But we’re very much an American band and that’s that. I think that’s part of the appeal outside of this country and it might be part of the reason people turned away from us within this country, because familiarity breeds contempt. Michael Stipe Read Quote
I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself. Michael Stipe Read Quote
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. Michael Stipe Read Quote
My iPod that was programmed by Peter Buck. It has 7,000 songs hand-picked for me by him. Michael Stipe Read Quote
Because the casual music listeners are the ones who turn on the radio and they don’t really care what’s playing, they just know that they kinda like it or it’s easy to drive to or it’s easy to sing along to or whatever. Michael Stipe Read Quote
So, when you divide the world into music lovers, music fans and then those people who are just very casual about their music, it’s wallpaper to them, it’s elevator music, it’s just the thing that’s playing in the background that helps them through their day. Michael Stipe Read Quote
When we first started, we were a band from Athens and that was so off the map. Michael Stipe Read Quote
So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we’re kind of an international phenomenon. Michael Stipe Read Quote
On planes I always cry. Something about altitude, the lack of oxygen and the bad movies. I cried over a St. Bernard movie once on a plane. That was really embarrassing. Michael Stipe Read Quote
