How Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy Are Keeping R.E.M. Songs Alive

The Georgia boys in R.E.M. are still missed, 15 years after they broke up.

They rolled out of the South in the early Eighties, in a swirl of kudzu and guitar chime, defying all the corporate-rock clichés and taking over as one of the all-time great American bands. They built an untouchably fearsome songbook, from their 1981 indie debut single “Radio Free Europe” to their 2011 farewell. But their music lives on. Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy have been on the road this year with their all-star R.E.M. tribute group, playing their favorite deep cuts for packed houses of fellow devotees every night. This isn’t a mere cover band — it’s a pilgrimage.

Sometimes all the R.E.M. love in the room gets a little out of hand. At their Brooklyn show last weekend, a fan jumped onstage to join them: Michael Stipe, who did “These Days” and “The Great Beyond.” As he told the rapturous crowd, hearing his songs played by these guys was “fucking surreal.” Stipe said, “I never thought that I would hear a Shakespearean recitation of ‘E-Bow the Letter!’”

Michael Shannon, the Oscar and Tony-nominated actor, sings with guitarist Jason Narducy, the indie-rock superman best known for playing with Bob Mould, Superchunk, and Sunny Day Real Estate. The band includes friends from Wilco bassist John Stirratt to Mountain Goats and Bob Mould drummer Jon Wurster. “I’m learning while I’m doing it, learning about the music,” Shannon tells Rolling Stone. “I’m learning about Michael and singing and trying to figure out how the hell he did it, because his range is insane. I mean, I’m singing bass to falsetto, everything in between.”

Shannon and Narducy have played together for years. They first met up in Chicago, joining Robbie Fulks to cover Lou Reed’s The Blue Mask all the way through. In 2023, just for kicks, they played a one-off show covering R.E.M.’s classic 1983 debut Murmur. But a funny thing happened — people begged them to do it again, and then again, until it snowballed into a tour. Audiences just won’t let them stop. Last year, they upped the ante with a tour covering the band’s Fables of the Reconstruction; this spring, it’s been Lifes Rich Pageant, including gems like “Fall on Me.” They’re burning through the catalog chronologically — they’re already talking about returning next year to play Document, the 1987 album that blew both their minds as kids and turned them into lifelong R.E.M. lunatics. 

All three of these tours have been scorchers, but especially the latest edition: over 30 songs every night, no hits, heavy on the obscure cult favorites, including some that hardly anyone knows. They do deep cuts like “Lotus,”  “Me in Honey,” “Try Not to Breathe,” “You Are the Everything,” and the mournful 1991 B-side “Fretless,” the show-stopper ballad. For Shannon, the actor who’s played Elvis Presley, George Jones, President James Garfield, and General Zod, it’s not about mimicking the original sound, just tapping into that spirit. As Narducy says, “Mike is just taking this to another level with his singing and his presentation of these incredible stories.”

Everything R.E.M. did was innovative, including how they broke up — still friends, never tarnishing their legacy by going for the quick-buck reunion shows. Yet they can’t resist getting into the act. The first time the Shannon/Narducy crew played Murmur, bassist Mike Mills came by just to check out the show. But within a few songs, he was onstage. In February, when they played the 40 Watt Club in the band’s hometown of Athens, Georgia, all four ex-R.E.M. dudes spontaneously got up to jam, one at a time, until they all ended up playing “Pretty Persuasion.” As guitarist Peter Buck quipped, “People have been offering us millions of dollars to do this, and we just did it for free.”

Shannon and Narducy are near the end of the tour, which wraps up on Monday, March 16, in Bloomington, Indiana (where the band originally recorded Lifes Rich Pageant in 1986.) They caught up with Rolling Stone long-distance from Chicago, to geek out about the greatness of R.E.M., and the strange magic of bringing this music to life.

Congratulations on this amazing tour. This is the third one, but the energy level and audience excitement gets bigger each time.
Michael Shannon: I think the thing about Lifes Rich Pageant is it’s a big change in sound for R.E.M. They go from being this kind of quiet, jangly, whatever — I hate the descriptor “jangly” — but the sound changes, and they’ve got a much more powerful forward sound. And I think that comes across in the energy of the shows.

It’s a really uplifting experience, to be in a room full of people who love this music so passionately. The connection you make with the audience is intense.
Jason Narducy: It’s such a unique project, but it’s filled with so much joy and fun. And yeah, I never would’ve predicted this even five years ago. The second set is deep cuts, which I love. To me, that says as much about R.E.M. as anything, that you can play album cuts, B-sides, and there’s no loss of emotion, there’s no loss of power, there’s no loss of quality. People really appreciate not only the deeper cuts, but the songs that have a linear story. I mean, a song like “Country Feedback.” When we played that last night, there was someone crying in the second row.

MS: I think the people that are fans, that’s what they want. They don’t want to hear everything that got played on the radio. We play a song like [early B-side] “Burning Down” — I don’t know how many people in the house actually know that. It could be just 20 people out there like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe they’re playing this. ” And everybody else might be standing around like, “Oh, Jesus, I’ve never heard this before.” But that’s okay. It’d be one thing if we were actually R.E.M. and we were just playing obscure songs that nobody knew. But the fun thing is that we’re not R.E.M., so we don’t have to follow any rules because we’re breaking the rules to begin with.

You’ve been playing the R.E.M. albums in chronological order. So Document is next year?
MS: I guess it seems like we should do Document, just because that was the first one that Jason and I both got into. I love all the albums equally, and I love doing Murmur, but frankly, the earlier albums like Murmur are more difficult to capture the sound of. I feel like they’re so mysterious in how R.E.M. did that, how they made that sound. That’s why they’re a unique band. I mean, that’s what any great band does — they figure out their own way to do something. Even if you want to put them in a genre or a category, there’s nobody that can do what they do. Even us, we can’t do exactly what they do. Nobody can. And that’s what the Hall of Fame bands do, is they figure out a way to be singular.

I loved what Michael Stipe said when he joined you onstage in Brooklyn. He said, “I’ve always been right in the middle of the songs.” So now he’s really getting to hear them for the first time.
JN: It’s funny, in New York after that show, a friend came up as I was talking to Michael Stipe and said, “I’m just getting the most amazing feedback about your shows.” And I said, “Well, I think our band has the best songs.” I kinda turned my eyes towards Stipe, and there was about two seconds of silence, and then he burst out laughing. I was like, “Oh, thank God he laughed at that.”

MS: Just to see the look on his face just makes it all worthwhile. After the Brooklyn show, he was starting to talk to us about the songs and where they come from. And I would love to just spend a few days just doing that with him. But I know that’s what everybody wants, to get inside his head and figure out what it all means. But he was generous. He told me the character in “The Lifting” is the same character in “Daysleeper.” Yeah, it’s a duo — those songs are connected. Now that’s golden intel. But that blew my mind because we did “Daysleeper” last year.

He sang two songs with you in Brooklyn — a really emotional moment. What was that like?
MS: He sang “These Days.” Like he said in his intro, it’s a kind of anthem to the disenfranchised. I love that idea that youth doesn’t expire just because of time. And to see him reinhabiting his youth through this music, he’s still the same person. He’s still the person who made that song, and the song’s still in his heart. It’s such a beautiful thing to have songs to address situations, and not just everyday situations, but kind of generational, worldwide. I don’t want to say “catastrophic,” but major situations. They were just starting to write those kinds of songs on Lifes Rich Pageant. I really feel like that was the first time that they were very overtly political, saying, “The world is screwed up. We need to do something about it.”

It was funny because he wanted me to double his vocal. He didn’t want me to sing harmony. He wanted me to sing the same thing he was singing. I was like, “I think given their druthers, the audience would rather hear you.” So, I frankly did a lot of lip-syncing during that part. I was a little tricky about it, but I didn’t want to get caught either because I knew he didn’t want me to stop singing, so I would kinda go in and out.

He was only gonna do “These Days” because last year he only did “Pretty Persuasion.” He likes to do one song, that’s it. And I really wanted him to do “The Great Beyond,” but I didn’t want to push him. Then at soundcheck, he said,”Do you mind if I hang around for ‘Great Beyond?’” I said, “You read my mind, man.” But he’s like, “I don’t want to be the lead. I just want to sing the choruses.”

That was really cool to see how moved he was, as we all were in the audience, by the R.E.M. devotion in the room.
MS: They all deserve that, all those cats. And they get it. When we were in Athens, Peter and Bill got that, to be able to do “Underneath the Bunker” with Bill on the drums. It was beautiful to be able to play all these deep cuts with Peter and with Scott McCaughey.

It seems like you’re just doing songs you enjoy personally, without worrying how famous they are.
JN: That’s true. On the last tour, we played [mega-obscure 1987 outtake] “Romance” at every single show because Mike and I love that one so much. And we were surprised that it didn’t get that big of a reaction, but there would always be three or four people who just went nuts. That song really connected with me when I bought [the rarities compilation] Epynomous, and it’s so fun to play it. The funny thing is, Stipe didn’t recognize it at all. He didn’t recognize that song!

MS: “Fireplace,” from Document, it seemed like it needed to be done. I mean, considering the state of civilization right now. It’s commenting on what’s going on, which frankly is all over their catalog.

You play “The Lifting,” from Reveal. I’m one of those Reveal geeks who thinks that’s a top five R.E.M. album. But when you introduced it, Mike, you said it was a song Jason chose, and that you never got into Reveal, so it was a new discovery for you. That’s part of the thrill of this experience — people being open to discovering something new.
MS: My little brother came to shows in Athens, and he had never heard “The Lifting.” A couple of days later, he was texting me: “Man, I can’t stop listening to that song.” And to be honest, for me, that’s a source of — I don’t know if pride’s the right word, but I guess I’ll use it. But to turn people on, people who believe themselves to be very fervent R.E.M. fans, play them a song they haven’t heard before and have them thinking about it a few days later. It’s fun turning people on to a song that they may have not been aware of before.

JN: How fortunate am I as a collaborator that Mike completely trusts me. It’s funny, my daughter is in a School of Rock. She’s 16, and she said that her bass teacher suggested that she consider three factors when considering a gig: (1) the hang, (2) whether you’re being compensated, and (3) the music. Just hearing her say this in such primitive basic terms, it helped remind me that this is a dream situation where I have a collaborator who’s so giving, so full of love, so hardworking and who trusts me to put a band together. You do this for decades, and it’s not just about the musical chemistry onstage — it’s about the other 22 hours of the day. We have something really special here.

Right before “Fretless,” Mike, you said, “This is my favorite R.E.M. song.” That’s a bold choice, such a stark and emotional song that even most fans haven’t heard. Is it scary to sing?
MS: Yeah, it’s definitely the high dive, that one. But that song really resonated with me from the first time I heard it on the Until the End of the World soundtrack, which is an epic soundtrack. It floored me. And Michael told me after the New York show that he’d been thinking about that song a lot lately, actually. So I’m glad I mustered up the courage to put it in the set list.

It was a great moment when Stipe talked about your “Shakespearean recitation of ‘E-Bow the Letter.’”
MS: Was I being thunderous with it? I don’t know. I really do try and match his style. But Jason, remember when we were making the setlist back in the beginning? I was like, “Yeah, ‘E-Bow’ might take a minute. I might not be ready with that when the tour starts.” And you said, “Well, what do you mean? That’s what you do, you memorize lines.” But that’s a tricky one.

Both of the New Adventures in Hi-Fi songs sound incredible. That one and “How the West Was Won and Where It Got Us.” I can’t wait till you tour that album.
JN: Whoa — you’re getting ahead of yourself there.

MS: I love how you’re skipping over four albums.

JN: He’s skipping six records. Document, Eponymous, Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster, and then New Adventures.

Nobody wants you to skip any of them. Double up if you need to.
JN: Will you rap the hip-hop part on Out of Time?

No, I will not. But also, you should tour the 1991 MTV Unplugged set, that great live performance with Peter Holsapple.
MS: There’s one from that set that I want to do next year. But I ain’t saying what it is.

I need to ask about a really divisive album that’s another one of my favorites  — Monster. You’ve been playing two Monster songs, “Crush With Eyeliner” and “Star 69.” That’s one album that R.E.M. fans always love to argue about.
MS: I don’t get it. I think it’s a banger. I mean, I love that album. What is the dissenting point of view?

Too much of a rock record.
MS: Yeah, but R.E.M. is a fierce rock band. That’s what they started out as. I mean, you hear it in those early shows, because I listen to a lot of early shows. I don’t just listen to the albums. I listen to live recordings. That’s why I get all these impromptu lines in “Radio Free Europe.” I’m sure the audience is like, “Those aren’t the words,” but I hear Stipe singing early versions of that song and live, he’s constantly coming up with new lines, so I like to put them in. But yeah, when you listen to earlier shows, or even the first time they were on Letterman, doing “Radio Free Europe” and “So. Central Rain” before it even has the name. They’re rocking as hard as anybody I’ve ever seen. So that’s in their DNA. I don’t know why they should have to subjugate it.

You guys cover all these different extremes of the band, in a way that no matter how much we love R.E.M. already, we come out of your show learning something new, feeling something new.
JN: I don’t know if we can achieve something better than that, because it is about the music and it is about us presenting it in a way that’s through our lens.

Jason, your vocals are such a huge part of it. I’ve seen you play so many great shows with so many bands, but I had no idea you could sing exactly like Patti Smith and Kate Pierson.
JN: I could not dare to match what they do, but it’s fun to sing their parts. Very different ranges there, too. Patti goes really low on “E-Bow The Letter” and Kate goes really high on “Me in Honey.” When we started to do that song, I didn’t anticipate this, but the crowd is singing along too, and that’s pretty uplifting. That gives you confidence.

It’s so joyful to be in a crowd sharing so much deep love for this band, celebrating them together. And it adds something special to give that love back to Michael Stipe, when he’s with you. What a beautiful live experience.
MS: Yeah, somebody described it last night. My fiancée, she had a friend there last night who’s a biomedical engineer. She had this term called “collective effervescence.” And she said it’s an experience that is diminished nowadays because people are so isolated, particularly with technology. To be in a room full of people, having a collective experience, you need that. Your body, your brain needs that.

Or to put it more simply, there’s something Stipe said last year at the 40 Watt Club, when we were doing the Fables Tour. He just walked into the green room and said, “Well, time to bring joy to the world.” And I thought, “Yeah, all right. Here we go.”