I'm late. Thanks to a lack of parking and an absent-minded photographer who seemed to have forgotten that film is necessary for the successful operation of a camera, it seemed as though I was going to be tardy for my meeting with Radiohead. Upon arrival, we find out that our interview had actually been pushed ahead by half-an-hour. Happy about the advance notice regarding the time change, we settle to wait for the rock and roll entrance of Radiohead. Uh, yeah. About two minutes later, three very disheveled looking young men enter the lobby, apologizing for THEIR tardiness, and we're all led off to the restaurant and paired off.

As we settle down to chat with guitarist Jonny Greenwood, I'm anxious to find out the cause of their seemingly trendy tardiness. As visions of drunkenness and debauchery dance through my head, we're seated in the non-smoking section and Greenwood orders himself some water. "We got held up at the border,' he sighs, wiping his tussled hair from his eyes. "Yeah, we got our bags tossed. It was more boring than anything else."Wow. Rock and Roll.

At the age of 24, Greenwood has accomplished more than many will in a lifetime, including a gold record and world-wide musical acclaim. Having left school to join the band, Greenwood insisted that it's not something he regrets having done."You know, it's strange," he says pensively, "because I dropped out of music college to do this, and I'm finding myself now, using all that I was learning, probably more than if I'd stay in college and tried to find a job afterwards. Thom [Yorke, the band's singer and fellow guitarist] is asking me what a celeste is and how it works and how to write scores for whatever instrument. And it's just bizarre that I'm getting a chance to use all this theoretical stuff."

In practice, though, Greenwood is less willing to acknowledge those in his presence."I sort of play with no regard to the audience. It's a bit too show-bizzy, isn't it?" he asked with a slight crinkle of the nose.
"I like to think of just one imaginary person listening, because that's what it's like for me. I never understand the enjoyment people get from being part of the audience. I don't really understand that kind of, 'Oh, Wow.' They're here under this air of work."I listen to it like I'm IN the person watching the band. I kind of feel like when I saw Throwing Muses when I was 14, whatever, 13, thinking, 'No one else is really watching it like I'm watching it,' which is very selfish, but I think everyone does it. It feels like you're in command." Greenwood pauses as the waitress arrives with his water and my coffee. His water is sent back, as he prefers the bottled cariety to the stock brought to him in a glass. Rock!

Greenwood goes on to talk about the band's recording process. "We like to have everything written," he states firmly. "I mean everything since 'Creep' - 'Creep' was all written and arranged, and there was nothing spontaneous about it, other than when it was written." At this point the trusty photographer, who earlier forgot his film, somehow remembers that Greenwood's water hasn't arrived yet. Greenwood shrugs it off and goes on to talk about the band's recent video, which have drawn a great deal of attention. "Brock Cunningham," he says, "who did [the video for the single] 'High and Dry' had just left the army, and decided he wanted to be a filmmaker instead. We got all these scripts and ideas from these newer directors and took it to the record company and said,'Wanna do this?,' and they said, 'No, no you can't do that - we can't give these people to do...'" and Greenwood waves his hand through the air."You know," says Greenwood with a snicker, "this man's in the army, and he's only ever done a five-minute film. But yes, we kind of kept sticking our neck out and we were lucky. It worked. All bands were complaining about doing videos and consequently everyone was doing really bad videos. We decided to start enjoying them instead and trying to do them well."

The videos have helped propel Radiohead to a new level of stardom, and Greenwood admits the feeling is sometimes strange. "Were we to go on tour tomorrow, "he rolls his eyes, "it would be in equally stupidly large places; it will be a bit unreal. Last time we played [in the UK] we did, like large theatres, three or 4,000. Yeah," he says distantly, "it's going to be weird going back." Suddenly he snaps back into full consciousness. "I mean, we're headlining Tier in The Park which is like the main festival in Scotland, and they were saying, 'Do you want to go on after the Sex Pistols or after Lou Reed?' It was all very unreal."

This time, Radiohead was not a bit player in Toronto, but the headliner. As they took the stage April 6 at Varsity Arena, it became apparent that Greenwood was on stage as he was in life. Playing through a tiny amp in one corner of the stage, head down. It really seemed as if he didn't know the audience was there. Until the end. After muttering into an unamplified mic, Greenwood smiled his shy little smile and ran back to his corner of the stage. Yorke conveyed the message to the audience: "Jonny says there's a lot of love in this room and he'd like to thank you all for coming." There was a crowd there for Jonny Greenwood that night; there was one there for Radiohead as a whole, and you can bet they're going to keep getting bigger. Oh, and they were late going on. P.S.: Yes!