The Word spends three months with Radiohead

Posted on May 10th, 2008.

UK music magazine The Word have a big interview published with Radiohead. Their June issue, with Thom Yorke on the cover, has 5 interviews with the band.

The series of interviews start when Radiohead play their ’secret’ gig at 93 Feet East in London last January to play ‘In Rainbows’ in full in a tiny London club. Colin Greenwood said after the show: “You know, I really hate it when people say, ‘I’d love to do a tour of tiny places, get back to our roots.’ Big tours are luxurious! I love them!”

Radiohead talk about the recording process of several Radiohead albums and ‘In Rainbows’ in particular. As well as what the band think of what do people most often get wrong about Radiohead. Jonny Greenwood: “at we’re grumpy. People confuse the work with the people who make it. We’re not necessarily like our songs. Also I think they misunderstand Thom, and how really tiresomely energetic and enthusiastic he can be.”

And what they think of their own role in the band. Ed O’Brien: “I love sound. I’m not a technical guitarist. My heroes were Johnny Marr, John McGeogh, even Andy Summers. Sounds and riffs are the things that make you pick up a guitar. When we made our first record, Sean and Paul [producers Slade and Kolderie] said I was sort of like the keyboard player. I took great offence at the time but now I realise it’s kind of true. I see myself as a bit of a sweeper – bit of rhythm, can play up front or in the hole. I’m not a Ronaldo or a Rooney: that’s Thom and Jonny. But in my dreams I’m a Paul Scholes.”

Radiohead speak about the upcoming (June 2) EMI release of ‘Best of Radiohead’: “We’re not really bothered about it,” says Thom Yorke with a sigh that suggests quite the opposite. “If they spend a wodge of cash trying to get those songs heard again, then great, but our management tried to tell them that people don’t really buy greatest hits any more. Only in Britain, nowhere else. iTunes has seen to that. You might not make your money back. And we haven’t really had any hits, so what exactly is the purpose?

“But there’s nothing we can do about it. The work is really public property now anyway, in my head at least. It’s a wasted opportunity in that if we’d been behind it, and we wanted to do it, then it might have been good.”

Jonny talks about working with producer Nigel Godrich when they’re doing an exclusive show at the BBC, last April. Being at the BBC reminds Jonny of Nigel Godrich, and how they missed him when he wasn’t around. “There’s something institutional about Nigel,” he says. “Something quite BBC-ish.” Godrich once told Jonny that he at his happiest when simply plugging things into a rack of equipment. He made a mixing desk out of a plank of wood and some yoghurt pots when he was seven years old. “It’s borderline some kind of syndrome, isn’t it?” says Greenwood. “He’d have been very happy in this building 40 years ago, walking round in a white coat. Working with Spike Stent felt a bit too much like there was an adult present. With Nigel we can reminisce about old ZX Spectrum games. He’s our generation. It feels more like we’re in it together.”

Read the full interview over at The Word website or get a copy of the magazine, which is available in stores now.

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Radiohead News on this day in...

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2003: In Brief — Radiohead [...]
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2001: MTV contest and ticket pre-order — Enter [...]
2001: Watch the Pyramid Song video — “Pyramid [...]

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