Michael Shannon hates actors with rock bands…except his own?

Michael Shannon may have a cover band who plays nothing but R.E.M., but he has a certain distaste for celeb rock groups. The post Michael Shannon hates actors with rock bands…except his own? appeared first on JoBlo.

Mar 27, 2025 - 14:22

Michael Shannon hates actors with rock bands…except his own?

What do Dogstar, Hollywood Vampires, The Bacon Brothers, and 30 Odd Foot of Grunts have in common? If you guessed that they’re all rock bands with famous actors, you’d only be half-right. The rest of the answer lies with Michael Shannon, who thinks such endeavors only make the millionaire actors in the band seem greedy.

There was a time when Michael Shannon also wanted in on that scene – to be that celebrity in that band – but he has since redirected his focus. “I kind of walked away from it. Because, if nothing else, it just seems kind of greedy. It’s like, how much good fortune can one person expect to have in their life? I’m not a fan of actors having rock and roll bands.”

This is where we have to point out that Michael Shannon (along with Jason Narducy) leads a cover band that plays nothing but R.E.M. songs. In 2024, they toured their debut album, 1983’s Murmur. Earlier this year, they took their 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction on the road to celebrate that album’s 40th anniversary.

So what’s the difference? To Michael Shannon, his band hardly qualifies as the type he dislikes. “I mean, basically what we’re doing is glorified karaoke and karaoke is, you know, on the one hand kind of an embarrassing ridiculous thing. But on the other hand, it’s an extraordinarily beautiful, moving thing that allows anybody, literally anybody, to go up on stage and sing a song that they love and sing it with as much passion or however the hell they want to sing it.” Talk about the passion!

Taking on this cover – or karaoke – band has been a catapult for Michael Shannon to a new kind of audience, who wouldn’t usually take a look at him and think he would be interested in singing. Then again, most might not know that he had an indie band called Corporal back in 2002, not long after he started to break out in movies. Whether you get a chance to see him and his band perform (and you should, especially with R.E.M. having disbanded in 2011) Shannon is definitely showing off life and how to live it.

What is your favorite band featuring an actor?

The post Michael Shannon hates actors with rock bands…except his own? appeared first on JoBlo.