R.E.M. set for first group interview in almost 30 years
The four members of R.E.M. – Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Bill Berry and Peter Buck – sit down with CBS Mornings Thursday for what will be their first interview together in almost 30 years.
The band is set to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame that night, and in a preview of the interview they discuss how it feels to be recognized for their songwriting.
“We lived or died on the strength of our songs, so this is a huge honor,” Mills shares, with Buck adding, “It is the hardest thing that we do and it’s the thing that we worked on the most from the very beginning.”
“Because we had to,” Berry chimes in. “I mean early on just to put food on the table we had to write songs as fast as we could.”
When asked if they ever look at their body of work as a whole, Mills noted that they aren’t quite that self-indulgent, to which Stipe interrupted with, “OK I am.”
“And then I wind up on YouTube and I watch some live performance, I’m like, ‘Wow I can’t believe we did that,’” he says. “Like we did, we did things and we did it really well from time to time.”
The Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala takes place Thursday in New York City. This year’s other inductees include Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and the late Walter Becker, Timbaland, Hillary Lindsey and Dean Pitchford.
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