The trickle of information about R.E.M.’s upcoming album Collapse Into Now continues. The first single is out and another “lyric video” for a new song has popped up. But the real news comes from an interview Mike Mills gave to a radio station in Los Angeles.

How did you come to the decision to not tour with this record?

For touring with us, we tour because we want to play. We don’t tour to support a record. We don’t tour to get our name out there. We tour because we like to play. To tour when your heart isn’t in it would be a real bad mistake for us. 2008 was a long hard year on the road and we’re just not feeling it right now. We go with our instinct. Our two biggest selling records ever, we didn’t tour on them. So maybe some of that magic will rub off on this one too.

Whenever people criticize R.E.M., I try to remind them that albums are not the sum total of a band’s legacy. You have to look at the entire body for work – live and in the studio – to truly judge a group. R.E.M. started as a bar band and continue to put on amazing live shows. Even when they tour after a bad album, they still can shake the paint off the walls of a live venue.

I can understand what Mike talks about in regards to “not feeling it.” The youngest of the trio (Michael Stipe) recently turned 51. They retain solid popularity in Europe so a tour for them pretty much has to go internationally to make sense. They can’t just pile in a van and play the places they want to anymore. They answer to a lot of people.

That doesn’t stop me from wishing I could see them pair “Mine Smell Like Honey” (lyric video posted below) with “These Days” in the middle of show to demonstrate how they have not lost a step. I just hope they get their butts back in the studio fast so we can see them in 2012.