R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night (April 23) to confirm that his long-in-the-works solo debut will be released “at the end of the year.” Stipe also debuted a song from it, “The Rest of Ever,” with backing from the show’s house band, Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine.
During his couch segment, the heavily bearded 66-year-old vocalist said one of the album’s 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.” Stipe said the ensuing song “sounds like Daft Punk” and that he reworked the lyrics to the 250-year-old sea shanty “Drunken Sailor” to pair with it.
He continued, “I misheard what I thought was part of the original song — ‘tie him to the mast and shave his belly.’ And then my part comes in, which is ‘duct tape, donkey ears, jelly wellies early in the morning.’”
Addressing R.E.M.’s 2024 reunion at the Songwriters Hall of Fame, during which its four original members performed together for the first time in 17 years, Stipe noted, “I’m just very lucky that we are best friends. You know, we split the band up in 2011. We remain best friends. We have dinners with each other. We text each other all the time. When we’re working on projects, we invite each other to participate. They’re friends for life and my best friends. I’m really honored to have that.”
Colbert also asked Stipe about his reaction to Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s R.E.M. tribute project, through which they’ve performed the band’s early albums in their entirety since launching in 2024. The same core four R.E.M. members took the stage together again in February 2025 in Athens, Ga., when Shannon and Narducy rolled through the band’s longtime home base.
“I’m like the biggest fan of those guys doing that because I’ve never gotten to hear those songs performed live,” Stipe noted. “I was always in the middle of it [but] those songs are in my DNA. So, I’m hearing a part of me thrown back but interpreted by someone who I really admire and love. Michael Shannon and Jason — they’re incredible guys.”
Stipe admitted to being “freaked out” prior to joining the fun that night in Athens. “I had told Michael that I wanted to jump up for the song ‘Pretty Persuasion,’ which I wrote when I was 22. It was basically about trans rights [or] what we would now call trans rights. I was backstage and I kind of got like a little freaked out. [Guitarist] Peter Buck had been jumping up with them. He loves to play guitar, so he was up for several song and he said, just go. Just get up there. Just do it. So I was like, okay Peter. I jumped up and then [bassist] Mike Mills was side of stage and he jumped up to sing background. And about halfway through the song, I heard a tambourine over my right shoulder and I turned around and [drummer] Bill Berry was standing there. So, we reunited for half a song that moment.”
After Colbert suggested comedian David Cross should play Stipe in an R.E.M. biopic due to the similarity of their large beards, Stipe instead proposed Billie Eilish, who he then said had once held a door open for him at a New York restaurant without him realizing who she was.
Stipe didn’t reveal many further details about his solo album, from which a handful of potential songs have emerged over the past several years. “[It’s my first ever solo record and I’m really pleased about that.”