PETER BUCK
The ex-R.E.M. guitar loses his mind over Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970).
Which legend did R.E.M.’s guitar man meet at airport security one stormy night in the ’80s? And how does this relate to the record that changed his life?
“I first heard it when I was 13 in a record store in Glendale, California, that had guitars. They’d play the usual stuff – Beatles, Stones – and one day they played this. I think it was the first thing I’d heard outside of, like, AM radio, and I didn’t understand it all, I didn’t even know if it was music. It turned me onto the fact that there’s a world out there outside of four guys with guitars. I finally bought it when I was 16, 17, and I’ve played it probably once a week my whole life.
I love the non-linearity of it. These guys are pretty clearly making it up as they go, and the musicianship and inspiration is at such a high level that it makes sense – I can’t think of any record that has that complete spontaneity and yet absolutely spot-on togetherness. I’ve done some improv stuff with Robert Fripp, and within an hour I’m ready to die, sweating through my clothes, it’s so intense. It seems they lived at that level. I’ve done work influenced by things like Bitches Brew, and Krautrock, and things that deny the essence of songwriting and just go for pure performance, but I’m not anywhere the musician that any of those guys are. It’s sui generis.
The only time I ever met Miles, me and Mike Mills were in the airport in New York City, it was probably ’87. We were going through security and the metal detectors, and Miles was ahead of us, wearing one of those Michael Jackson outfits he wore in the ’80s, every inch of it was metal. He was like, ‘Goddamn motherfucker, got to take my motherfucking shoes off.’ I said, Mr Davis, I really love your work. He just looked at me and nodded and went back to cursing. It was really horrible weather, but we thought, a plane with Miles Davis on it is not gonna go down. If it had, we’d certainly have been a footnote.”
As told to Ian Harrison
Peter Buck and Luke Haines’ Beat Poetry For Survivalists is out on Cherry Red on March 6.