Michael Stipe visited The Late Show on Thursday to debut his new song “The Rest of Ever,” as well as discuss his long-awaited first solo album.
The former R.E.M. singer was joined by Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine — his collaborators on the previous single “No Time for Love Like Now” — for the performance for the track which, as Stephen Colbert noted, was of off Stipe’s “upcoming incredible album.”
“As a gift to you and the show, the song we’re performing tonight, it’s the first time it’s ever been played, and I’m so pleased to do it with the band,” Stipe said in an interview that preceded the performance. “My record is coming out at the end of the year, nobody knows that yet so I’m announcing it now. My first-ever solo record.”
Stipe added that he’s writing the “final lyrics” now, and that “one of the songs is the sound of a tree hearing itself for the first time … My friend recorded a tree in my backyard in Georgia and played it back to itself, it sounds like Daft Punk.” Stipe also said there’s a sea shanty on the upcoming LP based around the traditional “Drunken Sailor.”
Elsewhere in the Colbert interview, Stipe talked about his one-off reunion with R.E.M. at the Songwriters Hall of Fame, as well as his cameo appearances during Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s R.E.M. tribute concerts.
“I’m like the biggest fan of those guys doing that, because I’ve never gotten to hear those songs before live, because I was in the middle of it, I was singing,” Stipe said. “Those songs are in my DNA, so I’m hearing a part of me thrown back, but interpreted by someone who I really admire.”
Stipe was then asked who should portray him in an R.E.M. biopic. “Someone really hot,” Stipe joked. “Maybe Billie Eilish can do it.”
Over the past seven years, Stipe has dripped out new music outside of his long-in-the-works solo album, including his 2019 one-off charity 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.
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