Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting.

When I get really hammered I take my clothes off. That's a sure sign. It's been a long time since the last time I did that. Probably a year.

I'm not homosexual, I'm not hetrosexual, I'm just sexual.

By the time [of modern] generation was coming of age sexually, there was already this idea of safe sex. But that didn't exist for me. I came out of the free-swinging '60s and '70s. It was free love, baby. That was it. We had very liberal sex-ed classes in 1973, a yearlong environmental science class, and then Women's Lib and Gay Liberation. So it's insane to go from that to Reagan and AIDS. It was like, "What happened? Where's my future?"

For every great thing we did, there is a very public moment of falling on our faces. But everything that came through us as a band was a distinct vision of R.E.M.

Frankly I'm not great with heroin addicts. I tried heroin, but it was by accident. I'm not great with that level of substance abuse.

My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am.