Mike Mills

This article is about Mike Mills, the R.E.M. bassist. For the director/graphic designer, see Mike Mills (director).

Michael Edward Mills is the bass player of the band R.E.M.He was born on December 17, 1958, in Orange County, California, to Frank and Adora, but moved with his family to Macon, Georgia in the early '60s. The son of a dramatic tenor and a piano teacher, he developed a love of music at an early age. He met and formed a band with drummer friend Bill Berry in high school (the two were arch-enemies for a while during grade school). They met Peter Buck and Michael Stipe after starting at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Though known primarily as a bassist and piano player, his musical repertoire includes many other keyboard, string, wind and percussion instruments.

He is responsible for the songwriting behind some of R.E.M.'s most respected songs, including "Find the River", "At My Most Beautiful", "Why Not Smile", "Let Me In", "Wendell Gee", "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville", "Beat a Drum", "Be Mine", "New Test Leper" and "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?". In addition to providing backing melodies, he has also sung lead vocals on "Texarkana", "Near Wild Heaven", "Superman" and "Love Is All Around" (a Troggs cover).

Mills is also known for his collection of Nudie suits that he often wears on stage.

Recent album Around the Sun was received with huge media criticism. Mike Mills' influence was arguably greater on that album than ever before, with his piano lines and keyboards coming to the fore far more than the guitar playing of Peter Buck. His background vocals have become increasingly mixed into the background, and this has been the case since 2003's "Animal". Some would suggest that Buck's songwriting may be somewhat diluted in R.E.M., and that he focuses greatly on various side projects, leaving Mills to write more than ever.

Trivia

*Mills was arrested for indecent exposure in Athens in the early 1980s, known in R.E.M. lore as "the watertower incident".
*Mills was responsible for toning down the lyrics of the song "Welcome to the Occupation." Stipe's original lyric was "Hang your freedom fighter" which, given the Reagan administration's active support for the contra "freedom fighters" in Nicaragua, sounded very violent and militant. Mills' objection led the line to be changed to "hang your freedom higher."
*On June 30, 1999, at the Wuhlheide in Berlin, Germany, Cerys Matthews from support band Catatonia, rushed onstage and kissed Mills full on the lips, leaving the bassist "rather shocked". Matthews later apologized to him and the band, citing several bottles of wine as the reason for her actions.
*Mills' father, Frank, died on September 25, 2001. A singer whose appearances included The Ed Sullivan Show, he had recently retired to Lake Oconee in Greene County, reported Online Athens at the time. In addition to singing, Mr. Mills had been a pilot for the U.S. Marine Corps. He was laid to rest four days later at the First Methodist Church of Greensboro, Georgia. Bill Berry was among the pallbearers.
*Mills has one son, Julian, who was born in 1989. He introduced him during a show at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, Colorado, in 1999.
* In late 2003, Mills briefly joined the "Tell Us the Truth" tour, an anti-war, anti-Bush administration collaboration with Tom Morello (guitarist for Audio Slave and Rage Against the Machine, who, like Mills, did a solo acoustic set), Jill Sobule, Steve Earle,Janeane Garofalo, Billy Bragg, and others.
*In April of 2006 Mills was placed at #7 in a list of "100 Unsexiest Men in the World" by the The Phoenix, a Boston area newspaper.
*Mills guest-starred alongside Michael Stipe and Peter Buck in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer the Moe."
*In February of 2005, Mills fell ill with an ear infection moments before beginning a concert in Sheffield, England. Noted as a mild-mannered individual, his doctor reportedly remarked to him, jokingly, during his stay at the hospital, "you call yourself a rock star? You've been here three nights and you haven't smashed your room up yet!"