Thom Yorke and Michael Stipe - Summer Staff Picks

Two of the most popular shows from the Here’s The Thing archives are Alec’s conversations with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. These are fascinating, ground-breaking artists who influenced each other. Thom Yorke started Radiohead in 1985 when he was just a teenager. With each of the group’s nine studio albums, Radiohead evolved its sound and, at times, pushed the music industry. In this 2013 interview, Thom Yorke talks with Alec about working with longtime collaborators, fatherhood, and his fame. Michael Stipe was a founding member of R.E.M., a band that practically defined indy rock for much of the 80s and 90s. R.E.M. broke up in 2011 and, in this conversation from 2016, Michael Stipe talks to Alec about what getting time back has meant to his art, politics, and ability to read, listen, and enjoy the world. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from My Heart Radio. I'm Frank Imperial and you're listening
to Here's the Thing from I Heart Radio. Hey Frank,
what's going on? Is there a technical problem? No problem
on this side. You just asked me to host an
archived show. Oh right, why do I keep forgetting that? Well?
Good luck with the show, Frank. Oh are you going

(00:25):
to mute me? Definitely? Two of the most popular shows
from the more than two fifty archival episodes of Here's
the Thing are radioheads Tom York and r E MS.
Michael Stipe, the frontman for two of the most interesting
and influential bands of the last several decades, have a
lot in comment. Michael Stipe was a founding member of

(00:47):
R A M, the band that practically defined alternative music
in the eighties and early nineties. R M released fifteen
studio albums and was inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in two thousand seven. RIM broke up
in two thousand and eleven, and Michael Stape has been
exploring other ways of making art and music since then.

(01:07):
But first Alex two interview with Tom York. He formed
Radiohead with some of his friends when he was just
sixteen years old. Since then, the band has been nominated
for eighteen Grammys, won three, and sold tens of millions
of records. Radioheads nine studio albums have demonstrated the group's
comfort with experimentation. Tom ne York said technology made some

(01:29):
of that easier. After we did Okay Computer. I finally
in the late late nineties you could like go on
tour with the laptop and it was powerful enough that
you could record, edit, use synthesizers, bit into it and
it wouldn't crash, and it was fairly stable. So I
first started getting into it then. And what I thought
was really interesting is when we were working on Okay Computer,

(01:53):
I started using learning the software that we were using
the studio to We were still mostly working on type
old school, but I suddenly thought, we'll hang on a minute.
If I can learn how all this equipment works, I'll
have a completely different way of thinking about how to write.
So I forced myself to learn all this equipment and
learn to use the laptop because a lot of music

(02:17):
I was into was being made electronically anyway, and I
kind of thought it would be interesting to do it
within the band, because normally musicians don't fall into doing
the production side of it or building the tracks. They're like,
stay this side of the studio, offense with the mix,
and let someone total. So I definitely was much more

(02:40):
into blurring that up. Did n produce both your solo albums? Yeah?
He does. He does a lot, and he did all
of the radio, Yeah he does. You attribute that to
having that kind of faith of someone. You find someone
you trust. I mean not all the time, and we
do argue a lot, but to have someone who's like,
um I sounding board all the time, it makes everything

(03:03):
so much more fun because if you're if you're knocking
out ideas, you can't edit them and knock them out
at the same time. Like if you're on the stage
and you're trying to get through your part or whatever,
you have to have someone out front saying, okay, that's
not working. I mean I do on my own a lot.
I do work. You know, you generate ideas, but all

(03:23):
I then have is a mountain of ideas that gradually
I don't have to sit through and it just takes
so long. It's so much more fun sharing it with
someone and you think about your four days into computerized music.
He was into it. I did wonder when I first
started doing it, but he was into it because he
watched me doing it in such a different way to him.

(03:44):
But I mean, I was like a kid being given
a hammer. I was just handling away on stuff. I
didn't really know what I was doing, but he was
kind of fascinated about that, you know, and he'd come
and literally tidy up the mess I've done on the computer.
What were other people? Who were other people that were
working in that in that area that you listened to
who is making then? Then well then it was I

(04:06):
was obsessed with a X twin then and Oteca. There
was a lot of really interesting things happening in Britain.
Then on this label called Warp and it was it
was first spell as in the warp w a RP
like the floor is warped after the fun Yeah, And
then I say, with your accent, that could have been

(04:27):
anyone of forwards. When on this label called wo Wo
Warm War, Warp Wall War, War whoop, yeah, saying like
we're saying here in the United States war it's war
country and Western record bit you bottom now and there boy,
so you you as you were, you were obsessed with

(04:49):
the music that was on Whoop Records because it didn't
have any guitars and I was having a troubled relationship
with my guitar at the time. Is that true? Well
not really. It's just like I ended up being in
a band, signing this to this big record label, and
it's a band and when big letters, so certain things
go with that. But yet when I was at college,

(05:12):
I was listening to a lot of other things, and
after a while it was like, oh, this is it's
really annoying that I felt like we couldn't break out
of that. So I just started forcing us to break
out of that because it didn't make sense to me.
You've been with those guys for how long now we
started when we're sixteen Radiohead, which is um Now I'm

(05:32):
forty four, so that's quite a while. And some bands
that have had a tremendous longevity, obviously the Rolling Stones
of the premier example, they've changed partners over the years,
like they were the New York Yankees. You know, there's
somebody else playing a third base every four or five years.
But you guys, it's the same cast of people obviously,
what do you attribute that to persistence my great diplomatic

(05:54):
skills not but there must be times when they've I mean,
I'll never mccurrently said to me, even the Beatles got
tired of being the Beatles were the times you guys
said there and looked at each other and said, I
think we're done. I do that frequently, frequently, I mean
at least the others too, not as much. They just
wait for me to do it. Um. So, we just

(06:15):
did a tour last year, right, and it was probably,
in theory, the scariest one we've ever done, because it
was lots of big gigs, which I normally am spending
my time trying to shy away from. Why because you
can't achieve technically in a large space where you normally
want to exactly that you can't get across to people
the right way, I felt. So we did spend a

(06:35):
lot of time and effort coming up with like a
stage design which used screens in a certain way which
made it intimate, even though you know, some nights was
like thirty or forty. People are trying to create some
sort of intimacy with that, and when it worked, it
was insane. It was because the upside of playing to
that many people is you have this really crazy collective

(06:57):
energy that you can tap into, like a crowd, you
know thing. There's one show we did in Phoenix that
sticks in my mind where there was something about maybe
that it was in Phoenix and people don't get the
opportunity those sort of people don't get the opportunity to
get together that often or something. There was some sort
of excitement within the crowd that was so great to

(07:19):
play with. When when we hit it musically, it felt
like the whole room, the whole of the building was moving. Honestly,
we both came off you know that, and it's bombed.
I understand that not from my own experience, but from
seeing artists perform. You know. I often asked myself, why
the hell would would you put yourself through this? Because

(07:42):
it's very stressful. It's a lot of pressure, and for
me mentally, I've just build myself up to it in
my head gradually and it sounds really precious, but it
messes with my head. I want to get to that
given to me a couple of hours before you go
out there, and you've got to blow this thing out
for all these people and just stone cold silence, basically

(08:02):
almost meditative. Well, yeah, I do. I do that and focused,
I stand on my head for a bit and basically
I'm completely on my own until five minutes before we
go on, and then we're all in the room together,
pacing up and down like wild animals, and then then
we're on. But when we first started doing big shows,
it was with my from Michael Stipe, and he does

(08:23):
the total opposite. He literally he'll be talking to you
and then someone taps in his should and then they're on.
And I was like, how the hell do you do that? Man?
And I tried to do it like that, I couldn't it,
and so I ended up going did he did? Did
you get any indication why Stipe could do that? There's
a lot of nice spiritual tones inside of R. E.
M's music too. Yeah, no, I don't know. I think

(08:46):
what he used to do was you'd stand there for
the first two tunes, barely move. He was a sort
of lightning conductor and he was just waiting for it
to hit, and then when it hit, he was off.
But he would wait and if he wasn't going to hit,
he was still there three or four tunes later and waiting,
he kind of warmed up in front of everybody, engaging

(09:09):
it all, whereas I can't do that because I have
to sort of be clear of everything before, you know, whatever,
I need to um be completely empty. I started playing

(09:43):
guitar when I was seven. I sat down and said
I was going to be Brian May when it was
a lot of bad thing to be. And then I
tried to do I read like when I was ten
or something. I read that he built his first guitar himself,
which is when he still plays. So I tried to
do that, but my efforts would in that sense, you

(10:04):
were not Brian May in that sense of handcrafting of
the guitar. And I had to cheat with the neck
on the guitar. I found an older neighbor gave me
a neck of an electric guitar. That great. Okay, that's good,
but you know I was ten or eleven, so I
was trying to like bolt it together to this other
piece of wood that I had cut out, and it
was just a disaster. But it kind of worked, but
it was ugly. Was your family musical? Not really? No.

(10:26):
The only one that sticks out is barently my great grandmother.
She get really hammered and then stay up playing her
pump organ thing downstairs all night and keep the family up.
You were around, did your witness that I met her
once and she was kind of she wore black. I
was quite scary when I was really tiny. But now
that your parents were artists musicians, no, no, no, no.

(10:48):
When the guitar came into your life when you're seven,
Brian May or no, was it music itself? And when
you moved by music itself? Or was it like many
people when they're very was rock stardom was? Never? It was?
It was you weren't running around your bedroom imitating Jagger
and you thought, like you want my My whole thing

(11:11):
was we didn't have any sound system in the house.
We had nothing, no high fi nothing except for in
my dad's car and had a type player in it.
So I when and would sit for hours. I would
sit for hours and it was the sound of Brian
May's guitar. Actually it was. It was one of those
funny things where you know, when you turned something up

(11:34):
and you're in a very controlled loud environment, just that
sound was just you know, nothing else. It was that
when you're that small and you've never I've never really
heard music particularly at all up until that point. You know,
it's funny, it's got a weird thing. But I mean,

(11:54):
lots of kids at that age that you know, their
parents didn't really have hi fires or anything as such.
You know, guy I didn't know who had a high
fight down the round and only played Albert, which I
thought was worse than not having one. But that was
me some of those goods. And then and then the guitar,
and you're trying to fashion your own guitar by the
time you're eleven, and then when you take another step

(12:15):
toward deepening your commitment, how old are you when you
form the band. I did have a band when I
was eleven. It was very exciting, like going around to
a friend's house is setting up and jamming, and all
our mates would come and hang out and girls, which
I thought, this is interesting, But that sort of fell
two bits because I kept fighting with the drummer. And

(12:35):
then when I was sixteen, I was thinking, well, okay,
I need to get this together really and just went
around the school sort of choosing people. So you went
around picking people. I got it. I got it because
he was dressed like Morrissey, and he had some cool socks,
and I saw he had a guitar. I had no
idea where they could play or not. I don't really care.
I got Colin because I knew Colin could play very

(12:57):
well and I needed a base player could play very well.
But he had never played bass before. And his brother
Johnny was this mythical musical prodigy, so roped him in.
And then Phil was the only drama we knew anyway,
So and and he had a house down the road
that we could rehearse him and you and you lived
where you grew up where well, this was at Abingdon

(13:17):
School in near Oxford. And then when you form Radiohead
when you're six team basically yeah, we started sort of writing,
doing demos and messing about and it was, you know,
it was quite interesting straight away that it was quite
I think because Phil had quite a lot of experience.
He was a bit older, and he'd had his home band,

(13:38):
so he knew how to put things together a bit.
And in fact, we used to go and do demos
in his sister's bedroom like right from the beginning, which
which was great. I mean, there's nothing better than like
just starting off by just trying to write demos from scratch,

(13:58):
even though you can't really play, even though you don't
know each other. That's where you start, you know. It's
kind of a nice way to figure out where you're about.
What do you think you do best? You lead a band,
you well, you you play guitar, you write music, you
produce music, you do it, and you sing. What do
you think your greatest strength is? If you had to

(14:18):
pick one. So, I don't know what I'm doing, right,
I like the fact that's I don't know what I'm doing.
I think we're not. Honestly, I can't go I'll go
through whole phrases where I've got a clue. I regularly
lose complete confidence in what I'm doing. Why do you
think that? Is? Partly because I think I don't quite

(14:39):
understand how it happens. When what happens when the appreciation
comes to you know, when you're when you're piecing something
together right, things will fall into place you make it. Yeah,
I mean, in some ways, the nicest bit about the
creative thing, the nicest bit about recording and writing, is
this sort of weird limbo where you in between scratching

(15:01):
away scratching away nothing really happening, nothing really happening, and
then something wants to be built and starts to get built.
You just have to let it happen. And then it
gets to the end and you and you look at
it a few months later and go huh um, sort
of weird amnesia that goes with it. Something will happen,
one little sound goes off and you go, oh, that's

(15:21):
really nice. When I was at school, I didn't get
on with the school system at all. Um. I see it,
and my son the same, that sort of the mechanics
of how a school operates and how you're supposed to
blend in or whatever. So I hid in the music
stroke art department and had a great time there and

(15:41):
discovered that actually that's what I wanted to do. Straight away,
the heads of both schools just saw what I was up.
This is the teacher that you often credit with your Yeah,
where was the teacher's name, Terry James, But but it
was him and my art teacher as well. Actually it
was like someone sort of takes you and of the
wing and say, well, you know what, you're actually quite

(16:02):
good at. Mentoring is a very critical thing in this business. Yeah,
because it's not. It's enough at that age, it's enough
to just get a little push and then okay, what
does someone push you in a different direction? Yeah, well
that would be bad. How about do you go to
the other I think you need engineering? Yeah, my father
used to think. I used to get to advertising, which

(16:23):
is like really brilliant. Yeah, I'd really be good at that,
sending other people ship. Well, one thing you're good at
is avoiding. My original question, which was what do you
think your best at? And let's try to choose. If
you can't, if you may, you don't mind, confine yourself
to the list. I provide what do you think your
best at? Okay, this is multiple choice guitar band, kind

(16:48):
of you know, paternal figure, songwriting, producing, singing, I guess singing.
What was singing to you? How did your singing evolve
where you were right of where you are now where
most people say you have one of the most evocative
singing voices and all of music today. Well, basically went

(17:11):
to a few singing lessons, but that was basically just
so I could literally breathe right. You know, my favorite
singers like bu York. When I watched Buyork sing It's
in here, it's right here. They say in yoga and
stuff that whatever it is, can't remember that that spot

(17:31):
at the top of the forehead that you really Most
singers like Neil Young's the same. He sings into this
spot in his head and and what he's singing he's
already heard, you know what I mean, He's hearing it
come out. The same with with Buyork when she's singing,

(17:51):
she's singing what she's hearing, So there's no force. It's
a force in itself. It sent me a while to
get that, you know, even when we were on tour
with R. E. M. Back when we're doing the Benz
in nineties six or whatever it was. I was still

(18:14):
trying to figure it out then watching Michael and wanting
to sound like Michael Bike. I couldn't, you know, because
my voice is in a different tone completely and so on.
But what I did learn, what you know, watching him,
was again that thing of like watching someone who their
voices in sort of command of them rather than the

(18:35):
other way around. Yeah, but it's very natural, but it
takes a long time for that to become natural. I think,
like any singer, it takes a long time to find
that thing, and it keeps changing to me how I
sing now, or to me it feels different to a

(18:56):
few years ago. It just does it, just does each
of doything to do it. Well, yeah, there's probably some
physical elements to it, but but also just where you're at,
you know, because singing is nothing but like probably like
that saying sing is nothing but being in a moment.
That's it. Radioheads, Tom York, did you know that there

(19:17):
are over two fifty episodes in the Here's the Thing archives.
If you like these in depth conversations between Alec and
other actors, policymakers, and musicians, go to Here's the Thing
dot org and take a look around. After the break,
Alec and Tom York talk about fatherhood and how it
changes performing. I'm Frank Imperial in for Alec Baldwin on

(19:49):
Here's the Thing. Tom York seems a little uneasy about
his fame, and Alec wondered would he trade the trappings
of being a celebrity for a better world. If I
said to you, I snapped my fingers and you go
back to having a very normal life and you're not
you at all with everything that goes with it, and
the rest of the world is elevated unless of the
world gets better. Things you care about? I think of

(20:10):
an issue you can I say to you Tom York,
Tommy York, Tom, or you go back and the world
gets better. Would you make that change to find better?
It's a tricky question, but you do. It's not an
either or, but you do care. But other things. Is
there an issue that you're embracing now? Is there something

(20:32):
you're involved with now? I well, in my slack asked fashion,
I was helping um Greenpeace do this thing which was
trying to stop drilling in the Arctic. But it sounds
like it's kind of working because the company seem to
be pulling out because they can't just pull up. Yeah,
that's right. I don't think that's entirely down to us,
but I think it definitely helped that we're making their

(20:54):
life extremely difficult everywhere they turned. But challenge now is
to turn the Arctic into reserve so it can't happen
because what that was going to do is create this
gold rush, you know, all rush up there, which was
just going to be insane, and this at the same
time where the ice is melting. Basically, they only started
considering it was a possibility because the ice was melting.

(21:15):
They thought, okay, great, maybe got a better chance of drilling,
which is like, So I was kind of stuck in
that for a while because Yeah, to me, the irony
of it was too much. Um, I don't know where
I'll go next. I don't I find it very stressful.
I did get involved. A few years ago. We did

(21:36):
this thing in Britain, the first Climate Change Act, which
meant the government was is committed to reducing CEO two
emissions and now lots of countries have got it. It
was the first one and the government didn't want to
do it. Bled didn't want to do it, but we
found this interesting loophole and got thousands of people to

(21:57):
send letters in and said at the bottom of the
letter to the the MP, please can you pass this
on to Blair? Right, And apparently they were obliged to
pass on these letters. So Blair was literally getting thousands
and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of letters,
which doesn't normally happen. And he did pass the law
after much arguing and me refusing to meet him because

(22:19):
it was during the Iraq War and all sorts of Yeah, well,
any normal human being would be. Anyway, I was very
glad I did it, and the people I was working
for at the time, I was it was Friends of
the Earth and it was really inspiring and I became
really good friends with the guy who's running Friends of
the Earth at time, Tony Juniper, who now works with

(22:40):
Prince Charles um And and it was a great period.
But I just it burned me out getting that close
to politics. The most fascinating figure that we work with
was the lobbyist that we had, our one lobbyist, so
like we went into this Port Colors House in Britain.
You probably have the equivalent here. I don't know what

(23:01):
it's called, but Port Collor's House was built for the lobbyists.
It was built for special interests to go and sit
with a cup of coffee, round table about this size
and wait for MPs to go past, color them, sit
them down and lobby them in big the Capitol building. Anyway,

(23:21):
I found it completely fascinating, you know, because it's there's
hundreds of these people walking around and I'm like, none
of them are lobbying for us. So when you may
possibly could argue that our one mate, Friends of the Earth,
that was like technically, you know, maybe speaking for the
people a little bit, but basically they were all special
interests and they had the ear of government, and I

(23:44):
just thought, hang on, hang on a minute, how did
this happen? Anyway? Where were we a minute ago? I
know where I want to go? Okay, go and let
go there there? Your children? Do your children know who
you are and what you do? Yep, they're used to it.
They're used to people coming up and saying hello. But
most of the time it's very friendly, and that's normal.

(24:04):
That's their normal. That's what they've grown up in. Twelve
and seven. So one seven the age that you decided
you wanted to Brian May and by then he's he
he would already have made his guitar with that neck.
That was eleven. I think you said, So where are
they at musically? Um, my son is a great drummer,

(24:27):
But I don't know if you want to do that
forever or not. He's like not bothered really, which is cool.
You know, he just and he comes and hangs out
with me when I'm working in my studio. We just
hang out. You know, we're friends. But I don't think
you know, they're burning ambition to be musicians or anything. Really,
even though he's really good, he's for pleasure. I mean
at that age that's good, right His father had affected

(24:48):
your work? Um, yes, but not really that you have
the obvious things where you go out on the road
more if you didn't have children. Yep, absolutely, But that's
not necessarily a bad thing at all. You know, being

(25:11):
on the road is is it's a it's not a
great way necessary, it's it's you don't want to do
it all your life. You get a little bit on,
it gets a little unhealthy quite quickly mentally, if not physically.
As you've gotten older and you look around the musical landscape,
do you admire a lot of what's being done is
your in the in the mainstream, in the mainstream. There's

(25:34):
nothing in the mainstream. The mainstream is just avoid you know.
To me, I mean, what's weird about putting a record
out now? Really? And this is not like sour grapes
at all. It's just the fact the volume, literally the
sheer volume and stuff that gets put out. It's like
this huge fucking waterfall and you're just throwing your pebble
in and it carries on down the waterfall and that's

(25:55):
that right, Okay. Next, basically, you know, like in this country,
see the radio is tied up and people don't really
listen to already. In the same way, it's it's music
is going through a weird time because on the one hand,
as ever, there's always really exciting music being made. It's
never not being made. It's a question of whether you're

(26:17):
going to get to hear it or not. And I
mean I kind of I kind of knew the game
was up a few years ago when one of our
sort of team of people came in saying, Nokia wants
to offer you millions of pounds because they want content
for their phones. And this is like in two thousand,

(26:37):
I don't know, early two and like, content, what you know, content?
What do you mean music? Yes? Okay? Content maybe that yes? Yeah,
just could be music stuff, Yeah, stuff could be snoring.
Have you got some stuff? You know? And you're like okay,
And I think really that my problem with it is

(26:58):
it's like it's now like something to fill up the
hard ware with, you know, the music itself has become
secondary to that, which is a weird thing to me.
Is like the most pleasurable experiences you ever have is
like when something's played to you don't know. We're like
going around to friend's house and they'll stick a tune
on you, like what the hell's there? You know, which
is what it's about. You know. That's what we're like

(27:19):
going into store when I was a kid, like and
the new Smith's records come out, and like and I'm
going up to the guy. I think that's like he's
really cool, like the indie store in town and just
talking to him about music for twenty minutes, you know,
And you know how everywhere you go, music is everywhere.
It's everywhere, but it's not like, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
It's content. Yeah, it's content. Is king that bullshit will change,

(27:41):
And when it does, then I think we'll have a resurgence.
The underbelly will come back over belly and then well
with its middle aged to belly. So you're forty three
years old, forty four years old. It's just our professional
courtesy that we shave a year off of of our already. Yeah,
all of them. Um, you're in the now and you're

(28:03):
in the here or what have you. And I'm not
saying that glibly, and you're know what I'm saying, but
you're not somebody who like Mick Jagger, for example, like
I wonder if Mick Jagger is going to hit a day,
Like does it happen in a day? Like as Mick
Jagger in bed one day and he picks up the phony,
He's like, you know, I just can't do it anymore.
I can't get out of this bed. I can't do

(28:24):
another fucking show again. And it's over. Like do you
think of other things? I think all the time of
the next thing I'm gonna do. Yeah, as the next thing.
You don't have to tell us what it is, but
you know it would end if someone happens in my voice,
I don't know. Certain things could make it physically stop,

(28:45):
and it will stop at some point, something will happen.
But for me, I'm yeah, I'm always hearing different things.
There's always half finished things, which you asked Pol Nigel.
He knows about that. There's always a mountain of half stuff.
I want to get into stuff. I've started stuff I
want to you know. But I also think it's good

(29:07):
to sort of take breaks because it's like anything you
start to go in small circles unless you you literally
you're spending unless you are just literally working too hard.
It's a regenerative thing. I find that I'm well. I mean,
my family, my friends know that I'm a nicer person.

(29:27):
If I'm working and I'm into what I'm doing, then
if I stop, there is a period where I'm fairly unbearable.
If I do stop, yeah, for too long, probably there's
a threshold. But like, if you want to shift right
with your work, if you want to shift, if you're writing,
if you're being creative at all, you kind of have

(29:51):
to stop to make that shift because if you just
I'm constantly creating, I've got this mountain of brilliant ideas.
You're making the basic mistake that you're assuming all our
ideas are brilliant, where in fact I need to go
and do normal ship. I need to. I can't write
unless I have a period where restored. Well, no, it's

(30:16):
not restored, just just reset. I'm like just normal, normal, normal, normal, normal,
normal normal. You must have a lot of people in
the music world, young people who look up to you. Um,
one of the best buzzes really is that thing where
someone comes up who's new and they're really into you know,
I'm really into what they're doing it's really fascinating and

(30:38):
it's really totally new to me. But yet the occasions
when off of you yeah, and you're like, how could
you how could you feel off me? I don't see
any of my stuff, but they see it, and I'm like, wow,
that's so cool, especially when it's like like it's in
hip hop and like, really you know people within hip
hop who are into Radiohead. I'm like, I find that

(31:00):
so fascinating because i mean, obviously I'm massively into hip hop,
and we've we use hip hop as a reference point
in the way we build tracks and stuff. But really, wow,
that's bonkers. Obviously that's one of the really good bits.
But it's not really mentorship. It's just people who you
admire good at their ship. You know, when it happens,

(31:20):
it happens. How does success make you feel? Well? Has
it made me feel? It's always been a little bit
far away from me, And the only time it sort
of makes sense is when we play in front of people,
and the rest of the time it's like, well, it's

(31:41):
it's just it's who I've been for so long. I
can't tell you because it's just that's what it is.
I've probably been doing it more than I haven't in
my life in terms of years, in terms of time.
So most of the time I don't really notice. Some
people come up and I go, well, that's nice, you know,

(32:02):
thanks very much. You know, it's not like I'm not grateful.
I'm just I just don't notice. And then sometimes something
will whack you over the head and you go, blimey,
things like doing the first time we did Saturday in
my life, for example, and you go, really, people give
a ship because sometimes you can't. You don't know, you
don't know you've got on the inside, you can't see it.

(32:23):
And and and also we've spent so long running away
from it, and I don't feel like a run away
from it now because there's nowhere to run run, nowhere
to run. And also it's like, yeah, I'm really grateful
for I'm very incredibly lucky. It's a very good point.
There's nowhere to run and still do it. Yeah, I mean,

(32:44):
I just think I'm well jammy as we take it's
just really jammy, especially in the US, you know, like
people really give a ship and it's like, well that's amazing.
Radio heads Tom York to hear the complete conversation go
to Here's the Thing dot org. It's hard to believe

(33:05):
that r M broke up a decade ago. When Alec
talked to Michael Stipe in two thousand and sixteen, he
was just five years into his post r M life,
with more time to pursue photography, teaching, and spending time
with his friends and especially his family. What being an
Army brand did to myself and my sisters was to

(33:25):
create probably a closer family dynamic than regular people have,
because we picked up and moved so much that we
were we were the foundation. It made you closer, It
made us much closer, and so a very very very
lucky man in their regard. I'm one of the ones
who I like I landed, like I got the gold ring.
And when it comes to family, yeah, I mean you're

(33:47):
you have two sisters, two sisters, so the three of
your total and they around you see them? Are they
or they often like Alaska and Fiji were the whole
family lives in Athens, Georgia, and they're in Athens. I'm
of Athens Club. I know Athens yea. And that it
wasn't Mike was Mike from Athens. Mike Mills actually from making.

(34:09):
We all met, all were from, we all met a
new g A of the places I read that you
lived when you were moving around in Europe and in
the South and so forth, was there one place you
stayed the longest, if you're a recollection of memory of
a place you were in, remember Germany? Yeah? I remember
Germany more than anywhere. Really. I think Germany and then well,

(34:29):
it's hard to say because I kind of see everything,
so but then I don't really remember everything. But Germany
was for me a time that I feel like I
remember almost every single day that we were there, which
was about just under two years. How old were you
seven and eight? How old were you when you'd say,
I'm not a musician. I don't play music, but I

(34:49):
feel like I have, you know, Elvis lives inside me,
you know, have I have this desire like everybody everyone,
which is they could sing and get up there and
perform and have that effect on people. And you'd hear
MacArthur Park, you know, Richard Harris would sing McArthur and
and I go, god, I remember listening to that song
on a transistor radio and I go back and look

(35:10):
up the date, and I go, oh, my god. I
was nine. It's so much younger. It's in you so
much younger. Can you can you remember when how old
you were when you let that in? And this starts?
What a great song to reference. I mean, that's one
of those really insanely bizarre pop songs that you know,
here's a guy that doesn't sing, he's he's a drunk
most of his life. He's a he's brilliant, and for

(35:31):
some crazy, for some reason, the songwriter tags him to
sing this insanely beautiful song about nothing about a cake
with green ice that's melting in the rank. It's really
it's you know when win in? Yeah. I love that
song and I love the song, and the guy who
wrote it was one of one of our great American songwriters,
Jimmy Webb. I did. I did an interview with him
once for a book that he wrote, and he called

(35:53):
me on the phone to talk about songwriting, and we
had an hour to talk and I couldn't get a
word in edge twice he talked the entire time. I
couldn't wait for the book to come out to see
what I had said because I don't remember having said anything.
It was pretty pretty good. But but you remember like
an age was it was your time in your life
when you remember when music came in, music comes in,

(36:15):
It was always there. My kind of ground zero point
was at the age of fifteen when Patti Smith releases
and I bought it the day it came out. But
prior to that, the songs that really resonated with me
on radio or the Banana Splits, the Archies, you know,
it was really kind of crappy, beautiful pop music, The Monkeys,

(36:37):
The Monkeys, I didn't have a brother or sister who
turned me on to the Who and Alice Cooper and
the Rolling Stones are the Beatles where my bandmates did
have that. I listened to what kids listened to and
what the cereal boxes were telling you was music. But
following that, it was really bending in the Jets by
Elton John and the song um Hey Kids, book You Too,

(37:00):
Jump Up and Down and Rock, which I kind of
rewrote as a song drive on Automatic for the people.
It opens It opens that record and um I rewrote
that song. I rewrote a bunch of songs from the
seventies and songs that I remember, Like Everybody Hurts was
my take on love Hurts, kind of a direct left there,

(37:21):
but but it turned into a very different song. And
do you learn to play an instrument? I played accordion
when I was that's it well. I wanted to play Oregon,
but we couldn't afford the next instrument up, so I
wound up with an accordion and I played quite well.
You weren't accomplished accordions. You could have been on a

(37:43):
Sullivan now when No. But but as many people they're
entry into music is whether it's you know, they pick
up a guitar, and there's obviously a discipline, a curiosity.
I'm always mesmerized by this by in and women who
they pick up a guitar when they're nine and ten
years or they just start to explore that we're beyond that.

(38:06):
In a more traditional way, someone's parents are saying, sit
down at that piano and you're gonna do this lesson
for a year and grind them down until they break
through and they can really play the piano. Then they're
grateful that they have this skill that attracts all these people.
Was there anything like that for you? There was no
formal musical training none, so thus you knew is it
safe to us him? Did you always know you wanted

(38:28):
to be a singer. No, the whole idea of punk
rock was that anybody could do this. That it was.
It wasn't this kind of holy handed down from on
high talent or skill. And I was and remained quite literal.
And so when they said anybody can do this, I said, Okay,
I'll do it. And I guess I was too lazy
to learn. And so you believe that everybody, anybody can
do it? Absolutely not right. When did you realize you

(38:50):
could sing? Well, honestly, about ten years ago. I realized
that my voice was that specific. I never through most
of our career. I didn't understand why people liked my
voice or thought that my voice was that different. And
it's a very different voice. It's a very recognizable voice.
So when you were singing in the in the beginning
of your career, it was awful. We were We were terrible.

(39:12):
I mean I sang Rocketbilly. You mentioned Elvis Presley earlier.
I was singing in this kind of hiccup. Elvis Presley's
style probably inspired by The Cramps. I loved Luxe Interior
and I loved the Cramps, and I saw them perform
on I think one of the first shows they ever
did outside of New York City and um and I
thought he was just amazing and they were incredible. So

(39:33):
I kind of picked up that rocketbilly thing. But I
don't think I really developed a voice until my Well,
people that love murmur would argue with that, but anyway,
I didn't feel confident with my voice until probably the
third or fourth album, which was six years in. When
you were at you g A with the other three,
What do you think that they saw on you that

(39:54):
they picked you for that job? Well, it sounds arrogant
to say it, but charisma. It was that that that
genes a quad that we all know when someone walks
into a room or and when I walk into a room,
I don't have that, but when I'm on stage performing
with that band behind me, it was. It just was
the chemistry between all of it. Really, when you open
your mouth and saying those songs with those guys and
something happened, you believe that. How did you find each other? Clubs?

(40:17):
Record store? You saw Mills and a record store and
Peter buck Rabbit and he looked really cool, and a
lot of people back then didn't look really cool, but
he looked really cool, and he would turn me onder
different records that that would come into the store, and
and like Suicide, the first Suicide album. We hit it
off and then I had to convince him to start

(40:38):
a band with me. What was it about horses that
appealed to you? I can't say, I mean outside of
you know, I had really good taste. As it turns out.
I mean, it's one of the greatest records I ever made.
And I did buy it and listen to it on
the day that it was released, which is kind of crazy.
But you've spoken about the cover art appealed to you too, Yeah,
I mean it's an incredible image. Uh. But she represented

(41:02):
something other and something to me alien, And part of
that was this openness, is fluidity about sexuality that I
think certainly resonated with me and with millions of other
people who are questioning their sexuality or or or emerging
into something that they weren't familiar with or something that
wasn't at the time quite accepted or acceptable. We're doing

(41:23):
her on this show and a kind of a live audience.
She's a great conversation. Yeah, but you related to that.
It's really really the third song I think it was
Birdland is the song that touched me in a way
that I don't think anything i'd ever touched me before.
And I stayed up all night listening to it. I
went to school next day and I said, that's that's
what I'm gonna do. And then it took me two

(41:43):
years to find people that I could play with. That
didn't work out very well, and I wound up moving
to Athens following my father's retirement and started the band.
And when you leave Athe, I mean there's a kind
of gestation there and athen and performing in clubs in
all over Georgia, are you like, well, what kind of

(42:04):
do what's the what's the circuit you get into there
when you're at that level. Well, it was early days,
so there wasn't really a circuit. I mean one was
kind of cabbled together by bands like RM and Pylon
also from Athens, and Black Flag, Sonic Youth. All these
bands were playing like these pizza parlors and gay discoss
and kind of anywhere that would let a band set

(42:24):
up in a corner. Music is very different than that
it is now, and the way that music is consumed
and the way that it's marketed and so forth and
most bands, I mean yours could be different. I don't know.
I want to find that out. Most bands enter into
a business agreement in order to take them to the
next plateau that's disadvantageous for them. Did that happen to you? No, Um,

(42:49):
when you started signing with people, did you maintain all
the rights tool you're publishing? Yeah, you did, and we
own our masters. Peter and Mike particularly were encyclopedic about
Sick and they had read every biography and knew every
in and out of every story of a band that
got so far and then it fell apart because of

(43:09):
this or this reason, and they were determined to prevent
that from happening to us. Who did you sign with?
Who was your first label you signed with? The first
label was I R S Records, Miles Copeland, and he
was very generous looking back. I mean we didn't like
each other very much at the time, but he allowed us. Well,
he was a business guy, and I wasn't that interested

(43:30):
in the business part of what was going on. I
just wanted to do what we did, and I wanted
to do it our way. And who in the band
was taking care of business? Mike, No, we had a
manager and a lawyer who were helping us, and so
nobody in the band. You had to rely on people
you trusted to take care of it. And it all
worked out well. You were happy. We were really lucky
in that regard, and you know, we we kept our

(43:53):
eye on it and I didn't allow those things that
break up bands to break us up. So we had
a really long, great career and chose the time to disband,
and I think we even did it was the time
most broke up with We even did that, right, M Yeah,
I mean over and over. Sure, when you had conflicts
with people you make music with, what is the conflict?
But typically, I mean I was very young and very shy,

(44:16):
and so I would just shut down. I would go
into a kind of a quiet you know, I would
I would be silent for three days, which nobody wanted
because it made it, It made everything impossible. Those guys
were more loud and often got their way, but it
but often it kind of pulled me out of you know,
we're in a in a in a band dynamic. Everyone's
got an idea, in an opinion. And what happened, what

(44:36):
happens when it all comes together is this this beautiful
compromise where one person over kind of overseas one part,
another overseas another part. Somehow it all works. So that
chemistry served us pretty well for most of her career.
But but it was, you know, it was at times
very very difficult, and I'm proud of the times that
we failed. We failed horribly, and but we all know,

(44:59):
you know, we didn't blame the other guy. We didn't
blame the industry, we didn't blame radio. We just agreed
that we had not made the best record, or the
best song or the best recording. Some of my favorite
recordings of our work is not what wound up on records,
but what wound up in live performances. Su Jazz. The

(45:20):
song Lotus is a good example of a song that
we recorded Lotuses. Lotus is the name of the song,
and it's a good song, but it's way too long
on the record. It's too slow, which is my fault,
and we recorded it and mixed it at a time
when we weren't really talking to each other, so it
was very difficult to arrive at a place that made sense. Live,
the song is faster, and we're ajournalised because we're performing

(45:41):
it in front of people or whatever, and it got
a lot better. It got a real lot better. So
for my money, you know, the recording of that song
is kind of dis interesting document of a moment in time,
but but the real song emerged in live performance. Is
there a producer or like who decides, especially in the
early days before you become big stars, Like who's sitting there,

(46:03):
sitting there going, well, you're gonna come in here and
you will drop that note down a little bit. Who's
who's the decider? We always had finals, We always had
final cut on everything. So all of our records were
produced with a producer, but we were co producing, so
the band had final saying final cut. Was there one
of you who had a better ear than the other
in terms of how this music should be mixed? Do

(46:25):
somebody have a gift for that? No? Right, everybody had
an opinion, sadly. Did you like performing live? I loved it.
What's the first time you performed live? Because Murmur becomes
the album of the year from Rolling Stone, you beat
out Thriller. How did you feel about that? I wanted

(46:50):
to crawl into a hole one during myself. You didn't
want to be famous? No, I wanted to be famous.
But but my idea you did want to be famous.
My idea of fame was this kind of teen age
fantasy version of it. It didn't require all the work
and all the scrutiny and all the kind of like
all the stuff, Like being able to look you in
the eye and sit here and talk about myself is
something that it took decades for me to be able

(47:12):
to do, and that that's not my nature. Why do
you think it's not your nature? Well, I mean you
are a shy person. Yeah, yeah, I still am, but
I've I've managed over the course of fifty six years
to kind of emerge. I always say to people, I'm
a person of adulthood. But I say to people I
think I am a shy person, and they look at
me to go, you're kidding and out of your mind.

(47:32):
Just overcame. It's so extraordinarily. The thing you figure out
when you're around a lot of creative people is is
that if you're a creator, you have to create. It's
not a choice. It's not something that you do because
you want to be famous. It's something that or because
you want to be recognized for something, for this or
that you create because you have to and maybe that's
what separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes

(47:55):
to the culture that now allows people to be famous
just for the fact being famous, or that you're you're
acknowledged and recognized for something other than a talent or
a thing that you can offer that's unique or interesting.
One time I did a concert style version of South
Pacific and it was Reba McIntyre and Brian Stokes Mitchell

(48:17):
are the leads, and we're there and Paul Jim and
Yanni's there conducting this orchestra. It was. It was it
was like a ninety piece orchestra and like, Okay, we're ready,
We're gonna be here and we're gonna sing and they
call up someone so we're gonna sing bally High and
also this orchestrauld be like Bannan. The music would play
behind I'm sitting there in a chair, the orchestras five
behind me, and I get this chill that just shoots

(48:38):
right up my skull, like, oh my god, this is music.
You know. What was the first time you stepped out
in front of a stadium and crab What was your
first big first moment, What was your first Paul Jim
and Yanni Momentum. We one of the one of the
things that Miles Copeland, who had I R. S Records,
did was he put us on a bill at Schase
Stadium with Joan Jett and the Black Hearts Hope for

(49:00):
the Police. So we played to sixty people. We had.
We played five songs. I said I would do it
if I could wear a wedding dress. Someone said, I
dare you for a hundred dollars, which at the time
was a very very large amount of money to me,
I dare you to wear a wedding dress. She's taking
my I said, I'm gonna do it. So I went
looking for a wedding I couldn't find one. I found
a tuxedo, so I wore a tuxedo instead of really

(49:22):
ratty tuxedo. Did you tell the guys in the band
you would plan on wearing a wedding and they were
cool with it. They were fine, They didn't care, they
didn't give a fuck. Um. They wanted you to be you.
But I remember it because it was raining and we
had five songs, and it was this giant place, and
to the band it meant everything because of the Beatles
had had famously performed there. To me, it was just

(49:44):
as big outdoor as your wedding day. It was my
wedding day right as it turns out, and my dress.
You were getting married to sixty people. My dress wasn't starched.
How did it feel? You know? What's interesting is that
I don't really remember the show so much. I remember
the backstage what was happening. Andy Warhol was there. That
was thrilling for me. Matt Dylan was there, and this
was after not the outsider was what was the Rumblefish

(50:07):
kid done? Rumblefish? And and I was a huge fan,
and he was kind of like hanging out in between
these two trailers. One was ours, the other was Joan Jutts,
and I was like, wow, Joan jutt knows Matt Dilon,
How exciting is that? And we were kind of peeking
through the window. And then there was a knock at
the door and it was Matt Dillon and he was
a big r M fan. So we sat with us

(50:29):
and we talked for a long time and I was
kind of touched by the very touched by the r
M s. Michael Stipe. If you're enjoying this conversation, be
sure to follow here's the thing. On the I Heart
radio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When
we come back, Michael Stipe talks about how he became
politically aware. I'm Frank Imperial and this is here's the thing.

(51:03):
There's a deep passion in R. E. M's music, and
Alec marveled at how it never crosses over to sentimentality.
I could cry right now, thank you for saying that.
I'm a very sentimental person, and I despise sentimentality. I
despise nostalgia. Do you agree that that's a hallmark of
the music you guys make. I'm very flattered that you

(51:24):
say that we go to that line and we never
cross it. In my in my most closer than anybody
I know, well, thank you. In my most critical moments,
I would say, well, no, we crossed it many times,
and and not so gracefully. But I appreciate that. That's
a huge compliment. As a writer, that's a huge compliment,
and as a singer, because you can the way the
way something is performed, the way you put it down

(51:44):
on tape really can make or break it. I'm trying
to think of an example of someone who's very, very
brilliant with that. I think Sia is brilliant with the
way she uses her voice. There are other singers throughout
our lives, and we don't have to name names who
have amazing voices but have no idea how to use them,
or they overuse them or their producers. They do that
crack at the high note every single time, and by

(52:06):
the end of the song you're exhausted. And the thing
they do, there's a thing regardless of after murmur and
after you start to take off and really make it.
One of the things I'm always curious about for highly
successful musicians of whatever type of music is is music
in your life, other people's music, And then the obligation

(52:27):
and or or even just the ambition to now drive
your music to the next level, does it push other
music out? Or if you always listened to music, And
that's a really good question, and I'm going to answer
it honestly. There's a point where I stopped being able
to listen to other music. And it wasn't because I
was afraid I was going to accidentally imitate or steal

(52:48):
something from someone. Music became un interesting to me. Now
that I don't make music anymore, I'm able to listen
to music. I'm able to read novels uh and books.
I'm able to absorb myself into TV shows and films
that I just didn't have time for. I mean, I
realized when Rim disbanded five years ago. It took me
about six months to recognize how much of a creative

(53:12):
kind of fog I had been in with that band.
I'm such a perfectionist, I'm such a control freak. I
oversaw every aspect of the band, and and along with
Peter and Mike and Bill when he was there, it
completely consumed my every waking thought the entire time that
that band was going, and so other things fell fell away,
and I think I became a little bit of a

(53:33):
less interesting person for now working having a life that
allowed me to not write a song about being on
the road or being in a band, or write songs
about the industry of music, which is the most pathetically
boring thing you could possibly you know, focus on what
people do. One of my favorite songs that we ever
wrote is called Supernatural, Super Serious, and it's this insanely

(53:55):
beautiful narrative, really beautiful narrative about innocence and teenage ideas
and how those are flattened or dismissed or disregarded as
an adult, and then you come back. It comes back
at some point and you realize you're still that person.
So that's all in this lyric for me, I probably
need to write a little short story to go along

(54:16):
with it for anybody that listens to the song, because
I'm not sure that I successfully manage to get all
that into the lyric. Have you ever thought about writing
a book like that where you explicate all the lyrics
of your songs? Or I'm actually doing it, I'm not
doing a very good job of it about well, I'm,
as you may have figured out in this conversation, I
think in a very circuitous and tangential way, and so

(54:36):
I'll always come back to my point. But I lose
most people in the way. I have great stories, and
I'm a terrible storyteller. Now, the you are very well
known and legendary, if you will, for your passions about causes.
When does that begin for you in your career when
you say to yourself, I can't keep my mash and
I want to start talking about this. Well, it was

(54:58):
the Reagan era and the kind tree was falling apart
in a way that that was quite evident. And we
were then as as a band traveling overseas representing America
and getting shipped thrown at us for the cruise missiles
that were being sent over and put into position in
parts of Europe. People were very, very unhappy about that.

(55:20):
We became politicized quite quickly as a band um and
I'm a child of the seventies, you know, we came
out of a place where everything that the sixties was
and this is I think perfectly encapsulated. Again. We'll talk
about Patti Smith for a moment, but when she wrote
Just Kids, that book to me is like The Big Chill,
but for sentimental douche bags, for people that lived through it,

(55:43):
and we're at one point told your sellout and you
have to get a job, and all of your dreams
and aspirations, everything that you thought you could do with
this thing is flatlined. Go get a job. Just Kids
provided those people for the first time, I think, a
way of looking at themselves as children, as teenagers, as

(56:03):
young people again and saying that innocence was quite beautiful,
and in fact we were right. Things didn't go our way,
but we had a place the people that dropped out
in the sixties and then had to get jobs. Became
the people that were teaching me in sixth, seventh, eighth,
and ninth grade, and so in the early seventies in America,
in public school, there was a very clear understanding that

(56:28):
it was our job to talk about and fix what
became dramatic climate change issues, energy problems, the Lynchin, what's
going on everything. But I had an entire year long
course called environmental science taught by miss Enoch. There was
a textbook and it was taught in public schools in Texas. Anyway,

(56:51):
as a twelve thirteen year old, I knew about all
this energy stuff and and so then as an adult,
you know, you become politicized quite quickly when you travel
outside the country. And that's what happened to us. I
was talking to other people who work in your business,
which and like my business, which is a very youth
centered business in terms of the performing and the whole
of the arc of it, and all of us as
we get older in this business, it changes. Was there

(57:13):
a moment that you realize it started to change for you?
Many times as an as an older person in a
you know, rock and roll band, for our pop band. Yeah,
there's a point where I said, it's not a good
look and we I we have to either grow with
it and be who we are right now or stop.

(57:34):
And I think we did a pretty good job of
being people in their early forties, mid forties, late forties,
early fifties doing this, not the perpetual teenager thing that
a lot of people kind of go down that route
and the camels get a little fuzzier and pulled back
a little more. I just didn't particularly see myself in
that role. I'm now exploring all these other mediums that

(57:55):
I'm really thrilled to be working on other than music.
And I'm also although I'm not prepared and already to
be a pop star again a pop singer, I'm dabbling
in music and it feels yeah, yeah, I mean I
started actually about a year and a half ago. A
friend called me, Casey Spooner from the band Fisher Spooner

(58:17):
working on an album for a couple of years and
got really stuck and said I need help with a song.
Can you help me? And I went in and it
was very clear to me what needed to be done,
and I told him, but there was another piece of
music playing while we were talking, and I said, can
I comment on that one as well? And long story short,
I wound up producing the album and co writing every
song on it. And so as a producer and writer,

(58:41):
I've kind of come back into music through Fisher Spooner.
You've been making films as well a film production. I
stopped making film. You just stopped. I stopped filming because
I wanted, I needed to just step away from everything.
And so when when when I I am disbanded five
years ago, I pretty much shuddered both of my production companies,
thrilled that we had done what we did in the um.

(59:01):
It was twenty seven years, I guess of I made
about that many feature films, most of them very independent,
the most famous one being being John Markovic with Spike Jones.
But I was really ready to just step away from
everything and explore other mediums that I not wanted to
be Photography needed to really look into, and photography the

(59:23):
primary one now. Photography was my first love, photography before music,
and so a lot of the work that I'm doing
now it's not I don't I think of myself as
an artist who works in all these different mediums, and
music is one of them, and obviously the most the
one I'm best known for. But photography has come back around.
I'm doing a book. I'm working on a book now.

(59:43):
Jonathan Burger brought me to n y U to teach
art for the False semester and that was thrilling. And
out of that is coming a book of my work
that I'm working with him on. So that's really exciting. Um,
you are such uh unique and such a kind of

(01:00:03):
particular person and you know that. Thank you and you
and you're performing well. I mean you're performing. You're singing,
and your style and your appearance and your kind of
demeanor and everything you're You're very was acting ever in
the cards for you? Did you ever think about going
off and making films and acting? I was offered the
role of the psychopathic killer in the film seven. They

(01:00:25):
wanted someone very unexpected, and unfortunately my band was going
on tour the same month that they started filming, so
I wasn't And it required nothing I had to do
is run down some hallways and look scary. There was
no dialogue. I'm so glad you didn't do that. I
would have loved doing it. I I didn't like the
way that movie ended. They changed something at the end

(01:00:46):
that meant that Brad Pets rather than Morgan Freeman's character
killed Kevin Spacey in the end, which shouldn't have happened.
It didn't make sense. But but yeah, I mean, I no,
I don't. I always felt like just because something is
available to you through fame, or through connections or through proximity,
it doesn't mean that you should say yes to it,

(01:01:07):
And so I've been very careful with I mean, the
other mediums that I'm working in now are things that
sometimes terrify me. I'm doing collage work. I'm I despise collage.
I'm working with I'm working with hand handwriting in my
own line, and I'm a terrible drawer. But I'm I'm
working with the things that I most fear about myself,

(01:01:28):
and I'm and I'm not showing them to the public
unless I really think that I've got something. But this
book that I'm working on, I'm kind of working through
a lot of these things with the book. So it's
it's been thrilling. I'm not saying that you should play
Boo Radley, but you should play a Boo Radley type
of character where no matter how unique or odd he
may strike people in the hair and make up the
whole appearance. Deep down inside, he's this beautiful soul. I

(01:01:50):
would like you to stick to that. The idiot mantel
I'm good at. That's what my dog thinks. I'm the
idiot mantell. The freaky angel. I like to the weird
angel when I psycho killer, when I meet um directors
like Todd Haynes and Spike Jones, or I meet actors
like yourself. For John Malkovic, I realized that these are

(01:02:11):
people that wake up with a need and a desire
to do that thing, and I have so much respect
for it that for me to even try. You know,
I don't play trombone either. Why would I Why would
I even want to ever try to play trombone? But
I I leave that to those that have that need,
that wake up with that desire. My desires are in

(01:02:32):
the same ballpark, but slightly different. And so that's where
I've tried to spend my short time on this earth,
hopefully two or at least, I'll take really focusing on
the things that I feel like I might be able
to that will challenge me, that will challenge hopefully whatever
audience I'm able to attain, and we'll keep me on
my toes, keep me curious. Thanks to Tom York and

(01:02:56):
Michael Stipe and this show's regular host, Alec Baldwin. Here's
the Thing is produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie Donahue and
Zach McNeice. I'm the show's engineer, Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening.