R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe Talks About his Music Influences
CHARLIE ROSE: In 1975, a 15-year-old Michael Stipe saw
a picture in Cream magazine of singer Patti Smith, and it left an
indelible mark on his life. Since then he has gone on to become the
lead singer of one of those successful rock bands of all time, R.E.M.,
but his admiration of Patti Smith has never diminished. In 1995,
after finishing his own world tour, he followed her around for two weeks
on her tour, not as a performer, but as a friend, a fan, and a photographer.
The pictures can be found in his new book, Two Times Intro, On the Road
with Patti Smith. I'm pleased to have Michael Stipe on this program to
talk about a lot of things, including this book -- Two Times Intro, On
the Road with Patti Smith. Welcome to the program.
MICHAEL STIPE, Musician, Photographer for ``Two Times Intro, On the
Road with Patti Smith'': Thank you very much.
CHARLIE ROSE: What is it about her that so influences
you, compelled you to want to--
MICHAEL STIPE:&nbp;I think as a teenager, you know, the music-- the
popular music in the 1970s was really kind of full of itself. It
was a lot of overblown gestures and not a lot of heart. Patti came along
at a time when music was just kind of full of itself, and she was very
raw. She was very connected to the source. You know, her energy
and the stuff that she put into her music was-- it's undeniable. And, when
I heard the record the first time, I just felt immediately drawn to it--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: I stayed up all night listening to it, eating
a large bowl of cherries. I've told her the story since. I
ate the whole bowl. I couldn't stop listening to the record, particularly
a song called ``Birdland.''
CHARLIE ROSE: Called ``Birdland''?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: And--
CHARLIE ROSE: It's the third cut on the album.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. And I was a changed person, and the
kind of punk ethic that these people were talking about in magazines and
The Village Voice and the various periodicals that were interested in interviewing
and talking with them was ``do it yourself.'' That anybody could
start a band, write songs, get on stage, and I took that very literally
and decided at the age of 15 or 16 that that was what I was gonna do with
my life.
CHARLIE ROSE: Worked out well, didn't it?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I did pretty good so far.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Why do you think you've done well?
MICHAEL STIPE: I had good teachers. I mean, I think that,
you know, back then Patti to me was absolutely the most successful performer
in terms of getting across what I-- you know, my interpretation-- my teenage
interpretation of what she was trying to say. I'm in a-- I've been a band--
I've been in a band my entire adult life with three other guys and now
two other guys who never wanted to compromise themselves, never wanted
to feel like they were doing something that they didn't want to do. And
my band has always operated by process of negation, where--
CHARLIE ROSE: Negation?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, whereby-- we know everything we don't want
to do and the options that are left--
CHARLIE ROSE: Are what you want to do.
MICHAEL STIPE: --are what we have to choose from. Yeah.
And we've never really been-- musically, we-- and certainly fashion-wise
we've never been very in-step with the times. But we followed our
own course, and I think a lot of people responded to that.
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me talk-- look at some these photographs because
I want to just get them in. Tell me first about this [holds up cover photograph
showing Patti Smith's feet on a tile floor].
MICHAEL STIPE: That was one of the first nights-- Patti-- we
were playing in this kind-of weird, small arena and the dressing was a--
about half the dressing room was a shower.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: It had beautiful acoustics, and she was working
out a song that became ``Farewell, Rio.'' It's the last track on
Gone Again, which was the record she released before the last one.
And she was working it out, and the acoustics were beautiful. And I was
in there taking pictures.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. You think of yourself as a pretty good photographer.
MICHAEL STIPE: I think I'm really great.
CHARLIE ROSE: Really good.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. I mean, as a singer, it's taken me
14 or 15 years to realize that I have a really distinctive voice.
But I feel like what I'm able to-- what I see when I look through a camera,
and when I look-- my powers of observation are very strong, I think, and
they translate well through photography.
CHARLIE ROSE: Who's influenced you? Just life?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, I mean-- I'm voracious when it comes to
photo books and kind-of following the paths that certain photographers
have taken, present and in the past. I just ran into Tina Barney on the
street, part of the reason I was late here.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: Who photographed me for a magazine called Icon
a couple months ago.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: She's a phenomenal--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: --a phenomenal photographer. But her work,
and then-- of people that are living, Sally Mann, from Virginia.
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, sure. I know Sally Mann.
MICHAEL STIPE: Wolfgang Tilmons [sp] is from Cologne-- or he's
from Germany. Josef Koudelka, who's a Czech photographer. All people that
I really admire a great deal.
CHARLIE ROSE: Tim Robbins.
MICHAEL STIPE: I also admire him a great deal. I was really
happy to see. He's a huge fan of Patti's. We all kind-of met
when he was doing Dead Man Walking, and he offered her a song on the soundtrack.
CHARLIE ROSE: All right. This?
MICHAEL STIPE: The name of that picture is ``Patti Smiling.''
I had to name it for the gallery. But I call it our favorite 'cause
that's my favorite and Patti's favorite picture.
CHARLIE ROSE: Both?
MICHAEL STIPE: She looks nine years old there.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Kind of a-- it's a great smile. Allen?
MICHAEL STIPE: Allen Ginsberg, the irresistible man.
CHARLIE ROSE: The what?
MICHAEL STIPE: The irresistible man.
CHARLIE ROSE: Irresistible-- the irresistible--
MICHAEL STIPE: The irresistible man. Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: He was such a great-- infectious sense of caring.
MICHAEL STIPE: He had-- I mean, the pictures in the book, you
know, of him taking a picture of me and then that picture-- he had a curiosity
about him that was child-like and followed him to the end of his life.
And that's something I really admired about him.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is this a-- this is one these--
MICHAEL STIPE: Same-- the shower scene.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, we've seen that. OK, this is the band members
in front of a travel agency.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, with snowballs in their mouth.
CHARLIE ROSE: And here?
MICHAEL STIPE: Patti's hands when she performs are like birds.
They just dance and kind-of float around and she-- she says-- and I've
seen-- I've seen footage of myself performing and not realize the gestures
that I've done. I'm sure you've watched the show and--
CHARLIE ROSE: Sure.
MICHAEL STIPE: --never knew that you did this--
CHARLIE ROSE: Absolutely.
MICHAEL STIPE: --so, her hand in the sleeve there is something
that I think is a really-- it's a powerful and beautiful photograph.
CHARLIE ROSE: Are the happiest times of your-- What are
the happiest times of your life? When you're photographing?
When you're playing? When you're singing? When you're what?
MICHAEL STIPE: I pretty much live in the present. I mean,
I'm a really happy guy most of the time.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: Honestly. And so much so that I'm late everywhere
that I go, and I'm not just talking about today, coming to see you, but
it's hard to drag me away from where I am because I always want to be where
I am.
CHARLIE ROSE: For-- for me to criticize someone for being late
would pot calling the kettle black. It's something that would have
``priors'' in as they would say. Is there any other musician that-- that
affects you like Patti? I mean, that's had that kind of influence?
MICHAEL STIPE: Several, yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Kurt Cobain, for one?
MICHAEL STIPE: He was one, yeah. Grant Lee Phillips, from band
Grant Lee Buffalo. I'm gonna see him perform Saturday night at a
Tibetan benefit in Atlanta. Tom York, from the band Radiohead. Kim
Gordon and Thurston Moore, who are both-- the band Sonic Youth.
CHARLIE ROSE: And is there something common to all those relationships?
MICHAEL STIPE: They have that same direct connection to the source.
There's something flowing through them that is maybe bigger than-- bigger
than the person. You know? And they're-- in a way-- this is
not to-- not to get [unintelligible] on us but--
CHARLIE ROSE: No, I don't want you to--
MICHAEL STIPE: --they're in a way a conduit to something much,
much greater.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: I think, you know, it's like when I take pictures.
I try to pay attention to the mistakes because that, to me, is where my
conscious brain that's saying, ``This is a good framing, or this is good
light,'' falls down and what steps forward is the unconscious and that's--
that's even in an image that's very set up-- and these are not very set-up
images, but other stuff that I do is more so. Even in an image that's very
set up, the mistake often is the stuff that's really good-- the core of
it.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what's a mistake?
MICHAEL STIPE: A mistake-- there's a-- you know, one of these
lights that's on us would be-- would catch the camera in a way that it
would take out half of your face--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, well, that happens to--
MICHAEL STIPE: That would-- that could be a beautiful-- a really
beautiful, different way of looking at someone's face.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Any mistakes in any of these?
MICHAEL STIPE: A lot of 'em are mistakes. A lot of 'em.
Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Kurt Cobain. Do you-- how do you feel about-- I
mean, because he was so close to you--
MICHAEL STIPE: I spoke with William Burroughs about it because
he knew Kurt as well.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: And, you know, for William Burroughs to say, ``That's
senseless and unnecessary,'' I have to agree. I mean, he was a very,
very talented, very direct-to-the-source, very troubled man.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: And I wish he was still here but he's not.
CHARLIE ROSE: Does it make you at all, when that happens, whether
it's someone who fronts a rock band or whatever they do, to say, ``Man,
if I see that coming, I'm gonna-- I'm gonna learn from the loss of someone
I love by--
MICHAEL STIPE: In? Within?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: In yourself?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, exactly.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, I don't think I'm capable of suicide, personally.
Do you think you are?
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, absolutely not.
MICHAEL STIPE: Was there a time in your life when you thought
you were?
CHARLIE ROSE: No, no, no. Not once.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, it's never-- But I don't know how it'd
be if I was desperate. I mean, I've been dependent on something.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Or never been-- You know, I've had compared to
almost everybody a generous life.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know, so I can't know that I've had pain that
other people have had. And I don't know how I would deal with those
kinds of things.
MICHAEL STIPE: I like the way you said that. That's a beautiful
phrasing.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know?
MICHAEL STIPE: I should write that down. Maybe I can put
it into a song. [Charlie hands him a piece of paper] Thank you. And
this is how it happens.
CHARLIE ROSE: That's how it happens with music? Are you always
creating?
MICHAEL STIPE: Oh, that would be exhausting. I have pretty limitless
energy. I have-- yeah, I'm always creating, even if it-- even it's
a mess, you know, on the table. I mean, I think all of us are--
CHARLIE ROSE: It's like scraps of paper for a writer. They're
somewhere.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. Yeah. I'm always thinking--
CHARLIE ROSE: There's a note or a song or a--
MICHAEL STIPE: There's something goin' on, yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: And not always, no. You have to clock out
every now and then. But I'm in the middle of writin' songs right
now, so I try to leave myself pretty wide open because you never know when
a phrase is gonna catch-- catch your ear and make sense in a way that it
hasn't before.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is it a winnowing process in a sense? I mean--
a winnowing process. Is it always sort-of being shaped and shaped
and shaped? So, when we first put it together, by the time you're
in the studio-- in a recording studio, it's become something different?
MICHAEL STIPE: Often--
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, like a writer would edit a chapter 32 times--
MICHAEL STIPE: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --shaping-- an editor-- a filmmaker is constantly
going back to the movie, and they're never satisfied.
MICHAEL STIPE: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know-- most filmmakers I know will come here,
and many of them will look away--
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: 'Cause they'll see an imperfection.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: They'll see something that-- they want--
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: ``I wish we had one more time.''
MICHAEL STIPE: You're always your harshest critic.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, exactly.
MICHAEL STIPE: Most songs are like that. You edit, you
edit, you work on-- you work on-- and it's laborious and difficult, like
chunks of flesh pulling out of you.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: A phrase that I use over and over again.
Where photography for me is comparatively effortless. But every now
and then there are songs that just happen, and you might not even realize
until later that it's a complete vision. It's a complete idea.
It's a complete song. One of the songs was the song that Patti sang on
my band's last record, a song called ``E-bow, the Letter.''
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: And it was a letter that I wrote in and it went
down as a lyric unedited. There wasn't one word that I added or took
out.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: And it was-- it just came out of me, and I didn't--
I didn't anticipate-- I didn't expect-- I wrote it as a letter. I
didn't write it as a song. I didn't expect that I would ever use
it that way. Another song called ``Departure,'' also from the last record--
so, those are the two I was lucky that I had two on that record--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: There's one called ``Country Feedback.''
And those are-- of the songs that we've put down on tape-- those are three
that I feel are closest to the source that I'm talking about, in terms
of my contribution. Most of the songs take a lot longer and it is a constant
editing and reshaping and trying to figure out where you want to hit with
it, where-- you know, what you're trying to say and if you're trying to
say anything at all.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you sing 'em differently every night you're
on tour?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. Yeah. If you get stuck in a rut.
I mean, there are physical limitations to singing. It's a pretty
hard thing to get up and do that for two hours night after night.
So, there are some songs that I'm not able to sing it the way that I would
like to. So, you find a way to sing around, you know, your imperfections.
CHARLIE ROSE: Someone-- a conductor once said to me that sex
was-- that conducting was the next best thing to sex for him.
MICHAEL STIPE: That's good.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is music for you? Performing-- you know,
especially songs that are meaningful to you?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: The next best thing to--
MICHAEL STIPE: That's such a male analogy, Charlie.
CHARLIE ROSE: I know it is. I know.
MICHAEL STIPE: I'm not offended by it because I find myself making
it all the time. But there are good things in life--
CHARLIE ROSE: Why is it a male analogy, though?
MICHAEL STIPE: Well, it's just, you know, the way that our society
has been set up. That seems like a very male thing to say, don't
you think?
CHARLIE ROSE: Perhaps.
MICHAEL STIPE: Probably. Anyway, yeah, music-- I mean,
when-- if you're havin' a good night, it's tremendous. It's the same
as taking pictures. I know when I've taken a great photograph.
And sometimes I'll bracket, which is where, you know, you think the f-stop
might be a little too high or too low, and so you take the picture.
You take it again, one stop up, one stop down. You knock it our of
focus. Take it-- kind-- a little bit blurry, so you have, you know,
five of the same picture--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: --with slightly different lighting or slightly
different focus. But, for the most part, when in happens, you know
that it's-- you know that it's right.
CHARLIE ROSE: If I look over the body of your work-- how many
albums now?
MICHAEL STIPE: This is our 11th that we're working on now.
And that doesn't include compilations and EPs, which is just shorter records.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right, right. What would be-- is there
a consistent theme there? You know? Is there--
MICHAEL STIPE: I became of themes in music after we put out our
first album which is called Murmur, and it was reviewed-- it was very favorably
reviewed by writers who I had a lot of respect for. And they were
talking about the theme of the record was movement and travel and velocity.
And I had no idea-- I was reading these as if my therapist had like--
And I thought, ``Wow, that's really actually true.'' And I learned
a valuable lesson which was that I really wanted to know what I was writing
about if not at the time of writing it, before I sent it out to the general
public, to the world, just so that I could kind-of get it straight in my
head before everyone else tried to figure me out. Did that make sense?
CHARLIE ROSE: Sort of, but I want to ask another question now
anyway. I mean, when you look at 'em now and look back. I mean,
do-- what kind of-- what kinds of lyrics resonate most with you?
Where do you connect the most? What kinds of stories?
MICHAEL STIPE: I think the ones that I was-- Patti and I call
'em ``the vomit songs.''
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: They just come out of you. You can't--
CHARLIE ROSE: ``The vomit song.''
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, it's not a controlled thing at all.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah?
MICHAEL STIPE: The ones that just really kind-of come out.
And those are the ones that I find the most satisfying at the end of the
day.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is there one, after all this time, that's most--
resonates within you? Means the most?
MICHAEL STIPE: There's one that I just wrote-- or I just wrote
the words-- I just finished the words to the band wrote-- that I'm really
excited about.
CHARLIE ROSE: Can you tell us about it?
MICHAEL STIPE: It's called ``Parakeet.'' And it's not unlike--
this is somewhat of an exclusive because the record's not coming until
October, and we haven't even finished recording the song yet, but there's
a writer named Bruno Schultz, who wrote a book called The Street of Crocodiles,
which is a favorite book of mine. I think the play-- someone told
me this morning, actually, out of the blue, that the play is moving from
London to here, to New York. So, it might be available-- it might
be something you can go out and see now. But Bruno Schultz had a
very-- a very playful, almost whimsical -- if I can use that word without
laughing -- almost whimsical kind of quality to his writing. And
this-- and yet underneath there was-- there was-- there was unrest and
possibly, like, disturbing-- a disturbing theme underneath it. But
it was full of humor and whimsy, and that's what the song-- to me, that's
what the song to me-- that's what I've accomplished with the song.
CHARLIE ROSE: How does it go?
MICHAEL STIPE: I might be defending in saying that-- and I'm
not quite prepared to sing it to you at this point, but there is a little--
CHARLIE ROSE: Why not?
MICHAEL STIPE: I mean, I have-- actually and I'll go to them
and tell them first before the records come out, but there are influences
throughout the record from other people in that particular song-- and I'll
already told, so I'll say it here--Patti was very influential in the chorus. There's a doo-wap thing
that she does. I think ``doo-wap'' is appropriate. There's
a doo-wap thing that she does over and over again in her work. A
lot in the last two records that she's put out in the last couple years
that I kind-of copped for the chorus of this. It's very beautiful.
CHARLIE ROSE: How long do you want to-- You've looked at movies?
Yeah. How much of an appeal does that have for you?
MICHAEL STIPE: Film?
CHARLIE ROSE: Making films?
MICHAEL STIPE: Making films?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: I'm really interested in it. I mean--
CHARLIE ROSE: But you always have a visual interest because the
photography.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. Oh, I've got two production companies
that are making films right. One started today, actually, in New
Jersey, which I'm excited about.
CHARLIE ROSE: What's the film?
MICHAEL STIPE: It's called Spring Forward, and it's with Ned
Beatty and Maria Shriver.
CHARLIE ROSE: I just saw Ned Beatty in Spike Lee's film, and
he's brilliant.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, he's an amazing, amazing actor.
CHARLIE ROSE: Wonderful actor.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, this is a great-- This is a really great--
It's a great role for him, so I think he's probably gonna chew it up.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what's the other?
MICHAEL STIPE: The other is coming out in October. It's
called Velvet Goldmine. And that's by a director named Todd Haynes,
from here in New York.
CHARLIE ROSE: But do you want to do more? Do you want to
direct?
MICHAEL STIPE: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you want to do anything other than just produce?
MICHAEL STIPE: I don't think I have that ambition. I mean,
for me a three-minute pop song is about as broad as I can--
CHARLIE ROSE: About as what?
MICHAEL STIPE: About as broad as I can go. I don't know
that I could carry an audience for two hours with a story.
CHARLIE ROSE: You're a three-minute man?
MICHAEL STIPE: Three minute.
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, it's a sense that--
MICHAEL STIPE: In terms of writing songs--
CHARLIE ROSE: No, no, no, I wasn't being cute.
MICHAEL STIPE: All right.
CHARLIE ROSE: I meant in a sense that three minutes is a creative--
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, now to string 21 or 25 of those three-minute
songs together and create an evening for someone to come to a theater and
perform and-- have that have a flow to it and a dynamic. And--
That's a little bit more-- that's a little bit more difficult.
CHARLIE ROSE: When you sat down, I showed you a book that's fascinating
and is a brilliant book -- The Rape of Nanking. And I-- and you said,
``I don't have time to read books anymore. I read a lot of magazines.''
MICHAEL STIPE: I don't, no. It's sad.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know-- I-- well, it's a little bit sad, except
the fact that you are some-- you strike me as being obviously hugely intelligent
and interested in the around you with an observant eye, you know?
And a huge curiosity.
MICHAEL STIPE: Thank you very much.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, that's true. I mean, I'm not-- I'm
flattering you, but I'm trying to--
MICHAEL STIPE: No, I agree.
CHARLIE ROSE: --sort-of get at who you are and what you're about.
MICHAEL STIPE: My powers of observation are very strong, and
I think that works its way into just about everything that I-- everything
that I do. Film producing is a little less creative, but I'm more
than happy to stand behind the cameras in that--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: --in that particular media and allow other people
like Todd Haynes, like Tom [unintelligible], who's soon to be [unintelligible]
to express themselves, to see their vision realized. And, you know,
I wouldn't-- it's a great effort to make a film. I wouldn't do it
with people that I don't have a great deal of respect for-- or respect
for their vision of the story.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you-- how long will you be a rock and roll singer,
songwriter?
MICHAEL STIPE: Hard to say. I'm 38 now. I don't feel
like-- I don't feel like I've written my last song. Last October
our drummer, Bill Barry-- well, he had decided earlier, I think, but he
let us know in October that he was no longer interested in being in a rock
band--
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, that was because he had an aneurysm, wasn't
it?
MICHAEL STIPE: No, it wasn't because of the aneurysm. I
mean, I think when that occurred -- as these things will -- when someone
has a near-death experience, you tend to kind-of reprioritize or rethink--
CHARLIE ROSE: Sure.
MICHAEL STIPE: --your life and the direction it's taking.
I think Bill just didn't want to be in a rock band any longer. And,
in fact, when he told us that he wanted to quit, he said, ``If this is
gonna break the band up, then I won't quit,'' because he didn't want to
see-- he didn't want to be the guy that broke up the bank, I think.
And the-- you know, the other three of us--
CHARLIE ROSE: I thought that was-- I saw that statement.
I thought that was a huge-- I mean, that was a nice-- I mean, that says
something about the nature of the relationship among the four of you.
MICHAEL STIPE: We're great friends. I mean, you know, next
to my family, those guys know me more intimately and perhaps in a different
way even than anyone else in the world. I mean, just from shared
history and the experiences that we've been through together. And
we're very close. I talked to Bill this morning, actually--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: I did this TV show and Joan Rivers was on it,
and he always had a crush on her so I called him from the game room.
CHARLIE ROSE: Joan would be thrilled to hear this.
MICHAEL STIPE: Oh, she couldn't be talked to-- she was-- she
was having a tizzy, but I called him from the green room that I had just
met--
CHARLIE ROSE: That you were with Joan--
MICHAEL STIPE: And that Lyle Lovett was sittin' there, and Bill
was on-- Bill told me that he was on his tractor yesterday, and inexplicably
for about a half an hour he thought about Lyle Lovett, so he said-- I said,
``Well, I'll tell him that.'' And so I did. And Lyle was honored,
I think.
CHARLIE ROSE: How could you say-- or why was this true that you
said in 1995 you've never been in love?
MICHAEL STIPE: Well, it is true.
CHARLIE ROSE: Why?
MICHAEL STIPE: Why would I say that?
CHARLIE ROSE: Why would you never be in love? I assume
it was true, is why you said it.
MICHAEL STIPE: No-- well, maybe I have a real high idea of what
love is or what it involves. I mean, I think generally I am-- I'm
in love every day.
CHARLIE ROSE: I know. But we're talking about-- we know
what we're talking about.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, no. Like, really hard-core--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: --serious, can't-stop-thinking-about--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Can't-live-without-you--
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: --you are-- you make my life--
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, I mean, I feel that way about people in
my life, but--
CHARLIE ROSE: But these are not people you're in love with.
MICHAEL STIPE: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: These are people you love, but not in love with.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, right. Might have been my--
CHARLIE ROSE: Don't you think it's strange to be 38 years old
and not having-- I mean, it's obviously still true, and you said it in
1995, but you-- it hasn't changed since then.
MICHAEL STIPE: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: Why?
MICHAEL STIPE: I'm sure that I miss it. I mean, I'm-- I
admire people who develop monogamous relationships and are able to carry
that through their lives or as long as they can.
CHARLIE ROSE: But it has to do with monogamy. I mean, it
has to do with not--
MICHAEL STIPE: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: Not being able to find one person.
MICHAEL STIPE: No, it's not choosing a partner or choosing the
sex of a partner or anything like that--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
MICHAEL STIPE: I think I'm maybe a little too selfish frankly
to commit or commit myself to someone that much. To compromise--
to compromise myself to the degree that it would take, I think, to be--
to be in a one-on-one relationship with someone. [long pause]
You have quite a gaze.
CHARLIE ROSE: I wanted to give you a chance to think about what
you just said, but--
MICHAEL STIPE: What did I just say?
CHARLIE ROSE: That you--
MICHAEL STIPE: That I'm selfish.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, I am. I mean, we all are-- it's just
to what degree are we capable of admitting it, you know.
CHARLIE ROSE: How hard was it for you to sort of acknowledge
bisexuality when you had to do that or did it or what--
MICHAEL STIPE: I resent that term.
CHARLIE ROSE: You resent the term?
MICHAEL STIPE: Not personally--
CHARLIE ROSE: You used it.
MICHAEL STIPE: No, I didn't.
CHARLIE ROSE: You didn't. I thought somebody-- you didn't
use it?
MICHAEL STIPE: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: What did you use?
MICHAEL STIPE: No, that would be-- if there was a category that
I fell into, that would be where I fall because I-- because I-- I have
desire for men and women.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
MICHAEL STIPE: That's out. But I resent the categorization
of sexuality. I think it's--
CHARLIE ROSE: So, you feel the same way about ``heterosexuality''
and ``homosexuality'' as well as terms?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah, and, I mean, there are people that are very
comfortable identifying with one or the other with whatever-- which I'm
fine with. But I'm not comfortable with that. I think sexuality
is more fluid than that. And I feel like-- I feel like the era where
the need for categorization of something as fluid as desire is behind us.
I feel like by talking about it, since I have to talk about it--
CHARLIE ROSE: I have to-- here-- because you felt like you had
to talk about it? I mean, you first talked about--
MICHAEL STIPE: I felt like I had to talk about it, yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because?
MICHAEL STIPE: Well, I thought-- I was being-- I was being pressured
by-- pretty much by the gay community or certain elements of the gay community
to step out and admit that I was gay. And I'm not. And I knew
that they didn't really want to hear what I had to say, which was that
I'm very happy that you identify that way for you. Don't put that
constraint on me.
CHARLIE ROSE: ``I've had gay experiences,'' you would say, ``but
it doesn't make me gay. And I'm-- there's no term for how I feel.
It's just-- I don't want to be--''
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: ``--defined sexually be--'' Is what you're
saying--
MICHAEL STIPE: I don't mean being defined. I'm a very sexual
being.
CHARLIE ROSE: --as a sexual being. As a sexual being.
MICHAEL STIPE: I'm a very sexual being. Extremely. Yeah.
But for me it's about categorization. The other issue, of course,
would be privacy, which I just felt like it really wasn't anyone's business.
But now it is people's business because I came out and talked about it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Did you disappoint the gay community?
MICHAEL STIPE: I think elements of the gay community, yeah.
But I think it's a small minority.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because they weren't convinced? Or because--
MICHAEL STIPE: No, because it's very difficult for someone to
come out in a world that's largely heterosexual. It's very difficult
to come out and say, ``I am queer. I am homosexual. I'm not
like you.'' And be the pariah that that-- that our society has made
that. It's-- you're an outsider automatically if you say that.
CHARLIE ROSE: If it was true-- if in fact you were homosexual,
would you have been prepared to acknowledge that?
MICHAEL STIPE: I think I would have. Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: You wouldn't have worried about-- you don't have
to--
MICHAEL STIPE: What do have to lose?
CHARLIE ROSE: I don't know. Nothing. I can't--
You've got all the money you'll ever need. And you got all the whatever
you'll ever need.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you know who you are. And you seem to
be a perfectly-- I mean--
MICHAEL STIPE: There were cries that I was afraid that it would
affect record sales. And it was, like, please-- I mean, look at--
you know, look at my track record. You know, we have never-- I think
those people that maybe had not read interviews, had not listened to records,
didn't really follow very closely the degree to which my band has carried
out our business the way that we want to do it. You know, people
still come up to me and say, ``Is the record company gonna make you tour?''
And I say, ``Well, the record company would like for us to tour, but
it's our decision to do so.'' They can't-- you know, you are not
under contract to tour when you sign a record company contract.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. You've reached a point in your life
where, in a sense, you have defined your life and you can be the master
of your own destiny. Can you say that?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. I'm not sure what that means,
but it sounds great.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, it means to be in control. I mean,
it means you do what you want to do. It means that you're not-- you're
not dependent on--
MICHAEL STIPE: I don't think I am in control-- I mean, any more
so than I was before. I'm not tied to a nine-to-five job.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: But I am tied instead to a 22-hour-per day, which
is the job of being, you know, in a band--
CHARLIE ROSE: Why is it 22, rather than 24?
MICHAEL STIPE: Well, you gotta sleep sometime.
CHARLIE ROSE: You only sleep two hours a day, then?
MICHAEL STIPE: Maybe.
CHARLIE ROSE: No. When you-- what are you proudest of?
MICHAEL STIPE: There are cheeseball answers, but-- and this one
just sounds very typical, but I'm really proud of the fact that I've really--
I don't feel creatively like I've ever really compromised myself.
I don't feel like I've ever presented myself or the work that my band has
done or the work that I've done outside of music in any way other than
the way that I wanted to present it at that time. And-- easily in
18 years we've made mistakes. I've made mistakes. I've made
horrible mistakes, but I could say it was my decision to that. I
wasn't backed into a corner. I wasn't forced to do it.
That's a very rare-- that's a generous life. That's a very place
to be, I think, where -- I guess -- you're the master of your destiny.
But I felt that way when I was 19, so-- what have I gained?
CHARLIE ROSE: What have you gained?
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: What do you mean?
MICHAEL STIPE: Well, you made it sound like at the age 38 I'm
the master of my own destiny because--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: --'cause I have this killer record deal and--
you know--
CHARLIE ROSE: No, I don't mean killer record-- I mean that you
are-- you are someone that-- it seems to me-- that-- I mean, I like you.
I mean, I say that not that it makes a difference, but I say it-- with
admiration-- you seem to me someone, you know, at peace with himself and
passionate what he cares about, and in a sense for the lack of better word--
maybe a ``cheesy'' word -- to use your expression -- very, very comfortable
with who he is, what he's doing, the choices he makes, and they're not
being-- and in no way is coerced by some other forces other than his own
sense of responsibility and right and wrong.
MICHAEL STIPE: Yeah. There's a moral core.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: And I think it's a good one.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Then-- I mean, that's back where we
began with-- I mean that-- what seems to be on the part of critics, part
of the admiration for you is just that in part. I mean, they like
the music--
MICHAEL STIPE: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: --and they like the band and there's a connection
between what you sing and the sound of the music and audiences. There's
also sense that you--
MICHAEL STIPE: There's something real--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: --behind the music. There's something--
there's something going on there--
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: --that you might not find all the time.
But you certainly-- I would say, ``You don't find most of the time.''
And that was the attraction to Patti Smith.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
MICHAEL STIPE: That was the attraction to Tom Verlaine and Television.
And that was the attraction to, you know-- these are people that have provided
me with-- and Bob Dylan to Patti before, and I hope that I passed the baton
to someone else.
If it's Kurt Cobain, if it's whoever-- somebody out there watching
now who's 14 or 15 years old. Some girl that's gonna start a band
or write a novel or become a photographer or whatever. Pass that
baton. Say, ``You can be yourself. You can do what you want
to do. You can do it the way you want to do it. You might achieve
the level of success that I've achieved. You might not ever be able
to sit across the table from Charlie Rose, but you can do what you want
to do and be satisfied, be happy, and feel like-- feel like you've accomplished
what you wanted to accomplish.'' Did that sound like
a political speech?
CHARLIE ROSE: No, it didn't. Don't back off. I mean,
you say something that sounds--
MICHAEL STIPE: I think I meant it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Are you-- I think you meant it. Two
Times Intro, On the Road with Patti Smith is Michael Stipe's book.
Thank you. I enjoyed it.
MICHAEL STIPE: Thank you very much.
CHARLIE ROSE: Very much. Thank you for joining us.
We'll see you next time.