Fact #167536
When:
Short story:
The Police and R.E.M. play at The Capital Center, Largo, Maryland, USA.
Full article:
Peter Buck (R.E.M.) : It just taught us that we’re pretty much right on these things. Everyone said that, ‘Oh, this will make you have a hit record.’ But we did the seven dates and we didn’t sell one record out of that. It was a waste of fucking time.
Jay Boberg (vice-president, IRS Records) : Those shows were probably a lot more successful in their career than they will ever acknowledge, but they hated the experience.
Ian Copeland : I can only give my opinion as to why REM hated those gigs. Personally, I think that's mostly bullshit, mostly the spin they wished to put on it at the time. Put yourself in their position. They were supposed to hate it! This was a time when you were supposed to be contrary, rebellious, even ungrateful. Many of the things bands say are meant to show how tough they are, how they're the real thing, and how they never got lucky. No band wants the public to perceive that they had a leg up in any way. Image is everything to REM. Buck, by the way, has a particularly convenient memory, I've noticed over the years. Besides, they were third on the bill and not many people had heard of them yet.
Bill Berry : But it was hopeless. We shoulda stayed home and written some songs and got drunk for all the f***in' good it did us. And, once again, it proved that we are usually right. We shouldn't have played that tour. We shouldn't have listened to the record company.
We shoulda done what we believed to be right. Just because we’re hooked up with this vast business machine doesn’t mean we have to go along with everything it says. Our intuition has been more valuable to us than any of the great words of wisdom passed on to us by the damned record company.
(Source : not known)
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Jay Boberg (vice-president, IRS Records) : Those shows were probably a lot more successful in their career than they will ever acknowledge, but they hated the experience.
Ian Copeland : I can only give my opinion as to why REM hated those gigs. Personally, I think that's mostly bullshit, mostly the spin they wished to put on it at the time. Put yourself in their position. They were supposed to hate it! This was a time when you were supposed to be contrary, rebellious, even ungrateful. Many of the things bands say are meant to show how tough they are, how they're the real thing, and how they never got lucky. No band wants the public to perceive that they had a leg up in any way. Image is everything to REM. Buck, by the way, has a particularly convenient memory, I've noticed over the years. Besides, they were third on the bill and not many people had heard of them yet.
Bill Berry : But it was hopeless. We shoulda stayed home and written some songs and got drunk for all the f***in' good it did us. And, once again, it proved that we are usually right. We shouldn't have played that tour. We shouldn't have listened to the record company.
We shoulda done what we believed to be right. Just because we’re hooked up with this vast business machine doesn’t mean we have to go along with everything it says. Our intuition has been more valuable to us than any of the great words of wisdom passed on to us by the damned record company.
(Source : not known)