The quartet celebrated their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday night
Less than a day after bassist Mike Mills declared it would take “a comet” for the four founding members of R.E.M. to play together again, the quartet took to the stage for a surprise performance celebrating their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday night.
Mills, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Bill Berry appeared at the Marriot Marquis Hotel in New York City and, according to the band’s Instagram, played their highest-charting hit “Losing My Religion.” In another post, the group shared a photo of the moment, captioning, “Another moment… oh life.”
The performance marked the first time all four members appeared together since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
Earlier on Thursday, the group reflected on their history with CBS Mornings and insisted they would not be performing together again — guitarist Peter Buck reasoned, “It would never be as good, — but said they ended the band in 2011 at the right time.
“At that point, there wasn’t anything we could agree on really, musically: what kind of music, how to record it, are we gonna go on tour,” Buck said of the split. “We could barely agree on where to go to dinner. And now we can just agree on where to go to dinner.”
When discussing their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the group said the honor was significant to them. “We lived or died on the strength of our songs,” Buck said, “so this is a huge honor.”
“It is the hardest thing that we do,” Mills added, “and it is the thing that we worked on the very most from the beginning.”
