Uri: Hi Ed, "Ha'ir" is calling.

Ed: Hello, how are you doing?

Uri: Pretty good. Only for someone who have watched your documentary (Meeting People Is Easy), it's a bit embarrassing to interview you, with all the hatred for the media that presented itself in it.

Ed: We don't hate the media, it's just that when there's too much of it we get bored, but it happens to every human being. I don't think we even hated the media by the time that movie was made. We were just tired.

Uri: How many interviews have you done today?

Ed: I think this is the seventh, but it's OK, it's really OK.

Uri: Maybe you'd like to ask yourself something interesting that you haven't been asked before?

Ed: No, no, these are exactly the worst kind of questions.

Uri: So let's begin. The new album, "Amnesiac", is nearly out. How are you dealing with the album today?

Ed: I haven't listened to it for a couple of weeks. When we've done the final cuts it sounded pretty complete to me. I had a few problems with it before that, when we had to edit the song list. I guess that happened because we picked them seven months after the recordings were over. In all that time, I wasn't sure how it was going to come out in the end, and I was pleasantly surprised. I've got a feeling it's working, and that's fun. that's pretty much the reason we recorded it.

Uri: In your eyes, does "Amnesiac" stand on its own right, or is it a part of a bigger project that also includes "Kid A"?

Ed: It would be difficult to say they're not intertwined. They were, after all, recorded at the same time.

Uri: ["Amnesiac"] has some great songs, and "Kid A" also had some great songs. Wouldn't you rather have made one truly great album from all of these songs?

Ed: Well, we've tried that, but it didn't work. Of the 25 songs we've recorded there were 24 that we wanted to have on an album. That wouldn't have worked. So when one of our wise managers suggested the idea of considering two different album, it cleared the way for us.

Uri: The load was taken off you all of a sudden?

Ed: Exactly. "Kid A" wouldn't have been the album it eventually became if we would have included songs like "Knives Out", "Pyramid Song" or "Dollars and Cents". It just didn't fit. Hey, I know what you're getting at. What you would suggest is to get rid of instrumentals like "Treefingers" and put real songs in their place. You've just said that in a more polite way...

Uri: You got me.

Ed: I understand what you're trying to say, but these tracks were important for the creation of the general atmosphere of an album like "Kid A". After all, that was exactly the album we wanted to make.

Uri: You mentioned "Knives Out", which turns out to be the masterpiece of the new album. I had a hunch it was your favourite too.

Ed: Actually, it isn't. I like it a lot, but it isn't my favourite. I must think I'm some kind of a pop boy, if that was your guess, but I'm not.

Uri: Not exactly pop, but it does have a great guitar sound, which you're supposed to like.

Ed: It's true that I love guitars, but I just got bored with this song at some stage. It took us too long to get it done.

Uri: You once wrote of one of your songs that "after ten months in the studio it finally starts to sound right". What exactly do you do with a song in the studio for a year? What happens there?

Ed: You get to the studio, have lunch, play some foosball, listen to the material you've got a bit, a little more foosball, have dinner, drink a little wine, then maybe play for a couple of hours, and there the day ends.

Uri: That sound pretty exhausting.

Ed: It is. That's what it like to have a tight schedule.

Uri: From the parts you've written in the journal it could be understood that you weren't particularly happy with thae way things were handled during the recordings, that you miss going back to the basics a little and playing like an ordinary rock band.

Ed: Yeah, sometimes it's true. The thing is, it really did take us too long to get these recordings done. We've had our rough times in the studio in the past, but after four weeks most of the material would have been recorded. This time it seemed like it just goes on and on. Another problem was that most of the time in the studio we weren't playing together, as a band. After a few months like this you miss it, just standing and playing together.

Uri: Shall we talk about Israel?

Ed: What do you want to know?

Uri: How was it for you.

Ed: It was great. It's a very interesting place, very fragile. It was much more than playing music. I found out that when you peform in these kind of places the music is much more meaningful to people.

Uri: Do people in different places react differently to your music or is this a unified reaction?

Ed: There is always some universal proportion, but along with that there are some places where special things happen. Ireland, for example. I've always felt it's interesting to play there. Maybe they just drink more than anybody else.

Uri: In Israel they fight more than anybody else.

Ed: Yeah, but there's more to it. There's the combination of the eternal uncertainty with the complex demographics, of a country which is so young but has such a unique history. Besides that, I noticed that the Israelis are very fond of the fact Israel is the first place in the world where "Creep" was a hit.

Uri: Yeah, people are very proud of that here.

Ed: They sure are. People never forget that and they won't let you forget it either. "We were ahead of the rest of the world," they tell you. "You were huge here before anyone in America even knew who you are." I think it's pretty amusing.

Uri: There were rumours that after the shows in Israel you stayed here for a couple of days to do some sightseeing.

Ed: It was very interesting. I went down to Sinai and then I stayed in Eilat for a while. I've met wonderful people, Arabs and Jews. I've never encountered such hospitality and generosity. They weren't even nice to me because I was in a famous band, but just because I sat down with them to drink coffee and chat. It got me thinking that it's amazing how people that couldn't stand each other are capable of such goodness and generosity. It's very frustrating. But that's the history of the human race - you can meet wonderful people on both sides, but they'll do horrible things to each other.

Uri: You mention communication and understanding a lot. In the same context, it seems that Thom Yorke's lyrics became completely incoherent. Do you understand what he's talking about?

Ed: No, I can't say that I understood what this album was all about. Thom is always on the move on a textual level. He hasn't found the place he wants to be in yet, and he wants to get a move on. He can't write "Fake Plastic Trees" forever. Everyone who's serious about what they're doing must be in constant motion forward. I don't think he's found the exact place he wants to be in, and you know what? He never will. And he'll keep searching for it, and every once in a while, by pure chance, people will understand what he's talking about. The important thing is to keep evolving. I think that's one of the things that we're good at, you can never tell where we'll go next.

Uri: You sell millions of records, your shows are sold out within hours, everybody's talking about you, everyone's writing about you. Are there still days when wake up in the morning and say, "Wow, I can't believe I got this far"?

Ed: Not in the mornings, I'm always so tired in the morning. But there are moments like this, all the time. For example, when you find yourself playing in a venue like Caesaria (A genuine roman amphitheatre mostly used for operas and classical concerts. Not many rock bands play there. O.R.), and you can feel what a huge privelege it is to be given the chance to do this thing.

Uri: And does it still thrills you to be a rock star, or has it became routine over the years?

Ed: It depends. Sometimes it's even related to simple external things like the weather. It's hard to be too thrilled about it when it's grey and crummy outside. But on the whole I feel good about it. Right now I'm pretty enthusiastic about where things are heading, definitely.