R.E.M., AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE. TABLATURE
Series: Guitar Recorded Version
Matching folio to their critically-acclaimed album featuring the hits, 80 pages
PETER BUCK, MIKE MILLS.
... like last time, the first single sounds like nothing else on the radio, and that was intentional. Chris Isaak said something really funny. Seems the guy from his record company said they needed more "upbeat, danceable songs about teenage love."And he goes, "Hey, pal-fresh out of thosel/' [laughs]
The R.E.M.ethos seems to be, center all the energy on the song, rather than letting it splay out through everybody's egos.
MIKEMILLS:Right, that energy goes into the songs. I think what we do best is to write a really good song with only three or four chords that isn't boring. Youhopefully reach a point in your songwriting where you write just what's necessary for the song-no more or less. You don't pick up the guitar and set out to write a simple song, but a "simple" song comes out, and it's complete. Like "Drive" or "Everybody Hurts" on the new record are very basic. Yet we have enough of an identity as a band and as musicians to bring things to these songs to make them distinctly our own. That's one of the reasons we've been together so long, as you said: Nobody has that kind of an ego problem about the process of making music. Engineers and producers are just amazed that we say, "Well,I want you to tum my part down." They're stunned. "You heard me. Turn the bass DOWN!" Apparently, nobody else does that.
I can guarantee you that. Is part of that process transposing or playing each other's instruments at times?
PB:Yeah, sometimes if the mandolin was the main instrument I was playing when we put it together we might dump it later
and I'd go back to guitar. like on "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite." When we demoed it, that was a kind of collaboration with all of us punching our ideas together on each other's instruments, which we do a lot. I think Bill [Berry, drummer...most of the time] played bass, Mike played organ, I played mandolin or bouzouki. As it evolves, maybe Bill will switch back to drums and Mike to bass. Wehave different people playing different things on each take. MM:That happened with "Shiny Happy People" on the last record; it stimulates you. Like, I know that I got some of my ideas for "Everybody Hurts" from Bill's initial bass line. In fact, I'd swear Bill played that final bass part, but they say I did-so I guess I did. I feel like the guy in Sleepen After a record or two, it just all blurs together.
You started as post-punk folk rockers, toughened up your sound with Document and Green, and now you're back to that minor key thing, but with more subtlety and power. Can you talk about that evolution? Life's Rich Pageant seemed to be the turning point.
PB:It was. Earlyon we wanted to explore this weird, post-folk, long melody line type thing and eventuallywe wanted to be a little more direct-lyrically, to a certain degree, but also musically. We'd always fought against that big, NewWavelDance drum sound. Youcan't even hear the kick rum on a lot of the old blues records or Beatles records that I like. But, yeah, Life's Rich Pageant was the point where we decided we wanted, to a certain degree, to approach some of the things that I liked about rock'n'roll that you'd hear on the radio, without really changing what the band was all about. And to a certain degree, I was tired of reading the phrase "jangle" or "chime" in every review about R.E.M.As much as I like the Byrds, we're not really influenced by them and we've never sounded like them. I mean, I've played with Roger McGuinn and HE doesn't think we sound like the Byrds!
How did these changes affect your actual playing?
PB:Well, in addition to the drum sound coming up, that guitar sound got a whole lot more direct. I'd always used weird, ambient miking and overdubbed the same thing 12 times to get a really thick sound that you couldn't pare down. The songs and performances were of a piece, take it or leave it. Then on "FallOn Me" and "The One I Love,"we opened things up with more space and dynamics. There was much more thought to the arrangements. I also started using heavier guitar sounds to accent things, bringing in a Les Paul and some Marshalls. But I still use my original Rickenbacker-I think it's an '80 or '81-on every record. They're still kind of done by hand. And I found a great one that I'm hanging on to.
"Stand" was your pop epiphany, and then you spiralled back to more subtle but potent material on the last album and especially this one. What's the strategy here?
PB:Yeah, after the Green record and tour we tried to break it down and push ourselves in a fresh direction as songwriters. We didn't want to be saddled with the whole bass/drums/guitar, electric setup with a 4/4 beat. We sat around with acoustic instruments and started rearranging things and the songwriting took a big leap. But it tended to be quieter, less traditional-rock'n'roll oriented. I mean, you write "LosingMyReligion"on acoustic guitar and mandolin, and no matter how you rock it up, it's going to have those chords and textures. ...
... the hell do they manage to write music that fits Michael's non-linear lyrics?"
MM:I'll tell you the honest truth, there's no way on God's earth to write music to Michael's words because, as you say, they're just too non-linear. It's almost always the music first. His words are made to fit the music and that's why they were never printed as lyrics, because they're not designed to stand alone as poetry, though some can, of course. On a song like "Losing My Religion" the three of us will come up with the music and either he already has words in his notebook or it inspires him to think of something new. Often it's a combination of the two. I've always wanted to try writing music to words, because I know that's how Elton John does it.
Some fragments of Michael's lyrics seem to be from real life, interwoven with subconscious stuff resonating around the universe. Has he ever really surprised you with a particular line or lyric that had levels you'd never even imagined?
PB: On a very literal level, "Losing My Religion" is an incredibly resonant phrase that hits me on a lot of levels. I thought Michael had made it up, but he insisted, "No, no, no, it's an old Southern phrase meaning 'at wit's end.''' Michael a lot of times will go, "Yeah, sure, you've heard that." And I'll go, "Uh, I don't think so." Anyway, about two months ago I'm visiting a friend in New Orleans and I met this guy's grandmother, who's about 90. And he goes, "This is the guy in the band with that song you heard on the radio that you liked, 'Losing MyReligion.''' And she goes' [with heavy Southern accent], "Tsk, I hadn't heard anyone say that phrase since I was a little girl here in the '20s and '30s. It means, 'Lord, I'm at my wit's end.'" I thought, "Wow, score one for Michael!" [laughs]
What's really weird about you guys is that in spite of the obliqueness and mystery, the song's essential message bypasses the rational and reaches the listener's heart and gut. Do you ever second guess yourselves, revise the songs or ask him to be more explicit?
PB:There's a million ways to tell a story, and Michael's really conscious of that. Early on, with things like "Flowers Of Guatemala," we talked to him for a long time about whether we should have a third verse that's really explicit; a "Where have all the young men gone"-type verse showing the flowers are his funeral ornaments. We decided, no, that's there, it's implicit. I don't think you're going to hear that song and need to be told that. I've heard people destroy songs by having the third verse tell you what to think about. Screw that, let them make up their own minds. John Ford once said, "People like an idea a lot better if they find it themselves." We're really conscious of over-tellinga story. I want my cab driversand brain surgeons to be linear. But the music itself tells part of the story too, and it can carry you over hurdles to different realizations.
Speaking of which, you use a lot of subtle feedback and sheets of sound in your playing onAutomatic. Is that intentionally meant to reinforce the underlying message of the song-or provide a musical counterpoint?
PB:I love feedback because it's real musical and non-technical. "Sweetness Follows" could have been real sappy if there wasn't the discordant cello underneath and the feedback kind of giving it that edge. On some of these songs you have pretty acoustics on top and some electric, but yeah, underneath I'm playing the wrong notes consciously to undercut it a little. On the bridge to "Try Not To Breathe" there's feedback to kind of take you to a different place-all those overtones that are supposed to be unsettling. "Find The River" or "EverybodyHurts" at first I thought could use some kind of toughening up. Then I heard the lyrics and thought, no, that's the way the song...
Drive
Everybody Hurts
Find The River
Ignoreland
Man On The Moon
Monty Got A Raw Deal
New Orleans Instrumental No. 1
Nightswimming
The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite
Star Me Kitten
Sweetness Follows
Try Not To Breathe
Italiano
English
