Recently, I bought a book called "The REM Companion - Two Decades Of Commentary" by John Platt, a book that contains old articles and interviews about REM. And in one of the interviews, done by Bucketfull Of Brains in 1987, guitarist Peter Buck talks about the Smiths:

BOB: I saw you play in LA last year, in Universal City - that was great, I loved that place!

P.B.: I saw the Smiths there, it was a really good show. I'll use this space to correct something: people used to ask me if I was influenced by Johnny Marr and that used to piss me off so much that I said really nasty things about the Smiths - but I do like the Smiths. When I cam over to England people asked "Are you influenced by the Smiths?" and I was like "Fuck you! I've had two records out before the Smiths even started." So I always said nasty things about the Smiths, but I like them a lot, it took me a while to understand that - the first record I didn't really dig at all, from "Meat Is Murder" every record there's thre or four songs that are just mindblowing great. "How Soon Is Now?" is one of the greatest songs ever and I just heard "Sheila Take A Bow" - it wasn't a single or a hit in America, I heard it on a compilation - that's a great song, reminds me of T.Rex. I'm sorry they broke up before I got the chance to admit that I like 'em!