The four founders members of REM reunited (for interview only) to reflect on their history with them CBS Mornings before their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday night. The quartet confirmed they would not play together again (it would take “a comet”, according to bassist Mike Mills, and guitarist Peter Buck said, “It would never be as good”), but said they were proud of their achievements and ended the band in 2011 at the right time for them.
“At that point, we couldn't agree on anything really, musically: what kind of music, how to record it, are we going to tour,” Buck said of the split as the other three members listened, all gathered around a table in the headquarters them in Athens, Georgia. “We could barely agree on where to go for dinner. And now we can just agree on where to go for dinner.''
“We're also here to tell the story, and we sit at the same table together with deep admiration and lifelong friendship,” said frontman Michael Stipe. “A lot of people who do that can't claim it.”
“I think we quit at the right time,” Buck continued. “This was a really great place to end: great tour, great album, go home.” Stipe and Mills agreed with Buck that neither of them had second thoughts about ending the group.
In an emotional moment, drummer Bill Berry broke down as he contemplated his departure from the band in 1997 after suffering a brain aneurysm on stage at a concert two years earlier. The medical event and subsequent surgery, he said, “may have lowered my energy level and I just didn't have the drive I once had.” This realization prompted Berry to leave the band. “I had no regrets [leaving] at the time,” he said in the interview. “Um, I regretted it a little later.” With tears in his eyes, Berry said he regretted “acting weird” for his bandmates at the time, but they responded by saying he wasn't and Stipe put a hand on the drummer's shoulder.
The musicians will reunite Thursday night to attend the Songwriters Hall of Fame gala in New York. The price, they said, was important to them. “We lived or died by the power of our songs,” Buck said, “so it's a huge honor.”
“It's the hardest thing we do,” Mills said, “and it's what we've worked on the most from the beginning.”
“Because I had to,” Berry said again. “Very early on, just to put food on the table, we had to write songs as fast as we could.”
This year's other Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees are Timbaland, Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Dean Pitchford and Hillary Lindsay. Diane Warren will receive the Johnny Mercer Award.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rem-songwriters-hall-of-fame-cbs-interview-1235039497/
