"His songs are some of the greatest of this century--they haven't been matched". Is Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood singing the praises of John Lennon? Bob Dylan? Nope. Jonny's icon is the legendary but decidedly un-punk Cole Porter. "I've got one of his songbooks on tour--it's fascinating to see how he puts tunes together." The same could be said of Greenwood and Co., whose chart-munching Capitol release, "The Bends," deftly grafts exposed- nerve emotion onto classic song structures. "We quite like the arranging process--bit of a lost art, isn't it?" says Greenwood of his partnership with his fellow guitarists Thom Yorke and Ed O'Brien.
Though their recent hit "High and Dry" is centered around a spare acoustic rhythm figure, Radiohead's material--like last year's popular "Creep" single--explodes with triple-pronged electric fury. Greenwood traces the band's ability to avoid train wrecks to the rehearsal process. "We play together very quietly at first, listening to what the others are doing and playing around that. In general, Thom's the timekeeper, Ed's very precise about his parts, and I like to play things that don't sound like a guitar at all".
For a taste of Jonny's M.O., check out the unholy screams at the end of "Just,"courtesy of a hand-tweaked Marshall overdrive pedal. Greenwood favors an '87 Fender Telecaster and Fender so
id- state amps. Singer Yorke and O'Brien also wield Teles, though Yorke pumps his rhythm parts through a late-model Twin Reverb, while O'Brien favors Mesa/Boogie combos. Greenwood gleefully cops to abusing digital gear--witness the creepy growls and moans in "Iron Lung": "We fed a lot of rubbish to a harmonizer and sent it into spasms. I think we blew its little chip." Clearly, Radiohead have no undue attachment to their gear.
"You don't have magazines like "Paintbrush Monthly," do you?" says Jonny. But if he disdains fetishing the tools of his art, he's definitely interested in what he can paint with them. "We're really excited about becoming better musicians. Many bands are scared that if they actually learn about music, they'll sound like a bad Steely Dan, but it's all about increasing your vocabulary. Music should excite your heart and your head."