radio-unfriendly
unit shifters
interview
with the band
// «Melody Maker», October 1, 1994
:: typed by qwerrie
Radiohead were prophets without profit in their
own land until their monument to misery, 'Creep', finally matched
its phenomenal US success by charting in Britain last year. Their
new single 'My Iron Lung' is an even fiercer blast of airwave-hostile
nastiness. So how come the 'Head are such easy-going chaps in person?
And how come Mr. Fear & Loathing Thom Yorke is having his hair
cut? Report: Jennifer Nine. Scissor kicks: Pat Pope.
The whole world says it knows just how Thom E.
Yorke feels. Course we do: millions of Yanks and Brits and Israelis
and Japanese (and Jon Bon Jovi) sang along to that fatally first-person
hit single, didn't we?
Aww. Cute self-loathing l'il punkin. Pocket-sized
Thom wanders into the chilly studio where a modern-rock hitparade
(Sugar, Depeche Mode, Teenage Fanclub, Morrissey) floats distractingly
from a ghettoblaster and Radiohead, on the eve of a new single, are
waiting to get on board again. Photo shoot: click, pose, click, pose.
Interview tell us about your new album. Tour "Play 'Creep'!" All over
again.
And, like everyone who imagined that that song
offered the key to the singer's psyche, I figure I have Thom sussed.
And see in his face — which has that weirdly skewed look of
the just-woken — the hunched expression of mute suffering that
puppies have when you squeeze them too hard.
It's enough to make you write a song about Victorian
hospital equipment. Cue the slashing, alternately delicate and
savage 'My Iron Lung', complete with unedited swear word and undisguisably
loud guitars. What could be further from the winsome insecurities
of 'Creep' than a little number about a life support system cum torture
instrument?
" 'My Iron Lung' makes me happy. It's probably
the strongest pop narcotic I've taken this year: a hazy, 'Sgt Peppers'-drenched
psychedelic swirl, Yorke's near-falsetto brushing silk and venom over
a strangled lullaby. Proof, I think, that the Oxford quintet are the
real deal. Whatever posterity says about "whoever that band was that
did 'Creep' ", as Thom likes to grimace, 'My Iron Lung' is a staggering
and unexpected return.
'Pablo Honey's diversity told me they could do
a lot: this one suggests they can do anything. 'My Iron Lung' scares
the shit out of me, too. Exactly two minutes into the song, its blurry,
lightheaded sounds go terrifyingly wrong. Like the sound of an oxygen
deprivation victim thrashing desperately for air beneath distorted
vocals and freak-out guitars. And I know where I've head it before.
This is like what Kurt Cobain started writing after 'Nevermind'.
My creepy theories probably wouldn't cut much
ice with four-fifths of Radiohead, bright young men who could all
serve as poster boys for How To Survive Pop Success. Drummer Phil
Selway, just back from a honeymoon in exotic Lyme Regis, is the one
I meet first and mentally dub "The Sensible One" — until I notice
three other members who fit the same easy-going, witty, friendly category.
As we head to the studio, Phil tells me about yesterday's spate of
phone interviews which ended with a call from an abusive journalist
"from the most widely read arts journal in the Midlands". Said scribe
later called the band's management to hurl abuse at them as well.
Perfect example, I think to myself, of what the next two years is
going to belike. Except, of course, that was actually guitarist Ed
O'Brien taking the piss.
Still, I figure, there's no way they couldn't
be living in dread knowing that for the next eon (autumn UK tour,
dates in Mexico and Thailand and other places where Radiohead succeeded
and 'Primal Scream', 'Suede' and 'Oasis' are still unknowns, followed
by the release of a John Leckie-produced second album in February),
Radiohead will be strapped back into, their plane seats and tour bus
bunks and spots onstage. Like so many iron lungs in the front row.
SO. The single, I announce professionally as Ed
(the tall, handsome, slightly bequiffed one), Phil, guitarist Jonny
Greenwood (the slender, delicate, shyly charming one) and his brother,
bassist Colin (the sharp, sharp-cheekboned, quick-on-the-draw one)
settle obligingly around the sofa.
— It's loud, isn't it? Some people might say
it's too loud for radio.
"They've said it already,- contributes Thom as
he goes by. — It's already been deemed 'too raucous' by Radio
1".
"Well, it isn't loud for that long, — corrects
Jonny. — We're quite wary of noise. It's the only thing on the
album where it does do that. And whereas some bands would go to that
level and stay there, we're only there for as long as we need to be".
Some people reckon this song is pure 'In Utero'. Uh, okay, —
says Jonny. — But i don't have that LP".
"Me neither,- concurs Ed, adding,- Nirvana were
very good at writing melodies. So I guess there's a similarity there".
"I actually think 'Nirvana's songs are very different
to ours,- corrects Jonny. — Most 'Nirvana' melodies are very
modal and very reliant on the chorus, and Thom's aren't. The best
thing about 'Nirvana' is when the vocal melodies lead the chorus into
strange chords and..." — he drifts off into musician-speak,
leaving me behind.
— So you don't agree?
"Well, if everybody says that,- opines Colin, — we're e doomed.
We should give up now".
— But the lyrics? — "Suck your teenage
thumb, toilet trained and dumb
When the power runs out, we'll just hum" — are pretty corrosive.
What do you think about when you're playing it?
"I'm just concentrating on keeping it going during
the quiet bits,- confesses Colin. — And the loud bits, making
sure I can keep up".
— So what is the iron lung, then?
"Ask Thom",- says Colin.
"Yeah, — Ed adds firmly. — Ask Thom".
— Okay. Quick reshuffle. I ask if the band are
dreading having to play all these songs to death everywhere in the
world.
"We were certainly aware of it when we were writing
this record, — says Ed. — We kept saying, you know we're
going to be touring this one forever — so let's make it good!"
— And it's not, they tell me, as if they haven't
had to face gigs day in day out before.
''We've supported every band in the world, —
says Jonny. — Dumpy's Rusty Nuts!"
"The Funking Bastewards," — Ed adds.
"We'd say yes!"
"Bum Gravy, — admits Colin daringly. —
We were there".
— Why did you bother?
"We wanted to play! We wanted to reach out
to reach out to the kids!" adds Ed, wryly. — We played 100-odd
gigs before anyone knew who we were!"
— Which rather flies in the face of the assumption
that, because Radiohead signed to a major label straight off, you
were cobbled together in somebody's A&R workshop.
''Yeah, right! If they had... they'd have done
it much better!" Colin laughs.
"Photogenically, — Jonny says, looking over
at Thom, who is searching for volunteers to cut his hair. —
Musically! Less annoyingly!"
"Better prepared!" — Ed snorts.
Colin says, "I was talking to another person in
another Famous Name Band who said, 'Well, of course, we always prepare
our interviews beforehand... 'And I thought, 'Oh no! Oh God!'"
"We once had this A&R man, — Ed chips
in, — who said: 'Chaps, what you've gotta have is An Agenda.
A Manifesto'. — His face registers mock horror at the recollection.
— He sat us all dawn -he'd obviously done a few lines —
and eased back in his chair and Explained lt All. And, okay, we were
kind of insecure, we were thinking -aaah! We can't be in a band! We
haven't got manifestos! Is this what its all about? The Stone Roses
— they must have been successful because, well, they had fantastic
manifestos!"
— So whats your secret, then, if no one had any
useful advice?
"Well, reveals Colin slowly, for the last year
we've survived using this code. Three simple rules. The first one's
'Be Nice'. Always be nice.The second one's..."
"Take It Outside",- offers Ed. "Yeah, take any
trouble outside. Erm... no, the first one is 'Walk Away'."
— Sounds like the rules for bouncers, I observe.
"Got it in one!" — Ed claps his hands and
guffaws. "Of course, — he tells me later, — two months
later that A&R guy was sacked. I saw him in Soho Square looking
a lime down and out".
"That's the fun, — spotting that nobody knows
anything about how it all really works, — Colin adds, —
But it's also the grief, when people pretend they know exactly how
things are going to go before if even has a chance to happen".
— And yet you must have felt vindicated when
'Creep' was finally a hit here after if succeeded in America.
"Well, when it went into the charts at Number Seven
here on its second release, — recalls Ed, — they sent
us a bottle of champagne. — We didn't even open it, because
we were too busy worrying about a rehearsal! That's typical Radiohead
— a rehearsal which meant nothing in the overall scheme of things.
The things that bother us most are never the really big, fundamental.
But the success here must have proven something to UK journalists
who ignored you, I persist. Colin looks at me quizzically. "But we
don't play for journalists!" — he smiles.
— I wonder, though, if it's possible to avoid
worrying that succeeding in the US carries with it the worry that
If They Like Us, We Must Be Crap.
"Aaaan, — writhes Colin half-jokingly. —
The Fixx, you mean! The curse of The Fixx!"
"Although in our experiences, we've met so many
Americans in the business who are real music fans, people here do
expect you to think Americans are thick as shit", — admits Ed.
Someone tells me later that the band had been invited out for a beer
by members of 'Blur' just before Radiohead's first UK tour. They never
made the date, but found out later that Albarn and Co had been hoping
to warn them of the inherent hideousness of the Yank experience, the
inherent stupidity of the populace.
"I've never met so many people who wanted to be
well-meaning", — adds Jonny of the Americans they've met, going
on to note that if anything was offputting it was "their instant desire
to confess. You can sit in a meeting with someone who will say, 'Well,
it's still going quite badly since the divorce and the abortion last
month. And then she'll look at you to convey something similar when
you haven't even learned her name yet. The cathartic thing,- he adds
knowingly. — Whereas, being English, the difficulty of getting
good tea in the US is subject enough for conversation". I point out
that maybe they'd be more popular with the press here if Radiohead
("we're famous for being anecdote-free, I'm afraid, — Jonny
says apologetically, — although I really could write books about
the Great Launderettes Of Europe") could be picked up, shaken by their
heels and made to reveal their criminal records for the benefit of
people like me. "Which is why Sebadoh are cool and we aren't, —
sighs Colin as he gets up for another photo opportunity. He pauses
to listen to the sounds of 'Heart Shaped Box' raging from the ghettoblaster
in the corner, and turns to me.
"Oh, — he says, — Is this 'In Utero',
then?"
One haircut later, Thom plops down next to me on the
sofa.
And I'm ready. "My Iron Lung, you driving me away.
You do it every day. You don't mean it but it hurts like hell"...
— Is this about the suffocation of fame?
"It's more a statement about some of the people
who come to see us... — he casts about slowly. — Or...
certain members of certain audiences we've experienced. They haven't
really got beyond toilet training as far as l can see. Not really
our audience, more..."
— "Too cynical to speak" — that's
not about journalists, surely? Could it be worth the effort to write
about them?
"No, — says Thom firmly. — I did that
one. It was boring".
Still. An iron lung is a great image, and I confess
I'm surprised it hasn't already been used by a heavy metal band, with
attendant scary video. "Yeah, — Yorke laughs, — I was
terrified that the week we released it we'd find out someone awful
was releasing a album with the same name!"
— I ask Thom whether he was sickly as a child,
wondering if health preoccupations were the motivation.
"Yeah, — he agrees readily. — I still
am. Under stress I get ill quite easily". l admit I can't say I'm
even sure what an iron lung looks like. "Well, they have respirators
now. But go back to your books... I had a photo of one, a huge fucking
piece of machinery. It just seemed like a great image, a metaphor,
for..."
— For... what? One of the changes here, it appears,
is that unlike 'Creep' with its first-person-singular immediacy, 'My
Iron Lung' shifts quickly into a pronouncement about Us. Whoever Us
is.
"I've started using 'we' all the time because I'm
sick of projecting things onto myself,- he says, making a quick face.
— The danger is... seeming very indulgent. Using 'we' sounds
more like you're working in advertising, coming up with slogans. When
I write, I suppose I have a thing about having eight or nine different
people within me... Everybody has different charakters following them
around. I think that everyone, with the first album, was presuming
that there was this one character who was writing this stuff. I don't
agree".
— Although it makes it seem more powerful, more
immediate.
"Definitely. The momentary thing can be very stimulating.
'We're too cynical to spesk' — they'll probably say,
Oh God, he's off on one about His Generation again". He leans forward".
Or it could be just another soundbite. People have incredibly short
attention spans. there's no point in trying to fight it, because it's
there, it's in the media and it's there when you're talking on the
phone, flicking through channels on TV. 'My Iron Lung' is definitely
one of those songs where, line by line, it's a series of statements
to be taken as such and move on. But the problem, — says the
man whose statements have come blaring out of millions of radios,
— is that when something is repeated over and over, it becomes
ad nauseam, like adverts. There's a certain stage in an adverts lifespan,
where it's at its most potent, and then it becomes ridiculous.
It's exactly the same with 'Creep'. Or with any
hit. With Nirvana. With Suede".
PHOTO sessions over, the band start to drift towards
the door. Thom looks tired — and his hair looks a little different
— but continues to listen to my questions with interest.
— After everything that surrounded the album,
I persist, weren't you a basket case? Aren't you afraid that physical
and mental fatigue will do that to you again?
"Yeah. Mental fatigue is part of it. It makes you
think that everything that's good and great about what's happening
is not part of you — and all that's left is fatigue, physical exhaustion.
I'm not very good at ignoring people who slag us off. I won't just
laugh it off. To my cost, — he mutters half-sadly. — But
if you take it on, you take it on for all it's worth, — Thom
Yorke says with a flash of defiance. — But that's fine by me".
