135: Michael Stipe | Part 1
Homo Sapiens
Christopher Sweeney
4.7 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2021
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What a joy this conversation was. It’s ACTUAL Michael Stipe on this week’s Homo Sapiens. The legendary former R.E.M. frontman tells us how he might have redefined his gender identity if he were a teenager today, talks honestly about his experiences during the AIDS Crisis, and we even learn that this very podcast gave him the confidence (his words, not ours), to create a series of voice notes to accompany his fantastic new book, ‘Michael Stipe’. Plus what exactly is The Church of Michael Stipe? I for one will be signing up! Chris x
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Picture this, static cars, idling engines, angry horns, now picture you, zooming past |
| 0:12.4 | it all, light and breezy, ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic, book your train |
| 0:21.6 | journey via AvantiWestcoast.co.uk, AvantiWestcoast, feel good travel. |
| 0:30.3 | Hello listeners, once in a while an icon crosses your path, and I'm not talking about my dog |
| 0:37.2 | Ridley. We have got such an exciting episode of homo sapiens for you. I feel like I should be |
| 0:43.4 | wearing a dicky bow tie, perhaps with a pop of glitter on it in a sort of lovely jacket. |
| 0:48.4 | Guess who our guest is today? It's none other than Michael Steip. Michael Steip came to |
| 0:54.8 | everybody's prominence as the REM frontman. Writing all the biggest hits in the world, |
| 1:00.0 | Michael is a very prolific well-known artist and photographer these days as well. He's done many |
| 1:05.4 | books, beautiful books, and has got a new book, created during lockdown. It's really interesting |
| 1:10.8 | actually because he had all these ideas of things he wanted to do for the book. And because lockdown |
| 1:16.7 | descended and something he couldn't go anywhere to take photos, it's a photo book. He had to |
| 1:20.9 | think of other like ingenious ways to embody the people who were in the book. The book features |
| 1:25.7 | lots of amazing people like Tilda Swinton is on the cover, Phoebe Walla Bridges in there, |
| 1:30.6 | Michaela Cole is in there, lots of other interesting people, but all represented different ways, |
| 1:35.6 | sometimes with a photograph, but often not, using things like text and stuff. And he's also |
| 1:40.3 | done a ton of voice notes. Do you know what they were inspired by? These voice notes where he talks |
| 1:45.3 | about stuff. He told me he was inspired, but listening to me in Alan Chattingway on Homo Sapiens, |
| 1:50.8 | and presumably listening to you guys and your voice notes is where he got the idea. So what an |
| 1:55.6 | accolade from a hero I tell you. So Michael's type is our guest today. I'm very excited. The man |
| 2:01.0 | is an icon. He also was one of those very first people I was ever aware of when I was younger, |
| 2:07.6 | of being queer in some way. And we talk a lot about that actually, about how he didn't really want |
... |
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