R.E.M. ON REVEAL

R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck has always been a remarkably candid and garrulous interview subject. Given that he’s done few interviews since R.E.M.’s dissolution (you can literally count them on one hand), Under the Radar was thrilled that that he was game to discuss the band’s largely overlooked 2001 orchestral-rock masterpiece, Reveal.

It was surprising to find out that Buck, who favors ragged albums recorded quickly, was , at least according to the band’s manager Bertis Downs, who enthused over Buck’s love of the album. Buck immediately repudiated that claim. “I don’t, really,” he laughs. “I’m proud of pretty much everything I’ve done, and when we finished the record I thought it was pretty good, and now that R.E.M.’s over and you get a chance to look at how everything went from this place to that place, it’s kind of an interesting little [place] we went down. It has a Jimmy Webb and Glenn Campbell vibe with a Krautrock filter, with The Beach Boys too, who were always in our DNA.”