Back in the early `80s, when R.E.M. released its first recordings, the band`s chances for mass popularity seemed about as good as the prospects today of getting Michael Jackson to speak at a Rotary luncheon. The R.E.M. foursome- guitarist Peter Buck, vocalist Michael Stipe, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry-was very much a ”cult favorite” outfit in those days, drawing a relatively small following of fans from the ranks of college-radio listeners and ”hip” record buyers.
Since then, however, the Athens, Ga., band has steadily expanded its base. Each album released by the band since ”Murmur,” R.E.M.`s first LP, has sold a little more than its predecessor, with last year`s ”Lifes Rich Pageant” selling 525,000 copies and earning the band its first gold record. On the live concert scene, the band has gone from playing small and mid-size clubs-including a Cabaret Metro gig during an early visit to Chicago-to a current tour that is taking them to some venues in the 10,000-seat range. (The band will play the UIC Pavilion Wednesday and Thursday.)
Given this steady movement up the path of progress, you might wonder if there was a single moment in the last few years when the band realized it was leaving ”cult” status behind and heading for bigger things. According to guitarist Buck, there was indeed a realization of that sort, but it came very early in the band`s career.
”There was only one turning point I ever felt,” says Buck, ”and I still remember the day. Mike Mills and I were walking downtown-none of us in the band owned cars or bicycles-and we had about $2 in our pockets. We`d just that day signed a contract with I.R.S. Records, and as we were walking along, I said, `Mmm-hmm, you know this makes it a whole `nother game now.`
”We`d been a touring band that played and wrote songs and all, but we still had day jobs and stuff, and we`d all kind of figured we`d be keeping our day jobs. But right then we realized we were going to be professionals-even if, for us, being professionals is a whole lot looser than most people`s idea of what professionals are.
”The things that came after were gradual steps you could understand. Like, we weren`t playing clubs that hold 200 people anymore, we were playing clubs that hold 1,000. Then we were playing seated halls and getting a bigger p.a. system. Those were all steps that led from the point where we signed a record contract and knew that, for better or worse, we would be doing this for at least five years.”
R.E.M.`s latest album, ”Document,” looks like it will continue the band`s onward-and-upward momentum. The record has broken into the Billboard Top 15, and I.R.S. Records predicts it eventually will attain platinum status (more than 1 million copies sold). ”Document,” though, is a different sort of album than initial R.E.M. efforts such as ”Murmur.” For one thing, you can understand what Michael Stipe is singing. Deciphering Stipe`s oddly phrased, buried-in-the-mix vocals was a popular parlor pastime in some circles right up until last year`s ”Lifes Rich Pageant” LP, when lucidity came to the Stipe style. (”I think our material is a little more direct now,” says Buck, ”and it needs that kind of approach.”)
Then Buck`s guitar playing is a lot more biting this time around than the jangly, neo-folk material on earlier records.
”We figured we wanted to make a record that was about chaos, our chaotic time,” says Buck. ”The main goal was to make a record that was controlled but chaotic. So I didn`t want to play very pretty. Barring `Welcome to the Occupation` and `The One I Love,` the rest of the record is fairly non-jangly and fairly aggressive. And noisy. That`s because we wanted to represent musically the thematic thrust of the album.
”You`re supposed to play the record and get this feel of being in the center of a whirlwind, with all these things going on around you.”
There are those who would say that current times resemble not so much a whirlwind as a feeble breeze and that the `80s are tranquil, if not torpid, compared to the social upheaval of, say, the `60s. Buck, needless to say, sees things differently.
”For people like us, it`s a whirlwind,” he says. ”We`re the ones looking out and being totally horrified at what our country is doing and the things you hear on the radio or TV, when they just lie to you all the time. It`s definitely an Orwell-type year. Yet most people don`t even think about it. Most people are surfing or buying their new Mazda or going to business school.”
More than one song on ”Document” is in line with those sentiments.
”Welcome to the Occupation,” for example, offers the lyrics ”Listen to the Congress/Where we propagate confusion/ Primitive and wild/Fire on the hemisphere below.”
Then there is ”Exhuming McCarthy,” an indictment of the current social- political scene in America that is set to a perky `60s-rock sound and contains an excerpt from the Army-McCarthy hearings in the instrumental break. ”I just think that era is coming around again,” says Buck. ”I don`t think Joseph McCarthy would be really out of place now. The song is just a comment on how society seems to be going. You know, all the things we take for granted as being good about America just seem to be going right down the toilet. A lot of it involves, you know, chasing money. The song is kind of a humorous little look at that; the song is such a jolly little song.”
Buck was born in 1956 and obviously has few personal memories of the
`50s, which might lead some to ask how he can draw parallels between then and now when he didn`t experience the then part of the equation.
`Well, that`s what books are for,” says Buck. ”You do feel that at least there`s a different thought pattern now among some people. I mean, everyone looked the same during much of the `50s. The kids looked like the adults. At least you can walk down the street now, and while you see a lot of really conservative people, you also see people whose hair goes three feet up in the air. Maybe that doesn`t mean anything, but they would have been thrown in jail back then.”
Along with other R.E.M. albums, ”Document” has garnered a good share of praise from critics, which can be a mixed blessing: While the kind words might be pleasing to performers, too much gushing can set up a reverse they-can`t-be-that-good sentiment among readers.
”I think by and large it`s been a very helpful thing,” says Buck. ”It attracted people to us and kept people interested when we weren`t selling tons of records. But it does set up that negative expectation. I know when I read 400 times how great an album is, I just don`t want to believe it.
”If we sold only 8,000 records each time, you wouldn`t believe the reviews we`d get. They`d be so much better than the ones we get now. That`s just the nature of things. In a lot of the fanzines I read, we`re already considered totally unhip.”
Along with the praise, says Buck, has come advice-lots and lots of unsolicited advice.
”The only thing you can say about success, aside from being good at what you do, is just do only what you do and don`t take advice from anybody,” says Buck.
”But everywhere we go, we`ve always heard-not necessarily from our record company, but from other people-`Gee, if you guys only did this, you`d be bigger than the Police.` Or, `If you had a video where you lip-synched and hopped around and dressed nice, it`d be great.`
”Some people listen to that kind of advice, but it`s real harmful because the reason you`re a musician, writing your own songs, performing them yourself, is because you know what you`re doing.
”If someone were ever to give me good advice, I`d be tempted to take it. But no one has ever said anything that made any sense to me at all. People will say things that would make sense if you were sitting in an office talking about what you need for the next Bon Jovi single. But we`re not Bon Jovi. You`ve gotta realize that what`s good about us is something that`s unique among the four of us, something we`re able to draw out of ourselves. Taking advice to try to make yourself more palatable to radio or teenagers or dance fans makes no sense whatsoever.”
