Adam Twelve: "It's Adam Twelve a conversation with Ed O'Brien on 104.1 WBCN the rock of Boston, and you're rocking where, Ed?

Ed O'Brien: "I'm in London. It's very rainy and very dreary here too

Adam: "And you'll actually be traveling to Boston, you're very coy as usual, you Radiohead lads (Ed laughs), announcing not tour dates per se, but just the American cities that you'll be visiting on your next tour, and I did see Boston on the list but of course not a date. Can you at least give us a date as to when that'll be firmed up, when we'll find out when you're coming to visit us?

Ed: "Errrmm... I think in February some time. I know that we're going to be in the Boston area in August...

Adam: "Ok

Ed: "So, yeah that's when we'll be... I think mid August sometime

Adam: "Excellent. Now I've got listeners feverishly blocking out chunks of their summer vacation now in order to see Radiohead live (Ed laughs). Actually, we just announced this, it's very good that this worked out this way, Ed, we have a little thing we call the WBCN World Tour where we send our listeners all over the world to see their favourite bands, and you guys are up next, we're sending folks to see you in Barcelona at this Daydream Festival. What is this all about this Daydream Festival? I looked online and couldn't find out much

Ed: "(laughs) I don't know much either! I know that it's a festival in the middle of Barcelona, and Barcelona is one of the great cities of the world. I went on holiday with my family last... a year ago, I was there exactly a year ago. It's a fantastic city. The gig will probably start at about midnight, we'll finish at about two, and everyone will party till about six in the morning and then, you know we'll all go and have breakfast together, so... it's just a great, great city, so it should be fun

Adam: "See, I like that schedule, I tend to shy away from festival shows because I'm not a big fan of being outdoors all day where there's really nothing to take refuge underneath

Ed: "Yeah

Adam: "I like being outdoors, I like hiking and things like that, but standing around in the middle of a parking lot waiting for your favourite band to play can sometimes be a little tedious, but seeing your favourite band play at midnight...

Ed: "Yeah

Adam: "After you've been eating and getting hammered all night long, that actually I can get behind

Ed: "Yeah, absolutely, and all the beautiful people around, people aren't wearing much, and it's a warm night, and you know, it's all good

Adam: "Excellent, and that's a great pitch actually (Ed laughs). That sounds like it's going to be a great trip, because we always try to send folks to cities that... where it's not just "ok, we'll get in and we'll get out, and we'll stay at the airport hotel and we'll go to the show and we'll leave", but it sounds to me like you're a big fan of Barcelona and there's a lot to do there rather than just this Daydream Festival

Ed: "Oh, man, it's such a great city. Whoever goes will have a... just a ball

Adam: "A ringing endorsement from Ed O'Brien from Radiohead here on WBCN. And something I had seen on your website, talking about this Daydream Festival briefly, was telling people to use public transportation and not to drive, which seems to be a theme that your band is employing not just at this Barcelona Daydream Festival, but with touring in general

Ed: "Yeah, well what we... what we've done is that we wanted to reduce the carbon footprint of our touring schedule, and we had a audit done, and basically what was quite revealing was that the largest contributing factor to the carbon footprint was actually the people traveling to the shows, and that's why we've decided to have all our gigs, all our concerts in cities or just around cities, where there is a good infrastructure. In Europe and the UK, it's a big thing because, you know, we've still got, you know, railways that... .I know that Boston is a fairly... is good on public transport as well, but...

Adam: "Absolutely, and it's a walking city as well

Ed: "Exactly, but a lot of America is just built on the motor car, so it's going to be an interesting thing what we're trying to do in America. What we're trying to do is... all the information's on our website of this audit, and it's quite revealing about how people come to gigs and we're just going to... we trying to educate people and open their eyes to what goes on at these shows and to try and get people to car pool if they have to come by car, and if they can take the train or the bus or whatever, because our planet is warming up and we wanted to... .we didn't want to go out on tour and, you know... it would just be very strange to go out on tour and be huge energy consumers and feel that you were... you know we all have a responsibility now to do something, and to negate that by going out on tour seems a bit stupid, so we're trying to just make people more aware really, if that makes any sense. Probably just waffling

Adam: "It makes perfect sense, Ed, and I applaud you for it. I think people fall on either side of the global warming issue, but I don't think that anyone with any sort of head on their shoulders would disagree with the fact that our actions are having a negative effect on the planet. And a lot of people may be critical of going green as a trend or fad, but I don't see anything bad about a trend or a fad that involves living better, and living better for the planet as well, so...

Ed: "Well said, Adam

Adam: "Not only that you're making the choices that you're making, but that you're going out of your way to educate your fans on it as well. It's Ed O'Brien from Radiohead on WCBN. And your fans at least in the US came out in force, and bought was it, a hundred and twenty some odd thousand copies of the In Rainbows disc when it dropped on New Year's Day, and that's in the wake of your big groundbreaking online release. Were you surprised to see the high sales in America? Did you think that it would sell more, sell less?

Ed: "We had no idea, and I think it was two days ago in rehearsal, and someone said... .because we'd heard the Midweek and we'd heard in America that it was doing well, and our manager said "it could get in the top five", you know in the album charts, and we were like "great, that's brilliant", and then two days ago it was dropped, our managers called and said "it's number one in America, and you've beaten Alicia Keys to the top spot", and I mean it's just very very bizarre. It obviously very exciting, it's still a thrill, it's still a genuine thrill to get a number one record even if... you know when we did the download and everything, we sort of bypassed that route, and we weren't really going for chart placings or anything, because they... you know, you just can't quantify that, but yeah, it's a genuine thrill and we're genuinely happy and those people who've bought it are beautiful people (laughs)

Adam: "(laughs)

Ed: "Thank you

Adam: "I would be curious to see... I wish there was a way we could see the number of people who bought it and try to trace that back to the In Rainbows download from this last fall, and just see if any of those people who bought it were people who had downloaded it from the site for free...

Ed: "Well, you know...

Adam: "And had listened to it and decided "oh, you know what, I want to do the right thing, I want to go out and purchase it when it comes out"

Ed: "Yeah, well that's interesting that you've said that because I think on the second day of... .like it was announced on October the tenth, or whatever and the second day... or October the first, I can't remember... I went on some... .I just went on the net and started, you know, you just go on, and I started... I found myself in these US chatrooms, and they weren't Radiohead chatrooms, they were other... and they were talking about the music chatrooms, and what a lot of people were saying was very interesting, they said "listen, I'm not paying anything for the download, but if I like this record, I'd like to go back to the website and give some money and I'd like to... or I'll buy a CD in future, or I'll buy a ticket to a show", so I think it'd be really interesting to see if you could break that down and how many people who did precisely that – didn't pay anything for the download, but actually bought the CD, and I think at the end of the day as well, I'm still... in terms of if it was a band I liked and I could get to download their music immediately, I would get it, but I also... I mean I'm kind of old fashioned, I guess, I like to have something physical in your hand...

Adam: "I do as well, yeah

Ed: "I like to read the sleeve notes, I like to see the artwork, I like to... you know, I like all that stuff

Adam: "It enhances the experience. We're talking to Ed O'Brien on WBCN. I'll be curious to see how many bands employ the strategy that you employed too, because it seems to me, now that you take into account the success of having a number one record in the wake of this experiment if you will, it seems to be a successful experiment.

Ed: "Yeah

Adam: "I see it being employed less by bands at your level who have had major label record deals and are established worldwide and have a fanbase and who, you know make cash and sell records, I see it as a model that could probably be better employed by maybe smaller level bands, again going along the lines of what you just described, Ed, "hey we're going to put our music out here for free, and if you like it, hopefully you'll do the right thing and you'll either purchase it down the road or you'll do something else, you'll buy some merch, or grab a pair of tickets to a show, etc"

Ed: "Yeah

Adam: "Adam Twelve and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead talking about the In Rainbows disk being offered up for download, pick a price this past fall, talking about how other bands are making similar choices

Ed: "Well, I think that's the way that music's going... in fact the people who did it before us, I was really aware of was... I know that who are natives of Boston are... Tanya Donelly's done it, I know

Adam: "Right, right, from the band Belly

Ed: "Absolutely, and Throwing Muses and also Kristen Hersh, her sister did it as well

Adam: "Yes

Ed: "So they kind of... they've both kind of done the "honesty box" thing, and I think it's great, and I agree, I think it can... hopefully it can work on many levels. It depends with the big bands, it depends, you know with the big bands, you know... the... not the temptation, but we had serious amounts of money sort of waved in our faces by major record companies, and you just have to be strong and go, you know "well, we're going to do it our own way", or whatever, but I think it's definitely... there'll definitely be more of this kind of stuff in the future hopefully

Adam: "Well I hope that, and even if it's not the model that you... Radiohead have employed, if it's a similar model, something needs to be done because the model that's in place now just plain doesn't work. I mean the golden ring in the past was that major label record deal and more and more bands are figuring out that's almost a bad thing

Ed: "Yeah

Adam: "I mean not to get too inside with the industry, but you know, you get the advance, you've got to recoup it, and now you're in a bad place if you didn't sell enough records... you didn't sell enough records on your debut, there's probably not a chance of you getting continued support from the label promotionally, etc, etc, so something needs to be done

Ed: "Yeah

Adam: "So I'm glad that this model is out there, and hopefully some people will at least take it and employ it, or maybe put their own different twist on it

Ed: "Yeah, there's a very interesting story... I love the story about... because record companies, even when we started, they were into development, and bands would get in debt to the record companies, and it would take them a while to pay it back. The great story about U2 with Island, was that by the time their third album, War had come out, they were about two million in debt to the label. Now if that was nowadays, that label would probably drop U2, but because U2 were owned by Chris Blackwell, it was one guy, they weren't answerable to shareholders, the one guy said "listen, I know what this band are capable of doing, they're amazing, we've just set the scene, we've just built the foundations, so what if they're two million in debt, we'll recoup it in the future" and that's the kind of thing we need to get back to

Adam: "I agree with you, I agree with you. Not this flash in the pan sort of thing that's been happening, almost employing a pop music take to the world of rock and roll, but more artist development. Ed O'Brien from Radiohead on WBCN. Real quick, before I let you go, you must have taken a poll of your friends and family, Ed, who among your camp paid what for the In Rainbows CD?

Ed: "(laughs) Well, I spoke to my mum the other night, and you know, she knows about computers and stuff like that, but she... (laughs)... she was a bit... she said "oh, I just couldn't go on it", you know "I didn't... I couldn't go on it", so she was a bit scared to go on it, so she never went on it, but... erm... who did it? I know that one of Thom's neighbours... in fact Thom bought his house off somebody, and one of his neighbours I think paid the maximum amount, which was ninety nine pounds, ninety nine pence, I think that's what he said, and it's quite interesting because apparently there is a list somewhere of everyone in the world who paid what, and apparently there's some very interesting names on there, but you know, of course we would never see that (inaudible) (laughs)

Adam: "Of course, of course, and I was going to say that that neighbour of Thom's that paid the maximum makes up for all of Thom's friends who told him "oh, yeah yeah I paid about ten pounds for it", but in reality didn't pay anything for it

Ed: "Yeah, yeah (laughs)

Adam: "Ed O'Brien from Radiohead, thank you for taking time out. Very excited to hear about the festival show in Barcelona, that we'll be sending a lucky listener to, that's going to be a great experience

Ed: "Cool

Adam: "And looking very much forward to seeing you when you come through town in the middle of August, and hopefully we'll get to chat face to face and have a pint or something like that

Ed: "Nice one, man. Thanks very much for your time

Adam: "Thanks again, Ed. Best of luck

Ed: "Cheers, Bye

Adam: "Cheers

[recording ends]