You’re probably familiar with Michael Shannon as an actor. From “Boardwalk Empire” to “Knives Out,” to Oscar-nominated performances in “Revolutionary Road” and “Nocturnal Animals,” he often plays villainous characters, like in “The Shape of Water” or the terrific “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” with Ethan Hawke and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
It turns out he’s also got musical talents. In 2010, his band Corporal put out an album and, more recently, he has been collaborating with guitarist Jason Narducy, who has played with Bob Mould, Liz Phair and Superchunk, along with his solo work with Split Single.
The two met 10 years ago when another musician, Robbie Fulks, recruited them both to perform a show at the Hideout in Chicago centered around Lou Reed’s 1982 album “Blue Mask.” Since then, Narducy and Shannon have teamed up on numerous other concerts celebrating iconic albums, featuring the likes of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, The Smiths, and more.
In July of 2023, they performed REM’s “Murmur” at Chicago’s Metro. It was the 40th anniversary of the club, which happened to have presented REM playing that album as its first concert. REM’s Mike Mills even attended the show and joined them on stage. Now, the two are taking the show on tour, coming to First Avenue this week. The following is an interview with Shannon and Narducy about the collaboration.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MinnPost: Thanks for doing this. I’m excited for you to come here.
Michael Shannon: We are too. Holy crap. The First Avenue club. I’ve never been there.
MP: Oh, really?
MS: I’ve never been to Minneapolis.
MP: Are you guys a cover band, or how would you describe what you are doing?
Jason Narducy: It’s really not planned out very much. I guess, technically, we’re a cover band. We put together shows and then after, we ask the venue if they’ll have us. Then we’ll think of a record that we want to play, and I’ll assemble Chicago musicians, and we kind of do all the homework on our own and come together the night before the show, do a quick practice and then do the show.
Mike and I were talking about it earlier. I called it a pop up band, because it’s just a really quickly assembled group of people. And there’s an excitement to that. We’ve been doing this for 10 years, but this is the first time we’re taking it to other cities.MP: Had you guys met before your first gig at the Hideout 10 years ago?
MS: I don’t think so.
JN: We had mutual friends through our friend Ben Byer. I lived with a guy that I went to high school with in the early 1990s. At the time he was playing cards with Mike — which I didn’t know. Wasn’t it you and Tracy Letts?
MS: Yeah. He was a hell of a poker player. I wrote a song about him, actually.
JN: It’s a beautiful song.
MS: And how great he was at poker.
MP: Do you ever want to just do music instead of acting, Michael?
MS: Yeah, music was what I started doing when I was a kid. I started music before I started acting. At a certain point, I was at a fork in the road. Honestly, there’s something about acting — and, trust me, it’s not an easy profession by any stretch of imagination, particularly to have any success at it. But it’s easier I think than music. You audition, you try and get other people to give you an opportunity to spread your proverbial wings, but you don’t have to do all the hard stuff. Someone else writes it and directs it and produces it. You just have to show up, learn your lines and say them.
But with music, I have so much respect for these bands — taking a band like REM, and the journey that they went on as people starting with this tiny little record, “Chronic Town,” which is five songs, and going out on the road, playing every little venue they could find and then to go from that to being what they became. It takes so much work.
When I play these gigs with Jason, they really give me a newfound respect for the music that I’m listening to and enjoying. You don’t know how brilliant it was until you try to actually frickin’ play the damn thing.
MP: Jason, is it different for you to do this work — bringing these iconic albums to life — and your other other work as a musician?
JN: It is different. Mostly because I think Mike’s chosen 90% of the stuff we’ve done. And it’s often things that I like. I have the utmost respect for Bob Dylan, but I never really put a Bob Dylan record on. So when we learned “Highway 61,” and I’m getting so deep into the songs, it’s like taking a college course or something. I always learn from it.
That’s one of my favorite things about this. Mike and I are so fortunate to be really busy with our other stuff. This is a great way to celebrate music that we love. I’ve learned so much from this, to get together with other great musicians and kind of have these little parties in Chicago where there’s all these great venues and these people who are real curious about the Modern Lovers or Neil Young or whatever artists we are presenting for that particular night. But, yeah, it’s very different, in a good way.
MP: Did you choose “Murmur” because that was the particular album they were touring at the time when the Metro opened, or was there another reason why you chose that particular album?
JN: It was the 40th anniversary. When I presented that idea to Mike, he really wanted to play at Metro, so I called Joe Shanahan over at Metro and he said, it’s our 40th anniversary, too. And I was like, well, there’s some historical gravity to that. And then I said, ‘No, wait a minute, wasn’t REM the first band to play at Metro? I think we need to do this.’ And he agreed. We put the tickets on sale just 30 days before the show, which is extremely late. But it still did well. It was a really special night.
MP: In your interview with Seth Meyers, you said the touring version is going to be shorter. How else will it be different? What did you learn from the first performance that you’re bringing on the tour? What are you letting go?
[cms_ad:x104]
MS: That’s an interesting question that I’m not sure that I have a fully formed answer, because it hasn’t happened yet. We’re gonna show up when we get together on the 30th or the 31st. We’re gonna practice like we usually do, but instead of going and doing a gig the next day, we’re gonna get on a plane and fly to San Francisco. We do have a different guitar player. We have one personnel change in the lineup. We have a brilliant guitar player joining us — Dag Juhlin, from Poi Dog Pondering.
JN: Dag Juhlin had a band in Chicago called The Slugs when I was 16 years old. I opened for them in 1987. I’ve known him for a long time.
MS: So I’m looking forward to playing with him. When you have a one-off gig, I spend a lot of the evening being somewhat terrified. Jason can attest to this. In the greenroom beforehand, it seems like I’m on death row or something. But I’m looking forward to maybe, I don’t want to say getting comfortable, but maybe being able to relax a little bit.
I’ve never gone on tour, so I’m not sure what to expect. But yeah, the songs merit more than just one go at them. They’re monumental pieces of music. What makes a live performance great, is very mysterious, and kind of left to chance. Things just kind of happen in the moment that you can’t really you can’t plan for so much.
MP: How is it different from acting on stage in a play?
MS: It’s totally different for me. Particularly music like REM — it’s not so narrative driven. It’s not like I’m trying to tell a story or convince people that I’m somebody else, or any of that. It’s just expressing yourself in the moment through this extraordinary music we have the luxury of piggybacking on.
JN: I think Mike’s instinct is right. We’re going to kind of be making it up as we go. We’ll play a show and we’ll go, this is fun. Maybe tonight we do this, just kind of shake things up a little bit.
MP: What was it like when you were performing at the Metro and all of a sudden you see everyone applauding and there’s Mike Mills wanting to come on stage?
MS: It was very moving. It’s just not something you anticipate in your life. When I was walking around when I was a teenager listening to REM, it wasn’t even like a daydream or a fantasy. I’ll be on stage with a member of REM singing one of their songs. The very notion of it was so ridiculous. But there it is happening.
It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around really. But you know, Mike is such a sweet, sweet human being and I was just doing a play here in New York, and he came to see it. I couldn’t believe it, like it was one thing for him to show up at a gig of us playing his music, but for him to just see this weird play I was doing … I think all the members of the band are actually very kind people.
MP: Are you guys gonna do another one after this? What’s the next band? What’s the next album?
MS: I don’t know. I mean, one of my all time favorite bands is Talking Heads. So I’ve been kind of poking around and asking Jason about that. But it might be a minute before we do this again, frankly, after the tour. My union was on strike so now there’s a lot of stuff coming up so I’m not sure how much free time I’m gonna have for a while. But yeah, I would like to do that eventually if Jason was up to do it.
MP: Do you have a favorite song from the “Murmur” album?
MS: That’d be hard to pick one, but probably “Shaking Through.” What about you Jason?
JN: “Moral Kiosk.”
MS: “Moral Kiosk” is fun, yeah.
JN: That one snuck up on me. I was familiar with it, but once I started playing it, I was like, this is so much fun. It’s physically just fun to play. I love the energy on that one.
MP: Do you ever feel like you’re channeling REM?
JN: It’s more like celebrating for me.
MS: Yeah, I concur. There’s a reason that REM is REM. Because there’s only one edition of those four gentlemen. And they made the music they made together. It wouldn’t even make any sense that other people would be able to do that. So, yeah, you just celebrate it, you study it, you try and find all the nuances and details that you can in the music, which I feel like we’re pretty successful at.
Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy and friends play R.E.M.’s “Murmur” at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 4, at First Avenue ($25). More information here.
