DJ: "Would you first of all introduce yourself?

Jonny: "Ok, I'm Jonny, and I'm in Radiohead

DJ: "Yesterday I got someone from the record company coming to my house with your CD, only yesterday, and it was like.....it was such a secretive thing, it was like...I almost felt like I was doing a drug deal or something, there's a lot of commotion about the new album leaking, right?

Jonny: "Yeah, record companies don't know what to do at the moment...they're...I think they're all very....very erm freaked out by it, aren't they? Yeah, I think you can lose your job, if you work for a record company, and you lose a CD when you....which is crazy, obviously, but that's the level of hysteria going on. It's very weird, isn't it? That's why it felt like a drugs deal for you.

DJ: "(laughs) So, what do you think about that whole thing?

Jonny: "I think....I'm looking at the future and thinking well the next thing to happen would be when Hollywood and all the film industry have the same problem, which is starting to happen, because I think the movie industry is much more powerful and has lots more money and political influence, and that'll be interesting, you know I think it's been easy for the world to kind of ignore the music business struggling, but it's going to be weird when the movie business struggles, and you know, and TV shows, even, you know you can go to websites now and just download all of The Simpsons, and watch them for free, which is kind of good in one way, but then who's going to pay for the next...you know, the next episode of The Simpsons, because I kind of.....I want them to carry on, so it's that....it's that struggle, isn't it? It's difficult

DJ: "Yeah, and I guess.... I mean you guys, you've got the same problem or not? Don't you consider it a problem?

Jonny: "Erm, well we're quite lucky because we started, you know, eight years ago or whatever, our first record, whereas to start now I think would be a big problem....erm.....yeah it's difficult. It's exciting that you can get hold of lots of music and see if you like something before you buy it and all that, that's good, but the trouble is that people are buying less CDs and so that record companies are....have less money to invest in new bands, you know. I remember the first time we came to play in Holland, the first few times we came to play in Holland, it was only possible because it was paid for by our record company because they'd made money in the eighties from whoever, from Queen, or from you know, and if the money's stopping, then bands are just going to have to you know, rely on the radio to become talked about...to be heard...or rely on......which is, you know..... isn't a great position to be in, or rely on interviews or newspapers and photographs, and the concerts will become kind of less important or...., so it's a bad time to be starting, I think, yeah

DJ: "Yeah, and I guess, I mean that's probably the part of the music making that is the least appealing, the whole you know, thing surrounding it

Jonny: "Yeah, I mean especially that you know, radio stations and magazines and stuff are also kind of all getting bought up and being controlled far more and being.....than they ever were so it's hard to know how a band can begin now. It's like now you have to be good at interviews, I think, and you have to be good at making videos and all this stuff that's not really connected to the songs so much......yeah, you know, the way I do interviews it would be terrible, (laughs) trying to you know, rely on that for a future, but anyway

DJ: "Oh, come on, you're doing fine (laughs)

Jonny: "Oh, ok, thank you

DJ: "No, but it's like is it something you guys were thinking of when you titled the album Hail To The Thief?

Jonny: "Yeah, it is. You know, we like to choose a title that has......you know, that sort of spins and has lots of ideas coming off it that....that just suit the mood of the time, and that was one of them, you know, it's like.....it's a greeting in a way, isn't it, “Hail”, you know, it's not an insult really, it's just a contradiction, it's like 2+2=5, one of the song titles, we quite like titles that are, you know, are contradictions

DJ: "And does that go for your music as well?

Jonny: "Contradictions with the music? I suppose so, yeah.....yeah I suppose it does, I mean I think the lyrics for the new record are very dark, but some of the music is very bright and kind of up close to you and so that's kind of a contradiction and there's lots of contradictions in the.......in the words as well, and between the songs, the mood between the songs, you know some songs are all about escape and avoiding the world, and some songs are about being angry with how things are, and feeling like you should do something, or shouldn't do something, or you should, you know, go home and hide with your family and wait for the world to be safe, or go and complain about it and try and make things happen, or....it's...it's a confused kind of mood that I think everybody is in at the moment, so......

DJ: "A confused kind of mood?

Jonny: "I think so yeah, I mean there's nothing on the record telling people, you know, what to do or...it's just...it's us trying to work out in our heads.....trying to make sense, I suppose, of what it's like to be around this year and last year, yeah

DJ: "I was wondering about that also, because I mean, because you guys are pretty outspoken sometimes too about certain political and social issues, but on the other hand you're not referring to it too directly in your work, right?

Jonny: "Yeah, I mean we've done work with Amnesty International, and Drop The Debt and stuff, partly because we think they occupy an interesting political position, they kind of....they're not connected with governments or countries, they're in a space between the countries, which we find interesting, and you know, and when Thom sings about politics, I think he's singing in the same kind of way, he's talking about the relationship between countries, and the fact that the money and power in the world is just distributed in quite a strange way....it feels like....you know, he sings about the IMF and the World Bank and so I suppose it's politics in that sense, but it's not politics in terms of, you know, politicians

DJ: "Now these days when Radiohead come out with new work, it's really a big deal, everybody's always anticipating what you're doing next, and I was wondering how you deal with that pressure?

Jonny: "We look on it as just being very lucky that we can.......we're very lucky that we can release a record and be sure that people will listen to it closely more than once, and we don't have to, you know, capture people's attention in the first.....you know, in the first thirty seconds of our first single, and we know that people are listening to the music in the same way that we listen to it, I think, which makes us, I think, about the luckiest band around at the moment, you know, and I mean that, really. It's....you know....we can.....there are kind of lots of people like us, I suppose, you know, which is as weird as you can imagine, but you know......

DJ: "So how do you listen to you own music?

Jonny: "Oh, I suppose quite closely (laughs), and quite often and repeatedly, and you know, you listen to it while doing nothing else sometimes, so yeah, that's good

DJ: "Now, I was wondering, I mean, are you ever insecure about what you're doing, or.....?

Jonny: "Yeah, well you know, that's when it's good to be in a team, you kind of....you trust each other. When you think something is great, and someone in the band doesn't like it, it's upsetting, because you trust them, and you think “yeah, they're probably right”, but also sometimes, you write something and you think maybe it's not good enough, but if everybody loves it, then you trust them, you know, in that direction as well, so that's where our fears really lie, until we finish the record, and then we start kind of thinking “what will people think of it in the world? What will people make of it?”. So, yeah, that's how it goes

DJ: "So, do you care?

Jonny: "We care after we've finished the record, yeah, we really care, you know, we don't want it to come out and people be angry or disappointed or bored, or......so....but when we're recording we just kind of....we care about the songs because we know they're good, and we just don't want to mess it up

DJ: "I wonder, who has what role, like when you say like you listen to what you do and other people say what they think of it....do people have fixed roles in that or is there one who has the common sense, or another who has.....I don't know, how should I see that?

Jonny: "Yeah, there are songs that we've only ever recorded just because one member of the band kept saying “ look, that song's great, that song will be good, even if you can't hear it yet, you know when we record it properly, when we change the arrangement, if we change this or add something to this, it'll be great”, and that's a really important role, you know in a band. It's not enough just to have somebody who's writing good words and a good chorus and a good verse, and you need people who can arrange and can have a clear image of the music, and have strong ideas about the music, and I think we all do that from time to time

DJ: "But it's not like...I mean, Thom's the boss, or is he in the end, or how does it work?

Jonny: "We're the United Nations, and he's America, that's how it is, but you have the veto, so you can you know, you can complain.....erm..but no, it's like a lot of bands, you know they have a drummer who's the drummer, and he waits to do his thing and then he goes home, but you know, our drummer, Phil, he's like....he's got strong ideas about structures and when a song is boring and when it's good, and da da da, you know, so it's like....it's still a team really

DJ: "But if you were the United Nations, and Thom is the US, then you'd be in big trouble right now, I think (laughs)

Jonny: "We'd be in pretty big trouble, oh yeah.....yeah, you know but then if.....you know, like I say, if somebody disagrees with Thom, then Thom only gets upset because he trusts them, you know, it's not like he's saying “oh, no it's great, I'm not going to listen to you”, he goes “oh, maybe you're right, maybe it is no good”, you know, and it's upsetting, because you know, sometimes your judgment's wrong, and sometimes it's right, so yeah, you know, we trust each other, it's good, it's a good thing

DJ: "Yeah. I was wondering, can you remember meeting the rest of the guys, how did that go?

Jonny: "Well I met Colin when he was about two, because he's my brother, and.....I'm sorry, stupid answer, and the rest of them are all my brother's friends, you know, in his year at school, and I was fourteen, and they were sixteen kind of thing, and it hasn't really changed from then really

DJ: "You're the baby?

Jonny: "Yes, I was then, and.....yes, that's true

DJ: "(laughs)

Jonny: "Well, you know what it's like when you have people at school, and they're two years, three years older than you, it's like they're twenty years, thirty years older than you, you know, so I'm still catching up

DJ: "Can you for instance remember your first conversation with Thom?

Jonny: "No, I remember my brother telling the others that I played harmonica and there was a song they should let me come and play harmonica with, so he kind of talked them into it, which is very good of him, really, you know, so I'm lucky to have a brother who's like that

DJ: "Yeah, and lucky to be able to work with him too, I guess

Jonny: "Yeah, exactly, really lucky, yeah

DJ: "Hey, listening to your new album, it strikes me that the stuff you do that I like best often has this sort of haunted quality in it

Jonny: "Haunted? That's interesting. Yeah, I mean it's funny, we're just starting to do interviews now, so people are coming up with ideas that make us think about the record, it can be good. Yeah, yesterday, someone was telling me that they think there's lots of fairy tale imagery, dark fairy tale imagery, things about wolves, and what else was he saying? Yeah, ghosts and things that just because you see them, they're not there, and all these kind of.......yeah, haunted, I suppose, that's interesting, yeah maybe that's true, yeah, we're still trying to make sense of it ourselves, I think

DJ: "Yeah, I was listening to We Suck Young Blood, and that sort of reminded me of some kind of religious procession in a way

Jonny: "Er.....that's interesting. Yeah, I mean some of the songs like that one are sort of a joke, I mean, not a joke that's funny especially, just, you know, quite a black joke, you know, I mean We Suck Young Blood, it's kind of......it's kind of cheesy on purpose, you know, but......

DJ: "But sound wise it's......

Jonny: "But sound wise it's kind of....it's quite ominous and threatening as well, yeah, it's a bit like a kind of......you know how when you see very early horror films like Nosferatu, from the twenties and thirties, it's like...it's frightening, but it's also a bit funny and a bit kind of just strange, you know, and quite brutal and just that there's something weird going on in it, I think that's what that song is about

DJ: "Yeah, I mean it's not like I was.......I don't know, I mean, I only got it last night, so I didn't have a lot of time to listen to it anyway, it's just that it's.....yeah, some of it also made me think like, er... yeah, are you guys religious, or....does that come out?

Jonny: "Religious? That's interesting. I suppose we had a religious education....yeah, you know, we went to a school where you had to go to church every morning, which is quite weird

DJ: "Really?

Jonny: "Yeah, looking back, very weird

DJ: "Every morning?

Jonny: "Every morning, yeah there was chapel every morning, yeah. Weird, huh?

DJ: "What is that, like is that Church of England, or what is it?

Jonny: "Yeah, Church of England, which is nearly no church at all, kind of.....the big thing about the Church of England is that, you know it's.....that there isn't a church, I don't know, it's very weird, do you know anything about it? It's very.....it's very English in a way, very wishy-washy, you can believe what you want and it's fine, or believe nothing, and that's fine too, you know. It's not long for this world, I fear, partly because it's just so nice and gentle, and a bit you know, it's like one of those animals that, you know, like the dodo, or something, that's just a bit overly friendly, and not very....just probably not going to survive very long (laughs). Bless it. Poor little thing (DJ laughs). I think...who knows, no, but maybe it'll all be......it'll all be saved, and you know, big JC will come back and it'll be fine, you know, who knows?

DJ: "(laughs) Who knows? Yeah. Now but are you interested in that because you were just saying that you were going to this museum that has a church too, just as imagery, or theme or....?

Jonny: "I don't know, I'm kind of........I'm all confused. I don't know, lots of the music I love is very religious, so, you know....

DJ: "Like what?

Jonny: "Oh, kind of classical things, I suppose, things like Messaien, who was fervently Catholic, but then you know, Elgar was Catholic as well and he's like the most English composer you can think of, which is quite strange, and lots of my favourite writers, like Evelyn Waugh was Catholic, so.....and this church we're going to is Catholic, so I'm curious from that standpoint, because I know nothing about it, and yet lots of the people I admire all kind of had very strong Catholic faith. Anyway, I don't know what that's about.....erm...yes, so you know, interested, but not necessarily part of a church

DJ: "Yesterday, I was checking the internet, I typed in Radiohead, on Google, and it said something like seven hundred and.......seven hundred and thirty two thousand sites (laughs). I was like “Woah!”, That's scary isn't it, almost?

Jonny: "Yeah, it is...erm...I don't know, I mean I think of it in terms of paper, you know if that was.....if you know there are seven hundred thousand pieces of paper with the word “Radiohead” on that had been written in the last ten years, it's kind of.......it's not quite as frightening, because they've all you know, rotted away and disappeared, and they're not around any more. It's only frightening because the internet doesn't you know....doesn't die, and is still full of rubbish and old information

DJ: "No, but in general, I mean it's like also there's this really extensive site called Follow Me Around, you know, and it kind of almost freaks me out, a title like that. Does it freak you out that people follow you with so much scrutiny in everything you do?

Jonny: "Yeah, there are a lot of people who are very interested in Radiohead, but they're not really interested in us, or me, or you know, so it's.... again that's a lucky position to be in, you know, it's like we don't put our faces around much, not on videos, not on the records, and we're not very interested. We did an American interview, and the journalist had gone to see some fans, Radiohead fans, to ask them questions, ask them what they'd like to know, because this is how he always does his interviews, and he said nobody wanted to know about us, they wanted to know about how we work, and about, you know, how the music's done, you know, and every other band he's interviewed, they want to know how they live, and what their day is like, and nobody cares about us, which, you know, is the best position you could be in, I think, when you're in a band

DJ: "How do you explain that?

Jonny: "I don't know, I suppose we haven't married supermodels, and we haven't, you know....we don't go to parties on London and try and get our faces in Hello, and you know, we're happy just working and playing concerts and keeping our heads down, I suppose

DJ: "Yeah, I guess you're one of the most unlikely mega-acts, or mega rock bands there is

Jonny: "We're kind of anonymous, but Radiohead is quite famous. It's like working for a company that's famous, you know, it's like working for, you know, Rolls Royce or something, you just......people have heard of it and some people like it, but you know, the engineers behind it are sort of......are sort of irrelevant, and that's how we want it to be, I think

DJ: "Yeah, I guess that's sort of like what you project also, in a way, you know to the outside, sort of....I don't know...yeah, it's not like there's a lot of big scandal involving your lifestyles like Oasis had, and stuff like that, so....

Jonny: "Yeah, you know, exactly, our drug of choice is probably aspirin (DJ laughs), so you know, we'll be fine

DJ: "I was wondering, when you set out to make new music, do you consciously try to innovate or how do you.....do you consciously try to find new paths to express yourselves in music?

Jonny: "Yeah, it's a balance. I mean, you're bored with what you've done before, I suppose, and bored with the music you're hearing, but then on the other hand there's lots of music that sounds completely original and it's like nothing you've heard, and it's got new sounds and new bits, but maybe it's bad music as well, so you have that conflict, you know, between looking for new sounds but not just making bad music with new sounds, which is possible, I think people forget, you know, I forget sometimes, you know, I'm like everybody, I go to a record shop and you know, you hear.......and it's always men as well, listening to a few seconds of lots of different records on a turntable, like dance music, and they're going through them, and through them, and through them, and they're just looking for the sounds, and looking for the beats, and making sure it sounds like....new, and that's the reason for buying it sometimes, and when you've done that a few times, you start thinking, well....you know, you take it home and you don't like it, even though it is new. It's like you know, sometimes it's good, you know, like there's Aphex Twin and there's lots of artists doing great music that is new and different, and then there's new and different, and it's not good

DJ: "It's just new and different for new and different's sake

Jonny: "Yeah, I think so, you've got to......it's a difficult judgment, because, you know, it's easy to be wrong, but I'm just saying that it's not enough to innovate in terms of sound. It's got to be a piece of music still, it's got to be four minutes long and do something to you, I suppose, not be the right three seconds in the shop and it'll be fine, you know. It's something else, I think

DJ: "And what is it? It's something else, you think?

Jonny: "I don't know...that's my...because the other extreme is bands that just use guitars, and you know, and hate electric.....and hate you know, hate the future and computers, and it's like I don't think that's right either because, you know, they're just guitars in the same way that a computer is just a computer, it's not, you know, neither of them are the holy way of making music...back to religion again, but I don't know, I suppose we're still confused and we're still working it out, but we're making music at the same time in the middle of all that confusion, so that's what we do

DJ: "Yeah, I guess that the confusion, that's what keeps it exciting

Jonny: "Yeah, I think that's true, yeah.....yeah, you're right, it's good to be confused. Confused and busy, I think that's us

DJ: "(laughs) Confused and busy?

Jonny: "Yeah, or just sort of uncertain, but you know with a direction as well kind of, you know, energy, and a certain energy, yeah something like that, I don't know what I'm saying

DJ: "I think you're......no, I think I know what you're saying, or I hope I know. If I ever read any criticism about you guys, it's that you think too much

Jonny: "Think too much? Yeah it's difficult, isn't it? Ummm.....think too much......yeah, I don't know, you know....it's....

DJ: "You know what I mean, I mean that a lot of......

Jonny: "Of course. Yeah, it's....I mean on one level it's only music and you know, if you don't think about it too much, then maybe that means the music is more pure and coming straight from the heart, but I don't really agree with any of that, that's kind of.....that's like what lots of people used to say about jazz artists in America, that you know, these guys they can't read music or anything, but they're playing purely from the heart, and it's.....they're not thinking about it, they're not talking about it, they're just....you know, it's like they're savages in a way, and it's like....which is just terrible, kind of crazy logic, you know, you look at somebody like Miles Davis who went to the Juilliard Academy and you know, studied music at the highest possible level, but nobody ever talks about it, they prefer this idea of somebody who's just, you know, a primal force making music and not understanding it, you know, rather than somebody who you know, if asked to play E flat minor with an added third can do it straight away without.....and explain musical theory. People don't like to see the strings, I suppose, and they don't like musicians talking about the strings that are making things work, making the puppet....making the puppet move, so that's thinking too much, I suppose, yeah, but then when we're writing and recording we just play the songs over and over again until they're right, you know, and keep changing them and...and that's thinking as well in a way..yeah, it's difficult, isn't it?

DJ: "So do you think that's a myth, the whole idea that, you know, music should be purely intuitive?

Jonny: "I think it is a myth. I think people want their music to sound like that, which is good, and I think some people want to believe that music is like that, but often it's not, you know, we've recorded very simple music and it's taken a very long time. We had a song called Street Spirit on The Bends, the last song on The Bends, and that's pretty simple, but that took us like two months to get right, you know, it's like anything, it's like a poem....it can...... some poets take a year to write a poem, and then you read it in thirty seconds, and you don't know it's taken so long, and you shouldn't know, it should be hidden, you know, it should just......it should just work for you, so......yeah, I don't know...yeah, think too much.....I suppose maybe we do sometimes think too much, but I don't think you can hear it in the music, you can just hear it in interviews like this

DJ: "Yeah, because that also seems like...like you were just saying about the poem, that you don't know that somebody's been working on it for a year, with you guys it's different because every time you do something, you're sort of forced to pick it apart in conversations like these later on

Jonny: "Yeah, well, it can be good to pick things apart and make sense of it, and we don't mind doing it, we're sort of interested as well because we want to make sense of it too, I suppose, and we've got half an idea of what we're trying to do and sometimes you meet somebody who's got the other half of the idea, so it's interesting

DJ: "So, just talking about the thinking, I wonder do you feel there's a clear distinction between thinking and feeling?

Jonny: "Gosh, that's a huge question. Is there a huge difference between thinking and feeling? Err......I suppose you use thinking to make a framework for the music, and then when you perform it you do it with more feeling, you know, you use thinking to.... in a way to write the music down on paper, but then when you go and perform it, you don't think about what's on the paper, you just think of the music, so......it's not enough to just set up in a studio as a band and jam and, you know, and trust that your feeling is going to produce good music, you have to use some thought first, I think

DJ: "I wonder, like recently what music by other artists has really blown you away?

Jonny: "I'm listening to lots of Trojan reggae at the moment, I'd never heard any of it, it's all new to me, and it's one of those things that you find one record, and you think “can there really be like hundreds of records like this, by these people that are so good?”, and there really are, so it's just happened like two or three weeks ago, so I'll do that.......I'm one of those annoying people that will now go and find lots of recordings, and hear nothing else for a month, and be obsessed, then kind of just hear too much of it and go crazy, and then so that's.......I'm in the middle of that, really, you know

DJ: "So you haven't lost like your enthusiasm for other people's stuff?

Jonny: "Yeah, but it's like an unhealthy one, it's about kind of gorging yourself, it's like over eating and then, you know, and waiting for the next taste, and then over eating that one, so yeah, that's......and I've always done that since I was very, very young. My sister would come home with her records, my older sister, and me and my brother would play the record like five times in the morning and five times in the afternoon, and she'd get very angry, and she'd get bored of it, and we'd......but we'd keep on going for a few more days, and then we'd stop, then we'd be bored of it, you know, it's like over eating, very weird

DJ: "Like which ones? What records?

Jonny: "Oh, kind of Magazine and, what else would she bring home? I was like nine or ten or something, and she'd bring Magazine and Buzzcocks......

DJ: "Wow!

Jonny: "We're lucky that she had good taste, my sister. Joy Division she'd bring back, and New Order and stuff. We were lucky, you know, she could have been bringing us, you know, Iron Maiden or whoever, terrible bands from the late seventies

DJ: "That could have been fun too

Jonny: "Could have been fun, yeah that's true. Yeah, maybe that would have been fun, but no she was bringing us all this kind of quite dark music, well for herself she was bringing it, and we kind of......we learned from that really

DJ: "Ok, so...oh, wow that's interesting. I wonder, like I think a lot of people when they think of you guys being in the studio and working on new albums that it's all you know, very contemplative all the time, I wonder, do you goof around in the studio?

Jonny: "Yeah, I mean you can hear like on this record, the first song, 2+2=5, at the beginning you can hear what Thom's saying and you can sort of hear that everybody's happy because, you know, they were, and it was..........Goofing around? Yeah, yeah, it can be really fun, you know, yeah, I think so

DJ: "So, do you need to be friends to keep going in a band like this for so long?

Jonny: "Yeah, of course, you know, and we are, luckily. We're always......we're all in each other's houses all the time, and it's great. We don't.......we never go out as five people, but we all see each other all the time, so it's good

DJ: "I wonder, like from what I've heard from the album, it's not completely different from what you've done before, but you have tried to find new ground, how do you feel?

Jonny: "Yeah, it's that balance thing, isn't it? It's doing something new for the sake of it which sometimes.....what am I saying? Yeah, it's, you know, we're not scared to use......no, scared's the wrong word, but we're excited by all of these things, we're excited by computers and by pianos and guitars, and if the song demands it, then we're happy to kind of, you know, just go into a room and choose the instrument we need, even if it's a computer or if it's a keyboard, or........and that's the motivation behind these things really, yeah

DJ: "And you personally, you really like instruments, or different instruments, right or experimenting with them?

Jonny: "Yes. I mean there's some great instruments around.....um.....I'm kind of stopping that, I'm just getting suspicious of, you know, it's like.......I kind of..... there's lots of instruments that I play that we never record and so I'm kind of stopping that whole slightly irritating thing of looking for new instruments to play, because it sort of feels like I have enough really, to be honest, you know?

DJ: "Yeah, and what are your favourites right now?

Jonny: "Probably the guitar and the keyboard, piano, I love my laptop, I love programming in computer languages, like building music software, writing, I love doing that at the moment, and I still love the ondes martinot, which is this kind of French electronic keyboard that has really inspired me, and they're probably my favourites really, the ondes martinot and the guitar

DJ: "What makes the guitar so special?

Jonny: "It's just kind of instant and quick and you know, you can do things on it very quickly and it's a physical object, and that's about it. I'm not really interested in the history of it all, the connotations of sounding like old records, it's more just that it's, you know, it's light, and you can plug it into something, and it's, you know, it's kind of a useful tool

DJ: "Yeah, but a useful tool, that doesn't sound very passionate

Jonny: "Well it's, you know, it's eleven years old, and it's a bit scratched and you know, it's alright, you know, and I've only got one, and it's....that's kind of as excited as I feel about it

DJ: "Ok, I think we have to stop

Jonny: "Ok. Nice to meet you

DJ: "Yeah, thank you so much