Dave Davies

I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

We're listening to my interview with actor Michael Shannon.

He has a busy acting career, but he's also revived his longstanding interest in music.

For several years, he and musician friend Jason Narducci have assembled a band and toured, performing covers of whole albums by several artists, focusing in particular on R.E.M.

Here they are performing the R.E.M.

song Driver 8 on The Tonight Show.

Michael Shannon is the lead singer.

And that is our guest, actor Michael Shannon, singing Driver 8 with a band including Jason Narduzzi.

The band sounds tight, I got to say.

Do you think that music has informed or affected your acting in any way, you know, rhythm, pace?

Yeah, yeah.

REM is aware of your doing this, and I think some of the band members showed up at a performance once and went on stage with you, right?

Right.

Michael Shannon, thank you so much for speaking with us again.

Michael Shannon is a two-time Academy Award nominee.

He stars as President James Garfield in the new Netflix series Death by Lightning, and he plays a prosecutor trying Nazi leaders for war crimes in the new film Nuremberg.

Terry has our next interview.

Here she is.

We're listening to Terry's interview with Ray Sehorne, who stars in the new Apple TV series Pluribus.

We'll hear more of their conversation after a break, and Maureen Corrigan will share her list of the year's best books.