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Michael Stipe was a guest on “The Late Show” on Thursday and played his new song “The Rest of Ever” live for the first time – includingnd talked about his long-awaited solo album.
The former REM singer was accompanied by Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine – the same collaborators with whom he had already recorded the single “No Time for Love Like Now”. Stephen Colbert announced the performance as a preview of Stipe’s “upcoming, great album.”
“As a gift to you and the show, the song we’re playing tonight is being performed for the first time ever, and I’m so happy to be doing this with the band,” Stipe said in an interview before the performance. “My album will be released at the end of the year – no one knows that yet, so I’m announcing it here. My very first solo album.”
Trees, shanties and Daft Punk
Stipe added that he was still writing the “final lyrics” and that “one of the songs is the sound of a tree hearing itself for the first time… A friend recorded a tree in my backyard in Georgia and played the recording to the tree itself – it sounds like Daft Punk.” Stipe also revealed that the upcoming album features a Sea Shanty based on the traditional “Drunken Sailor.”
Continuing his conversation with Colbert, Stipe talked about meeting REM once again at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, as well as his guest appearances at Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s REM tribute concerts.
“I’m the biggest fan of what these guys are doing because I’ve never heard these songs live before – because I was standing in the middle of them singing myself,” said Stipe. “These songs are in my DNA, so I hear a part of me thrown back but interpreted by someone I really admire.”
Who plays Stipe in the biopic?
Stipe was then asked who should portray him in an REM biopic. “Someone really hot,” he joked. “Maybe Billie Eilish can take over.”
Over the past seven years, Stipe has released sporadic new music while his solo album was still in the making – including the 2019 benefit single “Your Capricious Soul,” the single “Drive to the Ocean,” and “No Time for Love Like Now,” a collaboration with The National’s Aaron Dessner.
