Mike Mills wants to smell like Ariana Grande, the R.E.M. bassist admits on “My Cologne,” the first single from his recently-formed supergroup Howl Owl Howl. Alongside Hootie and the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker and the Black Crowes’ Steve Gorman, Mills poked fun at the pop star’s beauty and fragrance brand R.E.M., which shares a name with her Sweetener deep cut “R.E.M.” — but also with his band and, maybe most famously, the sleep cycle.
“Ariana Grande put out a record not long ago, and her first single was called ‘R.E.M.,’ [Note: it was actually “No Tears Left to Cry,” but we’ll let it slide this time]. It’s the dream stage of sleep, that’s where we got it. It’s universal. That’s fine,” Mills said in an Instagram video about the single. “And she put out a line of perfume called R.E.M. I said, well, okay, that’s okay. And one of the containers for her perfume was a cassette, I mean, literally a cassette, and it said R.E.M. on it. And then I said, OK, that’s going over the line. I gotta say something about that.”
Mills clarified that he isn’t actually upset, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to lean into the joke. “I thought it was just funny,” he said. “So we made a wrote a song called ‘My Cologne.’ The chorus line is, ‘I want to smell like Ariana Grande, and I think she wants you to smell like me.’ It’s all in good fun, and I hope she likes it.”
Howl Owl Howl was officially announced last month, but have only just started to release music. “Howl Owl Howl was born from friendship and the pure joy of collaboration, and is now powered by the world-class instincts of true originals, who are far from done making noise,” the band’s streaming bio reads. “Infusing roots rock with an open-minded afternative flair, the band’s first batch of music was 30 years in the making, matching a fluid, feel-oriented rhythm section to the barrel-chested vocal rasp of an iconic frontman.”
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The band has an album in the works that is presumably not about any other pop star fragrance brands. They’re also preparing to head out on the road for a tour kicking off on Nov. 3.
