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Michael Stipe Biography

John Michael Stipe (born January 4, 1960) is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer and main lyricist of the alternative rock band R.E.M. from their formation in 1980 until their dissolution in 2011.

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Michael Stipe Quotes

I had to get a driver's license and drive to St. Louis to find the punk-rock scene that was happening there. And there was a punk-rock scene. It was sweet. It was real. It was like everywhere else in the county. It was a handful of people who were feeling the same pull, and, of course, it was like the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer [1964]. Just the freaks, the fags, the fat girls, the unbelievable eccentrics.

Everywhere, Girl, Real, Sweet, Unbelievable

I am not an autobiographical writer. I'll take little elements here and there from things that I've actually experienced-counting eyelashes on a sleeping beauty, for example.

Autobiographical, Beauty, Example, Eyelashes, Sleep, Writer

When we first started, we were a band from Athens and that was so off the map.

Athens, Band, Map, Maps, Ukulele

Anybody that walks can sing.

Walks, Sing

We made part of the record in Miami, and I would go down to the beach, and not 20 feet from the water I see a fish that is at least seven feet long swimming close to the shore. I did not go back in the ocean the entire month.

Beach, Down, Month, Ocean, Swimming

I'm not homosexual, I'm not hetrosexual, I'm just sexual.

Hetrosexual, Homosexual, Music, Sexual

Our generation was supposed to be about trying to deal with nuclear concerns and environmental disasters.

Disasters, Environmental, Our Generation, Supposed, Trying

There tend to be two different drives that lead young people toward music. One is that music provides an escape; it takes you away from the unhappiness or torture of where you are and makes you feel less alienated-you believe there is a place you fit in somewhere else. The other is a sort of transcendent, spiritual feeling in the purity of music.

Spiritual, Believe, Somewhere Else, Unhappiness, Young

By the time I was 18, I had absorbed punk rock from America, Britain, and the West Coast. All of it was so dark and weird and different and cool and hot and sexy and rebellious. It was a fist-in-the-air kind of rebellion that I wasn't getting from the '70s mainstream.

Absorbed, America, Dark, Rebellion, Sexy

There are people that very strongly identify themselves as gay and then lesbian, and then I think there are a lot of people who are kind of some percentage or some version of that.

Gay, Lesbian, People, Percentage, Thinking, Version

So, we just kind of created our own thing and that's part of the beauty of Athens: is that it's so off the map and there's no way you could ever be the East Village or an L. A. scene or a San Francisco scene, that it just became its own thing.

Beauty, East, San Francisco, Scene, Thing, Village

But I think the one thing that I can say about us is that we're very consistent about certain things and part of that is our desire to do the very best work that we can and not rest on our laurels, or not allow formula to come into what we do.

Desire, Laurels, Part, Think, Thinking

Super casual music listeners. That's most of the people in the world. And you have to understand, that's why Top 40 radio exists. It's not there for people who seek out music and who love music.

People, World, Radio, Casual, Seek, Understand

The whole point of the punk-rock thing was that "We're not special. We just have a voice. "

Point, Rocks, Special, Thing, Voice, Whole

I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself.

Period, Periods, Reading, Seeing, Tired

I came to New York for the first time with Peter Buck at age 19. We spent a week living out of a van on the street in front of a club in the West 60s called Hurrah. It's where Pylon played. I saw Klaus Nomi play there. And Michael Gira's band before he did Swans-they all wore cowboy boots and were so cool and had great hair. I was so jealous.

Cowboy, Hair, Jealous, Living, New York, Play

I started lip-synching with "Losing My Religion. " There were a few horrendous mistakes we made, but I own those mistakes. I'm embarrassed by them. I always say when I look back at anything I've ever done, it's with equal dollops of humiliation and triumphant glory.

Done, Humiliation, Look, Looks, Mistake, Religion

Anything you do as a group is fraught with compromise. . . But everyone 's got to do that, right? It's part of being a good parent, or a good boyfriend, whatever.

Compromise, Everyone, Fraught, Good Parent, Parent

Once I reached my 40s, I thought to myself that if I'm going to play live now, I need to really mean this. I can't go out and be a little bit, for one moment slovenly in my choices as a performer. I mean, these people have paid a lot of money to be here, they've been through the nightmare of getting here, starving themselves waiting for us to get on stage, so I'm going to give them what they came here for.

Giving, Mean, People, Performer, Play, Reached

When I get really hammered I take my clothes off. That's a sure sign. It's been a long time since the last time I did that. Probably a year.

Clothes, Long, Sign, Time, Year, Years

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Michael Stipe Biography

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