John Michael Stipe was born in Decatur, Georgia, on January 4th, 1960. Since his father was in the military, they moved around a lot. In 1980, while he was attending the University of Georgia (studying painting and photography), he met Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry. They dropped out of school to form R.E.M., which, with over 40 million records sold to some estimates, rival Irish band U2 in being one of the most popular bands on the late 20th century. Their debut single in 1981, Radio Free Europe, generated enough buzz for R.E.M. to sign with a major label. With IRS Records, they released Murmur (1983), Reckoning (1984), Fables of the Reconstruction (1985), and Life's Rich Pageant (1986). Document (1987) brought them into the public view, with Out Of TIme (1991) sending them to the top of the charts. The movie video for the flagship song, Losing My Religion, was recently rated by MTV as being one of the top five greatest music videos. Automatic for the People (1992), was a successful followup to Out of Time. In 1994, the band released Monster. The guitar-inclined songs the album focused on showed that R.E.M. could be a grunge band, as well. New Adventures in Hi-Fi, recorded mostly during sound-checks during the Monster tour, was released in 1996 to only modest success. It was followed by the equally so-so Up in 1998. Michael Stipe began to focus more on Hollywood in the 1990s. In the early 1990s, he and Oliver Stone tried for over two years to get a movie financed, but never succeeded. His Single Cell film company started achieving success in 1999, producing the Oscar-nominated Being John Malkovich, among other films.


He also owns a film production company called C-IOO Is a vegetarian. One of Michael's closest friends was the actor River Phoenix. When River died, aged just 23 in late October 1993, Michael called his young friend's sudden passing "the most shattering experience of my life." He dedicated REM's 1994 album 'Monster' to River. The dedication ("For River") can be seen in the album's fold out sleeve. Has a brick tattooed on his right hand and on his upper right arm a tattoo of the characters Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse from George Herriman's comic strip "Krazy Kat". Was once considered for the role of John Doe in Se7en (1995). Is close friends with Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. REM won the 1993 Brit Award for International Group. Good friends with Helena Christensen. Radiohead is one of his favorite bands and he is friends with all the band's members.