REM take dinosaurs on tour so they don’t get lonely.


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The US rockers have revealed they always keep plastic figures of the extinct giant reptiles with them for moral support.

Guitarist Peter Buck said: “We travel all the time and it’s nice to have some friends with us. You have very few friends in this business and having little dinosaurs on stage makes me feel better, and I’m not going to be on ashamed of it.”

Singer Michael Stipe admits the band – who are getting ready to release their fourteenth album Accelerate – still have arguments on tour and in the studio but have learnt how to deal with their problems after 28 years together.

He added to Britain’s BBC Radio 1: “We tolerate each other. I know it sounds cheesy but we really respect each other and we all have a lot of love for one another. I think we realise that our music is our lives’ work.

“But I’ve changed a lot, I used to go off and sulk for around four or five days. I wouldn’t say a word to anyone, but I would also be starving for five days. I was a vegetarian for 20 years of my life and it was hard to find good vegetarian food in the 80s when I used to disappear!”

REM – comprised of Stipe, Buck and bassist Mike Mills – was formed in 1980.