Podcast Corner: Behind the scenes on the making of REM
One of REM's biographers recently appeared on an episode of Rolling Stone Music Now.
For lovers of US culture, there are two books recently released that might be on your radar: Peter Ames Carlin’s and New Yorker editor Susan Morrison’s .
Carlin was on a recent episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, while Morrison chatted with SNL alumni Dana Carvey and David Spade for their show . Neither subject, REM and Lorne, is a mystery - both have spawned plenty of books already - but we just can’t get enough of them.
Carlin says REM built their audience hand by hand and laughs at claims around 1985 that they might sell out - an piece pondered, “Will success ruin these indie darlings REM”, and included the line: “They even have a fan club.”
Host Brian Hiatt points out, though, that one of the things he took away from the book was that they were more unambiguously ambitious from the start than he had realised.
Drummer Bill Berry was the main driver of REM early on: “He made it very clear that if they didn’t drop out, he would leave the band,” says Carlin. As for making the songs, “When it started getting too long or Bill got bored, he’d just throw his sticks in the air and be like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. We got to cut this back.’”
Guitarist Peter Buck, meanwhile, ensured that REM wouldn’t face the same pitfalls of other bands: “Peter twigged to the fact his reading of the literature of rock and roll proved to him over and over again, that there are always two things that break bands up: One is credit and one is royalties.”
And what of the perennial question, will REM ever get back together? “Since basically all the other bands whose members are alive eventually get back together, maybe they’ll stick with never reuniting — just to do what all the other bands don’t do,” suggests Carlin.
Following the 50th anniversary celebration of last week, meanwhile, Morrison is asked on Fly on the Wall when Michaels will be stepping down as head honcho. “He’ll never miss a show,” predicts Morrison. “I think they’d have to carry him out of there in a stretcher.” #
She discusses, earlier in the episode, how Michaels’ infamous demeanor - see any number of impressions of the comedy impresario by Marc Maron or indeed the two hosts - may be down to losing his father when he was 14 years old. His last talk with his dad was a shouting match; the two hosts and Morrison note how he never has a yelling match with anybody.
The two podcasts and interviews are just tasters of what sound like two essential books.
