The Rebirth Of R.E.M.

In January 1995, American alternative rock band R.E.M. set out on their first tour in six years. The group had just released their multi-platinum selling album Monster, and had decided to get behind the record with a tour after having elected not to do so in support of either of the record's predecessors, the band's breakout album Out of Time or its equally successful follow-up, Automatic for the People. With Monster's #1 debut on both the US and UK charts, arenas around the globe were filled to capacity with fans anxious to catch the alt-rock pioneers live.

Two months into the tour, however, at a gig in Lausanne, Switzerland, drummer Bill Berry collapsed on stage from a brain aneurysm that burst. Although he recovered after emergency surgery and rejoined his bandmates within a month to finish out the tour, his brush with death left Berry reassessing his priorities. After much contemplation, Berry decided to leave R.E.M.—a band he helped found in 1980 and who had just begun to hit their stride—to begin a new life as a farmer.

Although his split with R.E.M. in October 1997 was an amicable one, it came just as sessions were due to begin for the band's next album, Up. Lead vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, and bassist Mike Mills all reluctantly agreed to carry on as a group at Berry's request, though they did so with much apprehension. R.E.M. were known as a particularly close unit, with all four members sharing equally in the songwriting. How would they go on without one of their major contributors? Were they still R.E.M. without their drummer and fellow songwriter? "Without Bill it was different, confusing", Mills said. "We didn't know exactly what to do. We couldn't rehearse without a drummer."

R.E.M, now reduced to a trio, entered the studio in February 1998 to cut their new album with ex-Screaming Trees member Barrett Martin and Beck's touring drummer Joey Waronker filling in on drums and percussion. The recording process did not go smoothly, however, and was plagued with enough tension to cause the group to consider disbanding. After an emergency meeting was called for band members to clear the air, they decided to continue on, and Up, their first album without Bill Berry, was released in October 1998. Although the record debuted in the top ten in the US and UK, it didn't have the staying power of their more recent albums and resulted in the band's lowest sales in years.

The past decade and a half have not been easy for R.E.M. Their watershed record, Out of Time (1991), which featured Buck playing mandolin on the single "Losing My Religion," and the follow-up, Automatic for the People (1992), with the monster single "Everybody Hurts," got loads of airplay and made a massive international act out of the cult band. Between the years 1991 and 1994, the group sold an estimated 30 million albums. But R.E.M. have met with mixed critical success over subsequent years and have suffered steadily declining sales, most especially in the US. The albums Reveal (2001), Around the Sun (2004), and Accelerate (2008) all continued the slide that began with New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), the last album the band recorded with Berry.

Last September, in the same Berlin studio where David Bowie and Iggy Pop recorded The Idiot and later where U2 cut Achtung Baby, R.E.M. wrapped up the final sessions for their 15th album, Collapse Into Now. The new album has many declaring a comeback for the band. Rolling Stone calls Collapse "the first truly messy album R.E.M. have made in 10 years" and gave the record four stars, adding that it is "…a portrait of full-grown artists who reached the top long ago but decided to stick together and ride out the decades." Going from the more torpid numbers of Around the Sun to the spikier rockers of Accelerate, R.E.M. have settled somewhere in the middle this time out, reveling in the glow of middle age and embracing their past right down to the return of Buck's mandolin.

The band adopted a brand new approach to writing and recording for Collapse Into Now. Instead of penning a batch of tunes and tracking them in a marathon session, they scheduled sessions in different cities—Berlin, Nashville, New Orleans—with breaks in between to write and rewrite songs. Mills credits the change of scenery and a more relaxed pace for giving the album its ambitious sound. "With Accelerate we were trying to make a point by making the songs as short and as fast as possible … So we wanted this new one to be more expansive. We wanted to put more variety into it and not limit ourselves to any one type of song. There are some really slow, beautiful songs; there are some nice, mid-tempo ones; and then there are three or four rockers."

Part of that expanded sound comes courtesy of the album's guest artists. The 12-track release—produced by Garret "Jacknife" Lee (Snow Patrol, U2)—includes songs like the album's closing track, "Blue," with Patti Smith contributing chant-like vocals, and "Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter," featuring Canadian electronic musician and performance artist Peaches on vocals and Smith's longtime collaborator Lenny Kaye on guitar. Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder also makes an appearance, lending his ecstatic moan to the song "It Happened Today." Other songs include the piano ballad "Walk It Back," the rocking "All The Best" featuring Mills and Michael Stipe sharing lead vocals, and "Everyday Is Yours To Win," which Mills describes as a "slow, beautiful song built around a guitar riff."

Mills told SPIN Magazine that, as opposed to the more political Accelerate, Collapse is a "very personal, very human record. Not only to Michael [Stipe], but personal and human in the sense of the narrative of the songs, the protagonists of the songs." The band feel confident they have a winner on their hands. Speaking to NME Buck said, "I've always tended to not say it's the greatest record we've ever done because that's what everyone does and it's usually bulls**t. But this feels like every song all the way through is great." He added: "I hate to say that, but that's just the feeling. It's got some beautiful, heartbreaking things and well as some really noisy rock and everything in between. It sounds really classic."

Collapse Into Now drops in the UK on March 7 and in the States on March 8. Despite various online rumors that R.E.M. will turn up at one major festival or another this summer, the band insist they will not be touring behind the new release. "We don't tour to prop up records—that's not why we play live music," says Mills. "That's the thing about R.E.M. If we don't feel it, we don't go."