On This Day in 2011, This Alternative Group Threw in the Towel Before Becoming a Tired Old Rock Band

Some of the best alt-rock bands from years past have broken up due to big egos and band drama. That wasn’t the case for the alternative rock band R.E.M., whose frontman, Michael Stipe, and the rest of the band announced to the world back in 2011 that they were ending their musical chapter as a band. And there was no ill will involved, thankfully.

The group had been together for more than 30 years at that point, first forming way back in 1980 while students at the University of Georgia. In those 30 years, they became one of the most memorable alt-rock bands of the 1990s. Even groups like Nirvana and Pixies referred to them as pioneers of the genre. And in 2011, band members Michael Stipe, Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills took to R.E.M.’s website to make an announcement that was devastating for some fans.

The Members of R.E.M. Didn’t Want To Become a Shell of What They Once Were, and Quit To Preserve Their Legacy

“To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band,” the website post reads. “We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.”

Later, each member of the band contributed their own comments about the breakup. Fortunately, this wasn’t the result of the inner-band drama. Rather, the group decided to hang up the towel instead of becoming a stereotypical rock band that reunites over and over, just for the sake of making money with reunion tours.

“A wise man once said–‘the skill in attending a party is knowing when it’s time to leave,’” Michael Stipe said in the updated post. “We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we’re going to walk away from it. I hope our fans realize this wasn’t an easy decision; but all things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way.”

If anything, this is pretty respectable. R.E.M. has successfully preserved their legacy instead of potentially tarnishing it with touring efforts well into their old age.

“We will never reunite,” Michael Stipe said in 2021, exactly 10 years after R.E.M. disbanded. “We decided when we split up that that would just be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together.”

Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images