He was born in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur on January 4, 1960 and felt like anything but a native Georgian when his family returned to the area in 1978. By then he had little attachment to any place in particular - a sense of dislocation common to all children of army parentage. In Michael's case, his father's military career, which included flying helicopters in Vietnam, took him through homes in Georgia, Texas, Germany, Illinois and Georgia again. When he later recalled that he didn't get much out of his childhood, he exercised a rare, poor choice of words, as his formative years revolved around the bases of the US Armed Forces.

Army brats, as they are known, come to expect upheaval so frequently that they often consider the process of forming friendships pointless. Instead, they become self-contained and introspective and Michael Stipe was a perfect example, a painfully shy child who preferred to observe rather than to participate. Shunning outside companionship, he turned inward to his family - he and his sisters (Lynda, Cyndy) became the closest of friends.

Young Michael withdrew even further into himself when he entered high school while living in Collinsville, Illinois. The brash behaviour of his fellow adolescents there overwhelmed him. Stipe later said: 'It was a very outgoing flamboyant, loud school and I hated everything about it. I was very, kind of afraid of a lot of things.'

 As punk developed from an art form into a commodity, the other teenagers at his high school became attracted to it. Michael's musical knowledge accorded his popularity and aided by the inherent confidence of adolescence. he became far more forceful a character 'this real loud extreme, extroverted personality', as he later described it. He even fronted a short-lived punk band who performed on three occasions before his parents announced the family's moving to Watkinsville, a small town ten miles south of Athens.

For Michael, this was a catastrophe. Not only was he finally enjoying life as a teenager in the metropolis of St. Louis after years of self-doubt, but the family trips to his grandparents in Georgia - where his grandfather was a preacher - had convinced him that the state was full of hippies and southern boogie music. To some extent he was right. But then Athens was not the typical of Georgia. Most of his first year in Athens he spent by himself.'I just sat around reading or listening to music. That year alone, I think I really matured about five years... It's a long time to go without talking to people, and it really put a lot of things into perspective for me. I became much more of a quiet person after that. Much more bombastic, which is good.'

The artistic instinct stronger than ever, Michael enrolled at the Department of Art in late 1978. Opinions on his ability and potential vary. Jim Herbert, who taught him on a freshman course has no recollections of Stipe the pupil whatsoever. Michael himself, meanwhile, modestly declares that 'I was good at going to school but I wasn't good at what I was doing. I was able to convince my teachers that what I was doing was worthwhile when I was not really doing anything.' At least one of those teachers, Scott Belville, a respected artist who took Michael for a beginners's painting course, strongly disagrees. 'He was actually one of better students I had. When he did have something to say, it carried a little more weight, because he was generally so quiet. In a couple of his paintings, something else came out that made you think - Wait a minute, this is much more mature work, much more interesting than you generally see in a beginning class.' Stipe also enrolled in a photo design course, the art form he was most suited for and worked hardest on.

In the meantime, he would regularly stop at Wuxtry, inquiring Peter Buck about the new releases. Though Michael Stipe would never again ingest contemporary music to the extent, there was still plenty to excite him, and Peter began putting aside those that he thought Michael would especially like. On a personal level, however, they differed greatly: Peter was an outgoing, wordy-wise character more than three years older than the sensitive Michael. Perhaps recognising in Stipe's naiveté a refreshing antidote to his own blasé attitude, Buck nonetheless made a firm attempt to befriend his costumer.

'Michael's got this great ability', says Peter, 'If he doesn't know something, he'll latch on to people and learn from them. He was new to town and he was learning things and meeting people.' Peter would invite Michael out for drinks after work, and as their tongues loosened, they traded musical opinions and kept returning to the same issue: a possibility of forming a band together. Peter had never found anyone suitable to pursue the idea with.