Rock Band R.E.M 'Call It A Day'

Rock band R.E.M has announced its members' decision to "call it a day" after more than 30 years of making music together, according to a posting on the group's official website.

R.E.M has released 15 albums since forming in 1980.

"As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators," the announcement said, "we have decided to call it a day as a band."

Bassist Mike Mills was quoted as saying on the site that the band had recently begun to ask itself: "What next?" He stressed that "there's no disharmony here, no falling-outs, no lawyers squaring off. We've made this decision together, amicably and with each other's best interests at heart."

The band broke through the ranks of other rock acts in the early 1980s when they became a sensation on the U.S. college circuit singing their hit "Radio Free Europe."

In December 1987, "Rolling Stone" magazine put the band on its cover and dubbed it "America's Best Rock & Roll Band."

compiled from Reuters reports