[Introduction in Dutch]

Gijsbert Kamer: "What happened when you came back from the OK Computer tour?"

Thom: "It was a mess. Really bad mess, for quite a while. Personally. Because... basically I'd found myself in a place that I didn't wanna be... ermm... ended up in a place I didn't wanna be and didn't recognize myself. Erm, and wasn't really interested in what it is that we were supposed to have done. Um... uh... I didn't really have much to hold onto, really... in any way. Two years writing block. Writing stuff, throwing it away. So, I mean, I guess that would be where Kid A started. And the bits and pieces that went with it. I can't really say where it came... the idea was that there was no plan... at all. We just had lots of ideas... half-formed ideas... and hoped that some of them would see themselves through."

[live footage from London gig, 'Everything In Its Right Place']

Gijsbert: "OK Computer was a very big album. You did a great tour of it..."

Thom: "We did a lot of touring, yeah. We did a lot of touring."

Gijsbert: "Did that break you up personally?"

Thom: "Oh yeah! I was... I was finished when we did Glastonbury. And then a year and half later we were still going. And I kept saying, you know, every other day, 'I don't wanna do this'. 'Oh, we've got to do this! We have to do this! Because that way we'll never have to do it again.' And I guess they were right, you know. Go and flock yourselves to death. Make the most of it. Na-na-na. Ah... but it was... it was, I think, unwise. Because we played really badly... 'cause we weren't interested... by the end... weren't listening to each other. If you want the truth."

Gijsbert: "Do you understand why an album like OK Computer... people are very attached to it. I mean..."

Thom: "Yeah... I understand... you know, I can't... I obviously can't listen to it. But I..."

Gijsbert: "You can't?"

Thom: "Well no, I can't. I can't... I mean, I had to listen to it to it to try and remember the songs, but erm... I can't do that. I find it really... freaks me out. I can't do it."

Gijsbert: "Because of the music, the lyrics?"

Thom: "No. No. Just... ah... It kind of sends you back to a place, makes you feel ill. I think once you finished a record, like, you have all the power and the emotions of doing it as you're doing it. And when you're finished, that's over... that's it. You know? It's really... it's very difficult then to... to be able to connect with it. 'Cause it's other people's... it's other people's property. And that's a good thing. That's how it's supposed to be."

[live footage from London gig, 'Everything In Its Right Place']

Gijsbert: "You were considered one of the greatest rock bands in '97?"

Thom: "Whoo, God help us if we fucking were! 'Cause, 'cause you know... as far as we were concerned the idea... even being called a rock band was a bit of a... a nightmare, really."

Gijsbert: "Why?

Thom: "Because it sucks...fucking rock music sucks, man! I hate it! I'm just so fucking bored of it. I hate it! It's a fucking waste of time! It's like... it's not really the music. It's not, it's not sitting on a stage, playing guitar um... or drums and singing. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is all the mythology that goes with it. I have a real fucking problem with that. I have a real problem with the idea that you have to tour yourselves stupid and... you know... do certain things, and talk to certain people and this is the way you... you know. I just totally snapped. I'd enough of it.
I think... I think it's the same as with literature and with art. Like a lot of the time you confuse the personality with the person... the personality with the piece of work. It ultimately doesn't do anybody any favours... you know? It's... in a way it can... it negates the work as well because... what can happen is that essentially... like um, if you're an artist... like Rothko and you choose to kill yourself... then that colours the work forever more, which is totally not the point. And not only that, it destroys the work... for anybody... People who like... There's a Rothko room in the Tate, in London and... When kids go in there they sort of go 'Wow! This is great!'. And all they see is the joy of the colours in the paintings. And all the adults see is this poor sod who killed himself."

[live footage from London gig, 'Everything In Its Right Place']

Gijsbert: "There are also lots of positive sides of the OK Computer..."

Thom: "Yeah, initially the positive stuff was great, initially. Yeah, I agree. But then... for me it just went wrong... up there... I dunno. It's like being trapped in one, erm, space... like one point. Erm, and you can't go backwards and you can't go forwards and you can't go in any direction. You're absolutely trapped... in one particular space... in time. And you cannot move on. Because I use music to move on... to progress through life... Um... and, so when I lost that I lost the ability to progress... or anything. So you start to lose the ability to interact and it becomes like a vicious circle... because you're just like this all the time."

Gijsbert: "So you're sitting there in your home all the time doing nothing?"

Thom: "No, it's just every time you go... to a piece of music... or uh... or your book, or... go for a drive in your car... you're constantly thinking that you're trapped. You're stuck. You're like a full stop. And you'll never be anything else.
I think the only way that you deal with it eventually... like um... is you... you just forget about it. You choose to not have a problem about it. You choose to go and see your friends and go out and get drunk and... enjoy life and... and just forget about it. And just wait for... wait for it to come back."

Gijsbert: "But did you find the specific reason why you got into the writer's block?"

Thom: "Yeah. It was... it was... I mean, I didn't really know. I don't think I knew until we actually finished Kid A what it was about. Or... or what... or the reason I'd had such a terrible block. But it was really because, um... I had like... err, felt that I'd totally lost control of any element of my life. Or any element of like anything that I was involved in. And ultimately being so incredibly angry it was inexpressible. And it sort of... when we finished the record I just realized that's what it'd all been about."

[live footage from London gig, 'In Limbo']

Thom: "I personally totally lost interest in... in playing guitar."

Gijsbert: "How come?"

Thom: "Uh... um... uh... It just uh... well, okay... it just didn't... it just didn't do it for me... anymore."

Gijsbert: "But you have three guitarists in the band?"

Thom: "Yeah, bummer, right! [Laughs]
I started playing the piano. I'm a terrible piano player so that was kind of good. So everything was a novelty. So... and... I wrote a lot of stuff... on piano. Badly... [laughs]. But it's good... I mean, in a way, the less you know about an instrument the more you get excited about it, I think."

Gijsbert: "Apart from not playing guitar you seem... You said you didn't like any guitar music at all? What music were you into at the time?"

Thom: "I was like, much more into electronica stuff like... Autechre and Aphex Twin and lots of stuff on Warp. I always regretted that we somehow - in deciding to be a rock band, or whatever it was, and tour ourselves stupid and turn into little monsters - that we'd lost the chance to ever get into that sort of music, and that was like a big regret for me, 'cause I didn't see it as any different from rock music... from where I'm sat it's no different. If it's good, it's good, sort of thing. And it's got the same sort of, err... 'fuck me' attitude when it's good."

[live footage from London gig, 'Idioteque']

Thom: "I think what... what I find interesting about like taking on the electronic sort of thing, like taking on programming and editing and that... and sampling is that it... it... it stops... uh... it stops you trying to emote... 'cause like ... you... there's something I find incredibly exciting about just leaving something to run, and stand there listening to it... and not actually play it at the time and singing along.
I mean like... the other thing, um, is that... we were all kind of really heavily obsessed... ever since 'OK Computer' we've been heavily obsessed by 'Remain in Light' - the Talking Heads album - and the way that they did that. And... and the sort of emotions that go with that record, that are kind of like not... uh... not... it's not got the same like emotional range as any other Talking Heads record. It's like totally out... from over there somewhere. And... the other thing was the way that David Byrne was writing the lyrics on that. 'Cause he went to that record with no... he had like notes... and no... songs. No songs. It's just 'start a rhythm', 'here's a riff'... dada dada... just keep going. I guess what I... what I admired in the 'Remain in Light' thing is that everything is essentially fragments, 'cause he's taking things from notebooks. So what I, sort of, went off and tried to do when... when I couldn't... with the writer's block thing... was like just basically have all the things that didn't work and sort of started stop... stopped throwing them away, which I'd been doing before and screwing them up. And... and keeping them and cutting them up and putting them in this top hat... and pulling them out. And that was really cool. Because what it did is I managed to preserve whatever emotions were in the original writing of the words, but in a way that it's like not... I'm not trying to... emote... it's just part of what's going on. So like... so like, they're not printing the words on this record, because the words are just part of what's going on."

Gijsbert: "What songs are made in that way on this..."

Thom: "'Kid A' is, but then of course you can't hear the words. 'National Anthem' is. 'Everything In Its Right Place'. 'Idioteque'... 'In Limbo'. That's at least half."

Gijsbert: "Yeah. One of them..."

Thom: "Oh, and 'Optimistic'."

Gijsbert: "Yeah, but the only one that obviously isn't is 'How To Disappear Completely'."

Thom: "Yeah, which is kind of quite an old one. Yeah, but then I was really... I have always really loved the words for that, 'cause I wrote them really, really quickly. And that was written um... you know... just when everything was firing off on OK Computer so... that was like a mantra to get out... of... it... all. 'I'm not here, this is not happening', blinds down, that sort of thing...which kept me going for a very long time, really."

[live footage from London gig, 'How To Disappear Completely']

Thom: "One of the strengths we've always had is... you know... like uh... I mean, I sort of come up with things, but I don't know what they mean... I've got no idea, and the others are really good at knowing what they mean. And that means that we can start piecing things together, you see? And we spent a lot of time not seeing each other for a while. And... and I discovered doing that, that um... that I have no idea what I'm doing, really... I've not... you know... sort of my... my personal input in things is starting things off a lot of the time... or at least sort of firing off things. But I'm no good at seeing things through... actually I'm terrible at it, actually. So that was my big lesson... I guess."

Gijsbert: "How did the relationships between you and the band change during the years? I can imagine since everything that's happened to you that... things have changed."

Thom: "Yep."

Gijsbert: "In what way?"

Thom: "They're better... yeah."

Gijsbert: "But were there any difficulties in..."

Thom: "Yep."

Gijsbert: "Can you be more specific?"

Thom: "No."

Gijsbert: "Why not?"

Thom: "'Cause it's our business. I have a real problem with people asking that stuff... because um... it's not anyone's business, really. I keep trying to tell the others not to talk about it either, 'cause it's a bad idea."

Gijsbert: "But did you ever... have the idea of, err... quitting Radiohead and doing your own stuff on your own?"

Thom: "Next question."

Gijsbert: "Do you have a problem with those questions?"

Thom: "Yeah."

Gijsbert: "Why is that?"

Thom: "It's not your business. It's nobody's business but ours."

Gijsbert: "It's just..."

Thom: "Well, I mean, I kind of basically said that earlier. It's just like, you know... it's no... it's no... it's like... I do not want to be answering questions on that for the next fucking five years, and if I do then I'll just stop doing interviews again...'cause it's a fucking waste of time, really... for everybody concerned."

Gijsbert: "It's just Radiohead is one thing and..."

Thom: "If we choose... if we've chosen to finish the record and carry on, then that's kind of all anybody needs to know, really. You know what I mean, it's like... Other than that you're just kind of digging dirt, really."

[live footage from London gig, 'The National Anthem']

Thom: "I don't have any desire to sort of alienate people deliberately. Um... that's kind of not... I... I... I can see... it's good fun, I can see the point. But um... but I personally would rather be able to communicate with the people. I guess, being... a singer... there ain't no way 'round that, really... you know. And that's actually the best thing, I think, doing touring again made me realize there's this massive gap that I deliberately sort of switched off thinking it was not relevant or important to me. And then suddenly, 'aha!' you know? You can sleep alright at night again, 'cause you sort of understand that... that's what you're supposed to do. So... so I guess that means that I still want us to be part of what is essentially the High Street of the... music... pop music industry. I mean ever since art college I've really had a problem with... doing a piece of work and then putting it in a huge, empty white room so that posh people can drink wine and think about buying it or not. That doesn't do anybody any fucking good, really. And... and that's why I've always thought pop music was... will always be a far more vibrant art form ultimately, 'cause like when you hear something on the radio... you know, that triggers something in you that... you're never the same again. And it's harder to do that in a gallery."

[live footage from London gig, 'Optimistic']

Gijsbert: "The decision to go on tour again... I can imagine you never wanted to play or perform again for a live audience. How..."

Thom: "Um... it was the others. I think actually ultimately if I'd been left to it, I wouldn't have done. And the others were like [imitates Colin] 'Go on! It'll be great! You'll really like it!' I'm like 'fuck!' I'd the real horrors about, you know, the tent thing and everything. I just thought we were just crazy... absolutely crazy. I think ultimately..."

Gijsbert: "Was it your idea, the tent thing?"

Thom: "Yeah... No, no, it wasn't. Not at all. I thought it was a good idea, 'cause it sounded really bloody-minded. But I never actually thought it would happen. [Laughs]. But then it did and like people bought tickets, and it's like 'oh fuck! I have to actually do this now.' [Laughs]"

Gijsbert: "And you enjoy it so far?"

Thom: "Yes, I'm really enjoying it, actually. Amazingly."

[live footage from London gig, 'Optimistic']