Michael Stipe
John Michael Stipe ( born January 4, 1960 in Decatur, Georgia, United States) is an American singer, songwriter, film producer and a founding member, singer and creative head of the American alternative rock band REM
Biography
Stipes childhood was marked by many parades, because his father worked in the military. Stipe lived 1967/68, inter alia, in Hanau in Germany.
1980 while he studied art and photography at the University of Athens ( Georgia), he met Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry, with whom he after study termination, the band REM founded. Within a few years it brought the formation to fame in the independent scene and was one of the first bands that also had great success in the mainstream. Previously - also in 1980 - he was together with guitarist William Lee Self founder of the band dancing plagues, which he, in parallel with its main project REM, served until the end of 1981.
Michael Stipe collaborated with several other artists, such as Patti Smith ( with her, for example, the song E -Bow the Letter ), Natalie Merchant and Kristin Hersh, inter alia, the song Your Ghost. He knew Hersh since childhood, but lost sight of them. Only when both Stipe R.E.M. and Hersh had already been established with the Throwing Muses, they met again. He was also a good friend of the late Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love. Stipe is the godfather of Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of the two.
In addition to his musical career, Michael Stipe also engaged socially and politically and is active artistic ( and Others Photography and Film ). He is co-owner of film production company, Single Cell Pictures, which produced among other things the movies Velvet Goldmine, Being John Malkovich and American Movie.
Stipe considered, according to a 2001 published in the Time article as a queer artist. Although many media evaluated an interview with Spin in March 2008 as a public acknowledgment of his homosexuality, both spin distance ( with reference to the older article from Time ) and Stipe himself from this interpretation. Stipe published on the website of People a video response to this heteronormative looking for an outing in which he congratulated his fellow band members to their courageous commitment to heterosexuality.
Discography
With R.E.M.
- See R.E.M. / Discography
Cooperations
Quotes
- " Radiohead are so good They scare me. "
- "We love Peter Gabriel - great minds think alike. "