Buck: Well, we toured last summer. And all six of us that played together — the three of us, Joey, [Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows leader] Scott McCaughey, [Posies singer/guitarist] Ken Stringfellow — really had a great performance feel. It felt like a group. And for this record, that was kinda what we were going for. You know, we're all leaving our options open for the future, but it sure felt good this time.

MTV: Does not having a permanent drummer affect the way you interact or the way you sound?

Stipe: I think it affects it a lot. We worked from being a four-piece for 17 years to being a three-piece. And not to disparage [former drummer] Bill Berry — he's a great musician and a great friend — but when he decided to leave the band, it was musically liberating for all of us. I think that the last two records that we've made are a lot closer musically to where we are in terms of what we listen to, what we're inspired by. ... What winds up on the record is a lot closer to what the demos sound like now and not so much [like] a live band. Although a lot of what might sound like samples or drum machines are in fact things that we recorded and just repeated or put into a loop or whatever.

MTV: Do you guys listen to records from groups outside of your music scene?

Buck: Yeah, I listen to a lot of dance stuff, DJ records, stuff like that. I find it really fascinating, very interesting as a songwriter. It would miss the point for us to make one of those kinds of records, but some of the technology is kind of a cool thing. There's influences of all that stuff in there, but it's kind of [on] the surface of the song.

Stipe: One of the things that happened when Bill left the band was that ... without having a drummer, without starting every song in the studio as a live recording of a live band, a lot of the things that we had used from our first album forward, that were used as coloring or layers underneath the bigger sounds rose to the surface and became the primary sounds. Then we would sonically build stuff around that. It's a technology that we've always used. We just have a lot more latitude now as a three-piece.

MTV: Musically, the song "I've Been High" seems overtly [influenced by the] Beach Boys. Was that a conscious thing?

Buck: It's funny because Mike and I are huge Beach Boys fans and musically it's not very Beach Boys, but melodically it is. And [there's] Michael, who doesn't actually like the Beach Boys. You know he would always refuse to let me play them in the house when we were living together, so go figure. But, you know, that kind of breath of the chords in the melody is something that has been so influenced by the Beach Boys.

Stipe: I think I have a vicarious respect for [Beach Boys founder] Brian Wilson through these guys. One of the things with that song, when I heard the demo tape for the first time it was called "32 Chord Song" because it had no less than 32 chords, and it was the most complicated piece of music I think I've ever heard. It was impossible. I found a melody in there, and then I went in there and turned off all the tracks with all the 32 chords and put down a synthesizer with just the melody and showed it to these guys. And then they were like, "Whoa, where did that come from?" And then we brought the 32 chords and the thing that I had done together, and that's kind of what wound up on the record.


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