Maybe it’s time for a solo album?
Why would I?
Come on. You have never thought about it?
R.E.M.... we are a specific thing. There are types of music we will never come close to which it would be good to explore. So I can go off with [London based producer] David Kosten and write a Faultline song or [former Faithless member] Jamie Catto and do 1 Giant Leap. That’s enough for me. I think I present a rounded enough picture of who I am as a songwriter withy my band. That’s why we’ve lasted so long.
You say you needed some “sagely advice” to kick start work on the new album.
I had taken an edict from a friend who does a similar job to me. His name is Bono. I was stressing about my songs and he said, “We are songwriters, just write the songs. They don’t have to be great. Just do it.” You don’t want to write mediocre stuff. You want it to be A+, slam dunk, move everyone to tears and jump up and down every time. That doesn’t always happen and he was saying, “Write the song”. And I just want to thank him publicly for jump-starting the most prolific year and a half of songwriting ever.
There’s an Abba musical, a Queen one, a Rod Stewart one. When the R.E.M. musical happens, who should play you?
I’d like to see Jude Law as me. Or Kylie. Or a synthesis of the two. Maybe they could put them in a blender. If I can’t get them, I’d settle for Robbie Williams or Ian Hart. He’s a great actor.
Have you visited Bill Berry [ex R.E.M. drummer] recently?
I’m really happy for Bill Berry, he’s on his farm enjoying life. I went out there six months ago. He did a typical Bill thing when we were in the studio in Athens rehearsing for the Best Of tour – he showed up with a chef’s hat on and presented us with lunch. He served up his favourite road food-spicy poppadom and chutney and sushi.
Was that his way of trying to get back in with you?
What the fuck…Of course not. What, you think showing up with a chef’s hat is gonna do it? No. He’s a farmer now.
What does he farm?
Hay.
Can you farm hay?
Someone has to. It needs cutting up and put into bales. I’m not the farmer, I don’t know. That’s what I’m told.
What about cows and sheep… stuff that walks around?
He’s got critters…stuff that walks around. But predominantly it’s hay. [Stipe begins laughing his head off]
Was there an initiation ceremony for the new drummer Bill Rieflin?
Yeah, we tied him up in a jockstrap and threw him in the girls’ changing rooms. Bill plays live and, of course, on record, but Peter plays drums on a few tracks on the new album, too.
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There must be a Michael Stipe who isn’t writing songs, producing films, being a photographer or a political campaigner. Introduce yourself like you’re on a game show.
I live in Athens, Georgia, and also New York. When I’m home I have a dog called Helix to look after. I cook and clean and take out the trash. Someone has to. But now Bono found my muse for me I don’t have time for any of that.
ON LONDON’S three lane homicidal rat-run Park Lane, Stipe poses as a newspaper vendor while being photographed. A stylist offers him foundation to mask his sunken eye sockets but he says, at 44, he has earned the right to have them.
He then hands out the evening paper to passers-by, several of whom snatch their freebie from the skinny weirdo in shades and walk a good 50 yards before realising what has just happened, returning and demanding an autograph. Or just staring.
Stipe is in his element. His only complaint is that London stinks of smog and shit. When it is suggested to breathe through his mouth, he says his nose is better because it has a superior filtration system. Recently he read that a pint of milk has a million germs in it. He seems a bit fretty and upset about “dirt”.
Other than that, he busies himself trying to think of titles for the forthcoming new record. There’s one he noted down on the plane to London- In Preparation For Our Descent. There’s a jokey one –War is Hell - and a song lyric from the new opus, A Cactus Trying To Be A Canoe.
In a week’s time the new R.E.M. album will be named Around the Sun. But Stipe doesn’t know that yet. And these titles are not quite right. They need something extra. “Where’s Bono when you need him?” he asks the whizzing traffic.
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