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Michael Stipe, image via <\/em>YouTube<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Michael Stipe appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/em> last night. In a rare televised appearance, the iconic singer-songwriter and former R.E.M. frontman reflected on his progress on his long-awaited debut solo album, which he said will arrive by the end of the year, and performed a new song called \u201cThe Rest of Ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Stipe\u2019s freewheeling conversation with Colbert moved from his beard, to biopics, band relations and sea shanties. On the possibility of a film dramatizing his time with R.E.M., Stipe said he\u2019d be keen to see Billie Eilish portray him, and responded more coolly to the idea of fellow Peach State counterculture representative David Cross. He spoke to his current relationship with his bandmates and looked back fondly on the quartet\u2019s onstage reunion at the 2024 Songwriters Hall of Fame<\/a> induction gala, then expressed his appreciation for Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy<\/a>\u2019s R.E.M. tribute act, which he joined for treatments of \u201cThese Days\u201d and \u201cThe Great Beyond\u201d at Brooklyn Steel in March<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stipe has been working on his first solo album for years, and he got into some specifics with Colbert, including the note that several songs are influenced by electronic music, and one is about \u201cthe sound of a tree hearing itself for the first time.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s this confusing situation,\u2019 he said. \u201cMy friend recorded a tree in my backyard in Georgia and played it back to itself, and so it sounds like Daft Punk.\u201d That song also supposedly includes misheard lyrics from the well-known shanty \u201cWhat Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?\u201d Despite these disparate interests, \u201cThe Rest of Ever\u201d sounds fairly close to his tried and true style of roundabout introspection.<\/p>\n In a 2023 interview with The New York Times<\/em>, Stipe explained that his aim to have each song on the album sound \u201cvery different\u201d: \u201cI have no management. I have no label. For the first time in my adult life, I don\u2019t have a contract with anyone except myself. So I get to do whatever I want. Anyway, there will be a visual representation for each of the songs, and it should come together next year. I\u2019m hoping to build slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n After periodically addressing delays in the project, Stipe told The Times<\/em> in March, \u201cIt\u2019s been a struggle. That\u2019s the main thing. I want it to be great, but I\u2019ve got the pressure of having been in REM and it\u2019s a high bar, because I want this to be as good as that, and that\u2019s near impossible. So it\u2019s fucking exciting but also terrifying, and I\u2019m doing the music for the first time too, and I think I\u2019m good at it but not great.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch Stipe\u2019s Late Show<\/em> spot below.<\/p>\n