- Michael Stipe contracted a serious case of scarlet fever when he was two years old. He was also a very popular kid with his teachers in kindergarten. They called him “Mike the Shining Light.”
- There’s a big scar on Michael’s forehead from an auto accident when he was 19. His car hit a deer. He has tattoos of a couple of 1920s-era cartoon characters on his right arm (Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse).
- At the time R.E.M. chose that name, there were at least six other bands using the name R.E.M., but since no one challenged them, the boys from Athens were the ones who got to keep it.
- “Radio Free Europe” (the rerecorded IRS version) peaked at number 78 on the American singles charts in August 1983.
- “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” was a plea to Ingrid Schorr, briefly a member of Oh-Ok, a group headed up by Michael Stipe’s sister, Lynda. Mike Mills was besotted with her and didn’t want her to move back to Rockville, Maryland.
- R.E.M. have always been known for their quirky artwork, especially when it comes to labeling the sides of their albums. The tradition extends all the way back to Chronic Town and, with the brief exception of Murmur, all R.E.M. albums have avoided obvious “side 1, side 2” labels. For example, the original vinyl version of Reckoning was labeled with the L(eft) side and the R(ight) side. Fables featured an A Side and Another Side. Automatic for the People had Drive and Ride while Monster was labeled C and D.
- The photos that adorn Murmur were shot by Michael Stipe. The front cover features a kudzu vine in a field near the Normaltown area of Athens. Kudzu is an incredibly fast-growing Japanese weed that infests much of the Deep South. The train bridge on the back was originally envisioned as the front cover.
- The liner notes and track listings of Lifes Rich Pageant are all mixed up, and a few songs are missing, along with the apostrophe in “Lifes.”
- During the dark period surrounding the Fables album, Peter Buck, feeling the need to clear his head, went back to work at Wuxtry Records for a while. As a “guest clerk,” he bagged records at the cash in late 1985 and 1986 before the crowds of fans made work impossible.
- The title Lifes Rich Pageant was taken from a line in a Pink Panther sequel entitled A Shot in the Dark.
- The video for “Fall on Me” (the first single from Lifes, released on August 18, 1986) was shot for $650.
- Hardcore followers of Michael Stipe are often called “Distiples.”
- Michael Stipe realized a lifelong dream when Patti Smith agreed to sing with him on “E-Bow the Letter” from New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
- After Bill Berry returned to duty after his emergency surgery, the remainder of the road trip was dubbed the Aneurysm tour. Some programs sold at the shows featured a nice picture of the emergency room CAT scan of Bill’s brain.
- There’s an odd story behind “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” In October 1993, CBS news anchor Dan Rather was walking down Park Avenue in New York when he was attacked by a man who kept yelling, “Kenneth! What’s the frequency?” One theory was that Rather had been mistaken for Kenneth Schaffer, an electronics expert who had built at system for intercepting secret Soviet satellite transmissions. The assailant was William Tager, a mentally ill man who believed that the media were beaming hostile messages into his brain. He wanted Rather to give him the frequency of the transmissions so he could shut off the voices. Later, Rather turned up with R.E.M. to lip-sync the song on Late Night with David Letterman.
- R.E.M. has performed under a variety of pseudonyms over the years. They include Pink Pajamas, the Neon Mud Men, It Crawled from the South, Fat, Drunk and Stupid, Hornets Attack Victor Mature and Bingo Handjob.
- The group is one of the most politically active bands in the world. As “unabashed liberals” (their term), R.E.M. has supported causes ranging from Greenpeace and Amnesty International to various animal rights organizations and pro-choice groups.
- R.E.M.’s activism is also apparent at home in Athens, where Michael Stipe and Mike Mills still live (Michael owns three blocks’ worth of real estate that has been assessed at close to $1 million). They often get involved in civic issues such as historic preservation and the environment. They’ve also been known to make substantial campaign donations to their favorite municipal government candidates.
- Along with his interest in photography, Michael Stipe owns two movie production companies. Single Cell is based in Hollywood and concentrates on Hollywood-style releases. C100 is based in New York and focuses on what it calls “guerrilla-style indie films.”
- Bertis Down has acted as the band’s legal advisor from the very beginning.
- The rumor about R.E.M. playing one last show on December 31, 1999, before breaking up for good started with a joke Peter Buck made during an interview.