The group announced their split in September after 31 years together, and the lead singer is adamant that there is one direction that he won’t be going in.
On the idea of going it alone, he told Rolling Stone magazine, 'It's unfathomable to me right now. What would it sound like? Watered-down REM?'
He also revealed that they had been plotting the split from as far back as 2008, and keeping it a secret was one of his biggest challenges yet.
'It was very hard. My fear was that it would leak – and it would be my fault. It's not like we sat down one night and had a sombre discussion. But we were at the end of a record contract. We are all in our fifties and have other lives.
'And REM. has always been about the rule of ‘no’. We always knew what we didn't want to do. The number of times in 31 years when one of us almost packed our bags and left is uncountable. But we stuck with it.'