On June 13, 2024, the four original founding members of R.E.M. - vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry - performed together onstage for the first time since the mid '90s, playing Losing My Religion following their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at New York's Marriott Marquis Hotel last night. Last February, at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, the four musicians shared a stage once again, performing Pretty Persuasion as special guests to actors and musicians Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy at their R.E.M. tribute show. But, Peter Buck insists in a new interview with MOJO, there will never be an official, full-scale R.E.M. reunion.
The band's last official performance was on November 18, 2008, when they closed out their Accelerate tour at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City. But drummer Billy Berry hadn't performed with the band since the mid '90s, after he suffered a double brain aneurysm during a March 1995 gig in Lausanne, Switzerland.
“When we decided it was the end, I felt fine with it," Buck tells MOJO. "That was the story – it had a beginning and an end. I was happy with the whole arc, and we were all young enough to go off and do other things, and we all have been. I’m really busy. We reached the end of that road. And it was a great road and I’m really proud to have done that with everybody, but it just seemed like a really good time to walk away. And unlike every other band in the world other than The Smiths, we’re not going to be doing the famous album reunion tour or any of that crap. It’s just not going to happen.
"Everyone has their memories and they’re sacrosanct. We did those shows, we did those records, we performed to the best of our abilities, and now that story’s over. I think that’s pretty great. I don’t want to do a tour so we can make more money or be famous. That’s not why you do it. We were, ’til the very end of our career, focused on the new record, pushing it into the next place. Once that’s over, it’s gone.
"I just don’t want to be the legacy act at Glastonbury playing our 40-year-old hits. It’s great that we did all that stuff when we did it, and I’m really proud of the performances. I don’t want to cheapen it by going out there just for ego and money. I don’t need the money, and my ego? Well, I’ve had enough applause to last 10 lifetimes.”
Buck is now playing in Drink The Sea alongside former Screaming Trees and Mad Season drummer Barrett Martin, multi-instrumentalist Alain Johannes, who’s played with Eleven, Queens Of The Stone Age, PJ Harvey and more, percussionist Lisette Garcia (the Barrett Martin Group) and British singer/songwriter Duke Garwood.
The band's third studio album, Drink The Sea III, will be released worldwide on October 2 through Barrett Martin’s Sunyata Records and Sony Orchard Digital Music.
The group will tour the UK later this year, playing:
Sep 30: Cardiff The Gate
Oct 01: Manchester Band On The Wall
Oct 02: London Islington Assembly Hall
Oct 03: Brighton Chalk
