“It’s funny. Johnny Marr has a place there, and we are kind of friends. I walked into this ice cream shop, and the guy goes, ‘Jesus, what a weird day.’ He goes, ‘Johnny Marr walked in here like 20 minutes ago, and now you. Is this like indie guitar 80s day or something?’” While cutting a few demos in the Portland area, R.E.M.’s Peter Buck discusses the band’s songwriting process, and his aspirations for the next record. “There are some really pretty acoustic things, some really total noisy rock, and some kind of poppy stuff. It runs the gamut. Ideally, if it were me making all the decisions, I’d say the record would be a lot broader than the last one. But still, I want to do it really quickly and immediately and not do a huge amount of overdubs.“