Mike Mills
Mike Mills
Michael Edward "Mike" Millsis an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and pianist, his musical repertoire also includes keyboards, guitar, and percussion instruments. He contributed to a majority of the band's musical compositions...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth17 December 1958
CityOrange County, CA
CountryUnited States of America
My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules.
We never did things as we were supposed to do. That was part of our ethic. We did what felt right to us, not what someone told us we should do.
Over and over again, I'm trying to express or communicate these big and small struggles to the world, and really to myself.
The oldest sibling always knows things that the younger ones don't.
There's great sadness and life doesn't work out like you would want, on a lot of levels, but there's no need to feel all alone. This happens to everybody, so there's no self-pity. This is the ride that humans are on, and all of it is essential for our natural part of it.
As someone who grew up in a house where there wasn't a lot of talking, I'm used to just looking at the world. And in general I often feel like I just don't understand what's happening. That everybody else does, but I don't quite get it.
I guess I watch movies to make myself happier a lot.
To me it's like, every time I'm a director, like today, you're the captain of the ship, so you better dress like it. You're the host of the party.
There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good.
The littlest thing can have the strongest connection when you're grieving. Your Proustian, poetic nerve is turned up to ten.
I'm into people's emotional lives and relationships and the complications of living. That's my turf.
I would hate to think I'm promoting sadness as an aesthetic. But I grew up in not just a family but a town and a culture where sadness is something you're taught to feel shame about. You end up chronically desiring what can be a very sentimental idea of love and connection. A lot of my work has been about trying to make a space for sadness.
To me, sadness and humor aren't disrelated and humor is the best tool I've had against the sadness in my life.
No one leaves the edit room thinking, 'Yeah, I nailed that one!' Everyone I know goes into their first premiere or their first screening thinking, 'I screwed up so bad. I'm sorry, I messed up.' It's just a real common feeling.