Formed in Oxford, England, nearly a decade ago, Radiohead (Thom Yorke: vocals and guitar, Jonny Greenwood: guitar and keyboards, Ed O'Brien: guitar, Colin Greenwood: bass, and Phil Selway: drums) looked destined to be a one-hit-wonder with their late 1992 hit "Creep." Unlike many U.K. acts that arrive on our shores riding a wave of hype, when Radiohead hit it big in the States, they were virtually unknown in their native land. It wasn't until "Creep" was released a second time as a single in the U.K. that it made the Top Ten.
The band was playing to American audiences that only wanted to hear "Creep." When their second single, "Stop Whispering," wasn't "Creep II," most people lost interest. It seemed the band was doomed to follow Jesus Jones and EMF into oblivion when their second album The Bends came out in the spring of 1995 and was met with total indifference. There was no "Creep" on The Bends, but what was there proved Radiohead had something interesting to say.
Slowly, by word of mouth, it got around that The Bends was an amazing album. Sales started to pick up in the United States, but as Radiohead drummer Phil Selway said recently, "That was pretty much the pattern everywhere, I think. It was selling the most about a year after it was released, and for us it was a good position to be in."
That "good position" not only referred to The Bends' position on the charts, but also their touring with R.E.M. and Michael Stipe's saying that Radiohead is "so good it scares me."
This delayed success also afforded Radiohead more time to work on what would become their new masterpiece, OK Computer.
"We were closing the tour [for The Bends], but then, especially in the U.K., it really started to take off, so we had to do some more dates to back it up," Selway said. "But the real thing was to get on stage and work on some new material."
In the States, Radiohead managed to enhance their reputation with the intensity of their live act. No hype machine could produce or take that aspect away from any band. Radiohead succeeded in winning over a small, devoted following because they didn't rest on their critical laurels. Selway saw this as being the reason many British bands had, until recently, problems translating their success overseas to the United States.
Listening to Radiohead's three albums - Pablo Honey, The Bends, and OK Computer - it's hard to believe that the same band made the first and last albums. Radiohead has painstakingly created a unique sound that no one else can claim.
"I don't think it was such a big leap between The Bends and OK Computer, but between OK Computer and Pablo Honey there's five years," Selway said.
Radiohead is currently touring to support OK Computer, but one can't help but listen to this album and wonder how it all came together and how they plan to take it to the stage.
"In actual recording time," Selway said, "it took about two-and-a-half months, but in terms of actually arranging and feeling comfortable with the material... probably the better part of a year."
While Selway has considered Radiohead's live performances to be better than the recorded one, he feels with OK Computer, they've reached a balance.
"For The Bends and Pablo Honey, I think we were definitely a better live band than what you found on tape, but I think with OK Computer, it's just about leveled out now," he said.
It didn't hurt that OK Computer was the first Radiohead record to be produced by the band. "OK Computer gives us something to aspire to with the live show," Selway said, "whereas with The Bends show, after months of touring the album, I think the performances we were putting in were much better than the ones on the album, generally."
"I think there's a real discipline that you have to learn when you produce yourself, which took us a while, I think," Selway said. "We pretty much had a scatter technique with our recording up to about Christmas time [1996] really. Consequently, we're jumping from song to song, and when we started to run out of ideas, we'd move on to a new song."
This might sound like artistic freedom, but Selway was quick to counter that "the stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we'd move on, because so much work had gone into them. As a consequence the most valuable lesson was that it told us you have to give yourself deadlines. You have to work within certain constraints."
What did make the recordings go more smoothly was not only the help of engineer Nigel Godrich, but Radiohead's own chemistry. "We're each very much responsible for our own part," Selway said, "but along with saying that, we listen to suggestions from the other members and then go and do what we want anyway. I think we are really lucky in that we give each other an awful lot of space to develop our parts, but at the same time we are all very critical about what the other person is doing."