THE R.E.M. FRONTMAN HAS TRAVELED THE WORLD OVER BUT SAYS HE'S MOST IN TUNE WITH THE ENCHANTING FRENCH CAPITAL.
In 1983, a little-known rock band from Athens, Georgia, was rolling through Europe to promote its debut full-length album. What the quartet didn't know at the time was the influence the trip would have on the band and the effect a certain city would have on its lead singer. That city was Paris, the band was R.E.M., and the lead singer was Michael Stipe. A curly-haired youth of 23 at the time, Stipe remembers the City of Light as being one of the most amazing places he'd ever seen. Photographic proof of that moment in time is forever saved on the back cover of the band's second record, Reckoning.

The group has come a long way since those days, being one of the founding bands of what was then a genre called "college radio" that would go on to become alternative music. With the soulful baritone voice and lyrics of Stipe as the driving force behind classics like "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts," the group has taken its place as a combo that continues to produce quality material after more than 20 years together. Having released its 13th album, Around the Sun, R.E.M. remains one of music's most influential bands and is again out doing what it does best - playing live shows.

Between gigs, we sat down with Stipe at the bar at the Peninsula hotel in Chicago, where, armed with a laptop full of notes he'd jotted down about Paris for the interview, he proceeded to take us through the city that left such a vivid impression on him some two decades ago.

AIRPORTMAN
I have to put in a word for Charles de Gaulle. I think it's the most architecturally spectacular airport I've ever been in. The experience of moving through it is like when I was a kid, reading comic books. Charles de Gaulle looks and feels like my idea of the future when I was young. It's a really fun, beautiful airport.