Tag: interview

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Radiohead The King of Limbs Thom Yorke

Thom Yorke: Radiohead Not Planning to Release Any Albums for Awhile

Thom Yorke

In a lengthy interview in the latest issue of The Believer magazine, Thom Yorke has revealed that we’ll probably be waiting quite a long time for the next proper Radiohead album. We’re more likely to get some EPs or singles or one-off musical releases (perhaps like “Harry Patch [In Memory Of]”?) in the near future.

“None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again. Not straight off,” Yorke said. “I mean, it’s just become a real drag. It worked with In Rainbows because we had a real fixed idea about where we were going. But we’ve all said that we can’t possibly dive into that again. It’ll kill us.”

He clarified that Radiohead doesn’t inherently hate the concept of the full-length. He said, “I mean, obviously, there’s still something great about the album. It’s just, for us, right now, we need to get away from it a bit.” Later, he added, “In Rainbows was a particular aesthetic and I can’t bear the idea of doing that again. Not that it’s not good, I just can’t… bear… that.”

One kind of Radiohead-related music that might materialize? Orchestral works. As Yorke told The Believer, “Jonny [Greenwood] and I have talked about sitting down and writing songs for orchestra and orchestrating it fully and just doing it like that and then doing a live take of it and that’s it – finished. We’ve always wanted to do it, but we’ve never done it because, I think the reason is, we’re always taking songs that haven’t been written for that, and then trying to adapt them. That’s one possible EP because, with things like that, you think, Do you want to do a whole record like that? Or do you just want to get stuck into it for a bit and see how it feels?”

The entire interview is well worth reading, with Yorke celebrating the death of the CD and the downfall of the music industry as we know it, reflecting on the difficulty of environmentally-friendly touring and music releasing, and musing on the state of Radiohead in general. There’s also this wonderful exchange:

The Believer: Do you feel like there’s any definitive sound that you’ve been solidifying over your career?

Thom Yorke: I fucking hope not.

(source: Pitchfork)

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Radiohead

Interview with Radiohead manager Brian Message

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Radiohead

Interview with Nigel Godrich

Nigel Godrich

Wow. Two of the three posts today are about Nigel. When he’s not joining cover bands, Nigel is busy talking and this time he has been interviewed about his From the Basement series, which you may remember Radiohead being involved with last year, as well as producing in general.

Here’s a snippet of the interview:

JC: You mentioned a bit about the psychological approach to production, and I wonder how it is working with different acts and how you juggle those personalities. For instance working with Radiohead versus, say, Beck, do you have to alter your approach to get what you need?

NG: Yes. Completely. I mean, it’s like working in a factory versus working in an office. It’s just so different. It’s just a completely different scenario. Two very bad analogies I gave you there. [Laughs] But it’s so different. To be honest, I don’t really claim to know what I’m doing. When I talk about psychologies all I mean is the connections you have with people. So I have a set of skills and an open mind, and my agenda, what I like, my own aesthetic and I get together with a similar mind who I get on with. We get inside each other’s underwear and brains and it’s always a completely different, completely unique experience – apart from some very mundane technical things that kind of exist across the board. It’s as different as having two different friends; you have different relationships with different people. It’s as different as it can be. The music side of things is supposedly something that you enjoy or celebrate together. You create something that you both love. That is a very intimate experience and also a really wonderful one. I mean, my particular career has been based on a few different marriages to people, that’s the analogy, it’s like I have these very intense relationships with different people. It’s always a bit awkward when they’re all in the same room.

JC: Right, your name is often mentioned hand-in-hand with Radiohead’s, it’s that sort of relationship.

NG: I’ve invested so much of myself in that and it’s been 15 years that I’ve been working with them. You know…I love it. I love those people, I love making music with them and we all want it to be a very productive thing and it works and we just keep doing it. And I’m happy to do just that to be honest.

Read the full interview here.

(thanks to James)

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A walk down memory lane

Here are two articles which you should check out. Both are on the awesome music and culture website, The Quietus.

The first is an interview with Thom and Jonny from 1996. It’s really quite a fascinating and humorous read. For example, Thom explains why he’s fascinated with car accidents (Airbag, Killer Cars, Stupid Car):

“Oh, OK. Why are there so many references to cars? Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because when I was younger, my parents moved to this house, which was a long long way from Oxford, and I was just at the age where I wanted to go out the whole time. I used to have this one car, and I very nearly killed myself in it one morning, and gave my girlfriend at the time really bad whiplash in an accident. I was 17. Hadn’t slept the night before. Anyway, eventually, my dad bought me another car, a Morris Minor, you know, and when you drove around corners in it, the driver door used to fly open. Um, and I’d only do 50 miles an hour, and on the road that went from my house to Oxford, there was fucking maniacs all the time, people who would drive 100 miles an hour to work, and I was in the Morris Minor, and it was like standing in the middle of the road with no protection at all. So I just gradually became emotionally tied up in this whole thing.”

Check out the full interview to read more about what Radiohead was like in 1996.

The second article is from 2003 and follows Radiohead on tour in France. It’s also a great read. Check it out!

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Interview with Ed at Lollapalooza

For your Tuesday enjoyment:


(Thanks to Mark in Chicago)

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Ed O'Brien Radiohead The King of Limbs Thom Yorke

Thom and Ed Interviewed by A.V. Club

There’s a fantastic interview with Thom and Ed on the A.V. Club website. Towards the end of the interview, Thom drops a hint that a new album may come sooner than we think. Here’s an excerpt:

AVC: Has anything new come out of the band being together, and playing together, on this tour?
TY: We get to hang out with each other; it’s a bit of a novelty. We don’t see each other that much when we’re not doing this.
EO: That’s the great thing about doing this sort of thing—we get to spend some time together, socializing.
TY: Jonny and I spend quite a bit of time going through half-finished things and deliberately forcing ourselves to finish them so we can get them to the others. I’m getting a buzz out of that—this thing, “Slave,” that I was playing for Ed the other day.
EO: That’s right. It’s quite good.
TY: I’ll send it home to Nigel [Godrich] tonight to mix. Honestly, I could probably use a full day doing it, but you’re in unusual places and want to get out. You don’t want to stay in the hotel all day; it becomes a little too much for me. It’s a little bit more than I can stand. In the end, when we’re back from this tour, I’ll probably think, “I really should have spent every day finishing stuff.”
EO: He’s finished quite a bit, though.
TY: I’m doing all right. I’m finishing what I want to finish.
AVC: Sounds like fans might not have to wait another four years for the next record.
TY: We try to keep the momentum of the operation going. Lots of times, if you stop too long, there’s no momentum and it takes a lot to pick it back up again. We’ve had such a positive response to this. We’re human; we lose our confidence far too quickly. It’s nice to have our confidence. That’s the biggest influence on things at the moment, being reasonably confident for a change.

Read the full interview at the A.V. Club.
(thanks to Eric)