Covering R.E.M.

Matt Scannell of Vertical Horizon

Cris Cohen: And then your cover of R.E.M.'s “Driver 8” (Toad the Wet Sprocket with Matt and Robin Wilson of Gin Blossoms).

What is the key to honoring the original and yet not just doing an imitation of Michael Stipe?

Matt Scannell of Vertical Horizon: I mean, who could imitate Michael Stipe? He's unique and iconic, one of the most iconic singers and poets, as far as I'm concerned, to ever sort of get into music.

And for me, Murmur was a record that just blew my mind, completely blew my mind. Even back in high school, I was trying to maybe learn something from them and from him. I think it's really easy to not think about imitating somebody when it's one of the greats.

I did a song years ago for a movie called Little Manhattan. We did a version of “In My Life.” And as we were recording it, we had The Beatles’ original sort of as a track that we could reference. And it was hilarious. Because you would mute my vocal and we'd listen to John’s (Lennon) vocal.

And it was almost like, can we please not do that? Let's not listen to John's vocal. Because my goodness gracious, I'm not going to be able to do that. But after a while, I found myself doing is just singing it as a fan. And then it became like there was no jeopardy to it.

And so as far as like approaching my verse on “Driver 8,” I just focused on, first of all, the poetry of those lyrics. I think is just really beautiful. And then, almost as if I were just singing along with them in a live setting.

Like, if I went to an R.E.M. show, and they were playing it, I'd be singing because I just love it.