The interview was recorded on may 22nd 2008, excerpts from it were aired over the course of the following week. This is a transcript from an recording of the broadcast.
[part 1]
Edith: "Top Rated this week, it's brand new, it's a new double... well it's not a new, it's on the album, but it's the latest release from Radiohead's album, In Rainbows. It's a double A-side, you've got Bodysnatchers on one, and you have House Of Cards on the other. It shows two different sides to the album. House Of Cards, beautiful, very kind of melodic and laid back, and Bodysnatchers. Thom Yorke's described it as sounding a bit like Wolf Mother, so it kind of gives you an idea of where they're going with this. The album is out already, which you can get your hands on, In Rainbows, and this is going to be downloadable the full CD release on the 23rd of June. Now, Ed from the band popped in on Friday, and we had a quick chat with him, and we'll play you a little bit of that every day this week, and they were just back from America actually, so that's the first thing I asked him about
Ed: "For me the main problem about America is the food, it's just disgusting
Edith: "(laughs)
Ed: "I know that sounds really sort of shallow, you know where you should be talking about, you know, Barak Obama and stuff like that, but the food is just, you know... (laughs). Two and a half weeks, and everything's fried!
Edith: "Yeah, and enormous
Ed: "Oh, my God, it's just revolting, and they always used to come over... I remember friends coming over from America saying “God, your English food is rubbish!”, and it's like everything's got sugar in it, and everything's sweet, it's unbelievable
Edith: "Do you still get excited about going to all these amazing places around the world?
Ed: "Yeah, yeah
Edith: "And are there special places you look forward to going to and visiting?
Ed: "Yeah, I always like Europe. We're touring Europe in the summer, near the Mediterranean, you know, and it's all good
Edith: "Almost a holiday
Ed: "Yeah, warm summer nights... well, you know, sometimes you have to pinch yourself, because, you know, you're doing this thing which is... when it's going well it's amazing, warm summer nights doing these shows, playing the new songs, it's good
Edith: "Yeah. That part of the world as well, kind of Spain and Italy and Portugal, the fans there are... they just let themselves go, they just want to have a great time as well. Would you say they're some of the best fans in the world?
Ed: "Yeah, them and the Celts. There's something about the Scots, the Irish, the Welsh, the Spanish, that's right, and the Italians and the Portuguese. They just, you know, they want to have a good time, and also I think what's interesting about those cultures is with our music as well, is that we err towards the melancholic side sometimes, you know, and that's all part of those cultures, but at the same time there's a celebration of that. I would hope that's what happens at our shows
[plays Bodysnatchers]
[part 2]
Edith: "Ed from the band, RadioEd, as we call him, popped in on Friday, and we had a chat with him, we'll be playing you a little bit of that every day this week, and one of the things I wanted to ask him was with a band like Radiohead who've got numerous albums out, how do they go about picking what they release as singles, and you know, whether it's important, and this is what he said...
Ed: "At this stage, with our record, you have ideas, you know. I'd always wanted Bodysnatchers as a single, and I'd always... in fact it was the first single in America, and personally speaking, you know, that's always been... it was one of the easiest songs to record, and it was always one of the immediate ones. I mean, House Of Cards was the first song in rehearsal when we were getting back together, when I realised that Thom had, you know, lyrically he was shifting, he was moving, you know, and the opening line, he sings “I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover”
Edith: "Yeah
Ed: "Well, it's a loving song, and it's good, you know for me lyrics are everything, you know what I respond to are lyrics and musically when I come up with stuff, it's always... the imagery that he sort of conjures up, or he places these words before you and you conjure up your own images, so the opening lines say it all and it's fun to play
[plays House Of Cards]
[part 3]
Edith: "You spent a lot of time in the studio with this album
Ed: "Yeah
Edith: "What represents a good day, and what represents a bad day of being in the studio?
Ed: "Well, the first year and a half was pretty poor, because we decided to do it ourselves, and that just didn't work out. We weren't finishing anything, and that was the problem. If you don't finish any tracks, you get to a stage on a track, it's very easy to leave it behind, and that's when a producer pushes you through and says “it gets tough, you have to see it through”. It's like anything in life...
Edith: "Yeah
Ed: "You know, you've got to see it through, so we didn't do that for a year and a half, so that was a bad day, when we get to six o'clock in the evening, and we go “oh, we're bored of this, we'll move on”, and that's a really bad... you know, that's a bad day
Edith: "Yeah
Ed: "But a good day was when we recorded Bodysnatchers, for instance. That was the second week, we reconvened with Nigel, and it was the first day of the second week and we were in a big old house down in Wiltshire, sleeping in the caravans and we reconvened after the first week which had been sort of a little tentative, everyone getting to know... and we slammed in the evening, we had supper and then did two takes of Bodysnatchers and that was... the version that you hear is essentially the second take
Edith: "Wow!
Ed: "And that's a good night, and that's like, you know, “yeah ok, we're doing it”
[plays Bodysnatchers]
[part 4]
Edith: "Do you still have like dreams and aspirations of things you want to do as a band, or you kind of... have you done everything?
Ed: "No, I mean you know, I'd love to make a... (laughs), oh dear, I'm going to say something I'm going to regret, and the rest of the guys...
Edith: "No you won't, come on, say it
Ed: "I'd like to make a really, really intimate kind of like acoustic... with just literally acoustic instruments and no electric instruments and stuff like that, and then I know that we want to do a... we want to make a disco kind of record, which sounds a bit bizarre...
Edith: "Brilliant
Ed: "But we'd like to... we'd very much like to do that, I know that Thom's got a bee in his bonnet about that. I think just to make different kinds of records would be great and to carry on... things are really good at the moment and the gigs are really good, and to... and it is such a privilege to be doing this, you know. Sometimes in a band you can take things for granted, and you know the last two weeks in America we have sort of looked at each other and gone, I mean you know, “we're just the luckiest sods out there doing this”. It really is... it's a really humbling thing doing all of this
[plays Bodysnatchers]
Edith: "Love that. Radiohead, Bodysnatchers the latest release from their album, In Rainbows. Now you might think it strange that Derek from Newsbeat and James King have got involved with Sex And The City. That's not the strangest thing you're about to hear on Radio 1, because here's Ed from Radiohead comparing his bandmates to the cast of Sex And The City.
Edith: "Would you at all have the Sex And The City boxset on the bus, would that be something that you might ever watch?
Ed: "No
Edith: "Damn!
Ed: "Not really
Edith: "Have you ever watched it?
Ed: "Yeah
Edith: "Brilliant
Ed: "Yeah
Edith: "Ok, I've got a quick quiz for you, right
Ed: "Ok, yeah
Edith: "Because we've got... Sex And The City's out, and we've got all the girls on the show, so I thought it would be quite funny if you could pick one of your band from the four girls, who's most like the other Sex And The City girls
Ed: "(laughs)
Edith: "Ok, Samantha, who is a little bit of a sexual predator, knows what she wants and how to get it. Who is most like Samantha?
Ed: "Err, well it has to be about the other four, doesn't it?
Edith: "Yeah, not you, yeah
Ed: "Errm...
Edith: "(laughs) Yeah, you're out of this
Ed: "Yeah, I'm out of this... errr..ok, that's Thom
Edith: "Ok, Thom's Samantha
Ed: "Yeah
Edith: "Miranda, very career driven, can be intense but loyal
Ed: "Which one's she? The one with the red hair?
Edith: "Miranda's the red hair, yeah
Ed: "Red hair... that is... Jonny
Edith: "Ok. Charlotte, she's the dark haired long haired one, bit scatty, very emotional, highs and lows...
Ed: "Colin (laughs)
Edith: "Oooh, right, ok (laughs). And Carrie, so that leaves Phil...
Ed: "Philip, yeah. That's Philip
Edith: "Phil's stylish, perfectionist, stands back and analyses things and is kind of hard to please
Ed: "That's Philip, except the “hard to please”
Edith: "See, I reckon that everyone could fit into a character within the show