R.E.M Unlikely To Plan Tour For New Album 'Collapse Into Now'
Tuesday, 08 March 2011
Written by Elliott Batte
Legendary American rockers R.E.M released their latest long layer ‘Collapse into Now’ yesterday – but will disappoint fans with their probable decision NOT to tour their fifteenth studio album.
In an almost depressing outlook on today’s music industry, guitarist Pete Buck admitted that he believes touring isn’t necessary to album promotion anymore, and thus the band will probably not be hitting the road this spring (or any time soon by the looks of it).
“I'm not really sure that touring sells records. What sells records anymore? It seems like less and less people are buying albums, so do what you want.”
“We'll just see what happens. But it does seem like we've toured a lot in the last eight or ten years. To some degree it felt like we'd just been doing kind of the same thing we did last time. You just don't really want to repeat yourself in that way.”
This comes after Buck seemingly decided he would have enjoyed touring the album, saying "I'd really like to do it, but we've toured a lot recently”. Fans must feel that this reflects views that suggest musicians are working for money and not for fun and passion – although manager Bertis Downs has previously spoken about the band not always wanting to tour a new album.
Alternatively though, some hardcore R.E.M fans will be pleased to hear that the new album has seen the three-piece band return to earlier sounds. Buck revealed “We'd made a couple records that were mid-tempo to slow. This time around we were all trying to bring in different kinds of stuff and capture some of the things that maybe we'd done in the past that we hadn't revisited, the kind of acoustic stuff which I've been playing -- more or less folk music -- since I was 15.”
You can see the video for Überlin, taken from ‘Collapse into Now’, embedded below. Keep yourself updated on possible R.E.M live dates right here on Stereoboard.
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