all things considered
thom + ed interview
// NPR, October 6, 2011
____________________
One of the first post-TKOL interviews in which the band actually discuss the album. Indispensable, as Thom and Ed discuss everything from what the album's actually about (the interview opens on “What is “The King of Limbs” about?”, most probably a violation of some cardinal rule of music journalism) to them staying silent after its release. Short, but so, so sweet. Bear in mind that this interview wasn't originally broadcast in the form in which you find it here. This extended version is almost twice as long as I edited in the two outtakes and two teasers the interviewer himself released before and after the airdate.
GUY RAZ: It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
RAZ: Since Radiohead released this song, "Creep," back in 1993, the British band's become one of the most innovative and critically acclaimed modern rock acts of all time. They've pioneered ground-breaking techniques using processed voices and invented sounds, all behind the delicate and powerful voice of front man Thom Yorke.
[SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOTUS FLOWER"]
This track is called "Lotus Flower." It's off Radiohead's latest album, "The King of Limbs." They released it themselves without the pressures of a major label and with little fanfare back in February of this year.
RAZ: Thom York, Ed O’Brien – welcome to the programme.
THOM: Hi.
ED: Hi.
RAZ: What is “The King of Limbs” about?
THOM: Uhh, I dunno, breaking out of things? It’s sort of a visual thing rather than anything else. That’s why all the images we used when we did, like, the special edition thing with the newspaper, that was a very important part of the music, this time, where I didn’t really feel lyrics were…there weren’t conscious thematics going on at all. It was like, physical movements… [mumbles] Nonsensical. I haven’t actually —
RAZ: It’s a hard question.
THOM: I haven’t actually had to answer it having not really talked to anyone [chuckles].
RAZ: And it doesn’t necessarily be about anything specific.
THOM: No.
ED: To me it was more like, a lot of it’s about a certain feeling, a feeling at a certain time and the name and everything became pertinent when we went to Glastonbury 2 years ago and there was a certain feeling there. It might’ve been just that we were in the middle of… it’s like shedding a skin. What happened…discovering something else, discovering something new, meeting new people, that kind of thing. I think the last record was a bit of a watershed.
THOM: It was like, last record, we did this show, big show, Reading festival. You know, we were Radiohead in the sense how people wanted us, we started with “Creep” and just laid on nice and thick and it was really fun. And “In Rainbows”, by that point, had become a really, sort of well-known record and it solidified lots of things. But it felt like, when we came off, [though] we really had a great time, that was it. It was kind of like “Well, that’s that; don’t need to go there again now”. So there was a lot of sort of “Well, OK, if we are gonna carry on, we need to do it for a new set of reasons. Just because the pressures of other…life or whatever , taking over. So there’s all that mixed up in it, but there’s also sort of, like I said, breaking free. There’s a lot of those “wildness” ideas, the ideas of “mutating”, of creatures. It’s hard to explain but I think it’s kind of a response to environmental worries in my head have become this weird obsession. I read something in a book, statistics about fossils, right? Where it takes the fossils to actually be created for us to find them is such a small part of the whole of possible life forms that existed on Earth that we know nothing about at all, and never will. Everything that may have gone on on this planet that we know nothing about, in the back of my mind, that just went clanging ‘round and ‘round for, like, months and months and months. And I think that’s where, like, the artwork stuff came from, this idea of these weird creatures and stuff that were just rattling around in my head while we were making the music.
[cut]
RAZ: The band did no big concert tour and no interviews.
ED O'BRIEN: When we released this record, we didn’t go out. What we should’ve done, the traditional route’s to go out and do interviews like this but we didn't feel like it.
THOM: We didn't want to explain it.
ED: Yeah.
RAZ: I mean, you released it digitally; you didn’t sell the record at the record store.
ED: Yeah. And I think that’s quite…You know, in the short term, that might not always be the best thing that you can do, but in the long term it sets you upright so when you do something, you do it properly, you do it with all the right intent, with all the right energy.
RAZ: That's guitarist Ed O'Brien and singer Thom Yorke. And yet, the "King of Limbs" shot to number three on the U.S. charts. Now, Radiohead is coming out of its shell a bit. Yorke and O'Brien sat down to talk with me last week about how they make music. Before they recorded their latest album, O'Brien described coming off a long tour, exhausted and uninspired. That is, until the band and their producer, Nigel Godrich discovered some interesting computer software.
ED: Which enables you to use MP3 files and trigger them on a turntable, like with vinyl, you know, the...
THOM: Make loops and stuff on the fly.
ED: Yeah. So, we had an initial session of about five weeks and it was really like the kids in the kindergarten because it was...
THOM: Absolutely no idea.
ED: No idea, and we literally had five weeks doing this. And it was really interesting because you — what it forced you to do was you had to simplify what you were doing. You couldn't do loads of ideas. Probably the most important thing is you had to listen to one another. Believe it or not, that's also something that — in a band you can lose that. You can get so wrapped up in what you're doing, you're not listening to what other people are doing. So, Nigel was very keen that we start listening to one another. It kind of helps when you make a record, believe it or not.
[Thom laughing hard]THOM: Yeah, I mean, it was an experiment. I didn't think we really genuinely thought anything would come out of it, certainly not an entire record.
RAZ: I wonder if you can break down this song for me — the first track on the record called "Bloom."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RAZ: So, there are all these layers — percussion and bass and processed sounds. And Thom's voice comes in about a minute in. Thom Yorke, what are all those different layers we're hearing in the song?
THOM: Almost every tune is like a collage, you know. Things we pre-recorded, each of us, and then were flying at each other. It's like editing a film or something. It's quite interesting. The melodies were there but so much was implied so that when you did embellish, it was like, whoa, you know, it really sort of come out of itself.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BLOOM")
RAZ: If you trace the arc of Radiohead from, say, a song like "Creep" to any track on this record and then you open up the band's catalogue anywhere in the middle, every album is almost a reinvention of Radiohead and to some extent of experimental music. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you approach each record? I mean, do you sort of think about how much can we push ourselves to a new place and a place we haven't been to yet?
THOM: Not really trying to necessarily be experimental or anything. In fact, when I first start doing little demos on my own and things...
RAZ: This is before you became famous and all that.
THOM: Yeah. It was very much quite a good imitator. My daughter, she's the same. You see, you're constantly learning from other music, right. And then there's that Lennon thing about it's not how you, what's it?
RAZ: It's not who you steal from...
THOM: It's not — yes — it's not who you steal from, it's how you steal. You know, I'm constantly absorbing other music. And that's what stimulates me the most. And to have the ability within our group with Nigel to sort of move around in all these different areas. You know, you’re always gonna have your limitations, it’s always gonna be your palette and your thing because of who you are, you can’t help that. So, there's never been the desire to sort of, like, tread back onto the ground because you don't know where else to go. Our problem is where should we go today?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MORNING MR. MAGPIE")
RAZ: Do you guys ever put together something, you've tried something and the rest of the band just says, no, that doesn't work, it sounds terrible?
ED: Probably. I can't remember but I know definitely. I mean, no, yeah, I mean, the part of what you do is rejection. There's a big part of that. A lot of the time, it is like hitting your head against the wall and then you have breakthroughs. But I think what's great about the environment that we have is that no one ever says, well, you can't do that. You try it and then it's judged on whether it's right for the track.
THOM: Our problem, I think, sometimes is you have a momentum thing when you're working and if you break the momentum, it's very much harder to go back to it. And it's interesting. Sort of like when you finish a record, as you finish, it releases its own energy because you, like, got a whole momentum going, like a whole creative flow and then, oh, you stop.
ED: It's very interesting from what happens is that you're in this bubble. You finish this thing, and then as soon as you play music to other people, there's some kind of transfer that you suddenly understand it in another way. It's really, really interesting. And, yeah, it's really, really hard.
RAZ: But I read that in past albums, you weren't really sure how people were going to respond, and when OKC came out you were shocked that it was so critically acclaimed, for example. Does that happen with every album you release, you sort of wonder what are people going to make of this?
THOM: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I know I should be used to this.
ED: [laughing] But it's a funny thing because when you release a record, you're really, really — well, I am — I'm really into it. And I think this is a no-brainer. "The King of Limbs," man, it's like obvious, right?
THOM: It's obvious, right?
ED: And then you realize it's not and that's a bit the scary part. I mean, that's the bit you realize, you know, you have created in this vacuum, in this bubble and stuff like that. And it plays tricks on the brain and that's probably very normal.
THOM: We didn't have a clue how we were going to play a lot of it. And then, like, learning to play it allows you to back into it in another way as well, especially after the initial sort of “What the hell is that thing?”. So, I mean, and in some ways that's one of the ways we move on musically. It's quite interesting, like, having to force ourselves to learn this thing. It's like a backwards process but it really exists then in another way.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LITTLE BY LITTLE")
RAZ: You all, all five members of the band, have grown up together. You’ve known each other since you were kids and you’ve seen each other have families of your own and become adults as well.
THOM: Just about.
RAZ: Just about. And of course, become one of the most critically acclaimed bands ever. Do you ever sometimes wake up in the morning and just think about that? About how amazing that whole thing is?
THOM: [laughing] My normal response to that I can't actually repeat on air but it's along the lines of when I go to the toilet, but anyway…
RAZ: I mean, you knew each other as kids.
ED: Yeah. I mean, one thing that I’ve been aware of for the last few years is feeling incredibly lucky, you know, thankful, really, really thankful. Because, I think, you know, ten years ago when you were in the middle of something, it was a bit like being in the eye of the storm and my disposition was [that] I didn’t really appreciate it. I kind of enjoyed it, but I didn’t really appreciate it. I kind of looked at things that maybe we were lacking and we had and stuff. Now, I feel like the luckiest bastard on the planet, really.
THOM: Also, you know, we’d make a conscious decision, as where we are from and everything, to be extremely sceptical about the whole… Cause we have kind of been through the mill, cause the 'creep' thing early on, having a big hit and having then all that weirdness attached to, well, me personally, anyway, and being part of the machinery of the business, suddenly, like, at the push of a button. We have always, sort of, been sceptical about the whole how stuff is seen, how our stuff is seen. In order to keep sane you sort of distance yourself, there’s a great big black wall in-between that. I mean, I find it weird, cause I didn’t really start thinking about it at all even before my kids came along. I mean, just the occasional question I get from my daughter about it, just little silly things, I can’t think of anything now, but suddenly makes me realise, you know, “ Oh yeah, there’s this”, “Welcome to the airport” or I’m just standing in the town and someone comes up to me and then… You know, little pinpricks like that, but, like, most of the time, I’ve never really thought about it except… Yeah, over the last few years, when you see your kids asking about it and you start to realise how you’re in a very privileged position. By accident.
RAZ: Yeah.
RAZ: That's Thom Yorke and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead. Their latest record is called "The King of Limbs." Thom Yorke, Ed O'Brien, thank you so much.
THOM: Thank you.
ED: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LITTLE BY LITTLE")
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