Mike Mills reveals R.E.M have “plenty of vault songs” yet to be released

nme.com:

Mike Mills has revealed that R.E.M has “plenty of vault songs” yet to be released from the band’s catalogue.Mills recently appeared as a guest on LPM’s podcast Kyle Meredith With...

to discuss the 25th-anniversary edition of ‘Up’, the band’s first LP following drummer Bill Berry’s departure.While on the show, the former bassist revealed that R.E.M have many vault songs waiting to be released and said: “There’s a reason you haven’t heard most of it”.

Elsewhere in the chat, he reflected on tracks such as ‘Airportman’, ‘Daysleeper’, and ‘Hope’ and explained why the band went for a more electronic sound.“It was made under such difficult circumstances – the story is told and known that Bill had left the band.

We were already leaning towards making a more electronic, machine-driven record, and Bill’s leaving accelerated that process,” he explained.While speaking about the band’s 1998 LP, ‘UP’, he said: “We made a really remarkable record under remarkable circumstances,” referencing to the fact that any other musicians would have taken time away in order to process their feelings on losing a member, but R.E.M were “a stubborn bunch” and decided to go on with their work since demos were already in place.Earlier this year, R.E.M announced a 25th- anniversary box-set of the album that included a Blu-ray disc of the band’s previously unreleased live set from their guest appearance on the hit TV series Party Of Five in 1999.Speaking about the inclusion of the unreleased live-set, Mills said he enjoyed the “juxtaposition of putting a live show with our least live record.