Michael Stipe
John Michael Stipe (born
January 4,
1960 in
Decatur, Georgia) is the founding member, lead singer and creative head of the
American rock band
R.E.M. Stipe has become well-known (and occasionally parodied) for the "mumbling" style of his early career and for his complex,
surreal lyrics, as well as his social and political
activism. Stipe and the other members of R.E.M. have become godfathers of
alternative rock and are perhaps the first such band to achieve mainstream success.
Stipe met
Peter Buck,
Bill Berry and
Mike Mills in
1980 (see
1980 in music) while studying
photography and
painting at the
University of Georgia. They formed R.E.M. that year and issued their debut single, "
Radio Free Europe", on
Hib-Tone. The song was a
college radio success and the band signed to
I.R.S. Records for the release of the
Chronic Town EP one year later. Beginning with
1983's
Murmur (see
1983 in music), R.E.M. released a series of critically acclaimed albums with a wide variety of mainstream success. A few hit singles and growing visibility as a social activist eventually made Stipe a star and also earned him a devoted fanbase. The late
River Phoenix was among his friends, and 1994's
Monster had the dedication "For River" in the liner notes. The late singer of
Nirvana,
Kurt Cobain, was also one of his close friends. According to Stipe, they planned a collaboration project, but didn't manage to compose or record anything before Cobain died. He is also godfather of Kurt Cobain and
Courtney Love's daughter,
Frances Bean Cobain.
Stipe and the other band members are also friendly with the members of
Radiohead. On Radiohead's 2003 tour, Stipe occasionally sang lead vocals on the song 'Lucky'. Likewise, Radiohead frontman
Thom Yorke appeared at a few R.E.M. shows, singing the backing vocals on "
E-Bow the Letter". Yorke credits Stipe of being an integral part in his personal life as he helped him deal with depression issues in the late '90s.
In
1998, Stipe published a collection called
Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith and worked on
Single Cell, a
film production company which released several arthouse / indie movies (
Velvet Goldmine, starring
Ewan McGregor, as well as
Being John Malkovich,
American Movie in
1999,
American Psycho in
2000 and
Saved! in
2004). The company as a whole recently purchased the rights to Canadian author
Douglas Coupland's
All Families are Psychotic and is considering it as a film.
In a
2001 Newsweek interview Stipe described himself as a "
queer artist". In previous interviews he has described himself as "an equal opportunity lech" and said he doesn't define himself as
gay,
straight or
bisexual, but that he was attracted to and had relationships with both men and women [
1]. Stipe was once very close to fellow singer
Natalie Merchant and has recorded a few songs with her, including one entitled "Photograph" which appeared on a
pro-choice benefit album entitled
Born to Choose.
He wrote
haikus for a book published by Soft Skull Press called
The Haiku Year.
In 2006, Stipe, in collaboration with
Coldplay's Chris Martin, released a solo cover version of
Joseph Arthur's "In the Sun" for the
Hurricane Katrina disaster relief. It reached number one on the Canadian Singles Chart. [
2] Also in 2006, Stipe appeared on the song "Broken Promise" on the
Placebo release
Meds.
For releases with R.E.M., see R.E.M. discographySingles
*
2006 "In the Sun" [with Chris Martin], #1 (Canada)
