Actor Michael Shannon is ‘gobsmacked’ to sing R.E.M. at First Ave with indie-rock vets

One is an Oscar-nominated actor who’s never been to First Avenue or some other venues on his upcoming rock tour. The other is a veteran indie-rock musician who’s been to these legendary rooms more times than he can count.

Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy have one big thing in common, though — something they shared with everyone who packed their concert last summer in Chicago.

“There’s a lot of desire to hear this music played again,” Shannon said.

“There’s such a vacuum,” added Narducy. “A lot of people in our age group want some kind of outlet to celebrate this record and this band.”

The band they’re talking about is R.E.M. The album is the Georgia rockers’ 1983 debut LP, “Murmur.”

Shannon, Narducy and some of their musical pals will perform “Murmur” in full along with some other classic R.E.M. tunes on a two-week tour making its second stop Sunday in Minneapolis at First Ave.

Longtime Chicago friends — Shannon got his start with the Next and Steppenwolf theater companies, Narducy was a teen rocker in Verboten — the duo has been teaming up to perform classic albums in Windy City bars for a decade now, typically just for fun.

Previous excursions included LPs by the Smiths, Modern Lovers, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Shannon does most of the singing. Narducy leads the band.

When Chicago’s famed rock club the Metro asked them to do another one to celebrate the venue’s 40th anniversary last year, the choice was obvious but daunting.

“It made perfect sense because it was also the record’s 40th anniversary, and R.E.M. was the first band to perform at the Metro,” Shannon recalled in a Zoom interview with Narducy last month. “But I was gobsmacked when I heard ‘Murmur’ suggested.

“I mean, I love the record. I believed doing it would be a mystical experience. But I was scared like I hadn’t been scared of the other records, because I think there’s something in the music that’s very ephemeral and hard to capture.”

Shannon doesn’t seem to be easily intimidated, either. He has played a wide array of often dark, desperate and/or troubled characters in artful movies such as “The Shape of Water,” “Knives Out” and “Nocturnal Animals,” and in TV series like “Boardwalk Empire,” “Waco” and “George & Tammy.”

Playing country music legend George Jones even unknowingly helped him prepare for this tour, because it required voice lessons.

“Singing country music is obviously very different from trying to sing like Michael Stipe,” he said, “but there are certain techniques I learned that were more about just maintaining your voice. That’ll come in handy now that I’m going on tour — which I certainly didn’t know at the time I’d be doing.”

The idea for the tour actually came from some of the venues hosting it.

“First Avenue reached out to us, and so did San Francisco and North Carolina,” said Narducy. “They’re the ones who got the ball rolling.”

In addition to his two-decade stint with ex-Minnesotan punk legend Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü, Sugar), Narducy has toured with his own band Split Single, Liz Phair, Robert Pollard and Superchunk. His fellow Mould and Superchunk band member Jon Wurster is serving as the drummer on this “Murmur” tour. Other players include guitarist Dag Juhlin (Poi Dog Pondering) and bassist Nick Macri (the Zincs).

Sharing Shannon’s “gobsmacked” concerns, Narducy said the goal of the musicians is “to capture the spirit of the album, rather than re-create it.”

“Mike is right: You just can’t replicate what those four guys had,” Narducy said. “What you try to do is you try to get inside the record.

“We really spend a lot of time with it. We talk about our parts a lot. We map out essential things we want to hit, and then we just go out there and try our best — try to raise the spirit of the album and what makes it special.”

Shannon also has a unique challenge standing in for R.E.M. frontman Stipe: The singer notoriously mumbled a lot of lyrics, especially on the early albums.

“I just do what any layperson can do nowadays, which is go onto the internet and look up the lyrics,” he said with a smirk. “Usually, the sites are all the same, but with this album there are some differences of opinion of what certain words are.”

That vagueness, however, is ultimately one of the reasons “Murmur” still resonates with music lovers, Shannon theorized.

“These aren’t narrative songs, or storytelling songs, at least not in my opinion,” he said. “They’re like spells or incantations. They mean different things to different people.

“That’s part of the brilliance of what Stipe did. He often wasn’t trying to prove a point or tell a story. He created a space where you can encounter the music and create what it means to you. Even if you can’t make out what the words are, the songs still make you feel something.”

Led by the single and opening track “Radio Free Europe,” R.E.M.’s debut LP quickly put the Athens, Ga., quartet on the road to indie fame; the band famously played to fewer than 100 people at First Ave (then Sam’s) before its release in 1981. Other songs off it that remained live staples include “Talk About the Passion,” “Pilgrimage” and the ballad “Perfect Circle.”

Of course, nowadays there are no R.E.M. live sets. After becoming one of the biggest U.S. bands of the 1990s, the group split up in 2011 and has famously, stubbornly refused to reunite despite remaining amicable.

Both Shannon and Narducy applauded the firm finality of the band members — one of whom, bassist Mike Mills, turned up to their Chicago performance and gave it his blessing.

“It seems like they just left the band so at peace,” Narducy said.

“I feel like they found a nice way to wrap it up,” Shannon added.

“A number of times at the Metro show, I heard people say, ‘We’re glad you’re doing this, because this record means so much to me. And I know I’ll never see the actual band perform it.’”

Summing up his own attraction to this tour, Shannon continued, “I don’t want to say we didn’t have to try, but there was so much wind in our sails and so much encouragement at that show.

“Having the general public say, ‘I want this! Give this to me!’ It’s a powerful cycle of energy, and we wanted to keep it going.”

When: 8 p.m. Sun.

Where: First Avenue, 701 1st Av. N., Mpls.

Tickets: $25, axs.com.