Thom: "The two songs - Cymbal Rush is all based around... it's all done on laptops and it's all computerised. But there was enough of an essence to the song to get it across today. But it was a bit of... it took me a while to work how I was going to do it. And the real struggle was The Clock. 'Cause that's like, turned into a skiffle tune. Which is kind of cool, I was into that! But I mean, on the record it's all cut up, sliced up little bits of guitar and things. So it was a bit of a head masher to try and work out how to do it but... got there in the end. I kind of like that, though, because you push yourself into playing guitar in a different way. I mean, I would never, ever play skiffle. Why would I play skiffle? But it sort of actually worked, I think."
On censorship
Thom: "Ha, I'm one of those people who swears a lot naturally, so... although I haven't actually sworn yet. That's interesting. I normally would have done by this point. Um... I just don't... I've never really seen it as an issue. The word 'fuck' is just part of the english language and has been for hundreds of years. I think there are far more offensive abuses of language used in the news media. Just general sort of mind-numbing gobbledigook they make up. I think that should be censored. I think good old traditional swear words are really not a problem, myself. But I swear a lot, so what do I know."
Thom: "'Black Swan' was the single and they drop out the 'fuck' then. I think it's funny. We did have quite a laugh for a couple of hours, me and Nigel, sort of putting trumpets in there and stuff. But you know, it's like, well, that's the song - "this is fucked up" - that's the line, and you can't change it. It's the sort of hard off the cuff remark you make one night when you've had too much to drink and you're talking to your friends about what's going on, and you start off, "this is just fucked up". It's what everybody says, so hang on, why is it that suddenly when you're playing it on the radio you can't just say it? It doesn't make sense to me. The taxi driver will say it to you! So why can't I say it?"
Thom: "Yeah, I'm not doing MTV! At all! I'm quite proud of that, actually. Not that they'd play me for shit, so it doesn't matter really, I don't think I fit the mould anymore! [laughs] But we figured there's no point, they're not going to play it anyway. I might be wrong, but I don't think I am."
On global warming
Thom: "I guess you could say there is an environmental element to the record. With most of the way I write there turns to be a wider thing going on that I can't deny, that I'm absorbing all the time. Obviously, like a lot of people. Although it's a little bit slower over here, getting started. The global warming thing is obviously something we all need to... I mean it's too large to comprehend. That feeling is all through the record. That on one level, there's something going on which is just so enormous and so beyond each individual human being to get their heads round, and I was trying in my puny way to deal with that, really, because I couldn't help it. I got involved with Friends of the Earth, as well, who are doing this campaign called The Big Ask (which sounds like something else). For me the thing about it is that it feels, like with the global warming issue, that it's completely impossible for us to ever deal with it. According to scientists that's not strictly the case, that there is a way out of this, and I think it's rather too tempting for everybody concerned to just throw up their hands and say, "Well, pff". But if you have children you can't do that, anyway. You can't look at your children in the face and know that they have no future, you just can't do it. Not if you're a human being."
Thom: "Well, over here I've encountered the, "Yeah, oh it's 200 or 300 hundred years away and by then we'll have found a new power source". Yeah right. Or the, "Well, we don't know it for certain, it could be sun spots, the science isn't proven, the planet temperature goes up and down..." which is frankly ignorant of the facts. There's an awful lot of stake. The interesting thing was, when I first got involved with The Big Ask campaign there was an orchestrated disinformation thing going on, funded by various US lobby groups involved with the oil companies. They were trawling out the one or two scientists they could find that still doubted some of the science involved and paying them an awful lot of money to go and pretend that they were equally qualified to discuss the subject, when there was tens of thousands of scientists who've signed up the other way! I mean, that's what you're up against. But you see, that didn't work, certainly isn't working in Europe. It's still, a little bit, hanging around in America but it won't take long. And then, the next thing we do is work out what we're going to do about it."
Thom: "Doing what I do is pretty carbon consuming, so it's very difficult to see beyond the fact that the truck's engines... the truck drivers insist on leaving their engines running because that's where they live, which drives me absolutely crazy. That you have to have these stupid generators. Why can't... I mean, there must be another way of doing that. It's just endless, all the waste and stuff. But it was really inspiring getting involved with Friends of the Earth because I went to them and they were presenting the reality of it, which was difficult to get your head round, but what was really inspiring was their commitment to try and do something about it. And it's not waving flags or holding big concerts or any of that rubbish. It's just like, behind the scenes, writing letters, hassling MPs and trying to change your little tiny cosmos a little bit. But actually, the truth of the matter is, unless there's huge legislation, unless there's a seismic shift in the way we see that we consume energy, the way we understand what energy is and our rights to it - or not - unless we deal with that, every single person deals with that, unless a law is put in place that everyone can agree with we're not going to get anywhere. It needs to be national and international laws. What you're up against is an entire system based on the idea of increased expansion, increased consumption, endless building, to give the illusion of a properous, wonderful society... but that society is on a knife edge, because it's main energy source is running out. Even if we get to the global warming issue, it's running out! Our tactics to stabalise the Middle East and so on in order to gain the supply routes for the oil, they're not going to last long! At some point or other we're going to be presented with the fact that our main source of energy is out of date, and we need to either address how we use energy, or change our energy source. One way or the other, we have to get out of our addiction to oil, like everybody says."
On working on The Eraser
Thom: “Well, it’s been quite interesting, suddenly just doing a one-on-one with Nigel, a collaboration like that. Because it was pretty quick and simple to do, because of the computers and so on, it made it really… it sort of got my confidence back. Nigel’s very good at making you trust on your first instincts and things, which left to one’s own devices most musicians tend to forget that and endlessly fool around and change things. So it was really nice to sort of just make a record very quickly and just go “This is what we’ve got. That’s it. End.” It was quite a shock really. You learn a lot more that way than you do spending a year in the studio going round the bend that’s for sure.”
Thom: “This record, The Eraser, was me and him – just me and him. It was just an excuse to hang out, really. We didn’t even think we had any songs to begin with, but there we go… At the moment we are trying to puzzle out how to – Radiohead that is – trying to work out how to record the songs we’ve been playing live. That’s what he’s around for, so he’s been listening to it all and things like that.”