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This is later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you

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here weekday afternoon is on the Drive. John Hunter, Good morning, Good

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morning. John Hunter has witnessed firsthands
the major events of r EM's career in

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the larger Athens music scene during the
second half of the nineteen eighties, and

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he has written all about it in
what is called the most comprehensive biography of

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the band. R EM Maps and
legends the story of R E. M.

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John, Let's go back to that
music scene in Athens, Georgia and

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the first time you heard r EM. Our first heard RM when I was

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at seen Andrew, Raleigh, North
Carolina. I grew up there in the

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nineteen seventies and nineteen nineties, and
IRM got played on the local station w

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QDR FM and Raleigh back then because
they had North Carolina connections that had recorded

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Murmur and Reckoning in Charlotte and say, they were getting some mainstream radio airplay

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and part of them for the first
time on the radio. Was it one

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of those late night hey boys and
girls, I get these new cats you're

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going to really dig? No,
it wasn't. Actually, w TDR was

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a really cool kind of a free
form progressive FM station, you know,

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like in the glory days of broadcasting. I grew up in the seventies obsessively

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listening to them, and you know, they were the kind of station that

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would play at whole album side by
yes or whatever. And they were playing

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RM you know, all day in
the regular rotation. Like I said,

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there was this connection where IM had
recorded in North Carolina. They played in

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North Carolina lot, so they were
getting mainstream airplay and Raleigh very early on,

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were they. But they were doing
their live stuff in and around Athens.

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They were, as I said,
their first shot outside of Athens was

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in North Carolina and there they came
up and sport in North Carolina all the

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time pretty regularly. And when was
the first time you saw them? I

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saw them in September of nineteen eighty
four Page Auditorium at Deke University. Have

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They had the DBS, a North
Carolina band opening up for them. This

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would have been on the Little America
tour behind the album Reckoning, and it

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was a pretty incredible concert. Was
this one of those things where you had

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to wait in line for a while
with other locals or did you have to

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sneak in the back. Now this
was a you know, an auditorium.

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I think there was a two or
two thousand or three thousand seat venue.

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I think we just bought tickets to
the record bar or the record store.

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I did sneak into a lot of
clubs to see bands like Black Frog in

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her placens in clubs, but this
was just an ordinary ticketed concert. What

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do you think set them apart from
the other sounds at the time, John

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Hunter, Well, as I write
in the book, I think they had

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that chemistry, that four person chemistry
where the whole was greater than the son

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of the parts that the Beatles had, and that every great band has I

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mentioned that compared to say some of
their peers, like the Connells of the

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Replacements, who had one chief songwriter
who was a great songwriter, Mike n

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Al Paul westerbarg r Em. All
four members were involved, and I think

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there was strength in numbers there and
also just kind of their great chrismo.

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All the members were strong personalities,
and I think that played a part in

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their popularity. Speaking of their writing, and we're talking to John Hunter,

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who is the author of the book
Maps and Legends, The Story of Rim

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the most comprehensive of biography so far
of ri em. What is it about

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the imagery that is in their writings? It seems like they usually start with

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a good poem and then go from
there. Well, I guess in a

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huge controversy about them back in the
data where people took sides would be that

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Michael Start's lyrics were difficult to understand
at first, and that was a huge

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talking point about them. You know, some people hated that, some people

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loved it. I think though,
that the fact that perhaps not everyone can

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understand all the words allowed the listener
to add his or her own meaning to

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the words or what he or she
thought the lyrics were, and that was

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a powerful thing in some ways.
You know, every every person maybe had

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sort of a slightly different connection to
what they thought the song was about,

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and that turned out to be a
pretty powerful thing. A lot of bands

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that start out at this or that
did start out at this time, we're

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starting out at You had to either
be a dance band or a listening band,

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but Rim seemed to seem to be
both. Yes, you know,

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as I write in the book,
I remember when I first heard Murmur in

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nineteen eighty three, I thought,
well, this is the weirdest, artiest

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thing I've ever heard, because I've
been listening to like Tom Petty, Foreigner,

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the Pretenders. Yeah, you know, great bands, but that was

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what was on the radio at the
time, and rim did struck me as

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a listening band. I was just
a little too young to hear the early

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days and happens though, Whereas he
said, they were a dance band,

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you know, they started on as
a band who packed the dance floor,

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and then somehow along the way they
converted into the band that made Murmur,

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which is very much a listening record. I think a lot of theirs is

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I well, I was. I
was going to say, that's all right,

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now there's a digital digital delay we
all have to get used to here,

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and it's it always kind of it's
always kind of funky. I was

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gonna say. I remember the first
time I heard them, and I was

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listening to my competitor at the time. I was at a light rock station

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and my competitor was a top forty
station, And right away I said to

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myself, Okay, this is the
different sound people have been looking for.

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For sure, I would agree with
that. I think another thing I touched

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on in the book, is that
you know, at that time, the

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earlier eddies, there was what some
people called the Second British Invasion, where

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you had all of these British artists
like Culture Club and Human League and Depeche

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Mode and a lot of synthesizer bands
and and I like their records, but

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I think there was sort of a
hunger at that time for from some people

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for returns to guitars and kind of
a sixty sound and an American band.

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And I think a Yan filled that
need very well where people are getting a

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little tired of maybe the Human League
or Flock of Seagulls or music like that.

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Well, and I was in I
was actually I was working in I

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was in college at the time,
and I was in at late seventies early

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eighties groove, and I thought,
well, this sounds unlike anything I've ever

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heard. It's a little folk,
it's a little jazz, it's a little

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rock, and the lyrics have meaning
yes out of great And then I think,

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you know another thing about this success
is they just tour it say,

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relentlessly, wherever you live now.
I was in North Carolina. They played

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there by the year and if he
were in Chicago or Minneapolis or Lincoln,

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Nebraska. You know they came into
your town and played every year. That

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really worked hard. Well, that's
what it takes, I think, to

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make it in the music business.
And maps and Legends The Story of R.

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E. M. By John Hunter. It's out now everywhere you get

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books. And thank you for joining
us today. Thank you so much.

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Thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and

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remember to listen to The Drive live
day afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation