Why a greatest-hits album?
In the early ’80s, we ran through all the things that bands do that make them break up, and all the things that bands do that make them suck. One of the things that bands do when they run out of ideas is put out a live album or a greatest-hits record. We never ran out of ideas. For me, this marks the end of one chapter. Our confidence level as a trio–our drummer [Bill Berry] retired and became a farmer–has now reached the highest points that we had as a four-piece. I wanted to stake our claim.
So you’re thinking more consciously about your legacy now.
I’m too much in the moment to look back. That’s been endemic–I think that’s the right word. Is that a good word?
I like it.
I’m not even sure what it means. [Pause] That’s endemic of the way we work: not to become formulaic and not to suck. And, if we start sucking, to be the first ones to realize that. There’s not an album that we put out that I think doesn’t have something good to say about it.
I don’t mean this as a joke, but wasn’t “Imitation of Life” [off 2001’s “Reveal”] huge in Japan?
It was our first-ever No. 1 single. So things are rollicking along outside the U.S. Here, music shifted away from R.E.M. It’s come back to us, by my count, three times in 23 years. We merrily march on and, from time to time, a song hits. None of us have ever figured out what a hit single is. It’s not something that’s important to us. We just write the stuff, then go, “That could maybe be on the radio.” I’m asked all the time to explain why I do what I do, where it comes from, what inspires me. It sounds stupid to say, but I have no idea.
“Bad Day,” one of your new songs, has been around awhile, right?
It’s a song we wrote in 1986. It wasn’t even a song–it was an idea. I wrote new lyrics. It’s a voice of dissent against the current administration, and the media that are supposedly commenting–and I’m quoting Al Franken–in a fair and balanced way.
You a big Al Franken fan?
Since he wrote that book, it’s become a favorite. I think it’s hysterically funny. [Bassist] Mike [Mills] has read it. [Guitarist] Peter [Buck] reads four books a day. I’ve read a couple of chapters. I’m a very slow reader.
