L2T: What's the biggest adjustment the band has made as a result of your dwindling record sales?
STIPE In a way, it helped qualify something we had figured out a long time ago, which is we're going to make the records we want to and we hope that people like them. And if they don't, well, we did what we could. There's nothing more pathetic than someone who changes themselves to fit into whatever they think is going to sell. There've been a few times in 23 years when I feel like we've crossed that line or got really close to it, and I don't want to make that mistake again.
L2T: Where do you think you've crossed the line?
STIPE A big part of my job in the band is presentation outside of the music. A couple of times I think I overreached and pushed a little hard to make a commercial video -- something that MTV would actually play. I'm not going to name them because they might be someone's favorite, and I worked with really talented directors. I don't want to insult anybody. But I've learned lessons. There's not a college course for what we were trying to do. We made mistakes. But we made a zillion videos I love. ''Man on the Moon,'' I thought, was amazing. And ''What's the Frequency Kenneth?'' There's a freedom and a liberation to saying ''Okay, I f -- -ed up.'' By and large, I think the trajectory of our career and the music and the changes we've made is pretty fascinating stuff. It may or may not appeal to any individual's musical taste. Or maybe they're just tired of my voice. But that's fine. There are a lot of great bands out there.
I read an article that said R.E.M. is a nostalgia band, that you're almost all reaching your 50s, and that no album is as good as your first [1983's ''Murmur'']. Is that true? -- Glenn Miller, East Brunswick, N.J.
STIPE No. And I'm 43, not ''reaching my 50s,'' thank you, Glenn. It would be nostalgic to think that I could go back and rewrite ''Driver 8'' or ''Losing My Religion'' six or eight times and present something in 2003 that people loved in 1987 or 1992. It ain't gonna happen. There are scads of bands who are doing very similar stuff to what we were doing in those time periods. Go find them if you're that interested. I wouldn't even try to do that. I think it would be embarrassing.
L2T: Your new single, ''Bad Day,'' is a rerecording of an unreleased song from the '80s that eventually mutated into ''It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).'' Why make it a single? It really does sound like a retread of one of your biggest hits.
STIPE I was inspired by U2's ''Sweetest Thing'' [an old song they remade for a '98 hits collection]. I'm a fan, and I'd never heard the song. They found it and turned it into something beautiful. I wanted to do the same thing. ''Bad Day'' was written around the time of Iran-contra, during the darkest days of the Reagan administration, and sadly nothing much has changed. It's depressing. Imagine being an idealistic 43-year-old and looking back and going ''Everything that I've done [politically] is for nothing,'' realizing that it's just all cyclical.
L2T: Is there a sense that you're having to prove yourselves again?
STIPE Mmm-hmm. But that's okay, because I feel like what we've got is proofworthy, if that's a word. I'm confident about where we are. It's too easy to dismiss something out of hand. It's a little harder to actually examine it. I have enough humility in 23 years that if I think we're sucking, I'll stop this thing cold before it gets to that point.
L2T: What would have to happen for R.E.M. to finally call it quits?
STIPE I think if the drummer left... [Laughs] Many people [think] we should've done it then. [But to quit] we would have to lose sight of why we do this or realize that we don't have a place anymore.
L2T: How close do you feel to that place?
STIPE Really far away.
