It’s barely been a week since the “moment,” and Jason Narducy is still trying to process it. Narducy and the actor Michael Shannon have been touring together playing R.E.M. songs, and during their February 27 show at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, the pair were joined by all four members of the band—Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry—for a blistering run-through of the 1984 classic “Pretty Persuasion,” marking the first performance from the full band in their hometown in twenty years.
To call Shannon and Narducy’s project merely a cover band would be an injustice. A Chicago native, Narducy has been playing music since his preteens, starting with his punk band Verböten (recently reunited after forty years) and continuing through a varied solo career and stints in bands with Bob Mould and Superchunk. He serves as the musical director for the R.E.M. project and assembled a crack band featuring members of Wilco and the Mountain Goats. Meanwhile, Shannon is a music-obsessive frontman, leading his band Corporal and playing iconic musicians such as Elvis and George Jones in acting roles. The two met ten years ago via mutual musician friend Robbie Fulks, jamming together off and on, including a tour last year where they played R.E.M.’s 1983 debut, Murmur, in its entirety.
For the current tour, which runs through next week and then heads to the UK and Ireland in August, Narducy and Shannon tackle 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction, R.E.M.’s moody, knottier effort that nonetheless laid the foundation for the band’s impending superstardom. Mills and Buck have been frequent guests with Narducy and Shannon over the past two years, but at the 40 Watt, it was the first time Stipe joined everyone to sing.
“The whole thing is wild,” says Narducy, whom we caught up with to talk about the performance. “Mike and I didn’t strategize this thing. It just keeps organically unraveling before us, in unexpected and exciting ways. I don’t aspire to be in a cover band. That’s not to sound ungrateful; it’s just not the work I do. But this keeps happening, and it’s just joyful.”
Have you dug into all the YouTube clips that have been posted?
I don’t watch the clips [laughs]. It never sounds or looks the way you want it to.
Well, take it from me, it’s a thrill. And to have a co-sign from the actual band must mean the world to you.
The way they and their manager have embraced us is beautiful. After the show, we took photos with all the members of R.E.M. and our band. When we finished, Michael Stipe took a step forward, turned around to everybody, and said, “We’re bringing a lot of joy to people around the world right now.” That meant so much.
The fan reaction has been insane, too.
It’s comfort food. Maybe they’re fans recapturing something they felt when they were younger. Or they’re younger people who discovered the band through their own experience or watching The Bear [the television series has featured multiple R.E.M. songs]. There’s just so many on-ramps to this band, and I’m incredibly grateful to be playing these wonderful, beautiful songs with my friends.
Did you have any idea Stipe was going to perform?
We did not. Once he left the stage, Peter [Buck] leaned over to me and said, “I did not think Michael would do that.” So I don’t think anybody had any idea. And our other guitarist, Dag, waved Bill Berry on stage to play tambourine. So I don’t think that was planned either. That’s when everybody looked around and said, “Oh, this is happening.” People are crying. I was choked up, you know. And “Pretty Persuasion” is such a joyous barn burner of a song. It was just a room full of shiny happy people [laughs]. Yeah, I said it.
The members all dispersed after calling it quits in 2011, but last year they reunited at the Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony and gave a very emotional group interview to CBS Mornings. Then getting onstage with you guys was the capper. I’m not saying they’ll reunite, but it feels like there’s an acceptance and acknowledgment of what they had together.
I’ve always sensed that they care about each other and that they do care about the legacy of the band. That’s really unique. Peter said after the show that when Bill left the band [in 1997], he was pissed at him, but he still loved him. After the show, we went back to their manager’s house, and I was talking to Michael [Stipe] and his husband, Thomas. Peter was leaving, and he came over, hugged Michael goodbye, and said, “I love you.” I’m standing there going, these guys have been through everything together, and they hug. It’s pretty awesome.
Do you have more R.E.M. plans after the August shows in the UK? The appetite is there.
Next year is the fortieth anniversary of Life’s Rich Pageant. Just saying.
