Members of R.E.M. will reunite on stage tonight (June 13) when they will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, marking a rare moment where all four - Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe - will appear together in public.
To commemorate the honour, R.E.M. sat down with Anthony Mason to discuss the induction on CBS This Morning.
“We’re also here to tell the tale and we’re sitting at the same table together with deep admiration and lifelong friendship,” Stipe exclaims. “A lot of people that do this can’t claim that.”
The band discuss their approach to songwriting and why the induction means so much to them at this stage of their lives.
“We lived or died on the strength of our songs,” guitarist Buck tells Mason, “so this is a huge honour.”
“It is the hardest thing that we do,” bassist Mills adds, “and it is the thing that we worked on the very most from the beginning.”
R.E.M. were one of the most influential American rock bands of the 1980s, achieving commercial success in the 1990s with songs like "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts," earning three Grammy Awards and selling more than 90 million records.
Following the departure of drummer Berry in 1997 after suffering a ruptured brain aneurysm on stage two years prior, Stipe, Mills and Buck continued to operate as R.E.M. until the band finally split after 31 years in 2011.
Berry discusses the toll it took on both himself and the band when he decided to call it quits.
“I didn’t regret [leaving] at the time,” he says with tears in his eyes. “Um, I sort of regretted it a little later.”
Now 13 years after the band decided to end their run, they agree that it was the right decision to make.
“I think we quit at the right time,” Buck explains. “This was a really great place to finish: great tour, great album, go home... 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. We could barely agree on where to go to dinner. And now we can just agree on where to go to dinner.”
With reunion tours and catalogues pulling in big streaming numbers, it would make complete sense to fans for R.E.M. to get back together and play more shows together. Earlier this year they did all appear on stage to support a tribute act in their hometown of Athens, GA. But they say a proper reunion is not in the cards for R.E.M.
When Mason asks what it would take for them to perform on stage together again, Mills jokes, "A comet."
“It would never be as good,” Buck chimes in.
Watch the full interview below.
R.E.M. is being inducted into the @SongwritersHOF — an honor Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry say means a great deal: “We lived or died on the strength of our songs.”
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) June 13, 2024
They sat down with @AnthonyMasonCBS for their first joint interview in nearly 30 years. pic.twitter.com/XqlSoVMVxd
Update: A comet must have hit or something because R.E.M. did perform "Losing My Religion" at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Or maybe they just meant a regular gig. Anyway, watch a clip below.
A surprise performance by @remhq last night at their induction into the @SongwritersHOF - Just one song, an acoustic version of "Losing My Religion" - but it was the first time the 4 original members had played together publicly since 2007. More on @CBSMornings pic.twitter.com/XubOAWTOtc
— Anthony Mason (@AnthonyMasonCBS) June 14, 2024