Chronicle Books

May 30th, 2008 | by Lisa Anne |

What a fantastic past 48 hours… photos and stories from the LA signing and show to come soon!

In the meantime - we caught up with David in between buses and planes for a quick interview. Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

How did you get involved with R.E.M.?

My good friend since teenhood, Bob Whittaker (R.E.M. Tour Manager), introduced me to the band in 2001 as a photographer/waiter who could possibly work out as an assistant. I met the band in San Fransisco and worked with them for about 10 days and we hit it off great.

What is your relationship with R.E.M. fans?

I actually don’t know what my relationship is with the fans… I’m taking photographs all the time, and my days are so packed with the work that comes along with being an assistant that I don’t have much time outside of touring for relationships.

Although, I do think I understand what the true fans of R.E.M. love about the band. And that is what I try to put in focus when I’m shooting photographs. Currently I am connecting more with the fans on Chronicle R.E.M. blog, and the MySpace book page that I made. I’m pretty bad on cyber friendships I have to admit, but it’s an ADD thing, and I’m trying to be better at that connection.

What are some of the great things about being on tour with the band?

Travel for sure.

R.E.M. friends - family – office – the folks that handle all the publicity: so so so much fun to see in and out of touring. I have some of the best memories in my life from hanging out with the above jewels of people.

Being Michael’s assistant on tour: well, Michael is Awesome, his boyfriend is awesome, his family is awesome, and he’s a very inspiring, creative, hardworking force to be around… Oh, and he is Hilarious, and I love to make him laugh.

Can you tell us something about the R.E.M. band members that even super-fans may not know?

They run to pee in garbage cans before the encore: during the encore (break) I am in charge of finding and setting up an area up for them with towels, hairdryer, encore set-list, drinks, etc… 80% of the time there will be no bathroom in this area so I have to find medium garbage cans for them to quickly pee in (which is the first thing they all do). Two photos in my book are of either Michael or all three of R.E.M. peeing during encore —both shots are candid and they were always unaware of my taking them. And other shots in the book are in proper urinals at least. Talk about intimate… And somehow really funny to me. I love those shots.

Also, almost everyone on tour has had Peter Buck fill up their iPods from his collection. He loves to turn us on to genres we’re interested in and every iPod he fills is different and crazy good, always turning us onto stuff we had no idea existed before.

More from this chat to come…