Less than A A day after guitarist Mike Mills announced that the four founding members of REM would need a “comet” to play together again, the quartet took to the stage for a surprise performance celebrating their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday night.
Mills, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Bill Perry appeared at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, and according to the band's Instagram, game Their highest hit is “Losing My Religion”. In another post, the group shared a photo of this moment, and commented: “Another moment…oh life.”
This performance was the first time the four members appeared together since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
“Writing songs and having a catalog of work that we're all proud of — that will be available to the whole world for the rest of time — is the most important aspect of what we've done as a band,” Stipe said. The group also accepted the honor. “The second is that we have been able to do this all these decades and remain friends, and not just friends, but dear friends – friends for life.”
The band leader continued: “We are four people who decided, very early on, that we were going to own our masters. We will split our royalties and songwriting credits equally. We were all for one and one for all.”
“We set out to do our job accordingly,” Stepp said. “It turned out to be good, sometimes great, and what a ride it has been.”
As he thanked fans and collaborators for their support, Stipe ended his speech by thanking Bertis Downs, entertainment attorney and longtime REM advisor. The singer credited Downes with helping to foster “a space where we can be creative, follow our intuition, follow our instincts, and disappear into the music so that we don't have to care about aspects of the industry that could or might prevent us from focusing on the most important part: composing.” Songs and songs.
Earlier Thursday, the group reflected on their history with CBS Morning They insisted they would never perform together again – “It would never be good,” Buck said – but said they ended the band in 2011 in time.
“At that point, there wasn't anything we could agree on musically: what kind of music, how to record it, were we going to go on tour,” the guitarist said of the split. “We could barely agree on where to go for dinner. Now we can agree on where to go for dinner.”
When discussing their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the group said it was a big moment for them. “We live or die by our songs, so this is a huge honor for us,” Buck said.
“This is the hardest thing we do, and the thing we've worked on the most since the beginning,” Mills added.
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