DJ: Welcome. Et bien sur Colin Greenwood, le bassiste. Welcome Colin.

Colin: Thank you. Merci.

Thom: Colin's having a crisis with his headphones.

Colin: Um, my plug is too small to-

Thom: You've got to plug it- Oh! I see.

DJ: We'll fix it up. [laughs] First of all, like I was uh... I was talking to Colin just seconds ago, I was telling him it so great that you guys are actually taking time out to-

Thom: Invade your station!

DJ: Yeah, it's just a college station. For you guys, college radio has always been important.

Thom: Yeah, absolutely. Like, in America it's the only thing you can actually listen to without your mind melting. In Britain, college radio is a bit of a farce, really, because you can't actually transmit... You have to transmit on to campus but you can't actually let that transmission spread in to the rest of the town and if you do, you'll get banned, so you're very lucky if you get to transmit all over.

[DJ begins translating into French, Thom and Colin start laughing, interrupting him]

Colin: That's an amusing story-

Thom: Uh-oh! Oh, god...

Colin: I was at a university called Cambridge University in England, and friends of mine did a radio show at a college called Churchhill College, and university radio in England is pretty bad, and theirs was so bad they didn't have the power of the station to transmit beyond the building they were in. So they once did this show where they offered free money to anyone who turned up, you know they said they'd give them money if they heard the show. And of course nobody did.

DJ: Nobody did. Now I was listening to your brand new record, the Bends just came out, and I hear there are a lot of arrangements, strings, sound effects. I was wondering how will you do that live.

Thom: A lot of them we can actually do though, because we've got three guitars. We've got three guitars and lots of boxes with flashing lights on them, and, um, apparently they can do those things. And we actually invested in a keyboard, and things like that, and stuff. And so we can actually do quite a lot of it. We did- we were very aware we would have to go out and [leans in] play it live. I mean, obviously the strings are a bit difficult.

DJ: Yeah, are you going to have like keyboard arrangements for the strings?

Thom: Well, Jonny actually plays the guitar, and he plays the strings with the head of his guitar. So the keyboard's kind of like, there, and he's doing... I dunno.

Colin: He's my brother and he's a terrible show-off on stage.

Thom: Loves to show off.

Colin: He insists on doing things like that.

Thom: Right now he's tucked up in bed, though, because he's been throwing up all day.

DJ: I heard he's been sick. I was reading VOX magazine.

Thom: Ugh. Ah.

DJ: Let's talk about that. They recently stated, it's this month's issue I think, that The Bends was, and I quote, "The first great British rock album of the year. Now what do you think about that?

Thom: Well, A) There hasn't been much of a year so far yet, only a couple of months, and B) It's, well, you know, um, it's, it's... [sighs] It's amazing when people say things like that, but I kind of, um... It's a bit of a shock, to be perfectly honest, that people are turning around and saying all these things about the album. I mean obviously we were proud of it, and obviously we wanted to make something we were proud of, and we felt after having traveled all around the world and so on promoting an album that we basically recorded in 2 1/2 weeks, that we wanted to do something more a bit more... you know, a bit special. And we were conscious of the fact that we would have to hear it over a long period of time, and live with it. And to get that sort of praise back, it's like, well... Phew. You know It certainly helps you sleep at night.

DJ: It's ironic because I understand that Radiohead wasn't always treated this nicely by the British press.

Thom: Well...

Colin: No, it's not that true actually, I mean we've always had much more good press than bad press. What never happened with Radiohead by the English press was that they never said we were the next big thing, or that we were going to be massively successful, which is probably a good thing.

[Thom and Colin laughing while the DJ translates again]

DJ: Now we're going to take a listen to the first track off the album, it's called Planet Telex. Now Thom I understand you recorded that track in a very peculiar way.

Thom: Frame of mind, as well. It was, we went out for a meal, and we were getting very bogged down in the studio, getting fed up, and it wasn't much fun. And we went out for a meal, and then I turned to John Leckie and said, [imitates drunk voice] "I know, let's do really, let's do a new song, that we don't know, let's just write it here. And John looked at me and went "Oh my god. And then, what was it? Colin, I remember you said something like, "That's the fastest you'd ever seen John Leckie run.

Colin: He's quite an old geezer, and he wears these moccasins while he's recording, so he's kind of shuffling around with these big heavy microphones really quickly, it was like Benny Hill, actually.

Thom: Because we were all sort of really rough on him, and we were kind of writing it right there, and we had to do it really quick, otherwise we'd forget what it was we were trying to do. So we were all running around the studio. It lasted most of the night, and most of the morning as well.

DJ: You did record a track at like 4 A.M., or something?

Thom: I did the vocal at half four in the morning, and Ed had gone into a coma by that point, and Colin, were you still there? Had you gone to bed?

Colin: No, I was still there, but I was watching the tele.

Thom: Jonny was in bed, Phil was in bed, and John Leckie said [imitating geezer voice] "OK, go ahead and record the vocal now. And it was half four in the morning. And this is what happened.

DJ: This is what happened. Let's talk about Creep.

Thom: Oh, God.

DJ: I know you guys are probably "creep"ed over that one, but let's- cause I read that it's somewhat of a nuisance for you now.

Colin: No! It's not a problem at all, it's one of our favorite songs.

Thom: It's just, I think it's difficult to talk about it now because everybody's said everythign about it so much that it, it was just one song that we wrote. And you know, people stop me in the street now and say, "Oh, Creep! It's an amazing song. And so on, and I always just turn around and say, "Thanks. We have others. [laughs]

DJ: You do. Do you feel you have to match that level of success with the new record?

Thom: I think, in some ways, we already have done, just in the ways people have started to respond to it, and have started saying, "They aren't the band we thought they were. So on. So to some degree we have already achieved that, so, um, commercial success would be a rather nice bonus, but at least people have stopped seeing us in that way. That certainly helps the way we see ourselves.

Colin: [quietly] Try and keep a good band down!

Thom: [laughs] Swallow the mic, man! You've got to swallow it.

Colin: I don't know, I've rubbish in mic techniques. I'm a bass player, they never let me near a microphone. This'll all end in tears!

Thom: [laughing]

Colin: [interrupts the DJ translating again] All this is quite a novelty for me. It's like I've been taken out for a holiday. [inaudible -- Swallow the mic, Colin!]

DJ: Although there must be a lot of pressure, a lot of critics said that Creep was a worthy addition to rock's lexicon of angst, along songs like "My Generation", "I'm 18", even "Anarchy in the UK", that kind of thing. What do you think about that?

Thom: What's the Offspring song?

DJ: Come Out and Play?

Thom: I'm extremely sad and upset and...

DJ: Come Out and Play?

Thom: No, no.

DJ: Keep Them Separated?

Thom: Uh, no. The one about being really... Oh, never mind.

DJ: Self Esteem?

Thom: YES! Low- what is it, no self esteem?

DJ: Yeah.

Thom: That's original, isn't it?

DJ: It is!

Thom: Or... not.

DJ: Well... what do you think about that? You guys had that Creep song, and rock critics said that it was up there with the others?

Thom: Well obviously it is. [laughs]

DJ: Colin?

Colin: I'm speechless! For once... I mean, really.

Thom: I wonder what people think, listening to this.

Colin: When it first was released in America, MTV rejected the video.

DJ: Really?

Colin: Yeah, and said, "No, no, no. And it was only because a couple of radio stations who were quite influential picked up on it, and people heard it. That's all we do, is we want to make sure as many people as possible hear what we do, because we think they'll like it. And that seemed to work with Creep, and with the last record, and so, we think it will work with this one.

Thom: To say it's part of some sort of lexicon or heritage or something implies that in a couple of months we'll be stuck up in Hard Rock Cafes all around the world. And I've been to Hard Rock Cafes, and that's not where I want to be.

DJ: I also heard that some guys on death row wrote you letters saying that they related to the lyrics from the song Creep.

Thom: [sighs] Yeah, I'm actually a mass murderer myself, so that's fair enough.

DJ: They let you out?

Thom: They let me out. Well actually, you know, I just paid them a lot of money. In fact, the prison actually owns most of the rights to Creep.

DJ: No but ser-, no but, a lot of guys really on death row really wrote you in saying-

Thom: There was-

DJ: That must be awkward, really.

Thom: Uh... yeah...

Thom: I didn't reply.

DJ: What happens if one of those guys goes out and kills people and says it's because he heard Creep?

Thom: Hey, hey, hey, come on.

Colin: That's a bit of a ridiculous line of questioning, quite frankly. Let's change the subject.

Thom: CHANGE THE SUBJECT! NO MORE!

DJ: OK, but...

Thom: No.

DJ: Now uh, actually I think that you wrote My Iron Lung -

Thom: [sighs]

DJ: - as kind of a response to uh

Thom: It was originally "My Electric Chair"! [laughs]

Thom: WE'RE BACK!

Thom: OK. Sorry.

DJ: It was written in response to the Creep thing? "This is our new song...

Thom: Erm, it was more what was going on around us. It wasn't necessarily just that song. It was more the notion that a life support system keeps you alive, but you can't actually do anything, you know, when you're stuck in an iron lung. You can breathe, you can live and breathe, but there's very little else. And that's the kind of image that was staying in my head at that point. And yes, it's kind of about Creep, but kind of more than that, hopefully. If it was just about Creep I think it would be extremely boring. [laughs]

DJ: What the EP, exactly?

Thom: Pardon?

DJ: Why the EP?

Thom: Uh, cause we had loads of songs left over. [laughs] So we had to get them out, really.

DJ: Those were older songs?

Thom: Yeah, well not necessarily just older, just ones that didn't fit on the album, they were obviously not fitting, so rather than just dump them, we bunged them all on the Iron Lung EP, erm, sort of thing, and there's more to come as well. We had quite a lot of songs.

DJ: Oh you do? OK.

Thom: Yeeees.

DJ: Cause I hear you guys junked a whole session with uh-

Colin: No, we didn't junk the whole junk session. We re-recorded some tracks, but we didn't junk all of it.

DJ: With Mickie Most?

Colin: No. He wasn't there..

Thom: We couldn't.

Colin: It's interesting, we should do we that. We just sat for recording sessions in Mickie Most's studio, the man who turned down the Rolling Stones cause they worked after 12, as well, I found out the other day.

Thom: Really!? He turned down the Rolling Stones?

Colin: He got the call from Andrew Goldman in the mid- or late-60's to uh, go in and record the Stones' next Stones record. He said, "What time are the boys turning up?" "About 3 in the morning. "Sod that! I'm in bed by 12.

DJ: That's his claim to fame.

Colin: Yeah, he's quite a flamboyant character.

Thom: He's a real twat, that's what he is.

Colin: He's got something like twenty-odd different like Porsches and Ferraris.

Thom: He turns up every day of the week in a different car. It's very impressive.

Colin: He's got appalling taste. He's got a Honda Gold Wing. You know what a Gold Wing is, that's an important motorbike. It's shocking, he's got one of those anyway. Maybe he shouldn't.

Thom: Colin's into- Colin likes motorbikes, don't you Colin?

Colin: Yeah I do, I like riding motorbikes.

Thom: [giggles]

Colin: [interrupts the DJ translating] I should pause I bit longer there, it would be funny.

DJ: Now we're gonna take a listen to the title track off the record, it's called the Bends. It's just been charted here on CISM.

Thom: [cheering]

DJ: And after that, I hear you're going to play a little something for us.

Thom: Right.

DJ: And what would that be?

Thom: I... don't know yet.

DJ: You're going to figure that out?

Thom: Yeeeeees.

DJ: Radiohead is on CISM. You guys have a trivia question? Colin? You got a trivia question?

Colin: Yes I do. I do have a trivia question.

Thom: [laughing]

Colin: I do have a trivia question written. And it's, the question is... and uh, the first people who ring in get signed copies of the record. Thom's cracking up on my left for some reason! And I'm [inaudible] with the headphones on, and my voice is unnaturally very low and manly now all of a sudden, so I have to take these off, this is weird.

Thom: Give me them!

Colin: All right, trivia question is:

Colin: Um...

Thom: [mocking Colin] "Um...

Colin: Our previous record was called Pablo Honey, so that's not the question, but...

Thom: [laughter]

Colin: We'd like to know, what was the last track on that record called. The last track on the first record.

DJ: On Pablo Honey. OK. Now Thom, you're going to play a little something for us?

Thom: Um. Yes.

DJ: And that's going to be Flake- Fake Plastic Trees.

Thom: Flake?

DJ: The first single off your new album.

Thom: Um, apparently.

DJ: That's what I've been told.

Thom: I get confused.

DJ: And now Thom with Fake Plastic Trees.

DJ: Very nice version, by the way. And I heard that part of the new record was recorded at Abbey Road.

Thom: [dismissively] It was, yes, yes... We're sad Beatles tourists when it comes down to it.

DJ: Considering the place is just a monument, was that a big influence on you?

Thom: Well, not really. I mean, the first day at Abbey Road we spent the day wandering around the studio going [sotto voce] "Wow, that's the cupboard they all smoked dope in! Wow! That's Paul's organ -- so to speak!" But the novelty kind of wears off, after a bit, and you get on with it then.

DJ: You were talking about the Bends, the title track. Now we hear some sounds just before the track kicks off. What are those sounds?

Thom: Oh, well that's kind of, as far as I remember, it was some hotel in America. And I woke up one morning, and there was this God-awful noise going on, no idea what it was. And it was some, um-

Colin: [belches]

Thom: Wow! What was that? Was that you?

Colin: That was my stomach. I'm sorry.

Thom: [laughing] That just went... over... Yes. Okay, um...

Colin: Broadcast.

Thom: Your stomach went FM there, man!

DJ: It went...

Colin: Stereo. [laughs] Anyway!

Thom: Where was I?

Colin: Phoenix, AZ.

Thom: Ow! [Not sure what was happening here.]

DJ: Thom's in pain now.

Thom: Was it? And it was some bloke training his little, poor little kids to do some marching thing. And they were all parading up and down and he this big microphone and he was shouting at them. And it kind of comes from that.

Colin: Yeah, that was it.

DJ: Like I was saying-

Colin: [inaudible]

DJ: What was that?

Colin: Nothing.

DJ: [laughs] Like I was saying, I was reading some articles where you have been compared to some bands like the Smiths, even Bowie, like we talked about Bowie before. Do you guys care anything about these comparisons?

Colin: Do we care about these comparisons? Erm. Not really. It's all very amusing, we've been compared in the past in England to uh, U2...

Thom: [mocking] U2.

Colin: or Queen...

Thom: [mocking] Queen.

DJ: Queen?

Thom: Pshyeah!

Colin: These bands that, you know, which is great...

DJ: As long as you don't get compared to Kylie Minogue, you're all right.

Thom and Colin: [in unison] Uhhhhhhh...

Thom: Not much chance of that, really!

Colin: Not much chance of that, no.

Colin: Not unless something tragic happens...

Thom: Not without some serious liposuction.

Colin: Some ghastly accident...

Thom: [laughs]

Colin: But no. Comparisons? We just seem to be doing our own thing, really. Which is good, it seems to be recognized more that it's Radiohead, and it's not anyone else.

DJ: I also read you guys tried to play around the summer of 1991? Was that it? Summer of '91?

Colin: Yeah, that's right. It was the Holly Bush Inn in Oxford.

Thom: Is that what it was? Really?

DJ: And only a few weeks after that you'd already received record company offers.

Colin: Yes.

Thom: Uh-huh. We had an answerphone at home at the time, cause we were all kind of living in the same house. And there was this answerphone, and every day we'd get back from rehearsal or whatever, and it would be full of record companies saying, "HI! Yes, we're you're new best friend. My name's Michael and I work for Sony records, and we're going to offer you la la la... So that was very strange! And then my mom would be on the answerphone saying, "Have you done your smalls yet?" [laughs]

DJ: Your what?

Colin: That was the reality- Smalls.

Thom: My smalls, sorry.

Colin: Underwear.

Thom: My underwear.

DJ: Oh, ok!

Colin: Pants.

DJ: Yeah, underpants. Right. We're going to take another listen to another track off the album now.

Thom: All right!

Colin: Wow!

Thom: Yes! Exciting!

DJ: And then you're going to play another something else after that?

Thom: Ooof.

DJ: Could we hear... Nice Dream? There's a really nice sound. Could we here that?

Thom: Maybe. I don't know what I'm going to do with the guitar sound for that.

Colin: Jazz!

Thom: Hello.

DJ: We've got a trivia?

Colin: Another question?

DJ: Another question.

Colin: We're going to have to come back to that a bit later cause you just jumped that one on me, so I need to think about it.

Thom: [laughs]

DJ: OK, you're going to have some time to think, and in the mean time Colin is going to do another one here

Colin: Thom.

DJ: Thom, right, you're going to do Nice Dream?

Thom: I'm going to try!

DJ: You're going to try. I know there's a lot of strings on that one.

Thom: There's all sorts of weird stuff going on! But I'm going to hum along.

Colin: I could help you out perhaps.

Thom: Yeah, you could! Then again... [laughs] You could think about the trivia question!!

Colin: That's far more useful, you're right.

DJ: Think about the trivia.

DJ: That was wonderful. Nice acoustic version of Nice Dream. Colin? Did you come up with a trivia?

Colin: I've got a corker of a question. Well, indirectly about Radiohead. Well, Radiohead, we did this new record, The Bends, with a producer called John Leckie

Thom: [whispers] John Leckie!

Colin: What I'd like to know

Thom: So would I!

Colin: Is to name 2 other artists that Leckie has done, record produced.

DJ: Produced. Before we go, here. Thom. You have a certain reputation, now we're going to talk about this, for slagging other bands.

Thom: Really!?

DJ: Yes, you've said that Suede has given you something to fight against.

Thom: Well that's- but that's- that...

Thom: Well, yeah. But that doesn't mean that I'm slagging them off! I actually think they're getting better and better. But there you go.

DJ: What about what happened with Kurt Cobain?

Thom: What about...

Thom: ...what happened...

Thom: ...with Kurt...

Thom: ...Cobain?

DJ: Remember what you said about his wife?

Thom: Yeah, I do. Yeah. I regretted that. And I wish I'd apologized.

Colin: Yeah.

DJ: But you do have some sort of reputation-

Thom: I did. I've stopped doing it.

DJ: Especially in the papers!

Thom: I did have. I've stopped doing it.

DJ: So now that's all-

Thom: Except Offspring.

DJ: Offspring! OK...

Colin: Only because of their weird shirts.

Thom: Exactly. And funny shorts. And look like they're in therapy.

DJ: Before we go, guys, any touring plans? I would assume so...

Thom: Erm, yes! There are some touring plans but we have no idea what they are.

Colin: Um, we have a fairly good idea that we're going to be doing some dates in Canada at some point at the end of June, and July, as soon as possible...

Thom: You sounded very gruff when you did that. That was very good.

Colin: Yes, it's my sexy late night radio time voice. I've been nipping out for a cigarette between songs.

DJ: You guys remember your last time here in Montreal, when you played?

Colin: Yeah, we played at Woodstock club, and Nirvana were playing the same night.

DJ: Very good memory, exactly.

Colin: It was 93, it was October. It was really good, and we played Vancouver and Montreal as well. It was a very good time to be here, with all the music festivals.

DJ: So guys, thanks a lot for dropping by at CISM.

Thom: Yeah, I'm sorry about invading your station like this, I didn't realize it was going to be this sort of thing.

Colin: That it would go on so long. And we interrupted your regular programming, I'm so sorry.

DJ: It was the whole point, guys. Colin, thanks a lot.