Michael Stipe is headed back to late-night TV Tuesday night, when he is set to be the musical guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and will appear with producer Andrew Watt. The booking puts the R.E.M. frontman on another national stage just months after he used television to tease what comes next in his solo work.
Viewers watching for the appearance will not get a full set list in advance. What is clear is that Stipe and Watt have been working together, recently recording “I Played the Fool,” the track that served as the theme for Steve Carell’s HBO series The Rooster and featured blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer on guitar and piano.
The late-night slot matters because it follows Stipe’s April stop on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he debuted the unreleased song “The Rest of Ever” from his upcoming debut solo album. He also said then that the long-in-the-works record he has been teasing since at least 2022 is expected at the end of 2026, which leaves Tuesday’s performance as part of a slow build rather than a launch.
That gap is the catch. Stipe is making visible progress — TV appearances, a new collaboration with Watt, a fresh song in public — but the album itself is still more than a year away by his own timeline. Tuesday night should give viewers another look at where he is headed; it will not yet answer when the solo project itself finally arrives.
