BBC Radio 1 'Lamacq Live', september 18th 2000
[Interview with the full band]
The band was in Paris and rushed to this interview after doing a live TV performance at the Canal+ program 'Nulle Part Ailleurs'. This is a transcript from an audio recording of the radio broadcast.
Quotes from this interview are used in the following sections:
'Everything in Its Right Place',
Kid A Recording Process,
Kid A Tracklist,
'Kid A',
Amnesiac Tracklist,
'The National Anthem',
'How to Disappear Completely',
'Treefingers',
'Optimistic',
'In Limbo',
'Idioteque',
'Motion Picture Soundtrack'
[recording starts here]
[Plays 'No Surprises']
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
Steve Lamacq: "It's from the album OK Computer, Radiohead's last album from 1997, that was 'No Surprises'. Tonight, in the next hour and a half though, we can bring you tracks from the follow-up, Kid A with our first batch of Radiohead tonight, so we welcome Ed, Colin and Thom to the studio. How did you get here?"
Thom: "Er...How did we get here?"
Ed: "Erm....by a van. (laughs)"
Thom: "In a hurry."
Ed: "In a hurry."
Steve: "In a hurry. You had to come across Paris, because you've been somewhere else tonight doing TV."
Thom: "Yeah, we did a live TV show, which was an absolute nightmare (Ed laughs) we're still..."
Ed: "Reeling from it."
Thom: "...coming down from it, because it's..."
Colin: "Yeah, they wanted to put us in an ambulance to come here tonight, so..."
Thom: "Just to get here in time."
Colin: "Just to get through the traffic. We might actually need one after this though."
Thom: "Yeah, I'd say. It has taken all day..."
Steve: "Really? They were suggesting getting an ambulance? Why? Because that's the only thing that would cut through the traffic here, I suppose?"
Colin: (sighs)
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "Wow, it's carnage. So how long have you been in France then?"
Thom: "Now, that's easy to answer."
Ed: (laughs)
Thom: "It's two days."
Steve: "It's two days?"
Thom: "Two days, yeah."
Steve: "And who's the tourist in the band then?"
Thom: "Jonny."
Steve: "Jonny is?"
Thom: "Yep. We all stay in the room, and Jonny goes out with his map and that..."
Steve: "Really?"
Thom: ".....and gets lost. Actually he never gets lost."
Steve: "That breaks the international rules of band stereotypes. Usually it's the bassist..."
Thom: "Oh, God help us..."
(Ed laughs)
Colin: "(laughs) Got no mates in the band, so I have to go out and look for them, yeah, that's about right."
Steve: "Alright, what we've decided to do then, tonight we're going to play seven of the ten tracks from the album, or at least as many as we can get through, in the order they appear, plus your honest answers please to a few questions we'll put to you as and yours, you can e-mail me at steve.lemaq@bbc.co.uk, so we'll start with this, the opening track from Kid A, and this is 'Everything In It's Right Place'."
[Plays 'Everything In It's Right Place']
Steve: "It's 'Everything In It's Right Place' from the new Radiohead album, Kid A. And that track, I was just saying while it was on, it's weird that the keyboard sound actually gives the song quite a lot of momentum on that one."
Thom: "Mmmm. It's phat."
Steve: "It's phat."
Thom: "That's what they say, isn't it? Phat..."
Ed: "With a 'PH'."
Thom: "I'm learning the lingo, 'phat' and 'wack'."
Steve: "And it was a phat keyboard once used by... originally the same sort of keyboard was used on..."
Thom: "(clearing throat deliberately) Japan."
Steve: "Japan?"
Thom: "They used to use it an awful lot to get all those wacky sort of like well, tin drum sounds."
Ed: "They were a top band."
Thom: "Yeah, they were."
Ed: "They were."
Thom: "Yeah, yeah, haircuts... let's not mention haircuts, shall we?"
Steve: "No. Let's go... it's the start, it's the first track on the album, but also with the keyboard sound it's almost.... it sounded, when I first listened to it, like the pulse, it feels like a pulse of like the patient re-awakening."
Ed: (laughs)
Thom: "I'd say that's a very good analysis. That's probably about the best I've heard actually, really."
Steve: "Is that why it's there?"
Thom: "Well, I mean, it was actually... it was the patient awakening, because really we weren't getting anywhere, and that was the first... I think that was the first thing that we did where everybody sat around going 'yeah, that makes sense, that's where we're heading' somehow or other, I'm not quite sure how, but..."
Steve: "So come on then, how traumatic was it making the album compared to previous Radiohead LPs?"
Thom: "I think it was more down to the fact that the traumatic bit was in a way... was... erm... having to go away and... see it from the outside, so you... like, in a way, we all had to get to the point where Radiohead was this meaningless thing, which we sort of didn't really hold any faith in or, you know, it was just this thing we'd been involved in..."
Steve: "So did you have to break it up before putting it back together or something?"
Thom: "Yeah, that's kind of what I was... yeah, that's what I kind of mean, because I mean for me personally, it was like... I really... there wasn't really ever a time throughout the whole thing where I wanted to sort of pack it up, because to me sort of like we'd spent so much time together, and we were really close and we understood what we were doing, we understood each other sort of musically, really, so it was like....it didn't make any sense to blow it out, but at the same time, everything that we'd done didn't seem to... float my boats any more, so..."
Steve: "So had you just lost the... I don't know, the drive or the reason? I mean, did you know what you wanted when you started? When you started on this record?"
Thom: "Erm... I'd say..."
Steve: "No plan?"
Thom: "No. I'd say this is the first time we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and I think that lasted for a good... (to Ed) year and a half?"
Ed: "Yeah, I mean 'Everything In It's Right Place' was the first track that (to Thom), as you said, that was finished and it was like, 'yes this makes sense', and that was six months in to... and that was June of last year, and we went into the studio in Paris."
Steve: "Here, yeah, in Paris."
Ed: "Yeah, In January last year."
Thom: "Oh yes we did."
Ed: "And so that's a lot of tape under..."
Thom: "It was an awful lot of tape, there was an awful lot of tape that we got, that we need to recycle. (laughs)"
Steve: "You see, I've been thinking about this, and because... have you never thought of maybe scrapping those first two sessions that you always scrap, and just..."
Thom: "No mate, because we... the crazy thing, this is the stupid thing about it, right, I remember Chris our manager coming along while we were recording something or other and just sort of freaking out, going 'wow, that was really amazing', and we were all sat in there, in the studio going '(mumbles incoherent obscenities)', you know, but I think we'd basically had too much French cheese by that point, and our brains were no longer working, because we couldn't tell, you know, it was really weird. So we took the tapes away, and in retrospect it was like 'oh, hang on, that was really good and that was really good', so I think the problem was really that our state of mind was wrong, I mean, yes essentially we shouldn't have been working, we should have been, you know, in the countryside somewhere enjoying fresh air and like not thinking about it at all for like a good two years, but I think really we... you know we got the horrors that maybe we'd lost it, so we needed to start, you know what I mean, but it actually really didn't start for ages."
Steve: "Who eventually... who eventually sort of calls a meeting and says 'Look, this isn't going quite right', or does everyone just think about it for ages?"
Ed: "It doesn't happen like that..."
Steve: "It just ferments?"
Ed: "Yeah, it keeps on fermenting, and you keep on... you know, you go... we used to have these meetings every day to discuss the plan of the day."
Thom: "That's right, yeah."
Ed: "Like an editorial."
Thom: "Like in an office."
Ed: "Yeah."
Thom: "An editorial."
Ed: "Exactly, what are we going to do today, and we never did what we were supposed to do."
Thom: "No, that's right, we'd start... it always felt good, then we'd go off and do..."
Ed: "Something else."
Thom: "Absolutely, or never get anywhere at all, and just bugger off home. Oops..."
Steve: "You started in Paris... You can get away with that, we do it all the time... You started in Pairs... You should hear our Oasis interview from a couple of years ago."
Thom: "Ok."
Steve: "You started in Paris, then why do you move? Is that sort of... is it a psychological thing, 'if we move studios, you know, change of place, change of luck, we'll go off somewhere else'?"
Thom: "Paris was... well, we only booked in two weeks because we knew that by that point, we'd have probably had the heebies, and it really was initially... it was quite a weird session because we hadn't... we were recording everything we were doing, like the whole time..."
Steve: "Right, back there again?"
Thom: "Yeah, we had this poor guy, Gerard, right, who was like, what do we call him?"
Ed: "Assistant engineer."
Thom: "Assistant engineer, librarian, and we've got about you know, 500 DATs of us making, just you know, dribble really, and it goes on and on and on and on, and occasionally you know, you'd get something that would just be blindingly obviously good, and the rest of the time, it was like that. But I really wanted to have that, because the way we'd always worked before was like we'd always set up in a room, and we'd bash through something, and it was ready to go from a live context of us being in a room, and I wanted to sort of say to everybody, 'look, along the way we might miss something...'"
Steve: "Right."
Thom: "But unfortunately..."
Ed: "We still had to find it... (laughs)"
Thom: "We couldn't be arsed to find it, so that was that."
Steve: "We're going to play some of the choices which you've brought in as well tonight, and we're going to start with Avrocar which is the choice of Ed."
Ed: "Yeah."
Steve: "Tell is about this track."
Ed: "I actually heard this on the Breezeblock about two years ago, I think, and it's just a stunning piece of music, I mean, I always kind of hope that we'd be able to... I'd hoped that we'd be able to do something like this within the scope of Radiohead, but feared for a long time that, you know, to go out like that is....would be too much, but I think we've actually done it on the record, I mean, it's quite interesting listening to 'Treefingers', because there's definitely... I mean 'These Themes 3', which is the track, is very ambient, and 'Treefingers' has its ambient moment."
Thom: "It is ambient, yeah."
Steve: "It certainly does. It's Radiohead, live on Radio 1, and various other cool radio stations around the globe tonight..."
Thom: "Really?! I didn't know that."
Steve: "...and this is Avrocar."
[Plays Avrocar – 'These Themes 3']
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
Thom: "We're on, mate. Ooh, sorry."
Ed: "(inhales deeply) Lovely."
Steve: "...and relax."
Ed: "Yeah... alright."
Steve: "Avrocar on Lemaq live, the choice of Ed from Radiohead. We're talking about the new LP, and playing some of Radiohead's favourite tracks here tonight. So, we get to the end where it is... it's started to work, and then by... after a while, you have this point where you actually have... like there's enough material for two albums?"
(music starts playing)
Thom: "Sort of, yeah."
Steve: "There's weird music in the background there."
Ed: (laughs)
Thom: "What was that?"
Ed: "That was Zero Seven doing a remix of 'Climbing Up The Walls', wasn't it?"
Thom: "Oh yeah."
Colin: (laughs)
Thom: "Someone's doing this like 'you're for the chop' face... ooh, shit."
Ed: "And the wine's gone everywhere."
Thom: "Yep, er... what was the question?"
Steve: "Yeah, you had enough material for two albums, is this what you were saying?"
Thom: "Oh, yeah, but then if you think about it, it was essentially a three... almost a three year period away, and that is... there's... it means you have a build up of stuff, you know."
Steve: "Does this present you with a dilemma, because if you've got so much material, the first thing is, were you tempted to do a double album?"
Thom: "Oh, yeah, yeah, we went through all of that, yep."
Steve: "Did you?"
Ed: "Mmm hmm."
Thom: "We couldn't... there was no... we just said 'no, no way', and also the really weird bit about it is that they really really go off in two different directions, or three actually, which I think is, you know like every time we've worked before, we had kind of like a mandate when we started, and we didn't have it with this, so when it came to putting Kid A together, it pretty much....we tried to approach it like writing a song, and we tried to let it do it itself, which it sort of did really, and now we're in the process of picking up the pieces that were left, and seeing whether they'll write themselves, and they kind of need a little bit of kicking actually."
Steve: "Right, so there's other bits, and there's stuff which is done, and there's things there?"
Thom: "Other stuff. Yeah, I don't know, I can't...it's impossible to judge it, to be honest."
Steve: "So how are you picking the tracks for this record, if there's quite a lot of material, even if some of it wasn't fully formed, because the fact is, when you listen to it through, it actually, for a selection of tracks which have been picked from various places, and from various timescales, it actually flows brilliantly as a record."
Thom: "Yeah, but as I was saying, it was really a question of... we really wanted 'Everything In it's Right Place' to be the first track, and it really did itself, I know it sounds silly, but it did."
Steve: "What, everything picked itself?"
Thom: "Yeah, basically. We all kind of had... don't you think?"
Colin: "Yeah, completely, yeah."
Ed: "It was very straightforward, in a way, once we'd decided to do the one record, and do eleven, or whatever, ten tracks..."
Thom: "You don't know, do you?"
Ed: "No, I don't. (laughs)"
Steve: "So it wasn't the painful part? Because usually that's the painful part of the whole record."
Ed: "(laughs) Yeah."
Thom: "Oh, yeah, there was pain, there was pain, yeah, yeah."
Steve: "Was there pain?"
Thom: "Oh yeah."
Ed: "But there always is at that part."
Steve: "At home, I can just tell you that Thom and Ed are just laughing at each other..."
Ed: (laughs)
Steve: "That knowing laugh of 'we fought, we so fought at times' Thom's blushing."
Thom: "Yeah, it was quite hard (Ed laughs). It was... I had this thing about it actually, at the time, which in retrospect was pretty daft, where I kept talking about how it was like, you know, having a bunch of kids, and sending some of them off to the war, and some of them not, sort of thing, and it's... I thought I sounded really daft, and probably to everybody else it did sound really precious or whatever, but then it's interesting, because Björk says the same thing about her stuff, actually."
Steve: "Really?"
Thom: "Yeah, she's really like (puts on Björk voice) 'oh my songs, I have to fight for my songs', you know, which I think's really cool, and that's basically what personally my freakout was about."
Ed: "Yeah, yeah."
Steve: "Ok, so track two then, it all falls into place in the end. Track two is an incredibly eerie track, 'Kid A'."
Thom: "You think it's eerie?"
Steve: "Yeah. I do actually, I'm not sure whether it's just the... there are certain words and phrases which you pick out of the song, but 'heads on sticks', quite eerie in context."
Thom: "Out of a hat, that one."
Steve: "Was it? Just plucked out of a hat?"
Thom: "No, I've got one of them hats, you know, top hats."
Steve: "Oh really?"
Thom: "Pulling it out of the top... I had... the other thing that we haven't mentioned, I mean essentially I had a writer's block for two years, and all the stuff that was in the writer's block that I didn't actually throw away instantly was put into this top hat, and whenever we were jamming or doing stuff in the studio, and I didn't know what to sing, I'd pull stuff out of the hat."
Steve: "Really?"
Thom: "Yeah, and it was cool, yeah, you used to get some great stuff."
Steve: "So it's just bits of lines and it just comes out?"
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "Wow, that's an interesting way of working, well listen we'll play this track from the new LP, Kid A, from Radiohead, and this is the title track, 'Kid A'."
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
Steve: "Well it does eerie for me. It's 'Kid A', it's the title track from the new Radiohead album, it's Lemaq live on Radio 1, and Phil's joined us while Thom's gone away for a second."
Phil: "Hiya."
Steve: "How much have you changed as a unit, do you think, over the years, and particularly maybe during the making of this record, because it's a different type of Radiohead album this, isn't it, with less guitars. Have your roles, your perceived roles all changed a little?"
Ed: "Yeah, I mean, I think that was one of the hard things for when we were... when we started up again, because it obviously, you know, there's no space for let alone one guitar on some tracks, and sometimes no drums, and sometimes no bass or whatever, so that was kind of tricky to get one's head around at first, and... but I think it kind of (sighs)... I think when 'Everything In It's Right Place' came along, and that was the first recognisably good thing that we'd done, we... it was just evident that ok, you know, it's again, kind of going back to what we used to do before, it's the song that's most important, and you know, you... I think what we acted a lot on this album, there was a part of a, you know, it's a production thing, a production team or a kind of a filter process, and I think what's exciting is now that... I think now it's... once we established that, it's incredibly liberating, because it just means that you aren't confined to that one role, whatever that you've done before."
Steve: "But before that, did you find all your insecurities bouncing off each other?"
Ed: "Oh yeah (laughs), yeah."
Steve: "Colin, you're smiling."
Colin: "Yeah, everyone else is though, too, yeah."
Ed: (laughs)
Steve: "They are, everyone else is smiling, yes."
Colin: "Yes, yeah, I think that's very true, and I think it was one of the scary, but ultimately liberating experiences of doing this record was that, you know, to sort of not feel that you're shackled to some role of contribution within Radiohead, and you know, not sacrificing your own individual thing, but also, you know, just... it's like passing the baton on really, and it happened a lot more and has just continued to do so, you know, it's really exciting, you know, being able... you know, what really excites me about us, is that fact that we've got five people who are capable of generating interesting sounding material at a time when so much music is coming out of people's bedrooms, so you know, the fact that we can do that as five individuals and then like respond to it within that team group thing, and plus using technology to cut things up in that bedroom style, I think that's really exciting."
Steve: "And out of the five people, who wins the arguments? Is it Thom?"
Ed: "Oh yeah. (laughs)"
Steve: "Has it always been Thom?
Ed: "Yeah, because he writes, you know, he writes the bulk of the songs and everything, yeah."
Steve: "But going back further than that, was it always Thom at school, and stuff?"
Ed: "Errrmm..."
Colin: "But then you do the music for different reasons then, just to escape from the tedium of school, and a retreat from like all the nonsense bullshit of games and stuff like that, so you know, it was a social function that we desperately needed at that time."
Steve: "Yeah, ok, so the gang changes naturally anyway a bit."
Colin: "Yeah."
Steve: "But Ed, you're always very protective of Thom, in quotes and stuff."
Ed: "Yeah."
Steve: "Do you, I mean, have you noticed him change, is there anything you couldn't say to him?"
Ed: "Anything that I can't say to him?"
Steve: "Yeah."
Ed: "No, not at all now, I mean, not at all, I mean... I completely... you know, it's a very... sometimes it's... I find it quite strange because you suddenly, you know... Thom's always had this ability to pick up an acoustic car... guitar... Car?! An acoustic car?! (laughs) An acoustic guitar and play a song, and he's got that ability to make you, you know, if he really wants to pull out all the plugs, he'll bloody make you weep, you know?"
Steve: "Yeah."
Ed: "And that's an incredibly powerful thing, you know, I mean, so yeah, I mean, of course I'm protective, we're protective of one another I think, and I think the important thing, I mean the thing about Radiohead now that I think is to see everyone being able to do kind of what they want to do, and this record has really meant that we can do that."
Steve: "And is there a mediator in the band, if things go wrong?"
Phil: "I think we pass the baton on that one actually really, don't we?"
Ed: "Yeah. (laughs)"
Phil: "That's the great thing about having five people..."
Steve: "Really?"
Phil: "So you can always..."
Steve: "Phil, I had it down as you or Ed."
Ed: "You pick it up at different times..."
Colin: "Yeah, you do, yeah."
Ed: "...because we're, you know, just regular guys, we have our good days and our bad days, and if we're all having bad days, and one other person is having a good day, then you know, it works like that, it's the virtue of... I think one thing that we have learned is the virtue of patience, you know, everybody's got... everybody has their ups and downs."
Phil: "I think one of the great things about last year was that we actually manged to get beyond being a school band..."
Ed: "Yeah."
Phil: "Because I mean, I think we were still essentially the same band as we were when we started back in 1986."
Steve: "Do you think so? In what way?"
Phil: "I don't know, in terms of... I think the relationship that's set up between us..."
Colin: "Yeah, yeah."
Phil: "I think there were a lot of things that had gone unaddressed for so many years, because, you know, you don't want to rock the boat when you're touring, or whatever, or you don't have the communication skills with each other or whatever, but I think last year, I think we really got a lot of that out into the open."
Colin: "Yeah, I mean for me like that's really true, the important thing... one of the best things, one thing I'm happiest about as we've been working together for like fourteen or fifteen years, and five blokes working together, and my brother as well (Ed laughs), look, there he is there waving, right, yeah, and the fact that, you know, you see what... you get... everyone gets on each other's tits, and then after that period of time, you see why you get on other people's tits, and you can laugh about it, and see what a plonker you are and stuff, and that's like a very rare sort of thing for a group of people working together to get to that sort of level, really."
Steve: "Well there's also, there's also a strange thing that bands sort of, or just gangs of, you know, youngsters, when you were in your teens, you bond with other people through your like of the same music, but then fifteen years down the line, your musical tastes go off in different directions, which brings us to this, which is Phil's choice..."
Phil: (laughs)
Steve: "...which is Louis Armstrong."
Phil: "Running contrary to everything else this evening."
Steve: "No, but why?"
Ed: "Because you are the oldest."
Phil: "Yeah, that's right. 'oooh, I was around when it was recorded'."
Ed: "You have matured faster than the rest of us."
Phil: "No, this is a bit of a history lesson in drums, really, so I appreciate it may be a bit of a niche audience for it, but erm..."
(Ed laughs)
Steve: "No, you stand up for it, that's fine."
Phil: "But it's going back to the 1920's in this recording, it's going back to the time when kit playing actually really started, and the pioneers of it were... one of them was called Baby Dodds, and the other one who is drumming on this track called Zutie Singleton, and they both played for Louis Armstrong, and so this is a Louis Armstrong track called 'The Rhythm Man'."
Steve: "It's live on Radio 1, it's Louis Armstrong."
[Plays Louis Armstrong – 'The Rhythm Man']
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
Steve: "Louis Armstrong, on Radio 1."
Phil: "Can you clear this one up for me, it was actually recorded in 1929, so is that the oldest recording you've ever played on the Evening Session?"
Steve: "I think it is, I think it genuinely is, yeah, I'm a Bix Beiderbeck man myself, really. You join us here, if you're just tuning in, it's Steve Lemaq and Lemaq Live on Radio 1, and other radio stations around the world, tonight with Radiohead, unveiling the album Kid A. We now have Jonny in the room with us, and we've got Colin, Jonny and Phil from Radiohead. So, we're going to do some e-mails in just a second as well. If you do want to e-mail in, it's steve.lemaq@bbc.co.uk, and ooh yeah, there's one or two piling up, which we'll do in just a second. We're in Paris, because that's where the current Radiohead tour obviously is, it's tomorrow and Wednesday, the dates here, but after your video documentary, Meeting People Is Easy, we have these hellish visions of when you go on tour, is it any different now, I mean, was that, in retrospect, was that a very bleak perception of how it really is?"
Jonny: "I think Grant was just showing what surprised him about being on tour with a band, the parts he didn't expect to see, and that's kind of what he made a film about, that it's not really... it's not just us in a way. What do you think, Colin?"
Colin: "Yeah, I mean it was Grant's film, and also like a week later, we were go-karting 'round Perth and stuff, so I mean... in the sunshine, and going to the beach and stuff and New Zealand and so..."
Steve: "It wasn't all doom and gloom?"
Colin: "No, but it was winter in Japan for two weeks, so it was quite an intense experience."
Steve: "Ok, this is an e-mail, just going to throw this in here very quickly, from Kieran Divarney, I think that's how you pronounce it, who says, Question: should we take a single word that any of you say in any interview, including this one at all seriously?"
Jonny: "Well, having heard my foot so plainly in my mouth from that recording of me talking two years ago, I'm kind of... I'm loathe to say anything, so he's got a point."
Steve: "Right, ok, and this one is from Jane in Manchester. There are a lot of internet rumours about the fifth album containing tracks like 'Knives Out', is that... do we know the tracklisting for the second album yet, for the next possible album?"
Jonny: "We've got to filter them, and put them in an order, and stuff like that, so it's really an un-formed thing so far."
Steve: "Ok, so going back to the touring, which obviously you're doing various dates, and more UK dates to come, have you tried, given you know, the problems in the past, have you tried to make it better, or have you tried to do it in a different way, or have you tried thinking we can't do it like this, there must be a way of getting round some of the worst bits of it?"
Colin: "Well, I think when we started trying to tour again we had to sort of challenge our touring personnel's assumptions as much as our assumptions being challenged in the studio, and you know, I mean it was an act of madness to take a big blue tent out and you know, do all of this and you know, it was very difficult persuading people, including ourselves all along the line, but thank God it's worked out, you know, so..."
Phil: "And it's been really exciting though, as well, hasn't it, actually setting yourself up these, you know fairly ambitious plans, and then seeing them come together."
Colin: "Yeah, and the changeability of it, is being able to see Jonny like just jump off the stage, and leap across the security barrier in the soundcheck, and run across and talk to Andy, who does our amazing lights about this new thing to try something out that evening, and the sort of... the impromptu and the spontaneity of it... that we got so sick of... that was all so lost when we did our last tour."
Jonny: "Yeah."
Steve: "And what about when you were actually recording Kid A, or when you were writing and recording Kid A, did you have in your mind, or did you have to later on have to work out how you were going to do some of those songs? We're going to play 'The National Anthem' in a second, and that's one of the tracks which you do play live..."
Jonny: "Yeah."
Steve: "In fact that's one of the you know, that's one of the interesting ones, I think 'Everything In It's Right Place' and 'The National Anthem'."
Phil: "It's probably fair to say actually when we were recording, I don't think we even knew if we were going to go out and play live again at one point."
Colin: "Yeah, so..."
Phil: "Yes, I mean, when we actually came to sit down and think, yes we want to go out and play dates, but you know, we did have to adapt what's on the record. But I think the versions which we're playing live now are equally valid and it's actually great, I mean with OK Computer and The Bends, I mean what you heard when you came to see us live, I think were more or less... more or less like Xerox copies of what was on the record, and it's actually exciting to actually have that kind of flexibility in what you're playing now."
Steve: "And I think it evolves as well. And also some of the jobs that you do, because you're doing a lot of live sampling."
Jonny: "Errrm. Yeah, well by that I'm sort of..."
Colin: "Yes you are."
Jonny: "Yeah."
Steve: "Go on, tell us."
Jonny: "Well, I'm kind of relying on local radio wherever we are, playing... you know, not playing Bryan Adams and stuff. I'm just tuning a radio in to whatever's on local stations and hoping it's going to be bits of classical music or bits of people talking or, you know... I mean there's always a danger that you're going to tune to some, you know extremist right wing... so you've no idea what's going to come out in the local language, you know, it might be someone in Dutch kind of espousing some terrible... erm so yeah, that's kind of what I'm doing really, just stealing other people's stuff."
Steve: "You're alright in the UK, you'll just get John Peel."
Jonny: "Yeah (Colin laughs), perfect."
Steve: "He'll be on when you're headlining, I imagine, that'll be ok."
Jonny: "Yeah, I'll look for it."
Steve: "But also some of the things which you do in the rest of the set, I mean is this, you know, become quite a challenge now as much as the studio material has moved on, everything else that you can do or achieve?"
Jonny: "Yeah, it's good, I'm kind of... it's sort of, you know, singing by proxy, because I can't, and so I'm stealing bits of Thom's singing and playing them back, you know, out of time, and out of tune even, as well, just how I would, and that's really good, obviously it's again all a bit up in the air every time we play it, but that's, you know..."
Steve: "It looks tremendously clever, from having seen the gig in Barcelona."
Jonny: "Oh no, it's just a couple of buttons."
Steve: "Is it?"
Colin: "And a finger."
Jonny: "And well, you know, sometimes it goes very well, and sometimes you get over-excited and wipe what the computer is holding, so there's nothing in there any more, and have to kind of push Thom back towards the microphone so I've got something still to use..."
Steve: "...to play around with."
Jonny: "...so that's what that is."
Steve: "So as I say, this is one of the tracks which gets an airing in the live set, and does have a fantastic punk rock bass guitar."
Colin: "Yeah, but that, yeah, that wasn't me. I didn't do that. Thom did that. I was... I went home on an early night and err..."
Steve: "So, what? That's not you on the record, Colin?"
Colin: "No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm sort of trying to cobble it together live, yeah."
Steve: "It has a fantastic punk rock bass guitar by the singer and it also has a big jazz climax, possibly influenced by Louis Armstrong, who knows? This is Radiohead, live on Radio 1, and this has been taken from the album, Kid A, this is a track called 'The National Anthem'."
[Plays 'The National Anthem']
[Plays Serge Gainsbourg – 'En Melody']
Steve: "Serge Gainsbourg, which is the choice tonight of Jonny from Radiohead who's with us. Why that one particularly?"
Jonny: "Oh, it's just really seedy and dirty, and so little music is, so little good music is really."
Steve: "And where did you hear it first, or how did you..."
Jonny: "Oh, I don't know, every time we come to France, people suggest French music, and we've been sort of collecting bits and pieces and that's a record that's just really one of the best recordings of music I have, it's wonderful, the whole record."
Steve: "It's quite a jazzy, funky, sleazy feel. Thom and Ed are back with us, except Thom's eating something. What have you got?"
Thom: "(with mouthful of food) Uh, eh, eh, uh eh... oh... yeah."
Steve: "Just carry on, it'll be alright. Just before the trailer we played 'The National Anthem', which, track two and three when I first heard them, they were the ones that made me actually think of the book 1984."
Thom: "Oh, really?!"
Steve: "Yeah."
Thom: "Cool."
Steve: "I don't know if there's, it's not... obviously it's not the big brother that's in fashion at the moment (Ed & Thom laugh), but there's a big brother feeling about certainly 'The National Anthem', which I think was backed up slightly by the photo shoot, which you did recently for a certain magazine..."
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "It had the same feel about it."
Thom: "(drinking) Mmmmmm."
Steve: "You see what I mean?"
Thom: "Er, well, I mean, yeah, there was one night where, erm... we were on tour in America, and erm... what was it? (to Ed) Remember that time when R.E.M. asked us out?"
Ed: "Mmm hmmm."
Thom: "And we went out to that club, I don't know about you, but I was..."
Ed: "Which time?"
Thom: "Oh, God knows..."
Steve: "Subtle piece of name dropping, I just thought I'd mention it."
Thom: "And I was sitting around the table with Michael and, err... don't know, who else? And I suddenly started going into this rant about 1984 and how I actually thought that essentially all the things in 1984 had come true, it's just that they had the wrong names, and they were put in the wrong order, but essentially we were actually living in 1984 already, and I just went on and on and on about it, and it became a really unhealthy obsession and that must have been in 198... 1997, or whatever."
Steve: "Really?"
Thom: "..and that's about when that song started, (to Ed) you remember, we did that..."
Steve: "So there might be something in that."
Thom: "I think that's very good, yeah."
Steve: "The next track - which we're not going to play tonight, but you will be able to hear tomorrow on Radio 1 - is 'How To Disappear Completely'. Now this is one of the tracks, one of I think two songs on this album, which do actually appear to be linked to a definite time and place, and this one is Dublin."
Thom: "Yeah, well there's the Liffey, yeah."
Steve: "Yeah, there's the Liffey, in Dublin. Is it written about a certain gig or a certain time?"
Thom: "Yeah it was. (to Ed) What was that gig we did?"
Ed: "The RDS. The biggest gig we'd done, it was the week before we did... it was in '97, it was the week before we did Glastonbury, wasn't it?"
Thom: "That's right, yeah."
Ed: "And it was like the seventh gig of, you know, OK Computer, and the first gig of OK Computer, we were infront of four hundred people in Lisbon, and we couldn't even sell out the tickets in this sort of club. Two weeks later, we're in Ireland in front of thirty-eight thousand mad Irish fans, and it was... well, I mean, I always... (to Thom) I'm sure it must really annoy you, but you're like, you know, the Pied Piper of Dublin, whenever you're in... you suddenly... you know, you see... you can tell where you are in Dublin, because there's all these you know, all these people following you and you know that Thom must be round the corner because there's this like queue of people."
Thom: "Maybe."
Steve: "Does that really happen?"
Ed: "It did, yeah."
Steve: "People just following you around?"
Thom: "Yeah, but I've got a beard now, so they probably won't recognise me."
Steve: "But that's where it comes from, but it feels like at that point you don't know exactly where or who or why or how it all happened, very David Byrne, how did I get here?"
Thom: "That's exactly... well, there you go, you see, our main obsession in terms of like reference points was Remain In Light, 'Once In A Lifetime', where did I get here? How did I get here?"
Steve: "How did I get here?"
Thom: "And, erm... yeah... 'How To Disappear' was erm... 'How To Disappear Completely' was... the chorus was really like a mantra to sort of get out of things that erm... get out of a situation that just felt wrong, and it was kind of a way of putting the shutters down so you could erm... and that's what the song is for, it's for someone who's in a situation where they can't get out of it, they've got nothing to... they can't say anything to get out of it, but rather than involve themselves and screw themselves up, they keep repeating 'I'm not here, this isn't happening, I'm not here, this isn't happening, I'm not here, this isn't happening' all the time, that's what it's supposed to be about."
Steve: "And if you shut your eyes like that, people can't see you either."
Thom: "Yeah. Well this is radio, isn't it?"
Steve: "Yeah. So there's that, and then there's the ambient-esque track, which is 'Treefingers', which we're going to play on tomorrow night's Evening Session, and then we come to a track, which we never thought we'd see written down on paper, which is a Radiohead track called 'Optimistic'."
Thom: "Poptimistic."
Steve: "Poptimistic, this one. And for everyone who thinks that there are no guitars on this record, here's some guitars on this record, which is in 'Optimistic'."
Thom: "It is right, yeah."
Steve: "So, how did this work out then, in the centre of the plan?"
Thom: "Oh, I thought it was going to come on then, I thought that was a really good link. (laughs)"
Steve: "No, you've got to say something valid first."
Thom: "Oh, ok."
Steve: "You've got to earn your wedge before we actually play your records on air."
Thom: "Right. That's your fish, Ed."
Ed: "Again, it was one of those songs that we... I mean, I think the version that made it onto tape was by... was in October we recorded it..."
Thom: "On my birthday."
Ed: "Yeah, your birthday, that's right and but we'd... so that's ten months into the year, so we'd been... that was one of the first songs that we played in France, kind of like day one, day two, so you can imagine how many versions of 'Optimistic' there are."
Steve: "Probably hundreds."
Ed: "Yeah."
Steve: "Absolutely hundreds."
Ed: "Yeah, there are, there are."
Steve: "But this is the one which made it, and when we come back, two brilliant e-mail questions after this, and it's Radiohead from the album Kid A, and this is 'Optimistic'."
[Plays 'Optimistic']
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
Steve: "Steve Lamacq with a very funky Radiohead in the studio, we've got bare feet over there, shoes off, Ed's got his shoes off, Thom's got bare feet, it's like doing the show with Jo Whiley, it really is. It's 'Optimistic', it's taken from the album, which is called Kid A, out in the first week of October. I was going through some old bits of archive, some of which you may have heard earlier on, and do you know there's one word which always comes up when you're talking about the recording experience and stuff, and pretty much anything, actually, it's also highlighted in Meeting People Is Easy, and that word is?"
Ed: "Intense?"
Steve: "Terrifying."
Ed: (laughs)
Thom: "Oh, yeah. We need a new word. There's lots of words that do the same thing, but..."
Steve: "It's everywhere, the word 'terrifying'."
Thom: "Yeah, ok, sorry."
Steve: "Here's a couple of e-mails which we must do, this is from Paul Allen from St Albans, who's - in brackets - an aspiring song writer. If someone was to buy one of your records, just one of your records for the first time, which one would you nominate? Would it be this one, the new one, or where would you go for a start?"
Thom: "It depends what you mean by being a songwriter."
Steve: "Right."
Thom: "You know... songwriting... songwriting... probably not this one."
Steve: "OK. This is from Andy in Birmingham. After reading interviews with Radiohead talking about making Kid A, where Thom talked about smashing a tape of the album, and given that they all seem to dislike the kind of touring they're forced into, I was just wondering, says Andy, which part of being in a band do you actually enjoy?"
Ed: (laughs)
Thom: "We're actually digging the touring, actually, and we actually sort of dig making the record, and it being finished, and it sounding good. I think this is all in the context of last time it happened, and err, it going on too long."
Steve: "But now it's a new you, in a different way?"
Thom: "Yeah, it's a new you, yeah, yeah."
Steve: "But what happens when you do get frustrated with stuff? Do you break things? We were talking about that, there's another story about you like breaking a cassette. Do you break stuff? Boys generally do."
Thom: "Umm, err, no. You see now we're the... no, see... err, we tend to sort of like say nothing, don't we, really, unfortunately."
Jonny: "But that's always more frightening."
Thom: "Yeah."
Jonny: "When an authority figure, who you actually have respect for when you're growing up, and they just go quiet and stop talking, and they're obviously really furious, that's always more alarming, in a way."
Thom: "Who are you talking about?"
Jonny: "I don't know, you know, people do it... no."
Thom: "That's true."
Steve: "I can imagine there's a lot of things that go unsaid at certain times."
Thom: "Yeah, and it builds up, anyway, but we haven't seen the therapist yet, so I guess it's ok."
Steve: "Yeah."
Thom: "I don't know, you know, whatever."
Steve: "Yeah, I think so."
Thom: "I think... yeah, ok."
Steve: "Let's face it, 'Optimistic' off this record, which seems to be drawing just words... this sounds like one of the ones you might have got out of a hat. Was that how it happened?"
Thom: "Sort of, yeah. It was, mmmm... endless struggling, I mean it was very much written during 'the block' (laughs). It was about the only thing that made it through 'the block', and it was really... I sort of had a problem with coming from the context of basically being in a band and writing about personal experience, and one's own problems, and I'd suddenly sort of... I'd had enough of it, and I was reading a lot of political stuff, and thinking, I don't understand why it is that these things are allowed to happen in our name, and we just sort of let it happen, and I really had a problem with the fact that everybody was just resigned to that being the case, that somehow, since the Berlin wall fell, capitalism, in all it's glorious forms is the only solution to all our problems, and screw everybody else, frankly, and that we're all just happy consumers and we really want that Renault, and we really want that mobile phone that you can program a melody on, and ultimately it will make us happy, and..."
Steve: "This is something else which you pick up on the track which we're about to play in a second, which we'll get to, but before we get to 'Idioteque', which I think continues part of the theme, there's 'In Limbo', which... this was another early song wasn't it, because this was called 'Lost At Sea' at one point, but it's called 'In Limbo', which I notice as well, was a phrase which cropped up in your... in Ed, your..."
Ed: "Ah yes, the diary."
Steve: "...diary, isn't there actually something in there which says... talking about the recording process 'there was very little played, but a lot of talk, the problem is that we are essentially in limbo'."
Ed: "Right. Ba boom, here's a song, cool."
Thom: "Yeah, I think, well... from my point of view, it was much more about... my partner, she is doing a phd in Dante's Inferno, you know Dante's Inferno... and we have this tape in our car, which is basically Dante's Inferno, which is a good, cheery drive. (laughs)"
Steve: "I was going to say, it's not Bruce Springsteen, is it?"
Thom: "No, it aint, erm, but I just got really into all the aspects of limbo, the levels of hell, and because that's... it's quite formative to the way that we all think about heaven and hell and so on, and this song was kicking around at the time and it sounded... once we'd started recording, it sounded to me... like some of the voice stuff on it, really just sounds like the voices from limbo, voices that can't get out. (clears throat and coughs deliberately)"
Steve: "Ok."
Thom: "Okay..."
Ed: (laughs)
Steve: "Ok, so that's 'In Limbo', and then we come to, just let me make this... get this out of the way, there's no singles off this album."
Ed: "No."
Steve: "There's no singles coming off this album?"
Ed: "Of course not."
Steve: "OK. Did you ever think about a single?"
Ed: "Well that was... you know, I think by that stage we'd made enough decisions."
Steve: "Right."
Ed: "And we just we didn't..."
Steve: "Did you just not want to?"
Ed: "Well, you know, it just doesn't seem right, I mean... (sighs)... I mean for a start, we don't listen to the singles charts, and when you do get a feel for it, it's kind of like it's week twelve, and you turn on the radio or whatever, and it goes this is the eleventh new number one, it's week twelve of the new year, this is the eleventh number one of the year that's gone straight in at number one, it's just..."
Steve: "You don't care."
Ed: "Yeah, I mean..."
Thom: "That's right, we don't care."
Steve: "Yeah, we don't care any more, yeah."
Thom: "It's completely arse, and everybody knows it."
Ed: "Yeah, it is. It is arse, it's about budgets, it's about, you know, getting your thing straight in at number one, and that's it, and so why do... I mean we're actually afforded the luxury at this stage of like, well we don't... it's not completely essential, we're not struggling for some kind of, you know... for people to hear the record when it's released."
Thom: "In four months from now when it bums really badly you'll..."
Ed: "Exactly."
Thom: "...expect to hear a single."
Steve: "Loads of them can be, because you see, if there was a single off this LP, it'd be this track, we'll play it, and we'll talk about it, but this is fantastic, this is called 'Idioteque'."
[plays 'Idioteque']
Steve: "So, if I was in A&R then... (hysterical laughter in background). What's so funny about that?"
Thom: "Err... the words A&R?"
Steve: "Oh, I see, oh good, oh right, fair enough. But if I was in A&R that would have been my choice as a single, strangely, but only today, because I've changed my favourite track three times over the course of the last two weeks, learning to live with this record."
Thom: "You're implying that an A&R man has an imagination."
Steve: "There must be someone somewhere who does."
Thom: "Yeah?"
Steve: "Stop raising your eyebrows up and down like that, it's putting me off. I've got written down in my notes here, because it's got this slightly industrial feel to it, but I've just got 'it's like standing in a high street except the high street is a foreign land that makes no sense, but every sort of sense at the same time, p.s., it's a land where the lottery rules' What do you make of this? You wrote it."
Thom: "Ok, well, ermm, right, this is... my excuse for it, right is that... I wanted the... on the record to be at least one track that... you go out to a nightclub, and you dance until your head fell off and the rest of the lyrics really... what I wanted to do was to do what I thought was the most uplifting... out of a box piece of music that we could possibly do..."
Steve: "Out of a box?"
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "You have been learning the lingo."
Thom: "That's right, man, yeah, it's like 'wack'."
Steve: "Yeah, out of a box, alright."
Thom: "Err yeah, it's out of the box... where was I? Oh yeah, the words... but actually the words were supposed to to be basically all the things that actually keep me awake at night, you know, you see I can't sleep at the moment."
Steve: "Yeah."
Thom: "Well these were the things... each line in this song, they're the lines that kept me awake at night for about a month."
Steve: "Really?"
Thom: "Yeah, so they're all... but they're out of the hat, which is even more worrying."
Steve: "So these are lines out of a box, out of the hat..."
Ed: "In your head."
Steve: "In your head."
Ed: "On your head."
Thom: "These were lines which were in my head at some point, but I think your analysis is probably better, really, because I'm really not probably the best judge."
Steve: "Oh, you always say that, don't you?"
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "You always say that eventually, I can't let you get away with that, that's rubbish. Ed?"
Thom: "Yeah, what? (Ed laughs)"
Steve: "We can't let him get away with that, because he's always saying that, isn't he?"
Ed: "What, passing the buck?"
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "Yeah. There's one more thing just before... we're going to play Colin's choice, which is a track by Roots Manuva, but I just want to mention this thing that you know, there is stuff ready almost for the second record. Do we think that we've got a release date on that? Got to push you."
Ed: "We haven't got a release date, no."
Steve: "Ok, that's fine."
Thom: "Yeah, we don't know if it's going to be a full record, or whether it's going to be EPs or what."
Steve: "Ok, but every time, or the last few times we've had a Radiohead album, there's always been a sense that it's going to be the last record... it could be the last Radiohead LP ever, but it isn't this time."
Thom: "No. That's the big thing point, that's the..."
Colin: "Yeah, and what we're trying to do is just break up that whole thing is... we went to see... we were in Paris we went to see Beck play his concert in Paris about three months ago in June, and he was saying that the more he has success as an artist, the further he becomes removed from his artistic means of production like being in the studio and writing songs, and he spends eighteen months, two and a half years touring round the world, you know, on it, so it's like the more, you know, recognition you have, the sort of further away it gets removed from what you started it in the first place."
Steve: "Yeah."
Thom: "Which is why... which is why there was so much stress. It wasn't even in that making a record, it was about us getting together, building a studio, making a space that we could work in, and carry on and deal with all this stuff as peripheral, you know, but basically, you know, the happiest we are is when... is when something's done, like you know, when we finished 'Idioteque', everybody was like 'where did that come from?', you know."
Steve: "But thank goodness."
Thom: "Exactly, but the prospect of twelve months down the line, still having that next to an advert for engineered Levis, or whatever, you know, on your TV, it's just, I'm sorry, forget it."
Steve: "Third single."
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "Forty-eighth b-side."
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "Ninety-eighth tour."
Thom: "And then someone else rips it off and uses it as an ad for a car, and then you think 'right, we have to find a new approach, screw these people'."
Steve: "So this is where we're headed?"
Thom: "Yeah."
Steve: "Ok, Colin, we're going to play a choice by you, and then we've got more from the Radiohead LP to come, but we've got to fit this in, because we really want to play it, and it's by Roots Manuva. What is it?"
Colin: "I think it's called 'Movements', but I only heard it two nights ago, so I don't have a clue about anything to do with it, except Ed knows the record really well so..."
Thom: "Do you?"
Ed: "Yeah, well you remember my birthday night when we got completely..."
Thom: "Yeah, I remember."
Ed: "That was the record, you wouldn't remember, that was the record that was playing."
Thom: "Really?"
Ed: "That was the soundtrack."
Colin: "No-one remembers it, Ed's like 'I played that to you', it's like..."
Thom: "I remember you disco dancing down the garden and chucking up everywhere."
Ed: "Please..."
Colin: "Yeah, we have to keep re-visiting that."
Steve: "It was out of the box. It's Roots Manuva, it's Radio 1 with Radiohead tonight. (laughter in background)"
[Plays Track]
[Plays 'Motion Picture Soundtrack']
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
Steve: "That's taken from the new Radiohead album, which is called Kid A, we are in Paris tonight with Radiohead, where they continue their current tour for a couple of dates tomorrow and Wednesday, and we're in this huge room in Radio France, so if sounds like it's all booming around, the sound, then that's why, and good acoustics, could do a record in here. We're joined for the final part of this part of the programme by all the members of the band, and the thing is, that track, which comes at the end, which is called 'Motion Picture Soundtrack', after everything you've been through, through the album, and you get the impression that... I've got this sussed, (Thom laughs) it's 1984, no it's something else, no, it's the album, no, we're going over here, all of a sudden, everything, all your preconceptions go down the drain, and it suddenly becomes..... the whole album suddenly becomes on reflection... feels like a collection of contemporary film soundtracks, ending with The Wizard Of Oz."
Thom: "It's definitely the... well, if we were going to make a video for it, which of course we're not going to, but if we were, our dream was to actually have you know, the bluebirds... I don't know what..."
Ed: "Disney."
Thom: "...Disney film that's from, you know, 'the bluebird's on my shoulder'?"
Steve: "Oh, the kind of Zippedy-doo-dah."
Colin: "Louis Armstrong, 'What A Wonderful World', when he does the beginning of Disney, and he's got the bluebirds and the dancer."
Thom: "Oh, that's it, yeah, yeah."
Steve: "Down, Phil, (everyone laughs), back, just for a second, don't be getting any ideas... Now I had this yellow brick road thing in my mind, almost at the end of that, do you see what I mean, you could take various tracks, although there won't be any videos obviously for this record, but some of them are actually quite filmic in their design and their sound, do you see what I mean?"
Thom: "Maybe. I have to say that really... err..."
Steve: "It hadn't crossed your mind?"
Thom: "No, well, it wasn't the intention by any means, I think the reason that that song... I mean, that song is really, really ancient."
Steve: "Is it?"
Thom: "Yeah, yeah, that's like... that's pre-Creep, that song."
Steve: "Is it?"
Thom: "Yeah, yeah."
Ed: "Well, John Leckie wanted... always he... do you remember when we were making The Bends?"
Thom: "He kept banging on about it the whole time."
Ed: "He kept on going 'That crazy song', he said 'listen lads, can we get that crazy song again?' 'Nah...', you know, whatever, and that was about two, three years before that, wasn't it?"
Thom: "Yeah..."
Ed: "So that was 1994."
Thom: "Yeah, it was, it was before 'Creep'."
Steve: "How many songs have you got lying around in drawers?"
Thom: "Err... quite a lot. I mean, yeah, we always get... you get people at gigs going 'play 'True Love Waits'' or 'play...' - what was it - 'Nude' or... what was it, the other one, 'Big Boots', or 'Man-O-War' or, all these ones... and 'Lift', that's a classic one. (laughs)"
Ed: "Mmmm. (laughs)"
Thom: "Mmmm, yeah, hmmm. Well, you know, you have these songs, and you... from my point of view anyway, you know, you write these songs and the words like really really mean something to you, and then three months down the line, or three years down the line, you no longer understand where it came from, so you can't even begin to work out how to record it, or how to create the atmosphere that's supposed to go with it."
Steve: "How to vocalise it..."
Thom: "Yeah, and 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' was a classic sort of... I did it because everyone was sort of saying 'oh, you know, we should do this', and I was mucking around with it on this pump organ thing, and then that was the extent of my involvement and had absolutely no emotional contact with it at all, you know. And Cozzie and Jonny and Nigel were really like into it, and they thought it was really great, and I was like 'yeah, ok, well I'm going home now', and I came back, you know, twenty-four hours later, and Jonny had basically done all these harps and double basses on it, and it just sounded like, you know... I'd always wanted that song to be this big tragedy, but actually it is supposed to be a homage to Disney, you know, it's basically sort of saying, you know, you've been sold a massive white lie, and there's something essentially missing from your life, but... erm... it's essentially Disney's fault, that's what it's saying. (laughs)"
Steve: "But that must be quite nice, to actually have....to be in a position where even now, you have a shared idea, even though you don't know it."
Thom: "Yeah, that's it."
Steve: "Jonny comes in and does all the things, you pick up an idea and turn it into something else."
Thom: "Yeah, I mean ask him where that came from, because I've got bloody no idea."
Steve: "Yeah, where did the harps come from?"
Jonny: "Err, oh, it's just a mixture of... I mean it's a bit like... it's... for me it's an adolescent dream at the moment because we just have a studio that just has instruments lying around, and that was always my kind of... always what I wanted to be able to do, and so you just have access to so many sounds and colours and instruments, and it's... you can try anything and..."
Steve: "Are you always in there? In the studio?"
Thom: "He's in there the most on his own. (laughs) You know what I'm saying?"
Jonny: "I know what he's trying to say (background laughter), musically speaking I'm just shaking the... you know."
Thom: "Yeah, exactly, no, no, don't go there."
Colin: "Cabassa."
Ed: (laughs)
Jonny: "So, yeah, that's going on."
Steve: "You see, the strange thing is, because obviously that's a great thing to have, isn't it, finally the studio's done, it took quite a while, didn't it?"
Thom: "Finally, finally."
Steve: "Yeah, and the builders, you know... it took ages, it was way behind schedule."
Thom: "Yeah, six months late. Were you talking about that earlier were you?"
Steve: "No."
Thom: "Oh, right."
Steve: "I dunno, somebody told me, I think. It's all done, but you do, I mean I don't think we've done interviews in the past, I don't think I've done an interview with yourselves where everyone seems so sort of rejuvenated, and not worried about stuff particularly, is that right? We'll go round the table. Jonny?"
Jonny: "Yeah, I'm just quite happy and proud at the moment, with what we're doing, so... it's a nice feeling."
Steve: "Proud? That's a word that..."
Jonny: "Yeah, and enjoying it as well it's like just you know, traditionally bands talk you know, in this kind of style, but you know, it's a great thing to be doing, it's actually quite a nice thing to do, you know, play in a band and travel round and record stuff, it's brilliant, you know?"
Steve: "And Phil?"
Phil: "I'm really enjoying our tour at the moment, actually. Amazing, really you know... it's as touring should be, it's... I think, you know, we sat down for a while, and actually talked about all the different elements of touring that we didn't like, and how we'd like to approach it from here on in, and for me, it's actually come together on this tour, so, yeah, feeling very positive about it."
Steve: "I wish I had a video camera, I could skive off work for a couple of weeks and make myself a few bob (everyone laughs). Ed?"
Ed: "I think it just feels for the first time that it feels that there is really a way we can carry on being like this. We've sorted out a lot of shit. Oops... (sound of microphone feedback and laughter)"
Steve: "There is a future..."
Ed: "And I think, you know, to kind of embrace that same shit, you know, and it's quite nice... it's not quite nice, it's bloody amazing."
Steve: "Colin?"
Phil: "I dare you to disagree, Colin, now."
Colin: "I wouldn't disagree with anyone, but erm..."
Steve: "What if it was a political panel programme?"
Colin: "(laughs) There'd be a lot more throat clearing, wouldn't there, really? But, err, no, but I mean it's cool, because it's like, one of the things that I've really enjoyed is like looking at all the things you hate doing when we were finishing OK Computer with that touring and stuff and videos, and saying what you didn't like, what didn't work and stuff and we also brought up to sort of follow it along..."
[sound of drinks being poured]
Colin: "Oh, pour me one as well."
Thom: "Yeah, yeah."
Steve: "That's not Thom urinating in the corner, that's actually pouring a glass of..."
Thom: "It's the same colour."
Colin: "The toilet's far enough away for it to be, but err... (laughs)"
Ed: "We didn't really need to know that detail."
Colin: "Yeah, sorry..."
Thom: "Anyway, what were you saying, Coz?"
Colin: "Yeah, but I'm just saying that it's really good to like, you know the sort of negative energy of like what pisses you off, is like really as important as feeling like you have to do all the right things, yeah..."
Steve: "And the Thom meister? What do you say?"
Thom: "I'd say that, erm..."
Steve: "Hear hear?"
Thom: "No, erm, I'd say that we've started again, there's... I think people who are listening to this programme probably think that we're just a bunch of, you know, jubilant fools, but actually, what we're trying to tell you is... that erm... we sort of had quite a lot of trouble sorting things out, but ultimately the way that we feel now is sort of... that we're really lucky, and we feel like we've started again, and we feel like that the reason that we do this job that we do is because everybody benefits, nobody loses, and all the negative energies you work through, and you get through them, and you work them into something positive, and that's what we're about."
Steve: "And you combine that with a bit of De-mob fever, and you have Radiohead, out of the studio with a new album, Kid A, it's out in the shops in October, thank you very much for joining us."
Thom: "Thank you."
Ed: "Thank you, Steve."
Steve: "It's been a pleasure. Good luck with the rest of the tour..."
Thom: "Cheers, Steve."
Steve: "....and everything, and we shall see you hopefully at some of the UK dates, and we're going to play out with this, this part of the programme, which... you're the only one who hasn't had a choice yet, Mr Thom."
Thom: "Oh yeah, that's right."
Steve: "So, Squarepusher for you."
Thom: "Oh yes, Squarepusher... Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, this is a collaboration they did for We're Reasonable People, which is the Warp celebration album. Warp rock, this rocks, all electric guitar music's dead, and this is the future."
Steve: "It's Aphex Twin, it's Squarepusher, it's Radio 1."
[Plays Track]
[Radio 1 jingle plays]
[recording ends]