R.E.M. Tour’s Not ‘Automatic’

Attention R.E.M. fans:

Don’t make deposits with ticket brokers to see the Georgia band in concert. R.E.M. has decided not to tour--again.

The Athens quartet--which didn’t tour in connection with its last album, 1990’s 10-million-selling “Out of Time”--won’t hit the road to promote “Automatic for the People,” which is due Oct. 9.

Guitarist Peter Buck says that the band won’t tour until it’s done another album, which means you probably won’t see R.E.M. in concert before late next year at the earliest.

“I feel sorry for the fans that want to see us, but they can probably live without us until then,” Buck, 35, says. “We want to concentrate on songwriting for now, and when we do tour again it will be real special for us. It would be cynical to go out on the road if you only feel like making money or to promote the record.

“That’s one of the problems with rock ‘n’ roll. Too many musicians think that the world ends with their latest record.”

What will this continued absence from the road mean to the band? Is there a chance fans will simply give up on them?

Jeff Pollack, whose Pollack Media Group is a programming consultant for more than 100 radio stations worldwide, doesn’t think so.

“There’s a tremendous loyalty to this band,” he says. “If they’re not touring, well, fans just think they’re a maverick band anyway. They’re not a trendy band. They’re a band that people can rely on to always do something interesting and be involved in important issues.”

Record store owners, in fact, may even support the band’s decision to concentrate on writing new material.

“If R.E.M. had toured last time around, we probably wouldn’t have had a new record from them for another year,” says Bob Bell, new-music buyer for the 300-store Wherehouse chain. “We’re ecstatic that they’ve got a new album. Every other superstar act these days takes three or four years between albums.”

Even if R.E.M. were to hit the road again now, it would be hard to imagine its taking its latest music to the masses on the level of the last tour, a 1988 arena swing.

“Automatic for the People” (the title comes from the slogan of an Athens soul-food restaurant) is a markedly subdued collection. There are no big guest stars and few peppy numbers--nothing in the mold of the last album’s “Losing My Religion,” the hip-hop-rock “Radio Song” (which featured rapper KRS-One) or the pop hit “Shiny Happy People” (with guest Kate Pierson of the B-52’s).

Instead, the new album is spare and often acoustic, with many songs accompanied by lush string arrangements. The first single, “Drive,” is a slow, hypnotic number that seems to defy normal single formulas, having no real hook or chorus.

“I think it’s a better record than ‘Out of Time,’ but does that translate into sales?” Buck wonders. “It doesn’t sound like a real pop hit record, but maybe we’re big enough to drag a lot of people along anyway. It could sell half a million or it could sell 20 million.”