This is a transcript from an audio recording of the broadcast.
[Part 1]
Interviewer: "See, had I known you were gonna bring your own champagne, I would have brought a big mug! All right, WBCN... gentlemen, if I could trouble you to do some radio, for a moment?
Thom: Oh, sorry!
Jonny: Oh, I remember!
Interviewer: [laughs] All right, just a quick introduction: Nik Carter; 104.1 WBCN; Jonny and Thom of Radiohead!
Jonny: Hello, there.
Interviewer: Help me say hello to them! [claps]
Thom: Hello! Hello there.
Interviewer: Right, let me get the ass-kissing out the way, initially. Let me start by thanking you, on the air, for allowing us to broadcast the show tomorrow night because, for starters, very few bands will do that, and second of all – first night of the tour! That's...
Thom: That's gonna be er... [hesitates] yeah... [laughs]
Interviewer: That's a confidence we rarely see.
Thom: It's not really confidence, that. Anyway.
Interviewer: What is it?
Jonny: We're brass-faced. (?)
Thom: Stuuupiiidiityy... [trails off, laughing]
Interviewer: [laughs] All right, do me a favour Thom, we're using the cheap mics so get close to them.
Thom: Oh! That's not a cheap mic! A very old mic.
Interviewer: It is! It's probably older than you are. Those are very old mics.
Thom: Yes, that's good. There's not many things...
Interviewer: Well, let me start with an obvious question. The tour begins here in Boston, where you played your first American show back at the old Venus de Milo, you worked at Fort Apache here on the first two records, you're starting your North American tour here. Do you feel some kinship with this city or is this just a matter of logistics, am I over-thinking this entirely?
Jonny: It's one of the nicest cities to start a tour in, must be said.
Interviewer: Now why is that?
Thom: ‘Cause customs is nice when you come in... [laughs]
Jonny: That's true!
Interviewer: [toots]
Jonny: A bit more friendly in immigration, that's actually true, yeah, than New York or anywhere. Yeah, I dunno, we do seem to start a lot of our things here, it's true, isn't it? That's weird. I don't know, we just feel at home wandering around here. It's a little bit European, dare I say? In a nice way, you know?
Interviewer: When it was initially set out a lot of the plans were based on London, and it's a very low city, so a lot of people who come from European provinces feel comfortable here.
Jonny: Yeah, it's not Cleveland.
Thom: What's wrong with Cleveland? Dig yourself a hole while you're at it...
Jonny: [laughs]
Thom: Get nearer to the mic, Thomas...
Interviewer: You've just cancelled your Cleveland visa, my friend.
Jonny: I know! What can I do, I'm sorry...
Interviewer: There'll be no holidays in Cleveland for you, my friend!
Jonny: I know, that's all right...
Thom: No what?
Jonny: I'll make it.
Interviewer: [laughs]
Thom: What's a ‘hottie'?
Interviewer: “No holiday in Cleveland!”
Thom: Oh, ‘holiday'!
Interviewer: Get your mind out of the gutter, son!
Jonny: [laughs]
Interviewer: All right, let me dive right in. Thom, when I spoke with you in August of 2001 (that was during the Kid A/Amnesiac thing) you told me that whenever you picked up a guitar – I want to make sure I don't misquote you – you said whenever you picked up a guitar, your heart just dropped to the floor. You just weren't into it. So, my question is... you were more into sequencing and sampling, the analogue stuff that Jonny was doing on synths and some of his guitar work, and I guess the point you were trying to get across at the time was [that] it didn't matter what instruments you were using, as long as the five of you were using them it's still Radiohead. So, my question is: how did you rekindle your interest in the guitar this time around, or did it just sort of... become time?
Thom: I don't know, I think a lot of it was simply going out and playing live again, really. And also, we deliberately had this thing where we were gonna work very fast, and we did write a lot of material quite quickly. But I'm actually playing... probably more piano on this record than guitar, aren't I? Which is a joke, really, because I only know three tricks on the piano... But that's okay.
Interviewer: You've also said in the past that you don't really know that many chords... but it all works out! [laughs]
Thom: You can make them up!
Interviewer: But that's interesting, too, I remember you said a long time ago [that] you don't know that many chords, but most of your songs have more chord changes than many bands! They jump and dip and glide and that sort of thing.
Thom: I guess, if you hammer away at something enough it'll look like it was complicated... does that make sense?
Jonny: Yeah, it's kind of all quite simple, what we do, I think. It's just, there's not that much repetition, maybe? The songs are quite short at the moment, I don't know...
Thom: I did buy one of them chord books, as well.
Interviewer: Yeah, I gotcha.
Thom: I thought I'd better do that, really. Before I die.
Interviewer: [laughs] I've always believed that any art truly worth its salt inspires and lends itself to interpretation. When you encounter fans, does it disappoint or delight you when they want to know the exact meanings behind songs rather than searching out their own meanings?
Thom: Doesn't really happen, like that. I think there was a weird phase that we had with OK Computer, where I'm not quite sure why but there was this...
[mobile phone rings]
Jonny: Oh, excuse me!
Thom: Telephone, check!
Interviewer: Oh, that's it, interview off! Get out! [laughs]
Jonny: Maybe it's important! Oh, never mind.
Thom: You gonna answer it, are you?
Interviewer: Jonny's cell phone just rang.
Jonny: I'll turn it off.
Thom: That's what you do when you're in... no, I'm not gonna say that.
Jonny: What was the question?
Thom: Uhh... oh, I don't know.
Interviewer: You were talking about what was happening during the OK Computer phase, when fans...
Thom: Oh, yes! They all went a bit peculiar. It's less so now, that they're like that. I really still don't understand quite what was going on, but I don't really see that it's like that now. I think that people, generally speaking, understand that it's simply just music and I'm/we're not trying to flog some sort of lifestyle or statement or something through the music... or desperately attempting not to do that. I think the point is if you get trapped into your own cast that you've made for yourself then yes, you then get into trouble but I don't really... because I don't believe any of the things that get written about us – I don't have that problem anymore – and also I don't read any of them. You cease to be [gets cut off]
Interviewer: Okay...
Thom: I'm not supposed to say that?
Interviewer: If you can avoid it, that'd be nice.
Thom: Oh, I'm sorry!
Interviewer: ‘Cause otherwise what happens is I have to hit this button and whole little clips of the conversation get cut out.
Thom: oohh... I'm sorry.
Interviewer: I know, I don't make the rules...
Thom: It's just a mild word. It's only an old English [word]...
Interviewer: It is!
Thom: Come on Jonny, you must know.
Interviewer: And the f-word is not so much a mild word, but it's so much a part of the lexicon of life!
Thom: Isn't it?
Interviewer: And people freak out if they hear it outside of the context of real life... nothing's gonna happen to you! But, you know, I have to play by the rules, unfortunately.
Thom: No, I know. It's bad to swear.
Interviewer: How is England treating you? I remember last time we spoke, at the time you weren't particularly comfortable between both the cynicism and rock, and rock criticism, and at the time Tony Blair, who seemed to be killing himself just to be liked, trying to get the love. A month after we talked in August was the September 11th tragedy, and I can only imagine that that's done nothing but worsen the cynicism and politics in the music other there. Are you comfortable?
Thom: Well, two separate questions, though, isn't it – politics and music? Oh, no, no; what about British music? Jonny you do the music bit, I'll do the other bit.
Jonny: British music at the moment? British bands? Um... It's, um...
Interviewer: Even not so much specifically the bands but, I mean, I remember you had taken a little flack from the critics because they didn't receive Kid A and Amnesiac the way you would have hoped.
Jonny: Yeah, it's funny, there was this idea that they were difficult records and I think that a lot of people listened to them for the first time with that in their heads, that it was gonna be. And they're really not. It's all repetitive and melodic music that's a few minutes long, each track, with lyrics. I mean, they're songs!
Thom: It ain't free jazz...
Jonny: It's not, exactly. Read some of the reviews, that's how it was perceived. So, no, I just think we went a direction people didn't expect us to go down and fair enough, people were a bit surprised, I think. But I think part of that is just a lot of people get into a certain type of music and stick with it, and keep looking for records that sound like that, and I think we suffered from that with some people.
Interviewer: You must feel to some degree, too, because of the whole mystique that surrounded Radiohead of the past couple of years, you must get to the point where you're like “just get out of our faces, just let us get on with what we're doing.”
Thom: Well, that's kind of why we were less like that this time, really. It was quite funny... we were actually really trying to be nice, weren't we? We had a definite ‘trying to be nice policy': just “whatever, takes so much energy, can't be arsed...”
Interviewer: So, how's that working for you? [laughs]
Thom: It's working quite well, actually! [laughs]
Interviewer: Very good...
Thom: Yes...
Interviewer: Here's what happened: we opened the floor – the flood gates, if you will – to your fans and I picked three fans with specific questions, and they had the opportunity to ask one specific question. They came in and got a chance to meet you and ask the one specific question. Let me start with... is Jason here? Jason didn't come here? Let's start with Millie, then. Say ‘hi' to the boys, Millie.
Millie: Hey, how are you?
Thom: Hey, Millie.
Jonny: Good afternoon.
Millie: Hi! My question is: if you were given the choice to play a live concert using only utensils found in a kitchen, what would you each pick and what will you play?
Thom: Oh, man... [laughs]
Interviewer: I call the soup ladle! [laughs]
Thom: Can we use any computers? No, I guess we can't...
Millie: Electric utensils?
Interviewer: What, are you gonna sample the toaster?
Thom: Electric utensils? Oh well that's something different...Electric utensils...
Jonny: It's floored me! Only because they'd all be great, wouldn't they? So it's just narrowing it down...
Thom: Would they?
Jonny: Yeah, of course they would! I dunno... how peculiar.
Thom: I don't think a fridge would be that good...
Jonny: Fridge, yeah! That would be great! A fridge!
Thom: Why would a fridge be good?
Jonny: Listening closely, the kind of buzz of a fridge would be great.
Thom: You can open the door... shut it again...
Jonny: Yeah, that sounds good. Very quiet sounds, but listened to for a long time, would be great.
Interviewer: If you could see the look on Thom's face right now... [laughs] Cheque please, everybody out of the pool!
Jonny: I'm sorry, I'm trying too hard. It's a very strange question, and one we're failing to answer...
Thom: I'm trying to think of something that actually has any note in it, in a kitchen...
Interviewer: Well, she's also just asked you to transpose your music into, you know, a toaster! So it's a fair thing if you can't really come up with an answer that quickly.
Thom: Yeah, not sure. Probably have to make something up.
Millie: All right.
Thom: Which would be awful.
Interviewer: Well, fair enough.
Jonny: But thank you anyway!
Interviewer: SurfwaxUSA at juno.com wants to know, Jonny...
Thom: What?!
Interviewer: This is from the ‘I just read them, I don't name them' file! “In reference to Jonny and his obsession with kites, I'd like to ask where in the world is the best place to fly a kite (so far that you've found).”
Jonny: Oh, um...
Thom: That place with the cow pats.
Jonny: Yeah, probably Port Meadow in Oxford, which is this big meadow where ‘Alice in Wonderland' was set and where, supposedly, the rabbit fell down the hole and all that happened. It's a very big meadow on the edge of Oxford.
Thom: And when he goes and flies his kite, you have to just...
Jonny: There's loads of horse... [trails off]
Thom: You have to... yeah. That's part of the deal, isn't it?
Jonny: But it's great, an amazing place. Really beautiful. So that's where I'd go.
Interviewer: That really is an interesting question, isn't it?
Jonny: Yeah, fair enough.
Interviewer: Our second listener is Brian from Plymouth, MA. Step up to the mic then, Brian.
Thom and Jonny: Hello there, Brian.
Brian: Hi, guys. I was wondering if you would please discuss your relationship with Stanley Donwood...
Thom: [laughs]
Brian: ...and how and why his beautiful art represents your magnificent music so perfectly well?
Interviewer: Is he still hanging out in his own space in your studio?
Thom: Yeah, he was there painting a cow this morning. [all laugh] He's left now. He got commissioned to paint a cow and he chose to delineate it the way that... you know, when go into a butcher's and it explains how all the bits..? And he's to put all the companies that have got the franchises to rebuild a rack as the different... anyway, shouldn't have said that, never mind. Our relationship with Stanley Donwood goes like this: he comes in the studio when we're sort of getting it together, and he goes down [to] the potting shed, and – this is how it was with the last record – and then he comes back in at the end of every day... usually slightly worse for wear... [laughs]
Jonny: Tired and emotional!
Thom: Tired and emotional! And we sort of have to rig up this thing so he can listen to the music while we're doing it and things. It's a weird thing: I went to college with him, so I've known him so long that when we have conversations about what's going on, they're conversations that only take about two minutes. And that two-minute conversation will then extend for the next three weeks worth of work, one way or another. It was quite weird for me though, for this record. Because we worked so fast I was not very involved in the artwork this time round. All the words were done from a list that I had, but then the next thing I knew he'd done these paintings and I'd been so busy, I didn't really see. It was a very strange feeling. You chaps went in there and you kept coming out going “wow, it's great!” and I was going “okay, yeah, I'll get five minutes to go down there” and then I never did. It was towards the end of the record I actually started seeing it all; it was really exciting.
Interviewer: It's interesting, when I hear the music I sort of get pictures, sometimes, and I just imagine him as a mad character, just sort of like “haha!”, “eureka!”, screaming out these mad shouts in the middle of the work here and there.
Thom: I think it's much more about... we have series of things that we have discussed at some point or other, and then at some point they come up and it's the right thing to do. It's not “eureka” or anything like that, but it's... suddenly something that's been kicking around for years will make sense and it'll happen.
Jonny: His first idea for the artwork for this record was erotic topiary. Which he didn't do in the end...
Thom: I was into that!
Jonny: ...probably because it was too obscure.
Thom: Topiary is cutting hedges. He wanted to commission some hedges to be cut. And that was going to be it.
Jonny: And take photographs of all of them.
Thom: Yeah, I was down with that!
Jonny: Yeah...
Thom: I thought that was a good idea...
Interviewer: So I was absolutely wrong and now feel like an ass, thank you very much. [laughs] All right, before I play some music let me get in another listener question. This comes from Michael: “I'd like to know if the members of Radiohead – having been together for so long – have developed certain roles while they're together? Has one become the father figure?”
Thom: [evil, manic laughter]
Interviewer: “Is one the nurturer? Does one always seem to get into trouble? Is one really good with business ideas while the others are always clowning around? Et cetera.”
Thom: We do have roles, but if we explain them then it would just end up like a bloomin' soap opera! Like your excellent soap operas that are on at lunch time, I was watching today. Sorry.
Interviewer: ‘Young and the Restless'?
Thom: I don't know what they're called but they all have extraordinary bodies!
Interviewer: [laughs] There was one other question that Jason...
Thom: How I'd manage to get out of that...
Interviewer: Look at this! Look at Mr. Day-Late-and-a-Dollar-Short walking in!
Thom: S'alright, we're on time.
Jason: I didn't get an e-mail confirmation or anything...
Interviewer: Jason – Radiohead, Radiohead – Jason. [sarcasm] Way to go, Jonny, nice one.
Jonny: Sorry, Jason.
Interviewer: [laughs] Why don't you just rip off your question while you're here?
Jason: I don't...
Thom: You don't have one? Excellent! Yey!
Interviewer: It's right here! [laughs] Spontaneity is so much better when it's planned, is it not?
Jason: All right, it's a question to
Thom: in an interview you said that you want Radiohead to sound unrecognisable in the next couple of years, or something like that?
Thom: Oh, did I?
Jason: So I just want to know if any of your recent song writing has reflected that movement?
Thom: We had this thing when we were finishing this record where we all sort of felt like whatever we did next should be some sort of lurch off into the unknown. But I think I'm kind of a bit suspicious about that, because if you deliberately do that, it's like a) you're being wilful, and b) you're just reacting to what you've done before, which is fine – but it only lasts about a week and then you've got to do something else. I know there's a bunch of things that we wanted to do on this record and we didn't do, like all the computer stuff.
Jonny: Yeah.
Thom: I found that incredibly frustrating, because I thought we were making one record and then we actually made the total opposite. Which is fine; I got my head round it... That was a bit too truthful, wasn't it?
Jonny: No, it's fair enough.
Thom: Chris is like “Oh, no...”
Jonny: It's weird, it's just got to be that balance between making records that sound like nothing you've heard before, which often isn't enough. You kind of have to make good music as well – or try to.
Thom: And a lot of the “we haven't it before” thing comes from whatever you have heard.
Jonny: Yeah, exactly.
Thom: Whatever you think is cutting edge at the time. The trouble with that is that new sounds and new techniques or whatever – because of the way the music business works – just get stolen really fast, and any good idea just gets destroyed really quickly. It's a really difficult thing. If you deliberately set out to be different, then you've just gonna sound the same, aren't you?
Interviewer: Well, it's almost as if the second something works it no longer works.
Thom: Yep.
Interviewer: So where do you go from there?
Thom: Yes. And usually you don't know why it worked in the first place.
Interviewer: Fair enough. All right, it's WBCN Boston, Thom and Jonny from Radiohead. I wanna play something from Hail to the Thief. I was gonna play ‘Backdrifts' but I'll play whatever you want.
Thom: Oh, ‘Backdrifts'! Good, good, good!
Interviewer: You like that?
Thom: Yes, yes!
Interviewer: All right. Didn't think you'd here this on the radio, did you?
Thom: No! That's why we're here!
Interviewer: Kind of makes you want to treat me with a little more respect now, doesn't it..?
[End of part 1]
[Part 2]
[Fade out ‘Backdrifts']
Interviewer: Very nice, that's pretty dope! Boston's alternative rock, WBCN... One of my favourites from Hail to the Thief. Hey, when you get your own little radio show you can play your favourite songs, as well. You like that? Now, is that difficult to reproduce live? At this point, are you all set with ‘whatever you do in-studio you're perfectly capable of reproducing it live and happily'?
Thom: Yes, yes we do a version of it live. We don't do it with live drums; we slice up all the drums and put them down so that Phil mixes all the rhythms in and out and stuff. And Jonny, you do all this nutty backwards stuff on the guitar that's not on there. So it's just different, basically. We've just invented something else to do with it, really.
Jonny: Yeah, that's about right.
Interviewer: It seems to me... a lot of bands talk about this idea, but you guys seem to live it. It seems like the second there's even a sniff – a hint – of repetition, you guys go insane and you have to go in another, different direction.
Thom: Yeah, I don't know about that...
Interviewer: It's not a criticism, it's just an observation.
Thom: But then, the point is, you repeat yourself and you can't help it... just all the time, anyway.
Jonny: Yeah, that's...
Thom: You're trapped in your own head, full stop.
Jonny: We're sort of... this is the only way we can play and make music, so there'll be repetition coming from that. It's not like we can effortlessly switch and play perfect jazz or reggae or any other style of music. We can't! This is all we can do, so it will end up sounding the same.
Interviewer: Tell me this: between the music and – I know you have an interest, Jonny, in film and you've all done some film – and Stanley's work with the art and whether it be computer stuff or illustrations... is Radiohead, at this point, more than a band? It's almost like an artist collaborative/collective, or am I just over-thinking it entirely too much?
Thom: I've always wanted it to be like that, but it's not. Basically, I think in the process of the last few years I've discovered that all the good energy of anything, like Stanley always says, comes from the fact that the music's... you know. Stanley gets his energy to do what he's doing from the music, and people who do the videos get that from there. Without the music being there, there's kind of nothing going on, really. So it's not a collective in that sense, it's everything responding to whatever good things are coming out of the speakers. That's it, so it ain't Andy Warhol. [laughs] Although, I would love that here.
Interviewer: Hey, I have two Andy Warhols! There'll be none of that, there's be no dissing of Andy Warhol.
Thom: [high, sqeaky voice] oooh, he's got an Andy Warhol! Ooh!
Interviewer and Jonny: [laugh]
Interviewer: No, I actually made a pilgrimage to Pittsburgh to see the Warhol museum and his tombstone, and I realised there's really nothing in Pittsburgh besides Andy Warhol's tombstone!
Thom: Oooph!
Interviewer: You're played there, you should know! [laughs] All right, WBCN Boston, this is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. Many other questions off the internet, regarding, specifically, the end of the ‘Just' video...
Thom: Ugh.
Interviewer: The thread of commonality was: are you ever gonna reveal what the guys are saying to each other in the end, but...
Thom: We don't know! [laughs]
Interviewer: No, no, all right, let me get to the point. One girl actually e-mailed; she said “why can't people just accept the end of the ‘Just' video?” And then I got this e-mail from John, who says “at end of the video for ‘Just' the subtitles are blurred out so we can't see what is being said between the man laying on the sidewalk and the man standing above him. Question – what are they saying to each other? Followup (because they are not likely to answer the first question) – why would you put a sequence like that in one of your videos, knowing full-well it would drive us fans crazy? Are you musical/video elitists of sorts?”
Thom and Jonny: Yes!
Interviewer: Very nice!
[all cheer]
Thom: Woo! Next question!
Interviewer: Very good.
Thom: [accent] Thanks.
Interviewer: I also wonder at this stage of the game, too, how you even develop a setlist when you tour, and here's another question from Rebecca. She says: “A question for Radiohead – how are setlists determined? Do you ever check out message boards to see what songs fans are hoping to hear? You recently played ‘Creep' in Japan – what prompted that decision?”
Thom: [unclear] No, better not...
Jonny: Yeah, we do setlists anything up to two or three hours before the show, sometimes we think we're gonna do tomorrow's setlist tonight, it's different all the time.
Thom: Nightmare...
Jonny: And ‘Creep' we played in Japan with like 5 minutes warning, we just decided to do it.
Thom: Yeah, why did we do it then?
Interviewer: See, I'm a half-wit for not pre-reading this because I didn't want to bring up the C-word...
Jonny: No, it's fine...
Thom: No, it's a good song. It's peculiar, because it's like doing a cover. I actually quite like the words now, you see. So, I quite like singing it.
Interviewer: ...D'OH! [all laugh] The internet is now buzzing! “Wait a minute, Thom likes ‘Creep'!”
Thom: Requests from rock shows all over the country going “Hey! He likes it now!” [all laugh] Oh, shit...
Interviewer: You say two hours before the show but with such a vast wealth of material and such different feels and styles from album to album... again, how do you even fashion a setlist?
Thom: It's quite a difficult thing. We're doing lots of festivals, so you end up doing something that's sort of like a festival set. We kind of want to move things around, but it's really difficult. Who knows? It's one of those things. The way we basically doing now, whatever we wake up with that morning that we want to play, that's usually the right thing to play, and that can actually often be prompted by people saying “why haven't you done that for ages?” and things like that. That actually does help sometimes. So long as it's not ‘Coke Babies' or something incredibly obscure, which we simply cannot play.
Interviewer: I've seen a lot of bands that, when they have lived with a song for a long time they decide to go back and do it they're like “we have to back and relearn this now!”
Thom: Oh, yeah.
Interviewer: Are there just songs in the repertoire that, if somebody yelled them out you wouldn't know where to begin?
Thom: No, there's lots like that. And there one's that the crew might actually kill us... if we suddenly announced to play them.
Jonny: Yeah.
Thom: Anyway.
Interviewer: Here's a more technical question from Greg...
Thom: More technical?
Interviewer: ...Greg, from West Newberry, he says “you've worked extensively with Nigel (Nigel Godrich) who seems to be as much part of Radiohead – almost like a sixth Radiohead, as much as George Martin was the fifth Beatle. Although you seem to have a great working relationship with Nigel, do you ever see yourselves working with another producer to develop your sound in different ways? My own question is: in what you guys, do what role does the producer serve? Because in a lot of bands a producer is either like a hands on – as you say: sixth member of the band – or maybe an objective ear, or in some cases a referee?
Jonny: Well, he's someone whose opinion we trust and we seek his opinion about things, which we don't with anybody else. So when we are recording we definitely rely on him. I think he was working at his best, as well, with this record because he was being presented with songs that were finished rather than watching us rehearse and watching us learn how to use equipment, which was part of the problem with Kid A and Amnesiac. A headache for him, anyway. This time he was...
Interviewer: Not to interrupt you, but during that time, did he help you shape the sounds?
Jonny: Yeah, he was kind of into it, too.
Interviewer: If you were learning the instruments, was he one of those guys who could say “all right well I think I see where you're going, here's how you can get there”?
Jonny: Kind of, yeah, he was certainly enthusiastic.
Thom: He had to teach us how to use the stuff... [laughs]
Jonny: Yeah, and partly teaching as well. He was just there maybe a few months early and we would drive him crazy but he stuck with us. All credit to him, really, he's been very patient.
Thom: Yep. Referee, definitely, sometimes.
Jonny: Yeah, as well.
Interviewer: ‘Cause I can imagine at times with the different visions in the band, that studio must have looked like Beirut on a Saturday night, from time to time. [laughs]
Thom: At the beginning of Kid A it was Beirut on a Saturday night.
Jonny: Yeah...
Thom: Frequently.
Jonny: It's very interesting when we start recording a song and Thom and I have exactly opposite ideas of how it should end up sounding. And it can be weird.
Interviewer: I'd love to be a fly on the wall during those times, man! [laughs]
Thom: Trust me, it ain't good...
Jonny: Yeah, it's cool. (school?)
Interviewer: All right, I don't want to tire you out...
Thom: Have we done all the questions?
Interviewer: Yeah we did, but I don't want to lapse into tedium, so pick another song from Hail to the Thief. Pick one, Jonny.
Jonny: Oh, okay...
Thom: Pick one, Jonny!
Jonny: Why don't you play ‘A Wolf at the Door'?
Thom: Yay.
Interviewer: Yeah, good call! All right, and again, I cannot thank you enough, but I can thank you in French: merci, merci, merci!
[Thom and Jonny's responses unclear. Jonny's sounds like “ice”, and Thom's like “cumpleangas”. Possibly something to do with French?]
Interviewer: For coming up, and more importantly for allowing us to broadcast the show because there are literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people who didn't get tickets because it sold out [snaps] like that.
Jonny: So is it broadcast live live?
Interviewer: Yes.
Thom: So can I swear?
Jonny: You know I'm using...
Interviewer: Oh, I'd be disappointed if you didn't! Nine o'clock, tomorrow night?
Thom: I just need to check.
Interviewer: I'd be disappointed if you didn't, you know, lob the occasional f-bomb here and there!
Thom: I'm terribly vulgar, my mum hates it.
Interviewer: That's rock and roll!
Jonny: You know, I use a radio on stage and tune into a radio station. So will I get us coming into it then?
Interviewer: Yeah! Here's what you do.
Jonny: It's all gonna be very weird!
Interviewer: Here's what you do: you'll tune in us, broadcasting you...
Jonny: Yeah.
Interviewer: ...and if you can sample that...
Jonny: Everyone's radio will free track, everywhere.
Interviewer: There'll be so much interference and weirdness!
Thom: Wouldn't it just go “wooo”?
Jonny: We'll try it!
Interviewer: That's it!
Jonny: What are you, 104.1? Cool, okay.
Interviewer: And tomorrow morning in NME: [British accent] “Radiohead's strange new direction.” [laughs]
Thom: We're tuning in on ourselves, man!
Interviewer: [British accent] “Their new static engine!”
Jonny: Cool!
Interviewer: Which reminds me... since you kissed and made up with NME...?
Thom: Did we?
Jonny: Yeah. We don't talk to anyone.
Thom: Wow, I'll kiss anybody. I don't even remember doing it!
Interviewer: Has the détente held?
Thom: I don't know, I don't read it! I guess that's how it's held?
Interviewer: That pretty much is an answer to the question, is it not? [all laugh] “We get along just fine as long as I don't read them!” [laughs] All right, again, Boston and everyone here in the studio help me thank Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. [applause]
Jonny: Thank you!
Thom: [nasal voice] Thank you.
Interviewer: You're very good men and thank you so much for coming up to WBCN.
Thom: [nasal voice] Thank you.
Interviewer: And this is another one from Hail to the Thief.
Thom: [nasal voice] Thank you.
Interviewer: ‘A Wolf at the Door'. You wanna drop one more? [laughs]