Remember When R.E.M. Backed Warren Zevon on His Comeback Album in 1987?

An incredible list of musical greats guest-starred on Warren Zevon’s albums during his career. The roster of luminaries who gave contributions to his music testifies to the vast amount of respect Zevon earned from his peers.

And it wasn’t just veteran artists paying their homage. In 1987, Zevon recorded an entire album with three-quarters of one of the world’s biggest acts at the time serving as his backing group.

Warren’s Winding Road

Warren Zevon earned massive critical respect for the pair of singer-songwriter LPs that he released in the late 70s. But the 80s were a rough decade for him. His sales cratered, he lost his record deal, and he did himself no favors with his unreliable behavior caused by substance abuse issues.

Things started to turn for Zevon when he found a new manager in Andrew Slater. Slater took the gig when no one else in his management firm wanted to touch Zevon. He immediately set about helping him get sober, a process that took a couple of years and many relapses before it finally stuck around 1986.

Around that same time, Martin Scorsese used Zevon’s “Werewolves Of London” to soundtrack a crucial scene in his film The Color Of Money. Zevon was on the radar again, and he soon secured a new record deal. For his next project, he teamed up with some friends he’d made back when they were just starting their own musical journey.

‘Sentimental’ Streak

By 1984, R.E.M. were already the darlings of the burgeoning college rock scene, although mainstream success was still a few years away. Andrew Slater was a college classmate of the group’s Peter Buck. He suggested Zevon try connecting with the upstarts.

Zevon appeared at a few live gigs with the band in ’84 and ultimately did some demos with them that went nowhere. When it came time to record the first album for his new label, he once again called upon bassist Buck, guitarist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry to back him up. R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe chipped in with backing vocals on the track “Bad Karma”.

Listening to the album, entitled Sentimental Hygiene, you won’t notice too many examples of R.E.M.’s trademark tangle of guitars and chugging rhythms. They go in more of a mainstream, rock direction throughout the album, backing Zevon on his best set of material in a decade.

The Aftermath

Sentimental Hygiene didn’t sell gangbusters. But it did help restore Zevon’s reputation in the music world. As it turned out, it wouldn’t be the last appearance of a Zevon/R.E.M. project.

During the sessions for Sentimental Hygiene, Zevon and the three R.E.M. members spent an evening playing cover songs. In 1990, Zevon put these sessions out under the moniker Hindu Love Gods. It produced a minor rock hit in a cover of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret”.

Unfortunately, Buck, Mills, and Berry were somewhat upset at the project coming out without much advance notice from the Zevon camp. Nonetheless, its success further proved that the combination of Zevon and R.E.M., while somewhat counterintuitive, was a fruitful one.

(Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

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