"Dead," interjects Mills. Back to Buck. "Yeah, and your parents feel bad. I wanna be around in 20 years’ time. I wanna be playing guitar in some country band or something …"
Meanwhile, these two slim and comparatively young men have played a part in producing two wonderfully haunting, compulsive albums. You must get sick of being compared with The Byrds (dour laconic "yeahs"), but how about The Band, I wonder? There’s that same historical perspective, that Southern feel, that … apartness?
"GREAT! That’s my FAVOURITE EVER GROUP!" Peter ejaculates. "Well, just about. I NEVER listen to the Byrds."
The Band comparison extends to the fact that both groups were formed and perfected in the sweaty maelstrom of perpetual low-life gigging, the one-night stand treks which still make up R.E.M.’s greatest live resource.
"We had a natural, organic growth," says Buck, foot incessantly jerking. "We toured just to play. Playing in bars really teaches you how to do it. I remember one time, we’re in this bar, and these guys are shouting for ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I just shouted ‘WE DON’T PLAY SONGS BY DEAD BANDS!’ That coulda got ugly. Mind you," he smirks," there were only four in the audience at the time."
Both Mike and Peter are full of strange little anecdotes like the above … stories of Pentecostal churches where the worshippers drink strychnine and handle poisonous snakes; of demon possession; corrupt TV preachers and all those crazed nights on the road. I’m reminded of one of cult hero Warren Zevon’s stranger visions, the vitriolic paean to the South "Play It All Night Long."
Peter nods: "Oh yeah, we’ve worked with him. He phoned me up, and we did a demo. He wants us to do the next LP with him. He’s a great guy."
Ah, come, let us join the Athens Georgia hip bandwagon! So what about this "Southern rock" thing? Do you see yourselves as part of this "new Southern wave"?
Mike: "That’s fine; that’s cool. There are so many good bands coming out of the South, so if I had to be associated with a movement, that’s one I wouldn’t mind at all." I ask the slightly reticent Mike about the literary connection; think R.E.M., think Faulkner-Mark Twain-Huck Finn is the temptation. Is it justified?
"Well I’ve lived in the South all my life … you simply can’t get away from something which is so much part of you, active or not."
In the absence of Stipe, the band’s main lyricist, I’m loath to query the amazingly emotive, yet largely indecipherable R.E.M. canon of words. Stipe is in a classic genre of singers. His slurred, burnt-out tones, somewhere between Levon Holm and Tom Waits, fuse lyrics and music into a dense, impenetrable-yet-oddly-accessible whole.
Writing songs is still a very organic process for us," says Mike Mills. "Like, say the Violent Femmes, they tend to write music for Gordon Gano’s words. We never do that. Either Michael listens to the songs, and then makes up the lyrics, or else he goes to the backlog of lyrics and finds the one that seems to fit. Whatever the song makes him think of, he’ll adapt the lyric to that … they’re really all intensely personal, all personal experiences he’s been through."
It’s not exactly narrative writing though, is it?
"Well, Michael is not a real narrative-type person … not in his lyrics … and not in his life. If you ask him for directions from here to somewhere else …"
Peter: "He’ll probably say, ‘no, you can’t get there from here!’" A pyramid of empty Heineken cans goes flying amid much laughter. Collapse of slim parties.
ONE of the most appealing things about R.E.M.’s vinyl output is its restrained, slightly-held-back feel. There’s a sense in which they’re hard to pin down, and not just lyrically. The jangling arpeggios of Buck’s Rickenbacker 12-string ("It’s only on THREE of the tracks on ‘Reckoning’," he states firmly, "I use a Telecaster now.") kindle a hundred other comparisons besides the inevitable McGuinn references. What about this restraint , I ask? Isn’t rock’n’roll supposed to be about passion, emotion, abandonment?
Peter: "In rock’n’roll so many people tend to think of emotion and passion and equate that with bombast. I mean, I love Springsteen but that’s …"
"MELODRAAAMAAH!" enunciates Mike, doing a quick impression of an opera singer. "We’re trying to avoid that." Mr. Mills then bursts into a warbling chorus of "Tell Laura Ahhh Luuurrrve Her" to illustrate "one of Springsteen’s main influences". Must be this British beer. Tell me, what do you make of U2?
Buck, the perpetual punter, answers: "Like ‘em. Too much bombast though. As for their Christian content … that bothers me. These message bands have no message per se … just real vague statements veering close to fascism."
"Yeah," says Mike, somewhat calmer. "I mean it’s all ‘raise your flag and follow me’. But what flag? And where to?"
Peter: "My mother really HATES U2. She finds it offensive, all those martial rhythms and songs about victory … it’s so easy to latch onto, but what does it mean?" Means you’ve got an interesting mother, Pete.
Isn’t there a very real religious component in the R.E.M. make-up though? Buck pleads atheism, Mills "practicing agnosticism". ("But he’s getting real good at it," quips Peter.) But surely it’s all around you in Georgia … it’s an influence even as you reject it …
"Aw yeah. We live with it," grimaces Mike. "You’re forced to go to church when you’re young. No beer on a Sunday. It’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard in my life, that."
"People like Jerry Falwell are just Nazis," spits Peter. "They’re really evil, life-hating people, and Reagan is really aligned with it."
"A song like ‘Talk About The Passion’ is really rejecting that kind of fake religion … anyway, I don’t wanna talk about this."
A bit too close to home perhaps. Yet politics meets with no hesitation. These boys ain’t good ole redneck friends in any way. Being an American band on tour in a threatened, paranoid Europe must be a little … strange, no?
"It’s kind of embarrassing," says Buck. "Because we’ve got this horrible ding-dong of a President who none of us likes and it’s almost as if we’re supposed to be, like, ambassadors f or America. I don’t wanna be. I wanna come over here and say, ‘I DON’T WANT THE CRUISE MISSILES IN ENGLAND EITHER! I don’t want it in my BACKYARD. I DON’T want Reagan as PRESIDENT!"
And yet there’s an intensely traditional element to R.E.M., that strand of demon country conservative mysticism, backwoods gothic Americana. Are R.E.M. romantics?
Mike: "We’re more sentimental than romantic. We pick up on the romance in everyday life that has nothing to do with being a … a sap."
The Buck reply is a classic piece of mythology, wildly out of sync with this soulless Scottish hotel room: "Yeah, listen … for me, a train going by. That’s real romantic. In Athens you can hear trains every night. I go to sleep with that and that … that’s just the most beautiful sound in the world … that’s romance to me. But usually, romance is coupled with hopelessness.
The American dream … we talk a bit about the new Gothic pseudo-romanticism evident in the fag-end rock of people like The Sisters of Mercy (Careful - Ed). Are R.E.M. a non-toxic alternative? Mike furrows his brow.
"Everything has become, in a really false way, gloomy and nihilistic … the world is really a far from perfect place - rock’n’roll is far from perfect - there’s lots of wonderful things and a lot of horrible things, too. I wouldn’t let the bad destroy the good, and maybe that’s romantic. You’ve got to acknowledge that there are things worth living for … or snuff it."
LATER, the band will tackle the seamy, stale sweatiness of the Caley Palais. They’ll play a ferociously energetic, but surprisingly one-dimensional set, letting all the demons of stadium rock out for an airing. Few will be disappointed, however, and even those who are will have the mesmeric subtlety of the albums to fall back on.
Whatever, R.E.M. remain a band to reckon with - for this year and, if Peter Buck has his way, for the next 20.
Reproduced from Melody Maker, 1st December 1984