Interviewer: The familiar falsetto of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood's bass guitar are unmistakable. It is arguably Radiohead, but not as you know it. It's The Smile, the trio the two of them make up with drummer Tom Skinner.

The band's latest album, Wall of Eyes, is out this week. Over just eight songs, the album is a musical journey. It's twisting and turning, and sometimes overwhelming for the listener. The influence of Radiohead, but also Jonny Greenwood's work as a film composer, are all over the album.

When I spoke to Jonny Greenwood, I asked where the desire to keep making music with Thom Yorke—if not necessarily under the Radiohead banner—comes from.

Jonny Greenwood: It just comes from writing music all the time and having a hunger to write songs with Thom. It's just been a process that's gone on since lockdown, or just before.

It's hard to stop when this is what you've done since you were fourteen or fifteen, and it's all you've really ever thought about. So it carries on. We're lucky—lucky that it does.

Thom always compares it to having a studio full of canvases that are all half-finished, or some that have only just been started. You rotate between them, keep working and keep moving. It does feel very much like that.

Interviewer: It sounds like a very happy professional and artistic marriage.

Jonny Greenwood: I think we just have an endless hunger to do the next thing and to do something new. There's always another idea, or some new technology to get excited about.

We've had a long run, and it still feels like we're the same awkward, obnoxious teenagers we were thirty years ago.

Interviewer: You talk about Thom, but of course there's another Tom involved now—Tom Skinner. Tell me about the addition of Tom Skinner. What does he bring?

Jonny Greenwood: Well... the rehearsals are exactly as confusing as you might imagine.

(laughs)

Apart from that, he's just full of enthusiasm. It's addictive playing with him. He simply makes everything sound better—that's really what I'm trying to say.

He completely elevates what we do. He's also incredibly musical when we're discussing songs and planning arrangements.

It's been a really happy few years.

It's interesting being in a trio because very small changes can make a huge difference to the arrangement of a song. Everyone is much more exposed. It's just a different discipline.

Interviewer: Coming to the record itself, it begins with what felt like almost a Latin rhythm to me. The words and the music seem to chase one another throughout the album.

Tell me about the relationship between the music and the words.

Jonny Greenwood: I think we tend to think about records in terms of arrangement. That's a huge part of what we do.

You respond to arrangements that resonate with the words. That sounds like quite a vague thing to say, but that's genuinely how it feels. It's always been about arrangements.

Interviewer: There's that great scene in the Buddy Holly biopic where Buddy Holly says, "I don't need a producer to do the arrangements. I'll do them."

Jonny Greenwood: We're probably a bit nostalgic for that way of thinking, when arrangements were such an important part of making records. In a way, that's how we approach arranging songs ourselves.

Interviewer: I want to ask about another song, "Under Our Pillows." It begins with a riff, as several of the songs do, and gradually becomes melodically and rhythmically incredibly complex.

The arrangements almost feel architectural. I hesitate to ask because I get the feeling you don't particularly enjoy analysing the process, but can you explain how you go about making something so intricate?

Jonny Greenwood: It doesn't really feel complex to us.

I think we were schooled by bands like Pixies. We learned that, as long as songs stay under four or five minutes, it's really about seeing what you can do within that framework.

Pixies were obsessed with never being boring. Their songs avoid too much repetition or becoming too predictable.

It's a strange balance between having one idea follow another in a way that's satisfying, while still being interesting.

You can't just surprise people for the sake of it. It's like using jump scares in films—you can't rely on them to keep people interested.

It's about finding the balance between giving people something satisfying while still feeling like you're trying to do something new.

Interviewer: Let's talk about "Bending Hectic."

It's about a car crash—or perhaps about a narrow escape. "The ground is coming for me now... If you've got something to say, say it now."

That musical jump really does feel like a shock. We spend five minutes in one particular world before suddenly being taken somewhere completely different.

Tell me about shifting between those musical states.

Jonny Greenwood: A lot of those ideas aren't particularly planned.

That's certainly one of those songs where we simply followed where the music seemed to lead us.

There was never a meeting where we said, "Right—at this exact point we'll change direction."

That song actually began as an experiment to see how far a guitar string could be bent.

I hope you can hear how physically painful it is to play.

Interviewer: You certainly can.

There's an enjoyable tension in hearing that. By the end it's incredibly dissonant and quite uncomfortable.

It also feels like perhaps the closest thing to a narrative on the album. The lyrics flash fragments of images and moments from a life.

How do you want listeners to approach your music?

Do you want them to understand it? To decipher it? Or simply immerse themselves in it?

Jonny Greenwood: I don't know.

I feel slightly hypocritical because I'm not sure I think about that very much.

When we started out, we obsessively recorded ourselves and listened back to the recordings—but we didn't really play them to anyone else.

We were simply fascinated by what could come out of loudspeakers.

That was the excitement.

So it's still slightly daunting to remember that people are actually going to listen to what we've made.

But then you hear lovely things.

I get messages from friends saying they're enjoying the record.

My friend Ian texted me yesterday saying he'd been driving while listening to it.

That means so much to me.

It's a strange collection of contradictions, I'm afraid.

Interviewer: One thing I do know is that people will analyse every lyric in enormous detail.

I know this isn't Radiohead, but fans analyse everything Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood release.

When people hear a lyric like "When the end has come...", they'll inevitably wonder whether it's a message about Radiohead itself.

Are you telling Radiohead fans that the end has come?

Jonny Greenwood: No.

I don't think we'd ever write songs about ourselves like that.

It's too weird.

There's a long history of bands doing it, and it usually makes you shrivel up with embarrassment when you hear those songs.

So no—that isn't for us.

Interviewer: Speaking of bands, George Harrison once told Kaleidoscope that being in the Traveling Wilburys allowed him, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison to get together in a garage and simply play like they were seventeen again.

Is The Smile your version of that?

Jonny Greenwood: I think that was probably Radiohead's motivation as well, frankly.

There's still nothing more exciting than being in a small room with a drummer, a guitar, and simply playing music together.

That's still enormously exciting for us.

I hope it continues.