Search Results for: michael stipe

R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck is a “southern gentleman” who has never been rude to anyone, the band’s lead singer Michael Stipe told a London court today (March 27). Stipe appeared as a character witness at the “air-rage” trial of Buck, who is accused of going on a drunken rampage aboard a trans-Atlantic British Airways flight last April. The R.E.M. singer said Buck was “like a big brother” and said the allegations against his friend of 23 years did not make sense. “He’s just not a person who is rude to anyone,” Stipe told Isleworth Crown Court in west London. “Something… Read more »

REM’s Michael Stipe has admitted that he has been in a gay relationship for the last three years, ending years of speculation about his sexuality. He told Time magazine that is was the right time to set the record straight saying, “I was being made to be a coward about it, rather than someone who felt like it really was a very private thing.” He said that his partner is not a celebrity but is an “amazing man”. He had previously said he did not think of himself as straight, gay or bisexual and had been in relationships with both… Read more »

Chris Blackwell knew he wanted to be a part of the documentary 1 Giant Leap as soon as musicians Jamie Catto (Faithless) and Duncan Bridgeman played him the rough demos of songs they’d written for the program. The same man whose gut feeling led him to sign Bob Marley and U2 to his Island Records imprint heard what the two musicians had to offer and gave them the green light. “I loved the music of it,” says Blackwell of the documentary due out in March. “I loved the way the music was put together. I loved the different influences of… Read more »

Atlanta writer Tom Junod has no apologies for making up much of a profile on R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe for Esquire magazine, saying he wanted people to question celebrity journalism. In the profile for the June issue, Junod describes the 41-year-old Stipe eating all the sugar in a dispenser at a Los Angeles restaurant, then licking the top. He also writes about a five-hour limo trip to the Hoover Dam and recounts how Stipe sucks on two pennies and then sticks them on his eyelids. None of these things happened, Junod said. Esquire offers clues that the story is… Read more »

Singer Michael Stipe says R.E.M.’s next album takes the Georgia band’s sound into deep space. “If the last one was like Mars, this one is like Neptune,” he said last week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The band wrapped work last month on Reveal, which is due in May, before heading south for a performance at Brazil’s Rock in Rio festival. “It’s along the same lines as [1998’s] Up, but this one is much more experimental,” he continued. “But within that, there’s a lot more pop, and a lot more melody.” Reveal is the second album… Read more »