Michael Stipe
- Born John Michael in Georgia, USA on 4 January 1960
- American singer, songwriter and artist
- He sings in a “wailing, keening, and arching” style.
- He has a brick tattooed on his right hand
- He is vegetarian and owned a vegetarian restaurant called The Grit, in Athens.
- In 1980 and whilst still at university he met Peter Buck who was working in the local record shop. The two became friends, started a band and writing music together,
- They were later joined by Bill Berry and Mike Mills, and named themselves R.E.M
- He is best known as the lead singer and lyricist of R.E.M
- Photography is his passion and he has been carrying a camera with him since his teenage years when he photographed shows featuring The Ramones and Queen
- He collects aeroplane boarding passes and has 600 of them.
- In 1983, they released their debut album, Murmur, which went on to win the Rolling Stone Album of the Year over Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
- In 1994 he had planned a collaboration with friend Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, partly in an attempt to lure him away from his home and his drug addiction. However, they did not manage to compose or record anything before Cobain’s death
- He has appeared as himself with R.E.M. on Sesame Street, playing a reworked version of “Shiny Happy People” titled “Furry Happy Monsters”
- R.E.M have won the Brit Award for International Group 3 times
- He has released fifteen studio albums, five live albums, fourteen compilation albums, one soundtrack album, sixty-three singles, and seventy-seven music videos
- His hits include: “Shiny Happy People”, “Everybody Hurts”, “Man on the Moon” and “Losing My Religion”
