Denis Leary doesn’t like R.E.M.’s “Shiny Comfortable Folks.” He proclaimed as a lot means again in 1992, the yr after the Out Of Time single got here out, when he did an MTV spot based mostly on his standup routine poking enjoyable on the state of rock ‘n’ roll. “R.E.M. ‘Shiiiiiny haaaaapy individuals’… hey, hey, hey, pull that bus over to the facet of the Pretentiousness Turnpike…,” the comic seethed within the promo. “I acquired two phrases for Michael Stipe: Steve. Tyler.” That sounds a bit harsh, however even Stipe has expressed some blended emotions in regards to the polarizing bubblegum hit, which featured the B-52s’ Kate Pierson, acquired R.E.M. invited to Sesame Avenue, and reached the Prime 10 on Billboard’s Sizzling 100. The R.E.M. frontman instructed House Ghost “I hate that music” again in 1995 and defined to The Quietus in 2011 that “it’s just a bit bit embarrassing that it turned as huge a success because it did.”
Leary, who now stars within the sitcom Going Dutch and has been revisiting his ’90s MTV period currently, went on the Wealthy Eisen Present the opposite day with a fairly good Stipe story. He dispelled the rumor that R.E.M. requested him to be within the “Shiny Comfortable Folks” video after they noticed that MTV industrial. However he revealed the way it did give him an impromptu bonding second with Stipe. Leary recalled:
I did an MTV spot about “Shiny Comfortable Folks” and another stuff I hated. There was actual anger and vary. After which I used to be in a restaurant in Los Angeles with Sean Penn and it was sort of empty, we have been having an early dinner, and it was an out of doors patio so you would smoke. So we’re simply sitting there, two indignant Irish guys smoking.
My again was to the door and Penn goes, “Hey hey hey hey, Michael Stipe’s on his means over right here.” I’m going, “What?!” He goes, “Michael Stipe’s strolling over…” And he walked up and he palms me somewhat matchbook, and walks away, doesn’t say something. I open the matchbook cowl… and it says, “I hate ‘Shiny Comfortable Folks’ too.” And so we glance over, and he’s at a desk and he’s smiling. So Sean and I went over and sat with him. He was the best man, nice humorousness about himself.
Watch him inform the story beneath across the three-minute mark.
R.I.P. George Lowe.