{"id":386921,"date":"2026-03-15T21:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/386921\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T21:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:25:11","slug":"how-michael-shannon-and-jason-narducy-are-keeping-r-e-m-songs-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/386921\/","title":{"rendered":"How Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy Are Keeping R.E.M. Songs Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Georgia boys in R.E.M. are still missed, 15 years after they broke up<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tThey rolled out of the South in the early Eighties, in a swirl of kudzu and guitar chime, defying all the corporate-rock clich\u00e9s and taking over as one of the all-time great American bands. They built an untouchably fearsome songbook, from their 1981 indie debut single \u201cRadio Free Europe\u201d<\/a> to their 2011 farewell. But their music lives on. Michael Shannon<\/a> 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\u2019t a mere cover band \u2014 it\u2019s a pilgrimage.<\/p>\n

\n\tSometimes 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 \u201cThese Days\u201d and \u201cThe Great Beyond.\u201d<\/a> As he told the rapturous crowd, hearing his songs played by these guys was \u201cfucking surreal.\u201d Stipe said, \u201cI never thought that I would hear a Shakespearean recitation of \u2018E-Bow the Letter!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMichael 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. \u201cI\u2019m learning while I\u2019m doing it, learning about the music,\u201d Shannon tells Rolling Stone. \u201cI\u2019m learning about Michael and singing and trying to figure out how the hell he did it, because his range is insane. I mean, I\u2019m singing bass to falsetto, everything in between.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShannon and Narducy have played together for years. They first met up in Chicago, joining Robbie Fulks to cover Lou Reed\u2019s The Blue Mask all the way through. In 2023, just for kicks, they played a one-off show covering R.E.M.\u2019s classic 1983 debut Murmur. But a funny thing happened \u2014 people begged them to do it again, and then again, until it snowballed into a tour. Audiences just won\u2019t let them stop. Last year, they upped the ante with a tour covering the band\u2019s Fables of the Reconstruction; this spring, it\u2019s been Lifes Rich Pageant, including gems like \u201cFall on Me.\u201d They\u2019re burning through the catalog chronologically \u2014 they\u2019re 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tAll 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 \u201cLotus,\u201d\u00a0 \u201cMe in Honey,\u201d \u201cTry Not to Breathe,\u201d \u201cYou Are the Everything,\u201d and the mournful 1991 B-side \u201cFretless,\u201d the show-stopper ballad. For Shannon, the actor who\u2019s played Elvis Presley, George Jones, President James Garfield, and General Zod, it\u2019s not about mimicking the original sound, just tapping into that spirit. As Narducy says, \u201cMike is just taking this to another level with his singing and his presentation of these incredible stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEverything R.E.M. did was innovative, including how they broke up \u2014 still friends, never tarnishing<\/a> their legacy by going for the quick-buck reunion shows. Yet they can\u2019t 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\u2019s 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 \u201cPretty Persuasion.\u201d <\/a>As guitarist Peter Buck quipped, \u201cPeople have been offering us millions of dollars to do this, and we just did it for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShannon 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.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tCongratulations on this amazing tour. This is the third one, but the energy level and audience excitement gets bigger each time.<\/strong>
Michael Shannon:<\/strong> I think the thing about Lifes Rich Pageant is it\u2019s a big change in sound for R.E.M. They go from being this kind of quiet, jangly, whatever \u2014 I hate the descriptor \u201cjangly\u201d \u2014 but the sound changes, and they\u2019ve got a much more powerful forward sound. And I think that comes across in the energy of the shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s 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.<\/strong>
Jason Narducy:<\/strong> It\u2019s such a unique project, but it\u2019s filled with so much joy and fun. And yeah, I never would\u2019ve 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\u2019s no loss of emotion, there\u2019s no loss of power, there\u2019s 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 \u201cCountry Feedback.\u201d When we played that last night, there was someone crying in the second row.<\/p>\n

\n\tMS: <\/strong>I think the people that are fans, that\u2019s what they want. They don\u2019t want to hear everything that got played on the radio. We play a song like [early B-side] \u201cBurning Down\u201d \u2014 I don\u2019t know how many people in the house actually know that. It could be just 20 people out there like, \u201cOh my God, I can\u2019t believe they\u2019re playing this. \u201d And everybody else might be standing around like, \u201cOh, Jesus, I\u2019ve never heard this before.\u201d But that\u2019s okay. It\u2019d 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\u2019re not R.E.M., so we don\u2019t have to follow any rules because we\u2019re breaking the rules to begin with.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve been playing the R.E.M. albums in chronological order. So Document is next year?<\/strong>
MS:<\/strong> 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\u2019re so mysterious in how R.E.M. did that, how they made that sound. That\u2019s why they\u2019re a unique band. I mean, that\u2019s what any great band does \u2014 they figure out their own way to do something. Even if you want to put them in a genre or a category, there\u2019s nobody that can do what they do. Even us, we can\u2019t do exactly what they do. Nobody can. And that\u2019s what the Hall of Fame bands do, is they figure out a way to be singular.<\/p>\n

\n\tI loved what Michael Stipe said when he joined you onstage in Brooklyn. He said, \u201cI\u2019ve always been right in the middle of the songs.\u201d So now he\u2019s really getting to hear them for the first time.<\/strong>
JN:<\/strong> It\u2019s funny, in New York after that show, a friend came up as I was talking to Michael Stipe and said, \u201cI\u2019m just getting the most amazing feedback about your shows.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, I think our band has the best songs.\u201d I kinda turned my eyes towards Stipe, and there was about two seconds of silence, and then he burst out laughing. I was like, \u201cOh, thank God he laughed at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMS:<\/strong> 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\u2019s 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 \u201cThe Lifting\u201d is the same character in \u201cDaysleeper.\u201d Yeah, it\u2019s a duo \u2014 those songs are connected. Now that\u2019s golden intel. But that blew my mind because we did \u201cDaysleeper\u201d last year.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe sang two songs with you in Brooklyn \u2014\u00a0a really emotional moment. What was that like?<\/strong>
MS:<\/strong> He sang \u201cThese Days.\u201d Like he said in his intro, it\u2019s a kind of anthem to the disenfranchised. I love that idea that youth doesn\u2019t expire just because of time. And to see him reinhabiting his youth through this music, he\u2019s still the same person. He\u2019s still the person who made that song, and the song\u2019s still in his heart. It\u2019s such a beautiful thing to have songs to address situations, and not just everyday situations, but kind of generational, worldwide. I don\u2019t want to say \u201ccatastrophic,\u201d 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, \u201cThe world is screwed up. We need to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was funny because he wanted me to double his vocal. He didn\u2019t want me to sing harmony. He wanted me to sing the same thing he was singing. I was like, \u201cI think given their druthers, the audience would rather hear you.\u201d So, I frankly did a lot of lip-syncing during that part. I was a little tricky about it, but I didn\u2019t want to get caught either because I knew he didn\u2019t want me to stop singing, so I would kinda go in and out.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was only gonna do \u201cThese Days\u201d because last year he only did \u201cPretty Persuasion.\u201d He likes to do one song, that\u2019s it. And I really wanted him to do \u201cThe Great Beyond,\u201d but I didn\u2019t want to push him. Then at soundcheck, he said,\u201dDo you mind if I hang around for \u2018Great Beyond?\u2019\u201d I said, \u201cYou read my mind, man.\u201d But he\u2019s like, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be the lead. I just want to sing the choruses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat 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.<\/strong>
MS: <\/strong>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 \u201cUnderneath the Bunker\u201d with Bill on the drums. It was beautiful to be able to play all these deep cuts with Peter and with Scott McCaughey.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt seems like you\u2019re just doing songs you enjoy personally, without worrying how famous they are.<\/strong>
JN: <\/strong>That\u2019s true. On the last tour, we played [mega-obscure 1987 outtake] \u201cRomance\u201d at every single show because Mike and I love that one so much. And we were surprised that it didn\u2019t 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\u2019s so fun to play it. The funny thing is, Stipe didn\u2019t recognize it at all. He didn\u2019t recognize that song!<\/p>\n

\n\tMS: <\/strong>\u201cFireplace,\u201d from Document, it seemed like it needed to be done. I mean, considering the state of civilization right now. It\u2019s commenting on what\u2019s going on, which frankly is all over their catalog.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou play \u201cThe Lifting,\u201d from Reveal. I\u2019m one of those Reveal geeks who thinks that\u2019s a top five R.E.M. album<\/a>. 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\u2019s part of the thrill of this experience \u2014\u00a0people being open to discovering something new.<\/strong>
MS:<\/strong> My little brother came to shows in Athens, and he had never heard \u201cThe Lifting.\u201d A couple of days later, he was texting me: \u201cMan, I can\u2019t stop listening to that song.\u201d And to be honest, for me, that\u2019s a source of \u2014\u00a0I don\u2019t know if pride\u2019s the right word, but I guess I\u2019ll 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\u2019t heard before and have them thinking about it a few days later. It\u2019s fun turning people on to a song that they may have not been aware of before.<\/p>\n

\n\tJN:<\/strong> How fortunate am I as a collaborator that Mike completely trusts me. It\u2019s funny, my daughter is in a School of Rock. She\u2019s 16, and she said that her bass teacher suggested that she consider three factors when considering a gig: (1) the hang, (2) whether you\u2019re 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\u2019s so giving, so full of love, so hardworking and who trusts me to put a band together. You do this for decades, and it\u2019s not just about the musical chemistry onstage \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s about the other 22 hours of the day. We have something really special here.<\/p>\n

\n\tRight before \u201cFretless,\u201d Mike, you said, \u201cThis is my favorite R.E.M. song.\u201d That\u2019s a bold choice, such a stark and emotional song that even most fans haven\u2019t heard. Is it scary to sing?<\/strong>
MS: <\/strong>Yeah, it\u2019s 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\u2019d been thinking about that song a lot lately, actually. So I\u2019m glad I mustered up the courage to put it in the set list.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a great moment when Stipe talked about your \u201cShakespearean recitation of \u2018E-Bow the Letter.\u2019\u201d<\/strong>
MS:<\/strong> Was I being thunderous with it? I don\u2019t 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, \u201cYeah, \u2018E-Bow\u2019 might take a minute. I might not be ready with that when the tour starts.\u201d And you said, \u201cWell, what do you mean? That\u2019s what you do, you memorize lines.\u201d But that\u2019s a tricky one.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth of the New Adventures in Hi-Fi songs sound incredible. That one and \u201cHow the West Was Won and Where It Got Us.\u201d I can\u2019t wait till you tour that album.<\/strong>
JN:<\/strong> Whoa \u2014 you\u2019re getting ahead of yourself there.<\/p>\n

\n\tMS:<\/strong> I love how you\u2019re skipping over four albums.<\/p>\n

\n\tJN:<\/strong> He\u2019s skipping six records.\u00a0Document, Eponymous, Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster, and then New Adventures.<\/p>\n

\n\tNobody wants you to skip any of them. Double up if you need to.<\/strong>
JN:<\/strong> Will you rap the hip-hop part on Out of Time?<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, I will not. But also, you should tour the 1991 MTV Unplugged set, that great live performance with Peter Holsapple.<\/strong>
MS: <\/strong>There\u2019s one from that set that I want to do next year. But I ain\u2019t saying what it is.<\/p>\n

\n\tI need to ask about a really divisive album that\u2019s another one of my favorites\u00a0 \u2014 Monster. You\u2019ve been playing two Monster songs, \u201cCrush With Eyeliner\u201d and \u201cStar 69.\u201d That\u2019s one album that R.E.M. fans always love to argue about.<\/strong>
MS:<\/strong> I don\u2019t get it. I think it\u2019s a banger. I mean, I love that album. What is the dissenting point of view?<\/p>\n

\n\tToo much of a rock record.<\/strong>
MS: <\/strong>Yeah, but R.E.M. is a fierce rock band. That\u2019s 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\u2019t just listen to the albums. I listen to live recordings. That\u2019s why I get all these impromptu lines in \u201cRadio Free Europe.\u201d I\u2019m sure the audience is like, \u201cThose aren\u2019t the words,\u201d but I hear Stipe singing early versions of that song and live, he\u2019s 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 \u201cRadio Free Europe\u201d and \u201cSo. Central Rain\u201d<\/a> before it even has the name. They\u2019re rocking as hard as anybody I\u2019ve ever seen. So that\u2019s in their DNA. I don\u2019t know why they should have to subjugate it.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou 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.<\/strong>
JN: <\/strong>I don\u2019t 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\u2019s through our lens.<\/p>\n

\n\tJason, your vocals are such a huge part of it. I\u2019ve 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.<\/strong>
JN:\u00a0<\/strong>I could not dare to match what they do, but it\u2019s fun to sing their parts. Very different ranges there, too. Patti goes really low on \u201cE-Bow The Letter\u201d and Kate goes really high on \u201cMe in Honey.\u201d When we started to do that song, I didn\u2019t anticipate this, but the crowd is singing along too, and that\u2019s pretty uplifting. That gives you confidence.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s 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\u2019s with you. What a beautiful live experience.<\/strong>
MS:<\/strong> Yeah, somebody described it last night. My fianc\u00e9e, she had a friend there last night who\u2019s a biomedical engineer. She had this term called \u201ccollective effervescence.\u201d And she said it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tOr to put it more simply, there\u2019s 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, \u201cWell, time to bring joy to the world.\u201d And I thought, \u201cYeah, all right. Here we go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Georgia boys in R.E.M. are still missed, 15 years after they broke up. They rolled out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,37757,176946,337,33788],"class_list":["post-386921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-shannon","tag-michael-shannon-with-jason-narducy","tag-music","tag-rem"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116235306526891817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}