The legendary Athens rock band R.E.M. will never get back together to tour or even make new music, lead singer Michael Stipe recently told a New York City radio station. “We will never reunite,” he said to WNYC's Alison Stewart.

Are REM still friends?

R.E.M. split up in 2011

"As lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band," read an announcement on the group's website (via Rolling Stone). "We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished." But why?

Why did REM stop touring?

It was the money, the politics, having to meet new people 24 hours a day, not being in charge of my own decisions.” Buck said the decision to end the band came during the making of the 2011 album Collapse Into Now, when Michael Stipe told his Buck and bassist Mike Mills: “I need to be away from this for a long time.”