Stipe, R.E.M. take rougher-edged approach

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Billboard: Did you write the lyrics for the album while Mike and Peter were writing the music?

Stipe: My promise to them was that I would show up on the first day of recording with finished lyrics. So, the first stint that we did was in Vancouver, and the first day I showed up, I had seven songs. We were recording every day, probably eight or nine hours a day. I finished another song while we were there and started another half of a song. By the time we got to Dublin, (where) we did these live shows, these kind of live rehearsals before we went into the studio, I finished the song that I had started in Vancouver and had written another one.

My part of it was to not have to have Peter sitting on the couch for four weeks waiting for me to finish lyrics; (to not) have Mike not knowing how to sing a background vocal or where to take the bass part or the keyboard part because he didn’t know where the vocal melody was going to go.

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It was kind of like there was an agreement between the three of us that we were all going to try to work really hard to try to upset the things that we had gotten bogged down in in the past. And to try to make a record really fast and really in-your-face and really raw and make our decisions quickly and then live with them rather than picking apart every single thing and overworking it, which is what had happened on the last record.

Billboard: Who picked the opening bands, the National and Modest Mouse, for the summer leg of your upcoming tour?

Stipe: All three of us. I had seen the National and met the guys really briefly at the Oxygen Festival. Peter knew the band and I took Mike to see a show they played in London. Mike was completely blown away by them live. Peter is friends with Johnny (Marr, Modest Mouse’s guitarist) and we all like the band a real lot (laughs). We thought, “Well, this is going to be a really great bill.” I’ve never seen Modest Mouse perform before, (so) for me it’s going to be super exciting to have that kind of daily inspiration. That’s really what having great opening bands can provide.

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