thom interview
// «Magic» special issue, april 2003
:: transcript from french by Valerie {at.Ease}
:: mailto qwerrie © 2005
this is not a full transcript of the interview (which is longer) but the most useful part, some things that are new to us — while others were chewed up two dozen times. part two (hopefully) will include some interviews with band tour crew and management etc. so, enjoy!
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— About where HTTT comes from:After the 9/11 events, I spent a lot of time listening to the radio, political shows...Each time I was hearing a word or a sentence that I found interesting, I was writing them down. I would pick up a word because of the way it sounds and not because of its meaning, all the more so as I withdrawed them from their original context. And I found myself with this huge list of abstract sentences.
— Did you use some sort of cut-up technique?
not really, it could have happened on some of the texts, because I wasn't aiming at giving a meaning to the lyrics, but I did'nt want to analyse what I was writing. Now, when I read them again in hindsight, I'm surprised by the sort of feeling that appear, a feeling of incredible anger. It's a bit scary. But I didn't do it deliberately, although I understand some of the lyrics can be seen as political.
— How they recorded HTTT:
You must be aware that, when you're making music, you fail 90% of the time, you don't get the result you wished to obtain. But this is those failures that help you go further, concretise what you want to obtain. Actually, it's the total opposite to what you've learned at school : (professorial tone ) "in life, you must only think about succeeding".
— So, you've learned to fail?
Yes, in a way. No, actually, it's exactly that. Especially in music. I think the worst thing is to listen to a musician that never screw up anything, or to listen to a drummer who's in the rythm all the time. (laugh )
— Are accidents important for your music?
I was really into this state of mind during Kid A/Amnesiac. We were discovering an unknown world, making things blindly, learning on the job. We were recording every idea we found, even if it was ridiculous. Anyway, to come back to this failure thing, you don't have to do it deliberately ... It makes me think of Jonny : on stage, when he makes a mistake, eventually he does it again, to make us think he did it on purpose ! He knows we're not fooled by that but he doesn't mind !
— About the confidence back:
At the moment we're very confident, actually, we hardly felt that confident since the beginning of the band. But i think that, at the end of the tour, we'll probably be in a completely different state of mind.
— Precisely, those periods of doubt followed by periods of confidence, isn't it one of the strenghs of the band?
Yes. No doubt about that. The last two albums wouldn't have existed if we hadn't -- and me, particularly -- lost confidence in everything we've done before.
— Today, do you see Kid A/Amnesiac as a therapy that had helped Radiohead to go further?
The therapy works if you get to realise what you've really got in mind. Music is not a science. For weeks on end, you hear a sound in your head but you're unable to reproduce it. It can be painful. But when you succeed in reproducing it, it's fantastic ... besides, I swear the best things we've done, each time, were the ones we first imagined, the ones that were first existing in our brains.
— What's the older song on HTTT?
'wolf at the door', I think. No, this one and 'Where I end and you begin' are from the same sessions of the beginning of OK Computer. But they didn't fit at the time. 'I will' is from the same period as well. It seems it's a reccurent thing for us : At one point, we're working on a track but nobody is on the same wavelength. Then, we remember it later and everything takes place almost spontaneously. That's what happened with 'The national anthem', that I first write in ... in 1994 ! Actually, it was funny : we were working on something else when Colin found the bass tune, which was exactly what was missing for us to go further with 'The national anthem'.
— Do you see yourselves as thieves?
Of course ! Everything, in that album is stolen (smile ) ! It's a bad thing and a good thing : for years we've been influenced by others, it annoys me sometimes. I'd like that, for once, we could be able to follow one idea at a time for a whole album. Or at least for a whole song ! (laugh ) But yeah, it's what pop music is.
— If you'd find yourself running out of inspiration, which young blood would you suck?
I need some time to think about it ... no, I can't think of anybody. Anyway, I'd prefer to suck 'old blood', it's less risky.
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