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How R.E.M. Rock Got To Interview Mike.

An article by me, Emma.

Back in the midst of time (well, last year at least) I had a crazy idea. My favourite band of all time, R.E.M. had made it known that they were touring in the year to come. My first thought was “I’m going!”. My second thought, can I interview them for a website that I had contributed to for a long time, R.E.M. Rock. Everybody that I talked to told me that it would be a cold day in hell before they let some crackpot like me interview a band as big as R.E.M., so as Christmas approached and I became busy at work (I have worked in pubs for 8 years, Christmas is our busiest time of the year, in short, it’s hell!) I pushed the notion of an interview out of my mind and just continued on with everyday life.

January came around. I got another year older and again the idea of an interview came up. So this time I decided to do a bit of investigating. What would I have to do? Who would I have to get in touch with? Would the idea ever be entertained in the first place? I had been promoted from moderator to admin staff at R.E.M. Rock. So I got serious. “Craig,” shouted I, “Help me out here.” The elusive Dr Craig Lawson got back to me with a number he had for a gentleman called David Bell who works as part of the staff at R.E.M.’s offices in Athens, Georgia. One Friday afternoon (after many promises that I would pay for the phone call) I called the number that I had been given. I was nervous as I dialled the number. I needn’t have been. The number, I was told, had been disconnected and was no longer in use. A bit downhearted but certainly not defeated, I emailed another contact of mine. Tim Abbot. Author, along with Rob Jovanovic, of “Adventures In Hi-Fi: The Complete R.E.M.” He had been at the offices to research the book and knew the staff there. So the email I sent, which basically said “I want to make this work, help me!” was forwarded to David Bell. A few days later I got a reply, and this is how it went...

Good news, David Bell has been in touch and has asked me to pass a message onto you:

“Please let Emma Savage know that Mike will be happy to speak with her for 15 minutes prior to the Nottingham show this July.”

I was given the email address to get in touch with and Tim said that he was happy to help. It was a good ten minutes that I was staring at the screen. It was a good fifteen minutes until I picked my jaw up off the floor. Now, anybody who knows me personally will tell you that I am highly excitable and hyperactive. Well, I was pinging off the walls. Jumping up and down, shouting at the top of my lungs, you name it and I was doing it! I also garnered complaints from the neighbours who threatened to sabotage the broadband system!

After calming down and making phone calls to my friends and sending emails to others, I sent my details to David Bell. The aim was to have users of R.E.M. Rock to pose questions that could be asked to Mike. And I tell you that there was no shortage of questions. There were fifty plus questions posed on the serious thread and about twelve questions posted on the fun question thread. In the time between the interview being granted and the middle of June we worked to whittle down the questions to a level that we could manage in the given time.

We compiled a short list that is available here on this forum and these were the questions that were voted for by the users of R.E.M. Rock. So patiently, we waited for July 6th.

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The day came. I awoke early. What did I feel?

Excitement. Apprehension. Nervousness. The feeling of “Are we actually going to pull this off?”

Now, you have to understand that I had been an R.E.M. fan since I was 15. That’s twelve years. I know it sounds ridiculous but there are certain people that I place on a platform that should never be reached. The band were on one of those platforms. That platform was gone. I also told myself that Michael, Peter and Mike were just ordinary people doing an extraordinary job to pay their bills, one that involved letting many people into their lives. I checked my email on the morning and I had not heard from David about when the interview was going to be. I was getting worried. After going about my morning business, I went round to my friend’s house, who was driving us to Nottingham. We departed. I got very excited in the car about the success of the Olympic bid and then we got to Nottingham. And then we got lost. If you have ever tried parking in Nottingham, you will know what a nightmare it is. Heidi, my friend, crashed the car twice on the way into the Broadmarsh Centre Car Park and has some lovely yellow marks on her nice burgundy car! We had lunch and then endeavoured to find a computer. David still hadn’t got in touch. So, I thought, the interview’s off (I also have a tendency to get downhearted really quickly).

We went to the pub, one I know because I drink in there when we go and see Nottingham Forest play football. It was here that I met Craig and his friend Tony. Craig and me had not met before so we had a chat. And then I got voicemail. It was David. Can I ring a fellow called Brian Orloff and he would take us to meet Mike. After I got the number wrong and called some poor unsuspecting woman three times, I finally managed to get hold of Brian. He said that he would ring me back when they arrived.

My friends departed to take their seats to watch Idlewild. Craig’s friend departed when we got the call. On the way round to the backstage area, I asked Craig if he initially thought I could pull it off. He said that he had ten- percent faith in me. Ha!! Pure persistence and being a pain in the neck pays off sometimes! We found Brian (in a nice purple shirt) and he took us through. As we waited to go into the trailer to talk to Mike, Peter walked out. And then we met Bertis, who knew who were and jokingly asked if we were from the Radiohead website. We were given the go ahead and we went in to meet Mike. The interview accompanies this article. Mike was very nice and answered all the questions we posed and signed our tour programmes too. Brian took them away and when we bought them back, they were signed by Peter and Michael too! We had a picture taken, also posted here. And then we went.

The gig was fantastic. I shouted, danced and screamed. I also got drunk!

R.E.M. Rock would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people - Tim Abbot, David Bell, Brian Orloff, Bertis Downs and, of course, Mike Mills. And also to all the users of R.E.M. Rock.

And one last thing - We want the hat trick now!

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