Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has shared a formative piece of advice given to him by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe as he struggled with fame.
Yorke reflected on his decades-long friendship with Stipe during his new Rolling Stone conversation with Harry Styles, which saw the pair discuss navigating fame and the impact it has on their private lives.
After Styles recalled feeling confined to hotels early in his career, Yorke said walking and people-watching could help “bring you out of yourself” and recalled how Stipe encouraged him to stop hiding away during Radiohead’s early years.
“I remember when we were on tour with R.E.M. [in 1995] and Michael Stipe figuring out that I would just hide in the dressing room, and never went out anywhere,” Yorke said. “So he started dragging me out, and he gave me this trick.
“He said, ‘If you don’t care, they don’t care. If you’re not looking, they’re not looking.’ And it works.”
Yorke recalled Stipe immediately putting the advice to the test during a night out on the road. “I remember being in Stockholm going to some really busy club, and he said, ‘Try it,’” he continued. “And it worked. Nobody bothered us.”
He added that while being recognised could still leave artists feeling vulnerable, living permanently behind closed doors was worse: “It’s not an easy decision to make, but it’s better than the alternative.”
Radiohead supported R.E.M. on the latter’s huge 1995 ‘Monster’ tour, beginning a friendship between Yorke and Stipe that has continued for more than three decades.
Speaking to NME in 2019, Stipe said the two had “forged a friendship through touring together and a mutual respect for each other’s work”.
“He became a contemporary,” Stipe continued. “He’s one of the people that I go to for advice in the industry of music, outside of Mike and Peter. He’s one of my first texts to say, ‘Here’s what I’m thinking of doing, what would you recommend?’
“There’s a cross-inspiration that happens there.”
While Stipe played down the suggestion that he had acted as Yorke’s mentor, he acknowledged that his own experiences with fame had proved useful to the younger singer.
