Radiohead's interview
// Flemish magazine Knack, December 2007
:: english translation from dutch by piacoa {atEase}
:: originally
posted here
© 2006 Roularta Media Group N.V.
( I didn't translate the prologue, it's the same
as usual.........
Please don't bash me for incorrect English, I'm not a linguist).
— Would the famous and ever praised Radiohead
still anxiously await reviews?
Jonny: Of course. It’s necessary, I think.
Otherwise you’d better quit. This time was special because everyone
also talked about our business plan. There were even pictures of Thom
in The Times and The Economist – a rather ridiculous sight.
Still, we were relieved that critics wrote that it might be our best
record ever. You’re always as good as your last record.
— The variable price of IR was claimed to be
the marketing stunt of the century. But Thom denied that you had thought
it over thoroughly.
Colin: The decision to release the record like
this was taken in no time, that’s right. After that we just
had to finetune some stuff. Practical stuff, mostly. But it didn’t
involve lots of marketing.
Jonny: Until the last moment we’ve had serious
doubts. “Is this really such a good idea? Is the system going
to work? Can we ask money for it? Shouldn’t we just sign with
a record company?”
Colin: It felt like a gigantic risk. Mission Impossible,
almost. For fear of having our music leaked again, we destroyed every
cd after a day of recording. We wrote false names on the masters so
no one would listen to it when it got lost. ‘Eagles: Greatest
Hits.’ ‘Kula Shaker Demos’. ‘Phil Collins’
Hip Hop Covers’.
Jonny: Ever heard that one? You wouldn’t
believe your ears!
— Meanwhile it seemed like ‘only’
38% of your fans payed for the download of IR. Did...
Colin: (interrupts) There are lots more, though
I have no idea about the latest numbers. Our manager did say that
our German fans are the most miserly and the Italians are the most
generous.
— Were you satisfied with these facts yourselves?
Colin: Absolutely. We had three goals: 1: Keeping
everything in own hands. 2: Making sure that it doesn’t leak
beforehand, like our last three albums. Three: Becoming the first
band releasing a record this way. In that sense it was Mission Accomplished.
— In what sense not?
Jonny: As usual, we had hoped that the recording
sessions would for once not end with us being exhausted and on the
verge of nervous breakdown.
Colin: But concerning that we’re still waiting
on our first success. (laughs)
— Is the image that Thom often creates of himself
in interviews, true? Is he really a dictator who creates a ‘climate
of fear’ just for fun?
Jonny: No, that’s just the image that the
media create of him. Scary Thom.
Colin: (with straight face) There’s a Spice
Girl in every one of us.
Jonny: The only thing he can be extremely unreasonable
about, is his hate for banjos. For fourteen years I’ve been
trying to make him see that you can create very dark, warm sounds
with it. But every single time it’s ‘No. Fucking. Way.’
— Colin, apparently you had a student job in
a record store?
Colin: I once vacuumed Our Price Records, yes.
With NWA in the background. Great vacuuming music!
— Do you understand that record shops were angry
that you initially only wanted to distribute the record via the internet,
and that, now that your fans already have it, you are selling it as
a cd?
Colin: No, because we never wanted to rob the small
record shops. From the beginning on we’ve wanted to release
In Rainbows as a cd as well. We’ve communicated that from day
one. We wanted our work to be available for everyone. Our parents
included. And the fans that don’t have internet connection or
a credit card. It’s just that it took much longer than expected
to find a record company.
Jonny: In the rush we’d forgotten to create
a Chinese and a Spanish interface for our website. Another reason
why hundreds of thousands of fans didn’t have access to our
music.
Colin: Better yet. We even forgot to create a possibility
for more than two digits in the decide-your-own-price box, so people
could pay more than 99 pounds if they wanted to. Who knows how much
cash we missed out on because of that! (laughs)
— Is it true that you guys didn’t want
to work with EMI again because they had been taken over by the money
machine that is Terra Firma?
Jonny: Absolutely. Guy Hands, the new CEO, announced
that he wanted to quadruple the profit by 2012. But not by handling
music in a very ethical way, we noticed. So we went elsewhere.
— Did you give permission to EMI for selling
the Radiohead collection box set?
Jonny: What do you think? Of course not. But they
didn’t need our permission, unfortunately. They have the rights
to everything. Music ànd artwork.
Colin: ‘Try to see the positive side of it,’
Thom said when we received the box a few weeks ago. ‘They could’ve
added nude pictures of me. With my nineties peroxide haircut and two
thumbs up, like “Buy this stuff!” (laughs)
Jonny: The thing I found kind of creepy, was that
the first days after the release of the box set everywhere on the
internet you found angry reactions of fans going ‘This is a
cynical EMI-release! Do not buy this!’ but a few days later
they were all gone.
Jonny: By the way, I don’t get why they didn’t
make it a vinyl set. They could’ve made a fortune with that.
— Has In Rainbows changed the music industry?
Jonny: I don’t think so, no. But we did receive
lots of positive reactions, and I do think that some musicians will
follow our example. Jay-Z, for example, said in an interview that
he has paid a lot for his download, because he thought it was a brilliant
initiative.
Colin: But for now the situation with the different
business plans is comparable to that with Apple and Microsoft, I fear.
The Macs on one side, of which everyone keeps saying that they’re
great, and the PC’s on the other, which – unfortunately
– are still used by 99% of the world population.
— A small obligatory question about Belgium.
Four years ago you guys played a marvellous gig in Forest National,
a particularly tough venue with lots of reverb. How did you succeed?
Colin: We had heard that it was a haunted hall,
so we brought Big Jim along, the sound guy of Peter Gabriel and Nine
Inch Nails. That concert to me is one of the best we ever did. And
I’m not just saying that, I mean it. Pukkelpop Festival last
year, on the other hand, I was very unsatisfied with. We were scheduled
so late that we were half asleep by the time we had to do encores.
— To close with: for ages you guys are known
as the ‘new Pink Floyd’. How happy are you with that?
Jonny: I’m a massive Pink Floyd fan, so extremely
happy.
Colin: About three years ago we got a package in
our mailbox. It contained Inside Out, that book Nick Mason (Pink Floyd
drummer) wrote. ‘To Radiohead, my favourite Pink Floyd tribute
band of all time,’ he had written inside.
Jonny: In my opinion the biggest compliment we’ve
ever received.