Once dubbed by Rolling Stone as “America’s Best Rock and Roll Band,” R.E.M. was a band that had risen to fame and in the process had woven itself a legend. The band — composed of Michael Stipe on vocals, Peter Buck on the guitar, Bill Berry on the drums, and Mike Mills on the bass — spent most of the ‘80s and ‘90s redefining the soundscape of rock. They were a rock band ready to take over the world with haunting vocals, cryptic lyrics, and gritty guitar hooks that could floor entire stadiums. Their rhythms rang with intensity whether it was in mournful ballads like “Everybody Hurts” or loud grungey anthems like “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” R.E.M was what other rock bands could only dream of being: they were the epitome of rock and roll.
Author Peter Ames Carlin attempts to peel back the curtain (even if only by a tiny inch) and make sense of the legend in his latest biography, “The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.” In his retelling of the rise of R.E.M., Carlin focuses on the band members’ humanity. Stipe was once an awkward teen who’d worn fedoras to school and who’d regularly dressed up as Dr. Frank-N-Furter for showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Berry had once thought Mills was a dork and thus hated him on the spot (that is, until he heard Mike play the bass). Buck was once a quiet music nerd who’d run the counter at a records-and-comics shop. In fact, as Carlin details, Buck hadn’t even wanted to be in a band. “Guys in bands are usually assholes,” Buck told Stripe, “and I don’t want to become an asshole.”
Throughout the biography, Carlin delights in meticulously picking apart R.E.M.’s rockstar facade and revealing the average — albeit a little cringey — nature of the four band members. Combing through years of interviews, concerts, and accounts from people close to the members, Carlin crafts a delicious underdog origin story. R.E.M. had started small as a college campus band in the University of Georgia. They’d turned a “rotten, dumpy, little shithole” of a church into their band’s headquarters. They were scruffy from the start, and Carlin doesn’t want us to forget this.
Paradoxically, though, Carlin also doesn’t want us to forget that R.E.M. is rockstar royalty. Maybe it’s because he is telling us a story that has been told many times (to date, there are around eight R.E.M. biographies), but Carlin often switches into a lore-driven narrative voice, as if he were the wise omniscient narrator recounting an intricate, rock and roll fantasy. Even when describing mundane moments in the band members’ lives, Carlin can’t help but hint at their eventual stardom. “Mike’s eyes shifted away from the TV reporter to focus on something else,” Carlin writes mysteriously at one point, “Something that wasn’t visible yet but was out there, somewhere. Maybe closer than it seemed.”
While there isn’t anything wrong with Carlin frequently making reference to R.E.M.’s celebrity status, it does keep the band members at arm’s length. Although we’d love to imagine Stipe as a fedora-wearing teenager, we know that he will eventually become the band’s iconic lead singer. The same sentiment applies to the other three band members — we know how their stories will end, and so the idea of them being anything but rock stars at times seems a little far-fetched. Perhaps this could have been remedied if Carlin had just spoken with R.E.M.’s band members; sadly, none of them granted him an interview.
Regardless, Carlin does an effective job of adding a layer of humanity to the legend of R.E.M. His retelling of the story is as messy as the band’s early days, when R.E.M. was just four nerds in college who loved music. But at the same time, Carlin can’t seem to shake off his tone of wonder when describing the band’s legacy. There’s a lingering sense of reverence in his writing — and who can blame him? Our obsession with rock stars runs deep, and, like Carlin, we can’t help but stare in awe at a group of ordinary people ascending to global icon status.
