Bill and Mike were obviously the most experienced musicians in the group; both halves of the rhythm section were conversant enough with other instruments to double on keyboard or vibes parts when needed. “Bill and Mike were more conventional musicians—they’d been in bands that played ‘Whipping Post,’ ” the Allman Brothers’ epic blues jam. But what really impressed Easter was how easily the conventional musicians worked with the less experienced, and quirky, bandmates in their midst. “When I listen to those records now, it’s great how much oddness there is in Michael, and he was as confident of his place in the band as anyone. I remember all of them being really confident in a really jolly way. They didn’t have a hierarchy in the band, and they had fantastic respect for each other, which is remarkable. They were also quite young, and a lot of young people aren’t that nice. Their egos get in the way. But these guys were emotionally mature.”[2]

  * * *

  —

  When the recording was done, they dubbed the tracks onto a hundred or so cassettes, put them into cases they’d hand-decorated over the usual credits and contact information and the hopefully intriguing instruction Do Not Open, and shotgunned them to club owners, bookers, and music writers in key cities around the nation. Meanwhile, word of the up-and-coming band had found its way to Jonny Hibbert, an Atlanta musician (lead singer of a band called the Incredible Throbs) who had recently traded the stage for law school. But Hibbert still had a hankering for the music business, and with an eye toward starting his own record company he had asked a friend who knew the Athens scene if there were any other bands that might follow the arc of the B-52’s, from nowheresville to the upper reaches of the record charts. She told him about R.E.M., a band she said was really tearing it up, and at some point in the winter of 1981 Hibbert drove up to the university town to catch a show at Tyrone’s. Impressed by what he saw, he came back to see them again early in the spring and introduced himself to the band after their set. They remembered the Incredible Throbs, Hibbert says, and were excited he’d come to see them. They were even more delighted to hear his offer to record and release a single for them. “They expressed a lot of admiration and enthusiasm,” he says, “so it was on.”[3]

  The single, the first to be released on what Hibbert called Hib-Tone Records, would feature “Radio Free Europe” on the A-side and “Sitting Still” on the flip. Feeling like he had an ear for these things, Hibbert drove up to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to enhance and remix “Radio Free Europe” for commercial release. The extent of his influence on the finished release depends on whose version of events resonates with you the most, but what was inarguable was that the deal they put together traded Hibbert’s expenses and labor for ownership not just of the songs’ master recordings but also their publishing rights. Bertis Downs didn’t like this one bit: he knew where the real money in rock ’n’ roll was. But Peter, Michael, Mike, and Bill were happy to make that trade. Hey, they’d already written a lot of songs, and they were writing more and better songs all the time. If they had to give these two up to get themselves to the next level of the music business, to be a band that had a record out, that was a sacrifice they were willing to make.

  The Hib-Tone release of “Radio Free Europe” came out in late July.

  14

  Lots of Impressive First-Time Songs

  At home in Athens, Peter practiced with obsessive focus. Hour after hour after hour. Guitar in his lap, the familiar weight across his thighs, the strings digging into his fingertips. “My brother [John] lived upstairs from him at 169 Barber Street, and I remember hearing Pete playing,” Sam Seawright, who studied art at UGA, says. “He’d have a record and you could hear him pick the needle up and he’d play it over and over and over. Learning riffs and stuff off of records.”[1] Teasing it out in slow motion at first, tracking down the notes on the fretboard. The shape of the chords, the way they slid together. First the left hand, the melody and the chords, and then the right hand, the rhythm of the strumming and picking. He’d stop, listen again, stop the record, and then play some more. Listen and play. Listen again, then play. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

  “I’d hear him painstakingly learning riffs,” says photographer Terry Allen, who lived in another one of the apartments in the house. “Playing the record, pausing it, trying to play it, putting the record back on, over and over and over again.”[2]

  * * *

  —

  When Peter talked about it in public, he made it all sound like an accident. He hadn’t set out to be in a band; he just met a guy who was also into music, and then they met these other guys who were into playing music, and they all started playing together because there was nothing else to do. Another friend asked them to play at her party and one thing led to another and it was still just because they were friends who all liked music and were living in a boring town where you had to make your own entertainment.

  “This is the first band I’ve been in,” Peter told one reporter a few years later. “When the band started I knew about five chords and a Chuck Berry lick. I didn’t even know bar chords.”[3] This was, at best, only partially true. By 1980 Peter had been playing for nearly a decade, and if he hadn’t made himself into a sizzle-fingered soloist in the Clapton-Page mode, it was because he had a whole other idea. The rock ’n’ roll stage was swarmed with aspiring guitar heroes, all twisting their faces into pained rictuses of concentration as they squeezed epic runs out of their Strats and Les Pauls. Peter was much more interested in writing songs, particularly ones that emphasized texture and feel, and the interplay of a dynamic ensemble.

  * * *

  —

  For Peter, being a part of a band was more compelling than being the star of one. He’d always been too stubborn an individual to join things—teams, clubs, any kind of student groups. But the joint identity that came with being in a band called to him. The threads of rebellion and connection, of joining with friends to take over the world, or at least a small part of it, had captivated him since he was a kid, his bedside table stacked high with the books and magazines that told the stories behind all the records that mattered to him. Hunter Davies’s authorized biography of the Beatles; Robert Greenfield’s STP (Stones Touring Party), about the Rolling Stones’ 1972 tour of America; Nobody Here Gets Out Alive, the biography of Jim Morrison. Rolling Stone, Creem, and the other music journals reported on all those acts and dozens, hundreds, of others.[4] All of the backstage stories and in-studio accounts, the road journals. How the bands came together, how they found their shared voice, working their way from the basement or someone’s garage to neighborhood clubs, talent shows, and the barroom circuit. How they wrote songs, got recording contracts, and went into the studio to craft their first records. How they took their new sounds on the road, playing bars, showrooms, and theaters, and finally into the cavernous concrete palaces, the arenas and stadiums where it all became triumphant, then surreal, then dangerous and, almost inevitably, deadly.

  One article about Jefferson Starship made an impact. After the revived ’60s band had a surprise number three hit with the single “Miracles” in 1975, and the song lifted their album Red Octopus to the top of the charts, their drummer took note of the songwriting royalties his bandmates were collecting and demanded that the next album include some of his tunes. The conflict added to the tension in the already fraught band, which started shedding members soon after. As Peter noted in his reading, that sort of disagreement happened again and again with rock bands. And it seemed so ridiculous to put a band together and do all the work it took to create a unique sound, build a following, and score a hit, only to let such an obvious and predictable argument blow it apart.

  Not many young musicians thought that far ahead. But this was the sort of thing that spun through Peter’s mind while he listened to his records and ran his fingers up and down the frets of his guitar. All four of the guys in the band were writing songs, or coming up with riffs and chord progressions that could be made into songs. So far it’d been an easygoing process: the initial discovery of their collective voice had been so exciting, and the stakes of ownership so small, they didn’t have to establish who had written what. Which meant they hadn’t even started to consider how they’d divide songwriting credits, and royalties, if they started making records. But then they recorded a few songs, the deal with Jonny Hibbert came up, and suddenly they were making records. One, at least, and they needed to establish who had written it. Then Bertis Downs, who was still shaking his head over the band’s agreeing to give Hibbert the publishing rights to “Radio Free Europe” and “Sitting Still” in exchange for putting out the record, suggested they get ahead of the game by establishing their own publishing company and, while they were at it, incorporating the band. The musicians thought it was absurd. Did they really need to jump through so many hoops to protect the little wads of cash they were collecting from Tyrone’s or the 688 or wherever else they played? But Downs was firm, and convincing. He wasn’t going to charge them anything; he just wanted to make sure nobody else was in a position to screw them over.

  Meanwhile, Peter had another idea: to keep themselves from fighting and breaking up the way so many other bands had, they should agree now to divide all the credit and money for their work in equal shares. All original songs produced by R.E.M. would be credited to Berry-Buck-Mills-Stipe, no matter who was responsible for how much of an individual song’s creation. All of the band’s proceeds should also be divided equally, but into fifths, with Jefferson Holt receiving 20 percent for his contributions. The four musicians voted; all agreed. R.E.M. would be a confederation of equals: all for one, one for all.

  * * *

  —

  A couple of months after his meeting with Don Braxley at Paragon in Macon, Bill called Ian Copeland in New York, where he was launching Frontier Booking International (FBI), his own booking agency. They caught up for a bit, and Bill got to what seemed to be the point of his call. The Police, the British trio managed by Copeland’s brother Miles and booked by Ian, were coming to Atlanta’s Fox Theatre in December. Could Bill get on the pass list for the show, and bring his buddy Mike Mills, too? Of course; not a problem. Oh, and had Ian heard that he and Mike were playing in a band in Athens now? Bill gave him the whole rundown: how they’d started at a party or two, moved into Athens bars, then Atlanta, and then played up in North Carolina and a couple of nights in Nashville. And they were doing well, too…especially in Athens, where they actually played to packed houses. And they even had a manager now. Copeland had always liked Bill; beneath that mighty dark brow and laconic sense of humor thumped the heart of a go-getter. Even as a teenage office boy, Bill had kept his eyes open and gotten the details right. He wasn’t a bullshitter: if he said his band was tearing it up down there, Copeland didn’t doubt it. With the Police’s itinerary in front of him, he had an idea. Original openers XTC couldn’t make the tour, so now they didn’t have an opener for Atlanta. Why didn’t Bill’s band take the slot? Bill’s initial surprise—Really? Seriously?—gave way to certainty. He didn’t have to run it by the others. Of course they’d do it.[5]

  It was a huge break. And yet R.E.M.’s first theater show, in front of a sold-out crowd of four thousand at the Fox Theatre, was a mixed bag. Accustomed to the confines of a nightclub, Michael didn’t know how, or if, to address whoever was watching from the back, or off in the balconies, somewhere in the blackness above them. But as Copeland noted, the songs had a propulsive energy that drew the crowd in and kept them engaged throughout the set. Michael had good instincts as a performer, and even if he infuriated the promoter by inviting the crowd to join the band onstage for their final song, Copeland’s congratulations afterward were heartfelt. Bill kept the agent apprised of the band’s progress during the first months of 1981, and when Gang of Four needed an opening act for a half dozen East Coast dates in the late spring, including two showcase shows at the Ritz in New York City, the agent invited R.E.M. to join the tour.

  All through the winter and spring, the band gained momentum. They were still playing the loop they’d established in the college towns of Georgia and North Carolina, with occasional jaunts to Tennessee, but the bookings were coming at an ever-increasing pace, usually at a clip of about three or four a week. The three-song sampler cassettes had gone out earlier in the spring, with their Do Not Open instruction on the box, targeting club owners, college radio programmers, and some journalists. Most of the results were hard to quantify, but the entire project paid off just before they got to New York, in the form of a brief note in the music column of Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, who recommended their upcoming appearance at the Ritz by mentioning the young Georgia band had been “sending out a tape with lots of impressive first time songs on it.”[6]

  Ian Copeland saw the column—the musicians made sure he didn’t miss it—and it primed him for an opening set that got his heart thumping. The band he saw at the Ritz, performing in more intimate surroundings with an additional six months of experience and a set full of newer, better songs, solidified his confidence in Bill and his band. The foursome still had rough edges, but they played with a strength and confidence that made it sound raw and thrilling. After the set he came back to the dressing room and made his offer. FBI didn’t ordinarily work with bands that didn’t have record company deals, but Copeland could sense that it was just a matter of time for R.E.M., and besides, they were already good enough for him to sign now. The four musicians were thrilled.

  Holt was already thinking of the next step. Ian’s brother Miles was fast establishing his independent label I.R.S. Records, whose roster included a litany of leading indie and punk bands, including the Go-Go’s, the Damned, the Stranglers, the Cramps, and John Cale. Could he help them get set up with Miles? Ian couldn’t make any promises.

  * * *

  —

  Just a few weeks later, the single of “Radio Free Europe,” with “Sitting Still” on its B-side, was officially released by Hib-Tone Records. Hibbert pressed a few thousand, many of which he sent as promotional copies to radio programmers, and especially to the college stations that had the youth and the progressive ears to give a listen to a band nobody had heard of from a town nobody had heard of on a label nobody had heard of. But they were college kids too, playing music that would resonate with their generational cohort.

  Hibbert was heading into his final year in law school, working two jobs to keep himself afloat. As he recalls, he passed his late nights and early mornings doing publicity for the record, taking advantage of the low overnight rates to dial the studio lines of the college stations he knew had received copies of R.E.M.’s premiere single. “I’d get ’em on the phone and ask if they’d heard the new R.E.M. record,” Hibbert says. “I’d say, ‘I know it’s in the stack, go dig it up. All I’m asking is that you play it for yourself, and if you like it put it on the air. I’ll call you back in ten or fifteen minutes.” He’d keep an eye on his watch, then call back as promised. “And they’d say, ‘Oh, man, it’s on the air and I’m getting phone calls!’ And it’d be like 2:30 or 3 a.m. on college campuses all over the country.”

  As they would learn a few months later, “Radio Free Europe” wasn’t just getting noticed on college campuses. In Minneapolis, Peter Jesperson, who managed the Oar Folkjokeopus record store, on Lyndale Avenue, picked it up the moment R.E.M.’s disc had its turn among all the new indie singles he was auditioning in the store. “I remember two or three of us listening to the Hib-Tone record and we lit up instantly. That snappy drumbeat, and the chiming guitar, and the fact that you couldn’t figure out what the fuck he was singing made it all the more intriguing. And we went bananas.” Jesperson ordered a dozen copies and was both chagrined and intrigued to see them all bought up by his staffers. He had another twenty-five shipped in and, with the single on heavy rotation on the store’s sound system, sold them all in a day and a half. With a large clientele of outsider types who came in specifically to find records they would never hear on the radio, Jespersen’s store was, he recalls, part clubhouse and part radio station. “People would come in and say, ‘What’s good and new?’ and you’d put the needle on the R.E.M. single and it was like, boing, sold.”[7]

  Robert Palmer of The New York Times had the same reaction. When the newspaper of record printed his selections of the year’s best releases on December 30, the daily’s chief pop critic’s list included the latest albums by X, the Rolling Stones, David Byrne, and Rickie Lee Jones, along with singles by Prince, Yoko Ono, Chic, and Grandmaster Flash. And the tenth best single of the year, Palmer decreed, was the one he listed as “Sitting Still”/“Radio Free Europe,” by R.E.M.

  15

  Wolves Out the Door

  The beast slips through the darkness, light on its paws, muscles taut but pliant. His ears twitch, his nose sifts the loam and the leaf, seeking, always seeking. The wolf in the night, wild with appetite and wily in his hunt. He knows what he’s after, just as he knows what’s after him.

  Suspicion yourself, suspicion yourself, don’t get caught.

  The words are oblique, the action just beyond the edge of the frame. What isn’t said comes through clearly in the whirling guitar and the skittering heartbeat of the drums, in the thrumming bass and the sinister edge in the voice. Wilder, lower wolves, he sings from deep in his chest. Wolves out the door.

  Or maybe it’s wolves at the door. The confusion is both minor and, in a way, crucial to the narrative. The elusiveness. The not knowing. “Wolves, Lower,” a new song that emerged in the midst of a long haul of dates in the fall of 1981, and in the immediate wake of a short run through New York, describes the fangs of desire through the perspective of both the predator and the predated. Maybe they’re one and the same.