This is later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you
here weekday afternoon is on the Drive. John Hunter, Good morning, Good
morning. John Hunter has witnessed firsthands the major events of r EM's career in
the larger Athens music scene during the second half of the nineteen eighties, and
he has written all about it in what is called the most comprehensive biography of
the band. R EM Maps and legends the story of R E. M.
John, Let's go back to that music scene in Athens, Georgia and
the first time you heard r EM. Our first heard RM when I was
at seen Andrew, Raleigh, North Carolina. I grew up there in the
nineteen seventies and nineteen nineties, and IRM got played on the local station w
QDR FM and Raleigh back then because they had North Carolina connections that had recorded
Murmur and Reckoning in Charlotte and say, they were getting some mainstream radio airplay
and part of them for the first time on the radio. Was it one
of those late night hey boys and girls, I get these new cats you're
going to really dig? No, it wasn't. Actually, w TDR was
a really cool kind of a free form progressive FM station, you know,
like in the glory days of broadcasting. I grew up in the seventies obsessively
listening to them, and you know, they were the kind of station that
would play at whole album side by yes or whatever. And they were playing
RM you know, all day in the regular rotation. Like I said,
there was this connection where IM had recorded in North Carolina. They played in
North Carolina lot, so they were getting mainstream airplay and Raleigh very early on,
were they. But they were doing their live stuff in and around Athens.
They were, as I said, their first shot outside of Athens was
in North Carolina and there they came up and sport in North Carolina all the
time pretty regularly. And when was the first time you saw them? I
saw them in September of nineteen eighty four Page Auditorium at Deke University. Have
They had the DBS, a North Carolina band opening up for them. This
would have been on the Little America tour behind the album Reckoning, and it
was a pretty incredible concert. Was this one of those things where you had
to wait in line for a while with other locals or did you have to
sneak in the back. Now this was a you know, an auditorium.
I think there was a two or two thousand or three thousand seat venue.
I think we just bought tickets to the record bar or the record store.
I did sneak into a lot of clubs to see bands like Black Frog in
her placens in clubs, but this was just an ordinary ticketed concert. What
do you think set them apart from the other sounds at the time, John
Hunter, Well, as I write in the book, I think they had
that chemistry, that four person chemistry where the whole was greater than the son
of the parts that the Beatles had, and that every great band has I
mentioned that compared to say some of their peers, like the Connells of the
Replacements, who had one chief songwriter who was a great songwriter, Mike n
Al Paul westerbarg r Em. All four members were involved, and I think
there was strength in numbers there and also just kind of their great chrismo.
All the members were strong personalities, and I think that played a part in
their popularity. Speaking of their writing, and we're talking to John Hunter,
who is the author of the book Maps and Legends, The Story of Rim
the most comprehensive of biography so far of ri em. What is it about
the imagery that is in their writings? It seems like they usually start with
a good poem and then go from there. Well, I guess in a
huge controversy about them back in the data where people took sides would be that
Michael Start's lyrics were difficult to understand at first, and that was a huge
talking point about them. You know, some people hated that, some people
loved it. I think though, that the fact that perhaps not everyone can
understand all the words allowed the listener to add his or her own meaning to
the words or what he or she thought the lyrics were, and that was
a powerful thing in some ways. You know, every every person maybe had
sort of a slightly different connection to what they thought the song was about,
and that turned out to be a pretty powerful thing. A lot of bands
that start out at this or that did start out at this time, we're
starting out at You had to either be a dance band or a listening band,
but Rim seemed to seem to be both. Yes, you know,
as I write in the book, I remember when I first heard Murmur in
nineteen eighty three, I thought, well, this is the weirdest, artiest
thing I've ever heard, because I've been listening to like Tom Petty, Foreigner,
the Pretenders. Yeah, you know, great bands, but that was
what was on the radio at the time, and rim did struck me as
a listening band. I was just a little too young to hear the early
days and happens though, Whereas he said, they were a dance band,
you know, they started on as a band who packed the dance floor,
and then somehow along the way they converted into the band that made Murmur,
which is very much a listening record. I think a lot of theirs is
I well, I was. I was going to say, that's all right,
now there's a digital digital delay we all have to get used to here,
and it's it always kind of it's always kind of funky. I was
gonna say. I remember the first time I heard them, and I was
listening to my competitor at the time. I was at a light rock station
and my competitor was a top forty station, And right away I said to
myself, Okay, this is the different sound people have been looking for.
For sure, I would agree with that. I think another thing I touched
on in the book, is that you know, at that time, the
earlier eddies, there was what some people called the Second British Invasion, where
you had all of these British artists like Culture Club and Human League and Depeche
Mode and a lot of synthesizer bands and and I like their records, but
I think there was sort of a hunger at that time for from some people
for returns to guitars and kind of a sixty sound and an American band.
And I think a Yan filled that need very well where people are getting a
little tired of maybe the Human League or Flock of Seagulls or music like that.
Well, and I was in I was actually I was working in I
was in college at the time, and I was in at late seventies early
eighties groove, and I thought, well, this sounds unlike anything I've ever
heard. It's a little folk, it's a little jazz, it's a little
rock, and the lyrics have meaning yes out of great And then I think,
you know another thing about this success is they just tour it say,
relentlessly, wherever you live now. I was in North Carolina. They played
there by the year and if he were in Chicago or Minneapolis or Lincoln,
Nebraska. You know they came into your town and played every year. That
really worked hard. Well, that's what it takes, I think, to
make it in the music business. And maps and Legends The Story of R.
E. M. By John Hunter. It's out now everywhere you get
books. And thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and
remember to listen to The Drive live day afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation