Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted Philip Selway is most commonly known as the drummer and percussionist in the five-piece experimental sensation that is Radiohead. Philip currently works on his solo sets and plays for Lanterns On The Lake. Before his gig at Halifax Minster, as part of Halifax Town festival of Music and Words, we caught up with him to go ‘back to his roots’, starting with his very first gig. 

“I hadn’t actually played on a drum kit before. So I just thought, Okay, I can do this. It’ll be fine. And so that’s what I did. There was something about music which gave me a bit more confidence.”

Radiohead met in an all-boys school in Oxfordshire, where they rehearsed every Friday in the School’s music room. Hence their former name, On A Friday. They played their first gig in Oxford’s 150-capacity Jericho Tavern. A regional scene was emerging in Oxford with alternative rock bands like Ride and Supergrass. 

Selway and the band recorded their debut album, Pablo Honey, in three weeks in Oxfordshire in 1992, in which a lot of distorted guitar, attitude-drenched vocals and driving rhythms were prominent.

So Radiohead, or On a Friday, never really did the whole cutting their teeth kind of thing, which, especially nowadays, most young bands have to really go through. With the boys at various universities across the country, and not a huge amount of live venues in Oxford at the time, they tended to work on new material during the weekends and holidays. 

Phil reflected on how, although there were a lot of Oxford bands making different types of music, the town “wasn’t oversaturated with bands, there was enough people there for it to feel as though you were working in the same way, towards the same point.” It must have been an exciting time to be in Oxford, especially after the opening of the venue Zodiac, through Nick Morbuff, who Philip has worked with a lot during his solo pieces.

It’s interesting to think about the timeframe in which Philip’s onstage confidence grew, since Radiohead didn’t play an awful lot of shows in those days.

“By the time we signed, which was at the end of 1991, I think we’d played a total of about seven, maybe eight shows. That was over the course of six years.”

Radiohead were signed to EMI in 1991 and released their debut single, Creep, the following year.

“Looking back on when we were signed, I think there was a lot more support in terms of artist development at the time. The smaller independent venues didn’t feel as much threat as they do now.” 

Philip recognises the strain on independent music venues today and has put in significant work to collaborate with The Music Venue Trust, in order to bring back support for artists and the venues that are “the lifeblood of developing bands”.

“I mean, the last time I was in Halifax, I came to The Grayston Unity, and it’s just like, ‘yeah, this is a brilliant place’. It’s about people who are passionate about music. The community of those venues is incredibly important.”

The debut album Pablo Honey came out in February 1993. That was soon followed by Radiohead’s first official international tour, taking in numerous locations in the UK, continental Europe and the US. So a big step from Philip’s first performance in that school band, having no former practice on a drum kit. And, for all members, probably a great leap from On A Friday’s afternoon rehearsals in their school music room.

In 1997, Radiohead’s third album, OK Computer was released and remains their most successful album. Throughout the 90s, Radiohead’s popularity formed greatly around their ability to subvert genre and their reinvention of alternative culture. The sound of British alternative rock echoed through the boys’ early work, but their later albums veered towards experimentation with a miscellaneous variety of elements from other genres.