FM 94/9 is a US radio station based in San Diego. Ed talked to them from London. This is a transcript from an audio recording of the broadcast.
Garett Michaels: "It is 7:31 and tommy and I are thrilled to welcome Ed O'Brien from Radiohead to FM 94.9. Ed, can you hear us alright?
Ed: "yeah, good morning gentlemen.
Tommy Hough: "Hey, Ed! Good morning! Welcome to the program. It's great to have you here.
Ed: "It's nice to be with you in San Diego. The surf sounds great!
Tommy: "(laughs) There's some decent weather somewhere in the world right now.
Ed: "Not here in London, sadly.
Tommy: "Well, it's great you can join us this morning and we've got a whole host of questions we wanted to run by you and kind of 'geek out' a little bit. But Garett, what did you want to ask Ed?
Garett: "well the first thing I want to ask Ed is, you know, we're thrilled to find out that you've announced that you will be playing in North America this year, and we noticed that San Diego is one of the cities that is listed, so, curious if we're able to get any additional info out of you. What part of the year are you planning on being over here. Do you know?
Ed: "I think we can -- I think I'm allowed to say it's August.
Garett: "August.
Tommy: "August, OK.
Ed: "Yeah. Conveniently enough, I don't have my list on me. So yeah, I'm usually vague and it is August. Near the end of August.
Tommy: "That's a great time to be in San Diego!
Ed: "Yeah, we've been many times to San Diego, and yeah, August would be great.
Garett: "Those pair of shows that the band did back in, I believe, June of -- was it '05? -- at Bayside were absolutely incredible. A great setting, and of course you were out working on some of the new material that is now on In Rainbows.
Ed: "Yeah.
Garett: "So I guess that leads to the question: was that the decision? The decision to go out and test-drive all the material before you went into the studio? Or was some of the work already done before you went on the road?
Ed: "No. We'd spent a year -- about a year -- kind of self-producing and doing some stuff. And it just hadn't happened, and we were feeling a little bit, kind of insecure about the whole thing. And what we decided to -- our usual thing that we've done when things aren't feeling so good, we decide to go play songs in front of people, go out on tour for a bit. And you know, it's a double-edged sword, because it's always such a pleasure and a treat and a privilege to play in front of people. But the problem is, by the time that tour had finished, we'd played these songs -- I don't know -- about 60 times, and we were really bored of them. And then we had to go and record them. So we wanted it to be a sort of a fairly quick process. And we thought the idea was, we would go out on tour, play them in, and then go in studio and record them live with Nigel. Godrich. Our producer. And it didn't work out like that, because when we got back in the studio, they just weren't good enough. So we've done most of the bulk of the recording in 2007. And we had to sort of really knuckle down and nail them, but thankfully, I think we really did it.
Tommy: "And Ed, were you really aiming for an album release at the end of 2007, early 2008, and you sort of had this schedule for yourselves, you wanted to get the album out then?
Ed: "Yeah. We knew we had to put a deadline on what we did. And we knew that June/July -- well, June -- we had to finish all the mixing and all the tracklisting. Mastering could go on during the summer, but basic by June of 2007, which meant that we would have a download release for -- we were looking at September/October, with the physical release about now, which is exactly how it's panned out.
Garett: "So the plan was originally -- I mean, this wasn't something that was just hatched in the final moments? 'OK, the record's done, let's put it online.' Was this always the plan?
Ed: "No, it wasn't always the plan. About April of last year we were about -- you know, we were about 80 percent through the record, and our management was -- we were out of contract -- and they were like, 'We'll just wait and see to see what kind of record you've done.' They were saying, 'If you're going to do one of your art house projects -- records -- maybe a download situation or a small independent might be perfect. But we didn't make that kind of a record. So they had this idea of the download only and that's what their team (the RA team?) wanted to do. They wanted it to be just pure kind of download and a box set and that was it. But we were kind of like, 'well, we think it's important to have a CD out there.' I mean, we still -- I still buy CDs and there's something nice about having that CD in your hand and everything. And we wanted to do that. So then we had a rough plan but it wasn't like -- you know, usually these plans have sort of taken two or three years to come together and this all came together quite quickly. I mean, we sort of decided on it April/May of last year, and by October the thing was released. And we hadn't even finished the record -- and it had to be mastered -- until the beginning of September. So it all happened, relatively speaking, in quite speedy terms for the music industry.
Tommy: "You know, Ed, that's wonderful that you mentioned that you still enjoy buying CDs. And I think one of the reasons Radiohead has such a following is because you guys still engage in the whole idea of albums and thematic programming for your music.
Ed: "Yeah.
Tommy: "And I guess I wanted to ask, how far back do some of the songs on In Rainbows date? Because you played some of them here in 2005 in Southern California, but how far back do some of the songs go?
Ed: "Well, Nude, which is the third track on the record, we played that -- in fact, we recorded that, we did a version of that when we were recording OK Computer. And, you know, we did a kind of a nice version of it, but it wasn't right. And we even played it on that tour -- on the OK Computer tour we played it live. But it had a different arrangement and it had a different feel. You know, it's funny with a song like that, because songs have their times. They have their moments. I always think that like, really great songs, as well, they have their times of the day. There can be a great song, but it might only really make sense at five o'clock in the morning, or the great song, the Damned - New Rose, it doesn't make sense necessarily at seven in the morning, but seven in the evening, before you go out, boy, it really does its job. So it's kind of the same way when you're recording songs, that you can't really force things too much. If they don't feel right -- you know that something's good -- but if you can't feel it, and you can't put everything into it, then you just have to wait. And you just have to let it gestate and lie there a bit and then you can come back to it in a couple of years or so.
Garett: "Ed, the record is absolutely a stunner, and it's a grower as well. I mean, I loved it when I first got it and downloaded it, and was looking forward to the day I could actually have the CD and listen to it in its full sonic beauty. The songs are killer, but I'm curious: do you have a personal favorite song on the album for you?
Ed: "I love Bodysnatchers. I mean, I think that's like -- I love it when we rock it up a bit, because, you know, we used to do that a lot, and we don't do that so much. And I still get a thrill -- kind of like, three guitars and driving rhythm section, and it still gets me. But I don't know, I mean, I really love Jigsaw and I love Reckoner and Arpeggi, I mean, and that was the thing about the record. Normally, you sort of -- not normally, but on Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac, certainly -- there would be tracks on there that I wasn't so fond of. And that had never been the case on The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A. They'd always been -- you know, we'd fought over the songs but we came to a unanimous decision. And we rediscovered that process again. We had to fight a little bit, but we found that thing that we all agreed on, and they were the ten tracks that made it and that we all loved. So it really depends on the mood -- and the last week, we've been rehearsing, and we've been playing some of the songs, trying to work them up. And we've been playing Arpeggi, and it's really hard to play as a band, because it's -- a lot of this record is groove-based, as well, so you have to get the right tempos and the grooves, and they can be a bit intricate. So Arpeggi's kind of doing it for me at the moment, really, I guess.
Tommy: "Well, Ed, it's funny what you said about the right time of day -- and it goes with the right lighting. And the right --
Ed: "Yeah, absolutely! Yeah, the right emotion.
Tommy: "Yeah, exactly, and what a certain type of day brings to how you're hearing the music.
Ed: "Yeah.
Tommy: "But when you guys bring songs to each other, I guess I want to get a little bit of an insight into how you guys write your songs. I mean, are you individually writing songs and then bringing them to the band? What's the give-and-take like when you guys are making a record?
Ed: "Well, the first thing is that Thom writes all the lyrics, which is right. And he's such a prolific songwriter, so he writes the bulk of the song, the music and the chords. Often Jonny will have contributed to that as well. But when he brings them in, what we do as a band, is that we do all the arranging. We all write our own parts and stuff like that. The analogy has always been -- Thom's always said, 'It's like I come in with the sketches,' and then we make the painting together on the canvas. We color it in, we might rearrange things and stuff like that. So that's generally how -- that's traditionally how it's worked forever, actually, with us.
Garett: "Ed, I don't want to take up too much of your time, I know that you're doing this and taking time out of your day to talk to radio stations all over about the record and the tour. I'm just curious about the tour, quickly: I noticed on some of the web casts you've been doing some really interesting and very tasty cover songs.
Ed: "Yeah, man.
Garett: "Will that be the case on the tour?
Ed: "Well it would be great. I mean, we used to do 'Nobody Does It Better,' you know, the old Carly Simon song.
Tommy: "(laughs)
Ed: "And that was such fun to do! And we did 'Cinnamon Girl' -- Neil Young's 'Cinnamon Girl'...
Tommy: "Oh, nice!
Ed: "...and it would be great to throw in. Yeah it would be great to throw in -- we did New Order - 'Ceremony' and we did the Smiths - 'Headmaster Ritual,' and we've kind of been rehearsing Happy House - Siouxsie & the banshees.
Tommy: "Cool.
Ed: "And it's funny, because we've been doing all this 80s stuff, which is kind of like -- which is our youth, really. You know, when we were teenagers. They were very formative years, and those bands. And Jonny, who's about four years younger than the rest of us, he said, 'I'm getting fed up with this 80s shit that you guys are doing. Why can't we do something about the same era when I am?' And we're like, 'and what, sort of MC Hammer and Ice Ice Baby and all that stuff? That was more your era.' (laughing)
Ed: "Yeah, that's more Jonny's era. So we kind of nipped that one in the bud, really. But no, it would be nice to. When you don't want to play your own stuff and the pressure's off, just to play other people's songs is such a great thing to do. And you play songs that you adore and you've had some kind of connection with. It's great.
Garett: "Ed, I'm sorry, we've got to jump, and I know that you have -- I'm getting the high-sign here, that we're going over on our time, but once again, we're really looking forward to seeing Radiohead on tour this year, and thrilled that you're coming back to San Diego. We love the record, and, uh, maybe if you guys are feeling it... I know you're doing some radio stuff. I know you're doing a BBC takeover.
Ed: "Yeah.
Garett: "We'd love to invite the band in to do something here in San Diego on FM 94.9 when you're here in August. Consider it and spread it around to the guys.
Ed: "Yeah. Thanks for the invite.
Garett: "Let's drop a track in right now and we'll play the track that right now I'm completely hooked on, and it sounds like Ed's into, too. This is 'Bodysnatchers' from In Rainbows. Ed from Radiohead, thank you so much for coming in, man.
Tommy: "Thank you, Ed!
Ed: "Hey, thanks Garett. Thanks Tommy. Good luck to you both.