The story of the lives of Peter Buck, Micheal Stipe, Mike Mills and Bill Berry before the formation of R.E.M.

Peter Lawrence Buck was born on December 6, 1956 in Los Angeles, California. His family soon moved to San Francisco, where Peter spent most of his childhood. It was there that Buck started his life-long love of music. After a short period in Indiana the Bucks settled near Atlanta in Roswell, Georgia in 1970. Peters musical tastes had evolved from listening eagerly to The Beatles and The Supremes on his radio in San Francisco to buying records by rock stars such as the Rolling Stones and glam rock artists T. Rex and Slade during the early seventies in Georgia.

In 1975 Peter finished high school and left home to study at Emory University in Atlanta. It was then that Peter bought his first guitar, consequently taking lessons from his brother Kenny. Uninspired by his collage course, but inspired by Patti Smith and Velvet Underground, Buck quit collage after less than a year to take up a job in Atlanta record store Doo Dahs.

In 1977 Peter went hitchhiking around America, doing casual work to pay his way. On returning to Atlanta employment was found at Wuxtry Records. Peter harboured intentions of being in the musical scene, either as a critic or playing in a band. Around Christmas 1977 Peter was given the chance to transfer to the Athens branch of Wuxtry, which he accepted. Peter moved in with his brother, who was already living on the outskirts of Athens since he was attending university there. Working in the record store made it easy for Peter the chance to meet people with similar musical tastes to himself, and in late 1978 he got talking to a regular customer named Michael Stipe.

Michael Stipe was born on 4 January 1960 in the Atlanta suburb Decatur. Actually named John Michael Stipe, he didn