Bob Spires (Remote Control)
SPB: Who is your favorite 1980s artist/band?
Spires: This is a tough one but I'd have to say, being a Georgia boy, that the early ‘80s records by REM have to be top for me. I got a cassette of Murmur, their first full length on IRS, when I was in early high school. That record was powerful to me for several reasons. One is that Peter Buck's guitar playing is incredible and that Rickenbacker chimy tone just really cut through. I loved his arpeggios and that he didn't overdo the chords and let the bass breathe.
My favorite records of theirs are the ones where you can't tell what Michael Stipe is saying because the lyrics are muddled. It leaves more to the imagination and sets more of a mood than concrete imagery. Living in rural Georgia and kind of a social outsider, to me there was something unique, artistic, intellectual and raw about those first few REM records. The early ‘80s REM records also do a great job hybridizing some of their influences like ‘70s punk, ‘60s Velvet Underground and some of the new wave/post-punk of the time but had a southern and rural element that was missing from the punk and new wave scenes of the UK, NYC and LA.
I wore out that cassette and had to buy another one at K-mart. REM was a gateway drug to a lot of other music like XTC and Gang of Four. Although my first rock band in high school was really just a Ramones rip-off band, it was that first REM record that made me want to write music. I wanted to capture the complexity of life in the rural Deep South in a way that wasn't as ham handed as southern rock, or hokey as the country music of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but still authentic enough to convey the emotions and beauty, as well as problems, of life as a southerner who wasn't a redneck or hillbilly.
Still chasing that pipe dream to this day.
