REM joins KGSR’s Jody Denberg backstage September 21, 2003 at the Austin City Limits Festival.

Peter Buck (PB), Mike Mills (MM), Michael Stipe (MS)

Q: Welcome to "A Joyful Noise (In Time with REM)". I'm Jody Denberg. And during the next hour, we'll be spending quality time in song and in conversation together with Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe inside New York City's Museum of Television and Radio.

Collectively known as REM, they are simply one of the most creative and successful rock-and-roll bands ever. And now REM has songs from 15 years of its innovative history compiled on the new release "In Time 1988 to 2003 The Best of REM." Collected along with classics from their seven Warner Bros. studio albums are two new recordings. So we'll look to the past and the future as we make a joyful noise in time with REM.

We'll start our chat with the guys in a moment, but we'll begin the begin with one of the group's two new songs, Bad Day.

SONG: Bad Day

Q: That song is Bad Day. It's one of two new REM songs on the greatest hits collection, "In Time: 1988 to 2003: The Best of REM." In that song, Michael Stipe sings, "Broadcast me a joyful noise," and that's what we're going to do for the next hour. What's the -- what's the rest of that line?

MS: Broadcast me a joyful noise unto the times, Lord, count your blessings.

MM: Assuming there are any.

Q: Judging from the photos from the video of Bad Day and the group dressed up as new commentators -- this is a song about the media -- what's the song's take on the press, Peter?

PB: Well, I think the video probably expresses it even a little better in the sense that, when you live in a world where entertainment and news have become so intertwined and then there's so many factoids thrown at you at once, how does even a reasonable person figure out what the hell is going on? And the video kind of satirizes, you know, the 24-hour news channel, CNN. I know - I have friends at CNN and they think it's quite funny and kind of agree with us. And especially in this time when, I think, we're all being lied to pretty much every day by our government.

Q: Mike, I noticed the song credit for Bad Day was credited to the whole band, including founding member, Bill Berry, who left back in 1997, I think. This is essentially a brand new song and recording, though, right?

MM: That's true. The music was actually begun back in the late '80s when Bill was still around. And then we never finished it, for one reason or another. And we got an idea to re-visit it. And it seemed to make a lot of sense to put it on "The Best Of..." So Bill, as an original author, gets credit for doing nothing but sitting around his house, which is pretty great.

PB: Yeah, we could have been scumbags and not put his name on it and he would have never said a word, but, you know, Bill slept on the floor with us and drove in the van. He actually did a lot of the driving. So you know, credit where credit is due.

MM: Right.

Q: With this new collection and the three-and-a-half month world tour that's now winding down, reading through the press, there were all these phrases like "REM reaffirms it's position," "reasserts its place," "staking a claim to their place in rock history." Did you feel like you were doing that with this tour and compilation?

MS: To a degree, our popularity has waned in the U.S. in the past eight or nine years and at the same time, has grown exponentially outside of the U.S. It's just a matter of pop culture. And going back to the earlier -- in a very, very large country, so large that it's really ungovernable, I think, the pop culture is swinging in a direction away from our particular trajectory. And to my count, we've come back into pop culture in the U.S. about three times over the last 23 years. It kind of feels like maybe it's time for a fourth. And we wanted to basically reintroduce ourselves to a U.S. audience.

MM: I'd say rather than reaffirming our place in history, we're reaffirming our place in the here and now.

Q The first album you recorded for Warner Bros. was back in '88 after years of being with an independent label. It was called "Green." Do either of you recall any disappointment or misperception at the time from your fans about R.E.M. moving to a major label?

PB: You know, at the time, there might have been a little bit of, you know, disappointment. But you have to remember all of our peer group: the Dream Syndicate, Husker Du, the Replacements, Black Flag, they were all on major labels. So we were kind of like the last holdout. It seemed to make sense for us. You know, you can't really say, well, if Husker Du did it, then REM can't do it. And, you know, they were on Warner Bros. before we were.

MS: Well, the trainspotters would have reminded us at that time that IRS records were distributed by a major, so they were, in effect, a major. It's the same thing as when Blondie released "Heart of Glass" and I, as a Blondie fan and a teenager, felt very discouraged that my group had quote-unquote "sold out." Of course, they didn't. I look back on that record now and I realize how big o' balls they had to incorporate disco into a song so that they could get their music out to a larger audience. And it's a great record. Did I have the wisdom to recognize that at the age of 18? No.

SONG: Orange Crush

Q That was Orange Crush, one of 18 R.E.M. songs collected on their new disc, "In Time 1988-2003: The Best of R.E.M." Originally from the disc, "Green," that begins the period that this collection covers, but "In Time..." isn't sequenced chronologically. How come you didn't put it in chronological order, and actually, how did you decide what order to put these songs in?

PB: If it was chronological, it would -- it would tend to not have a real flow. You'd start with three rock songs, then it would be six acoustic songs and then there'd be some electronica stuff, then there'd be another rock song. We tried to make it more like an album. I mean, the idea being, hey, this is the best REM album ever and it flows. We sequenced a couple of different ways. I listened to it in the car and it really did seem like, hey, this is -- you know, it's a record. It makes sense. You understand what the band's about, as opposed to chronologically, which, to me, would've -- too many highs and lows and valleys and peaks and -- you know, I think this one just works better this way.

MM: Yeah. It's also -- it's a little off-hand to do it chronologically. You know, with every album we do, we try to create a world that you can inhabit for that length of time that you're going to be listening to it. And I think the same thing should apply to the "best ofs."

Q Well, there's some obvious hits from this period, like Radio Song and Shiny Happy People, that aren't on "In Time..." and some lesser-known songs that are. How did you decide upon the song selection?

MM: Well, we all made a list and compared them and they were remarkably similar. We all tend to have basically similar feelings about our repertoire, I think. It is a best of. It's not a greatest hits. And, you know, things that might have been bigger hits than others, we didn't feel the need to include them.

MS: I might have been exaggerating, but in every single press -- all the press that I've done, I've said that every one of these songs was a Top 40 hit single somewhere in the world, expecting that nobody's really going to do their research and find out that Nightswimming might not have been the biggest hit single in Bombay. But each one of them are songs that we released as a single. Took the time and the effort to make a video for and put out as such. And every one of the songs was somewhere on some chart somewhere in the world (laughs).

MM: At one point.

MS: That, I can say.

PB Most bands who put together a best of they have two songs and they put on some other stuff. We left off hit singles. That's great. There will probably be a day when there's some kind of box set that's really comprehensive and covers all the years, but this seemed to make sense. And if Nightswimming wasn't our biggest hit single, it's still one of my favorite songs. And to a certain degree, you know, you're showing people, hey, this is what we're about. And Nightswimming, to me, fit better than say, Shiny Happy People.

MS: Well, we have all these songs that were big hit singles that were basically our bubblegum echelon, is what I've referred to it as. Each of us taking those very kind of, very Monkees, Banana Splits, Josey and the Pussycats moments that we had growing up as kids. Me, without an older brother or sister to turn me on to the Who or the Kinks or the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. That was my reference point. And so, with a handful of songs, we kind of -- we moved into our bubblegum echelon. And in those are The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, which did make the best of. Under pressure we capitulated to the international company, because they really wanted it on there. Shiny Happy People didn't, because it just kind of doesn't fit. Stand did, because it kind of does.

Q: On the other tip, both of the first two songs we heard, Bad Day and Orange Crush, have political undercurrents. Would REM ever become more explicit in its political feelings in a song or is that something you'd stay way from?

MS: I feel like that something that we explored in the late '80s, at the end of the Reagan term and the beginning of Bush Sr.'s term. With the albums "Document" and "Life's Rich Pageant," trying to be very overtly topical in songs. I think it was a failed experiment, as the person who wrote those lyrics. I love those songs and I'm really glad we did them. Some of them, I think, are very, very good. The best, I think, are the ones that are a little more obscure, like Disturbance at the Heron House, which was my version of the book Animal Farm. I'd still kind of maintain that music and politics don't really mix. That being said, each of us are very political people and very active. And it creeps in, you know. Right now, it's a little hard to breathe in the U.S. without -- without politics being a part of it, just because of the current climate and what's happening in this country.

Q: One of R.E.M.'s songs that's open to many interpretations is Losing My Religion. Peter, this song has perhaps the most famous mandolin part in popular music. Had you played mandolin on record before Losing My Religion?

PB: Yeah, I think I played on --

MM: "Green."

PB: A little on "Green". I -- we finished the "Document" tour and -- we were in New York, I remember. And I -- I don't think I'd been shopping in ten years. You know, we were so busy. And I went, "I'm going to go out and buy myself a funny instrument." And I found a mandolin and kind of tuned it by ear and played it for a couple of days and started writing songs on it. And I've got to say, there was this great interview with Bob Dylan. I think (Robert) Hilburn was interviewing him. And they were in some diner at like 2:00 in the morning and Losing My Religion comes on the jukebox. And Bob says, "Yeah, I like that mandolin part." And I just go, "well, you know, I can retire. I'm happy now." (Laughter).

Q: Mike, did the popularity of Losing My Religion change R.E.M., either internally or in people's perception of the band, do you think?

MM: I imagine it did in some people's perception. It was our first worldwide hit. It didn't really affect us that much, because our rise to whatever position we were in was very gradual. Every album we put out, up to and including "Automatic for the People," I think, sold more than the previous one. So we got our success in nice small doses and we were able to grow as people and as a band and deal with it, you know, on that kind of curve. But certainly, Losing My Religion, you know, kicked it into high gear. The kind of thing, you know, we went to Tel Aviv and they were playing it in the discos, you know. People requesting Oh, Life. And so, you know, it certainly -- it certainly altered, I think, our perception because before that we didn't have a perception in most places outside of America and Europe. And after that, we did.

Q: Michael, what was it about Losing My Religion that struck such a universal chord with people?

MS: It's one of those things that you can't really -- I don't think any of us will ever be able to really put our finger on it. I had always wanted, kind of deep in my heart I think, to have a song of the summer. As it is, we wrote a song of the year and, you know, maybe more. I mean, we laugh about it. It's a song with a mandolin as a lead instrument and no chorus. And yet, it captured the hearts and imaginations of just about every single person who's breathing in the world when we released it. I don't know why. In terms of how it may or may not have changed the band, I'll say this: I think, very wisely, and guided by Peter and Mike's encyclopedic knowledge of music and the people who make music, we all recognized it as the fluke that it was. It's not something that was going to be repeated over and over and over again. And to have attempted that, I think, would have been to steal the very -- the very energy and chemistry that makes R.E.M. R.E.M. away from ourselves. So we knew right away this is a one-time thing.

SONG: Losing My Religion