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affiliates price and coverage. Michael

2:07

Stipe, welcome to Bull's Eye. I'm so happy to have you on the

2:09

show. Thank you, Jesse. I'm happy to be here. You

2:12

were a military kid. Do you remember every

2:15

stop of your childhood or were

2:17

there multiple stops before you remember?

2:20

There were multiple stops before I remember, but I know

2:22

each place because I've been back to most of them.

2:26

But that for me was normal.

2:28

So it felt perfectly normal

2:30

for me when my father

2:32

retired and I started my band to

2:35

kind of keep moving at that same

2:37

pace. What's the first one that

2:39

you remember? The first place that I remember?

2:42

It would have been in

2:44

Georgia. I think my first memory is

2:46

my sister, my younger sister being born

2:49

and then bringing her out into the

2:51

parking lot of the hospital. My

2:53

older sister and I were sat in the backseat waiting

2:57

to see her for the first time. My

3:00

second memory is a hallucination because

3:03

two months later, my sister

3:05

was born September 30th, 1962 and

3:08

I was two years old. Two

3:10

months later, I had contracted scarlet

3:12

fever, pneumonia and whooping cough,

3:14

I think. But I almost died and

3:16

then I had a terrible reaction to

3:18

the medication that they gave

3:20

me for it. But my second

3:22

memory as a photographer trying to get a picture

3:25

of me in a Christmas sweater and I was

3:27

hallucinating. So it was like a Jack Nicholson movie

3:29

from the 1960s. How

3:32

old are we talking about? Like four or something? Two. I was two.

3:34

Holy mackerel. It's

3:38

not unusual for me to have somebody on

3:40

the show that grew up a military carat.

3:43

And it's such an extreme social

3:46

environment because you are

3:50

so bonded to whoever

3:53

is traveling with you, whoever in your family

3:55

is with you, your mom or whatever or

3:57

in people. your

4:00

mom and dad or depending on the

4:02

mix. You're also often every

4:05

two years or

4:07

so meeting new people

4:09

and doing different stuff. And

4:11

there are some people who come out

4:13

of that experience very socially

4:16

facile, like just ready to

4:18

go. Like maybe

4:21

they struggle with depth, but they can just

4:23

show themselves to people, be like, yep, here

4:26

I am. I've done this five times before,

4:28

let's go. I don't

4:30

though gather that that was what

4:33

you were like when you were a kid, am I wrong? I

4:36

mean, I would say that possibly one

4:38

of the shared experiences of people who have that

4:40

type of childhood or lifestyle

4:42

growing up, your

4:44

family become very, very important because they

4:46

are your anchor, much more than

4:49

the community or the group of friends

4:51

that you might make at school or

4:53

out of church or in your neighborhood.

4:56

And so, I'm very lucky that I

4:58

have a great family. I had a

5:00

great father growing up and I

5:02

have this very loving, very intimate and very close

5:04

relationship with my sisters. And so, but I do think

5:07

that a lot of that had to do with

5:09

us picking up and moving all the time. Night

5:12

swimming deserves a

5:15

quiet night. The

5:20

photograph on

5:23

the dashboard

5:27

taken years ago,

5:31

turned around back so

5:33

the windshield shows, every

5:36

street light reveals

5:39

a picture and

5:41

reverse. Still

5:44

it's so much clearer,

5:46

I forgot

5:49

my shirt at the

5:52

water's house, the

5:55

moon is low tonight.

6:03

When did you figure out that you

6:07

might be a weird kid? Weird.

6:14

Okay. Well, I picked that

6:16

one out of a long list of possibilities,

6:19

but alternative seemed a little on the nose.

6:21

Okay. No, I mean, I figured out queer

6:23

pretty early on and then had to

6:25

figure that out because the categories

6:27

that were available to me didn't exactly

6:30

match how I felt. And so

6:32

that was a bit odd. But I

6:35

was the daydreamer. I was a kid that looked out the

6:37

window. I'm the only boy

6:39

of three kids. I'm the middle kid.

6:41

I'm left-handed. I'm queer,

6:43

as it turns out. So

6:45

there's all these and a military kid. So there's all

6:48

these things that are maybe different from what

6:50

other people, quote unquote, normal

6:53

upbringing might provide. But that's not

6:56

so different, huh? I

6:59

don't know that I ever... Maybe, you know what? I bet

7:01

I know what it was. I think probably I could

7:04

always emotionally read a room

7:07

even as a very, very young child. And so there

7:09

would be things going on that kids didn't need to

7:11

know about. But I would look at

7:13

the adults and see that something was wrong. So I

7:15

would pull someone aside and say, what's happening? And

7:18

they would routinely separate

7:21

me from the other kids and say, someone's

7:23

had an accident and it's because of some bad

7:26

men that he met during

7:28

the war. And we're talking about a distant family

7:30

member, not my father, but who

7:33

had a car wreck. And it's because he had been drinking and

7:35

this was in the early 60s. But

7:38

that's a good example. I mean, I think I knew

7:41

then that I'd go back and all the kids

7:43

would be playing and no one else

7:45

seemed to have tapped into this emotional

7:47

dissonance that for me was absolutely present

7:50

in the room, like a fog. And

7:53

the parents or the adults would always... In

7:56

my family, they would treat me with respect in

7:58

terms of how they... answered

8:00

those questions. It's a very different time than

8:02

what a parent might say to a kid

8:04

now, but they

8:06

did their best and they did a good job. Maybe

8:08

that's when I realized that I was a little bit different from those

8:11

around me. And that

8:13

was a particular real

8:15

life example that you just

8:17

gave? Yeah. How

8:19

old are you? I

8:21

would have been, that was probably five or six. That

8:24

is really young to notice something like that. Well,

8:27

I mean, that's just who I am.

8:31

It's okay. I'm fine. It turned out okay.

8:35

What about the queer part of it? Because

8:38

you've had romances with, you have a partner

8:41

who's a man right now, I think,

8:43

right? Yeah, that's right. But you've had

8:45

romances with women as well.

8:48

That's right. When

8:52

did you realize something and what did you realize? Pretty

8:55

early on. I think maybe as a young

8:57

teenager, probably around 12, 13, 12, I would

8:59

say, yeah, yeah,

9:04

no, earlier. I'm

9:06

placing it now where I lived at the time. So that's always

9:08

a nice way because I know what years we moved from so

9:10

and so to so and so. So it would

9:12

have been earlier than that, probably 11, 10.

9:15

What did you notice? I'm going backwards, aren't

9:17

I? Maybe seven. Four

9:21

is my final offer. I

9:25

consider my first sexual experience that I remember.

9:28

I was either six or seven years old and that

9:30

happened in Germany. It was with a brother, sister, team.

9:33

I still have a thing for redheads, as

9:35

it turns out. They were a good bit older

9:37

than me and I think they had more of an idea of what

9:39

they were doing. It was completely fine.

9:41

I don't think it had any bad

9:45

impact on me, but I do remember it. What

9:49

did you even know about what that meant at

9:51

the time? I didn't know anything. There wasn't much

9:53

to. The thing that

9:56

I thought about when I thought about

9:58

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visit sk.com. On

13:04

this week's episode of Wild Card,

13:06

comedian Taylor Tomlinson explains how you

13:08

can use fear as a motivating

13:10

force. I was afraid that I would

13:12

get years down the road and go, man, I really wish

13:14

I had pursued that or I wish

13:16

I had developed this town

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that might have taken me somewhere. I'm

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Rachel Martin. Join us for NPR's Wild

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Card podcast, the game where cards control

13:26

the conversation. Welcome

13:33

back to Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorn. We're listening back

13:35

to my 2022 conversation with Michael Stipe.

13:38

He is, of course, the lead singer of

13:40

the band REM, one of the biggest alternative

13:42

rock bands ever. REM was

13:44

recently inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

13:46

This fall, they will join the Rock and

13:48

Roll Hall of Fame. Let's get back into

13:51

our conversation. lead

20:00

guitarist and singer for the band

20:03

television from the CBGB scene. No

20:05

one in my high school knew who Tom Verlaine

20:07

was, but it caused this huge ruckus because it

20:10

was blasphemous to call anyone God except for

20:12

God. But then all the English teachers were

20:14

like, it's Paul Verlaine. They didn't know the

20:16

right, they thought it was the

20:19

romantic poet from France, not some

20:21

guy from the Bowery. But

20:24

anyway. What

20:27

did your dad, the last in a long line

20:30

of Methodist preachers think about it? My

20:32

father wasn't a Methodist preacher, my grandpa was. Well, the

20:35

end of the long line of the Methodist preachers, I

20:37

should say. They never

20:39

caught the Vandal, you know, the Vandal

20:41

was me, of course. But they never

20:43

caught the

20:45

Vandal, so my father didn't hear about it. Nobody's

20:48

heard about it until this interview, I don't think. That's

20:51

pretty funny to admit, but there it is. What I wouldn't

20:53

give to have one of those Tom Verlaine

20:55

as God, many of the graph sheets now. When

21:02

did you feel like you were there? Was it when you got to art

21:04

school? What does

21:06

there mean there? I mean, like that you

21:08

were inside the thing that you imagined being

21:10

inside. I mean, you weren't literally inside of

21:13

CBGB scene at the time.

21:16

You're a thousand miles away from

21:18

that. But art

21:20

school is a whole

21:22

other deal. I didn't feel

21:25

like I was inside of it then either. I have to say, Jesse,

21:27

I was still, you

21:31

know, I was very, very shy. And yeah,

21:33

I didn't. I mean, the early

21:36

punk rock scene in Athens, Georgia, which is where I

21:38

moved when I was 18 to go

21:40

to college, was really

21:43

incredible. But I was kind

21:45

of an outsider there. I do remember there

21:49

was a party that then it was, you know,

21:51

the band Pylon, the method

21:53

actors was a band here in

21:55

the late 70s, early 80s, the

21:57

B-52s. thanks

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28:31

this is Mike Kable on. If you're out

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28:35

of TV Chef Fantasy League. Where we apply

28:37

fantasy sports rules to cooking competition shows. We're

28:39

not professional chefs or fantasy sports bros. Just

28:41

three comedians who love cooking shows and winning.

28:43

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28:46

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Or you can just listen to us like

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too. Subscribe to TV Chef Fantasy League on

29:09

maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm

29:17

Jesse Thorn. You're listening to Bulls Eye. I'm

29:19

talking with Michael Stipe of REM. What's

29:23

something that you heard yourself do or

29:25

heard on an REM record? You

29:28

know sometime in the last few years where you

29:30

thought, gosh I forgot about that. That is great.

29:33

Like that really worked. Well I can

29:35

tell you, I mean that's an easy one for me. I

29:37

think one of the best songs we ever wrote was on

29:39

one of the later records. And they were just, you know,

29:42

in America particularly audiences were

29:44

kind of over us. They were done with us.

29:46

They were tired of me or my persona or

29:49

had moved on to other things. But

29:52

there's a song called Supernatural Super Serious, which

29:55

I think is one of the best things we ever wrote. Everybody

30:02

here comes

30:06

from somewhere that

30:09

they just ask and forget

30:11

and disguise.

30:16

I sing it in my head all the time. I

30:18

really like the chorus and there's a thing that I

30:20

do at the end that is some

30:23

of my best work. It's nice to be able

30:25

to say that. I mean that's one thing about

30:28

doing what I've done and what I did for

30:30

so long is that I

30:33

can kind of look at the work and

30:36

be proud of it and say I know that

30:38

that's really, really quality. I know that

30:40

that's really good. I won't talk about the

30:42

things that are bad. I'll talk about them

30:44

abstractly but I'm not going to say

30:46

this song off of this record is just a

30:48

deep horrible embarrassment for me because someone might use

30:50

that song in their wedding or it

30:52

might be their favorites. It might be the song that they

30:54

fell in love to. It's not mine to say that anymore,

30:58

but I can talk about the triumphs. What

31:18

was it like for you to have the life

31:21

rhythm of being a performing

31:24

musician when REM started? Like

31:27

the first five years or so before you

31:29

had hit records but when you were working

31:31

really, really hard. There's

31:33

things about it that are similar to the

31:36

kind of peripatetic military kid lifestyle.

31:40

There's also a real pattern

31:43

of intensity and then

31:47

slowdown that is

31:49

kind of all-consuming. I

31:52

was born hyperactive and that

31:55

pace of those first early years

31:58

traveling around in a van starving, having

32:02

exactly one outfit to wear, having

32:05

to share everything with the other guys, not

32:07

having any money, not having any means of support, not

32:09

knowing what we were doing next, not

32:11

knowing anything about where it was going or what it

32:13

might become. It

32:17

fed that hyperactivity and also

32:19

the adrenaline that comes with

32:21

performing, the adrenaline that comes

32:23

from being in that spotlight, however small that

32:25

spotlight might be, is something that

32:27

I absolutely fed off of. There

32:30

are of course very negative aspects to that and

32:32

particularly if you do it again and

32:34

again and over and over and over again, you've got to really take

32:36

care of yourself or you're going to

32:38

flame out. Did you

32:40

have any sense of what you had to do to take care of

32:42

yourself? Really

32:44

not until much later. I mean, I

32:47

went through a very rough period in the mid

32:49

80s where I had about a year and a

32:51

half long nervous breakdown and that had to do

32:53

with a lot of things. When I came through

32:55

that, I felt a deeper sense of purpose because

32:57

I felt like I had come very

32:59

close to death or to just

33:03

not ever coming back. So

33:05

yeah, some good songs came out

33:07

of it for sure. But there was

33:10

a confidence and there was a purpose

33:13

that was not there before. Before that, I

33:15

think I was really just enjoying the ride

33:18

and enjoying learning how to write and

33:20

learning how to sing and finding my

33:22

voice and learning how to be a

33:25

public figure as well, which was really

33:27

not very easy particularly then. This

33:30

is a generation where selling out

33:32

was something that was considered the

33:34

worst possible sound and it's

33:37

very different to the

33:39

way today's generation might approach pop music

33:42

or performing or being

33:44

a public figure. And

33:47

so that came with its own set

33:49

of difficulties. What kind

33:51

of nervous breakdown was it? Was

33:54

it depression or psychosis or exhaustion?

33:56

It was depression. It

33:58

was exhaustion as well. My

34:00

adrenals were tapped out and

34:02

I had no way to fix that. I didn't know how

34:05

to fix it. I was worried for my own life I

34:07

was convinced that I was HIV positive. There was no way

34:09

for me to test that at the time And

34:12

I wasn't sure that I wanted to be a pop star. I wasn't

34:14

sure I wanted to be a public figure I

34:16

wasn't sure I wanted to be Traveling

34:18

like that or doing like doing any of the

34:20

things that we were doing, you know it was

34:22

just it all compounded to create

34:24

a really bad situation for me and And

34:27

the band didn't realize it at the time and neither did I

34:29

I didn't know what depression felt like I'd never been through it

34:31

before But this was very

34:33

real and I came through it eventually But I

34:36

I mean the story of how I came out of it

34:38

is quite intense and you know We don't need

34:40

to talk about it here. It was a very intense difficult

34:43

thing that happened to me and then I came

34:45

out of it and then I and then I had as

34:47

I said earlier this Deep sense of purpose

34:49

that I don't think that I had before you know before

34:51

it was really just a lot of fun and then

34:54

it was pressure fun and then it was pressure

34:56

fun but with The specter of

34:58

AIDS hanging over my head and then pressure fun

35:00

with the specter of AIDS and the

35:03

exhaustion that comes from Being in

35:05

a continually adrenaline state and

35:08

at that point I stopped doing drugs years before And

35:11

stopped drinking and so it was really you know,

35:13

it wasn't brought about by anything like that, but

35:16

it was it was dark It was very dark. What

35:18

was the purpose that you found? That's

35:24

a good question, I mean I think just to believe in myself

35:26

and to be who I am and to

35:28

I Don't

35:30

know. I mean I suddenly I just felt Elevated

35:35

and Free

35:37

of the concerns and the fears that

35:40

I had gone through. I

35:42

flew very very very close to I Don't

35:46

know how I almost said something I That's

35:48

that's a mixing metaphors, which I'm the king of but

35:51

it got as dark as it could possibly get It

35:53

could not have gotten darker and then This

35:56

thing happened and I was in literal darkness for

35:58

10 days and then I came out that I

36:00

could see again, and I was not blind and

36:02

I was alive, and I was very

36:04

grateful and very thankful for that. Were

36:08

you working during that time? Oh yeah, we didn't

36:10

stop working. There's some good records that came out

36:12

of it. Truthfully, Fables of

36:14

the Reconstruction was during that time

36:17

period. And then the tour that

36:19

was reckoning from

36:21

the second album came out of that. Well,

36:44

Michael Steip, I'm so grateful to you for

36:47

taking all this time to talk to me.

36:49

We could talk for four more hours about

36:51

different stuff, and I'm very grateful

36:53

that you took this time. Thank you,

36:55

Jesse. Michael

37:04

Steip, as we said, his band REM will be

37:06

inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

37:08

this October. That's

37:17

the end of another episode of Bullseye. Bullseye is

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She was staying with her dad in West

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