{"id":13267,"date":"2017-09-22T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=13267"},"modified":"2017-09-22T07:11:39","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T11:11:39","slug":"mike-mills-r-e-m-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/22\/mike-mills-r-e-m-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Mills: R.E.M. and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I grew up just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, so when R.E.M. got together in the nearby college town of Athens and started making noises in 1980, my friends and I thought of them as a local group. We followed with interest their rise in popularity; I recall an episode a few months before the release of Fables of the Reconstruction<\/i>, R.E.M.’s third album (and the only one to have been recorded in the UK); the band had just received an advance from their label and had purchased a brand-new live sound system. Wanting to work the bugs out in front of a sympathetic audience, they kicked off the \u201cPre-Construction\u201d tour with a free concert at Legion Field. On April 22, 1985, my friends and I made an hour-long road trip east to Athens, and watched as vocalist Michael Stipe spent the entire evening with his back to the audience. Still, a great show.<\/p>\n

Mike Mills and I first met about a year earlier, at Atlanta’s now-legendary 688 Club where were both had come to see Alex Chilton play. We chatted briefly, but that was the extent of our direct communication until very recently.<\/p>\n

I did keep up with R.E.M., though. In spring 1991 they released Out of Time<\/i>; that summer I was living and working in London, and was more than a bit amused to find that wherever I went, I heard \u201cLosing My Religion\u201d and other tracks from the hit album. Here I was on my first excursion off the North American continent, and all I heard was a band from back home.<\/p>\n

Mike Mills is, of course, best-known as the bassist in R.E.M. A founding member, Mills remained with the band until its amicable dissolution 30-plus years later. In addition to playing bass, Mills provided harmony vocals (and the occasional lead vocal), played keyboards, and \u2013 with guitarist Peter Buck \u2013 was a primary songwriter for the band. Though he describes himself as \u201csemi-retired,\u201d since R.E.M.’s breakup, Mills has continued to busy himself with musical activity: he’s a member of indie-rock supergroup The Baseball Project, he’s been deeply involved in the \u201cBig Star’s 3rd\u201d series of concerts, and in late 2016 he released Concerto for Violin, Rock Band, and String Orchestra<\/i>, a collaboration with lifelong friend and virtuoso violinist Robert McDuffie.<\/p>\n

Mills was born and raised in Macon, Georgia, 90 miles south of Athens. \u201cPiano was my first instrument,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d first taken lessons when I was 14, and then about a year later I started to teach myself bass.\u201d By age 16 he was in a band with future R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry. \u201cBill and I were really solid,\u201d Mills says. He played a Fender Jazz that belonged to his high school.<\/p>\n

His mid-’70s bass setup was modeled after that of a local hero, Allman Brothers Band bassist Berry Oakley. \u201cI had two Fender Dual Showman reverb amps: one cabinet with two 12’s and one cabinet with four 10’s.\u201d Though Mills is most often associated with the Rickenbacker 4001, he went through a series of basses before finding the Rick. \u201cI played a beat-up Hofner for awhile,\u201d he says. \u201cThen I played an Ampeg Dan Armstrong clear acrylic bass. I played a Fender Musicmaster for awhile, and then I found that ’71 Rick.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 4001 would remain Mills’ instrument of choice \u201cuntil one of the horseshoe pickups went out. We couldn’t find another one.\u201d He got a factory-replacement pickup but wasn’t happy with it. Mills then went through another series of basses \u2013 Ibanez, Guild \u2013 and then he tried out a 1970 Fender Precision he calls \u201cOld Yeller\u201d (the bass was originally yellow, explains Mills).<\/p>\n

\u201cI had sort of resisted the P bass,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause everybody played them. But then I found out why. It was because they\u2019re the best, especially for live shows. They’re just so durable, and they don’t go out of tune. They sound fantastic, and they feel good to play.\u201d Eventually, though, Mills’ bass tech located a working vintage horseshoe pickup, and the 4001 was returned to active duty. It’s actually a 4001S with Rick-O-Sound stereo output. \u201cBut I’ve never used it,\u201d laughs Mills. \u201cWe tried it, but it was more trouble than the sound was worth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mills has made a point of avoiding bass guitars with more than four strings. \u201cCan’t stand them,\u201d he laughs, admitting that five strings \u201cjust confuses me.\u201d His bass strings of choice are D’Addario nickel wounds, .045 – .100 gauge; \u201cI’m a round-wound guy,\u201d he says. \u201cI like a lot of mid-range; a lot more than most bass players. And I like a little buzz in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

More often than not, Mills plays bass with a pick. \u201cBut it depends on the song,\u201d he says. \u201cNot that I’m a funky bass player anyway,\u201d he laughs, \u201cbut sometimes there’s a rhythmic thing you can get with your fingers that you can’t get with a pick.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the studio with R.E.M. \u2013 working over the years with producers and engineers including Mitch Easter, Don Dixon, Joe Boyd, Scott Litt and others \u2013 Mills generally preferred a clean and simple approach to recording his bass. \u201cI’ve never really been an effects guy,\u201d he says. \u201cI just run it through the amp and then record one direct, and then blend the two.\u201d He says that the sound coming out of his amp \u2013 often a Mesa\/Boogie or an Ampeg SVT \u2013 \u201cwas usually so good that I didn’t mind if [the producer] wanted to blend in a little bit of the direct signal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even live, Mills has mostly avoided pedals or other effects for his bass rig. \u201cThe only time I ever really used a pedal was on the [1995] Monster<\/i> tour,\u201d he says. \u201cI had a Big Muff distortion pedal that I would use on two or three songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most distinctive qualities of the R.E.M. sound was the jangling guitar of Peter Buck. \u201cPeter taught himself to play,\u201d says Mills. \u201cHe always approached [guitar] with that <\/b>arpeggiated <\/b>style; that’s one thing that set up apart. Peter is my favorite guitar player in rock ‘n’ roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing bass behind that style \u2013 and along with what Mills calls Berry’s \u201corchestral\u201d drumming style \u2013 meant that Mills often played in an active, melodic fashion with R.E.M. He names Berry Oakley as one major influence upon his style. \u201cI hate to be so obvious, but Paul McCartney was a big influence, too,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But Mills admits to another influence, one perhaps unexpected for such a straight-ahead player. \u201cI always enjoyed Chris Squire’s playing,\u201d Mills says. \u201cI was not a huge Yes fan, but I liked the way he played it melodically, like a guitar, and kind of up-front.\u201d<\/p>\n

R.E.M. studiously stayed away from trendy sonic textures and production flourishes on their albums; their success at that is a big part of why their songs still sound fresh 30-plus years after they were recorded. \u201cWe told Mitch Easter and Don Dixon from the very beginning that we did not want to sound ‘eighties,’\u201d Mills says. In fact, during the sessions for the group’s 1983 debut album Murmur<\/i>, he recalls that \u201cthe head of the record company called Don and Mitch and told them to ‘eighties it up’ a little bit. Peter Buck and I heard that and said, ‘No way!’\u201d<\/p>\n

R.E.M. disbanded in September 2011; it was \u201cthe right thing at the right time,\u201d Mills says. In his post-R.E.M. years, Mills has been seen onstage most often playing his trusty black Rickenbacker 4001; he’s used it on tours with The Baseball Project, and on his recent tour fronting the hybrid rock band\/orchestra. For the latter, he’s part of a four-piece rock ensemble out in front of a 15-piece string section.<\/p>\n

Regarding his next move, Mills is circumspect. \u201cI have no idea what’s in the future,\u201d he says, allowing that some things are likely. \u201cThere might be a few more Big Star 3rd shows down the line. Hopefully the Baseball Project will do another record soon, and I think there will be some more Concerto<\/i> shows with various symphonies around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most recently, Mills has been doing interviews in connection with 25th anniversary expanded reissue of Out of Time<\/i>. That got him thinking about why the band was as successful as it was. \u201cWhat set R.E.M. off and apart was that we didn’t want to do things in a traditional way,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd we sort of had the zeitgeist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, so when R.E.M. got together in the nearby college town of Athens and started making noises in 1980, my friends and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[2922,1773,1817],"class_list":["post-13267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-mike-mills","tag-r-e-m","tag-rem","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13270,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13267\/revisions\/13270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}