Radio Daze
interview
with the band by Ted Kessler
// «NME» May 27, 1995
typed by: qwerrie
The pain in Spain falls
mainly on, er, RADIOHEAD. Caught on the promotional treadmill, Oxford's
rock graduates finally understand the game: kiss enough arse for the
next two years and maybe you will never have to do it again. Ever.
If you're as big as U2. TED KESSLER joins them for a bowl of mud spaghetti.
In Madrid. Blee! Photos: STEVE DOUBLE.
__________
Chris Hufford wakes with a start as the adverts
blare out on CNN. He rolls over and scrunches his nose at the cornflakes
being poured through the air on the screen, momentarily stumped. He
doesn't know where he is. Spain for sure because it's 6.30pm and he's
just had a siesta, so... where? Radiohead's groomed manager fixes
the bathroom mirror with a glare and runs through the facts as they
present themselves to him.
If it's Thursday and Elastica are in Barcelona
on Friday, he reasons slowly, then Sleeper must be there today with
The Boo Radleys. Babes In Toyland have a day off today and are in
transit across Spain towards its capital. Slide the names around,
slot them into the right places and... bingo! We're in Madrid doing
press! Superb! He brushes his teeth and leaves the room. So, he wonders
as the lift doors slide shut behind him, how do the two giants standing
in FC Barcelona tracksuits either side of me fit into the scheme?
Relax Chris, they don't. It's just a coincidence
that Barcelona's basketball and football teams are staying in the
same Madrid hotel where Radiohead have arranged to meet the Spanish
press. They are not on the promotional treadmill, they're preparing
for sporting endeavour.
The lift hits ground and releases the three of
them into the lobby. Chris heads across the shiny reception area towards
the bar and a double vodka and tonic, while the two athletes stop
to limber up by the front desk.
Colin Greenwood, skinny, hyperactive bassman with
Radiohead, is suddenly distracted from his rap about life as a cool
rocking fop in Paul Smith suits. He nods to his manager as he walks
by and rests his gaze with the toe-touching colossi.
"Mmmm, sportsmen and rock stars: so little in common
and yet there is a bond between this palaver of promotion and self-analysis
and the life of an athlete," he says in a manner that suggests Christopher
Walken playing Eddie Izzard. "In a way we are sportsmen too. Being
in Radiohead is a bit like a rock version of It's A Knockout
and that was sport, wasn't it? Yes, see, you have to avoid the holes
and go through the hoops, only there's no Eddie Waring or Stuart Whatshisface
going 'ooooh, they fucked up another interview and they lose 5,000
sales of "The Bends" for that!' Maybe it's more like Challenge
Anneka with the challenge being not to turn into a complete twat.
Dunno.
But I do like this bass-playing life. I'm mad for
it, as I'd say if I was in Oasis. Only I'm not and I wouldn't. I like
getting drunk and meeting people and eating good food and finding
out about different cultures and what people do. I think I'd make
a very good member of the Royal Family, shaking hands with individuals
in large crowds: 'Oh hello, I play bass, get pissed and talk about
myself. What do you do?'"
The answer, if you're Adela from Zaragoza's Hot
Teeth fanzine and the very next person whose hand Colin will shake,
is wait. She waits in hotel lobbies to talk indie rock at least three
days a week. Tomorrow she'll be waiting to talk with Tim Boo Radley
at four, with Louise Sleeper at five and with Babes In Toyland whenever.
Saturday she'll be waiting on Annie Elastica but, right now, she's
gurning patiently in the direction of Ed and Colin Radiohead, just
trying to get them to sit with her. She's finished, however, with
Jonny and he's more than finished with her.
"It's been explained to us why we're travelling
across the globe talking to hundreds of different people we don't
know every day, but, when you hear the words 'global' and 'markets',
you just turn off."
The angular, uptight, gifted guitarist slumps
down in the seat his brother has occupied, opposite the journalist
from England as opposed to the journalist from Spain, Norway, Holland
or Brazil. Hello.
"I got really despairing in Canada about three
weeks ago because I hadn't seen an instrument for weeks but had still
been talking about Radiohead every day. I started ranting about how
we should perhaps sign to an obscure indie label and just play loads
of concerts in England and do more recording, but then we met Elastica
in Cologne and I really bonded with Annie. We were both saying 'Oh,
we had to do that radio interview in Oslo too, and we had do that
fanzine in France' and it was just so good to talk about it. I asked
her what kind of bass she played and she said 'a black one'. It was
the first time I had laughed in ages. So it is good to talk sometimes,
you know."
We know. It's good to remember what thrust you
onto this PR rollercoaster and it's good to play your awesome current
album "The Bends' and hear that there is ample reason for all this
attention. It's good to recall that when people compare you to U2
they don't necessarily mean the records, they mean that's how big
you, Jonny from Radiohead, will get if you play the game. Even if
you would rather be in Moonshake if it meant not traipsing around
the world talking for three months. So, yes, it is good to talk. So
let us begin...
__________________
Meet the gang cos the boys are here, the boys
to entertain you... R-A-D-I-... er, Radiohead: Thom Yorke, Ed O'Brien,
Phil Selway, Colin and Jonny Greenwood. Five old chums from Abingdon
School near Oxford who've battled through tremendous odds to be here
today, on the threshold of massive stardom across the global market.
Let's see. They went to an all-boys public school.
They're university educated. They spent the best part of a decade
playing together under the name of On A Friday before they signed
a deal as Radiohead. Their first EP for Parlophone, 'Drill', peaked
at Number 101 in the charts. Their first photo in NME was of
Thom Yorke, swamped by one of the worst post-Oi haircuts imaginable,
giving the photographer the finger. It has not been easy.
"Why did I do that?" asks Thom rhetorically. "I
did it because I was having a shit time at a shit gig and didn't want
anyone to see me. I didn't know what sort of person I should be in
that situation. I was scared, man, and I didn't want anyone to write
about that."
They released another single, 'Creep', in September
'92, but that only reached Number 72. They looked in the mirror and
guessed that what stared back at them was the only thing that halted
their progress. They began to develop a complex.
Then the next single, Anyone Can Play Guitar',
grazed the Top 10 and their debut album, 'Pablo Honey', lodged at
Number 25. They'd made a dent in the consciousness of the British
record-buying public, but their attention had been diverted elsewhere.
'Creep' had connected in a big way with white, teenage America and
they had a huge hit on their hands.
Back in England the re-released 'Creep' reached
the Top 10, but Radiohead were living on tourbuses in the USA, busy
playing gigs and pressing flesh across the continent. Their faith
in their own worth had been wholly vindicated, but they were slowly
going nuts. They returned with a handful of Thom's new songs for a
second album but suddenly felt awkward and uncomfortable in each other's
presence. They couldn't couldn't wait to be apart from each other
at the end of each fruitless session.
"It was horrible," says guitarist Ed. "We were
questioning everything too much, questioning the fundamentals of what
we were doing. It was horrible, but I think that's the problem with
a university education. You just end up thinking too much."
For producer John Leckie, not so fresh from his
abortive stint on the Stone Roses' 'Second Coming', it was all too
familiar. He let them fanny around for a couple of weeks before pulling
Thom away and ordering him to work out what he was doing on his own.
Thom went away and thought about the songs, played them while touring
Mexico, and when they returned to England, everything tumbled out
beautifully in a glorious two-week summer stint. They emerged with
an album that sounds deep, connected and important, from the opening
futuristic whirl of 'Planet Telex' through the softly anthemic new
single 'Fake Plastic Trees' to the final gentle guitar maze of 'Street
Spirit'. They found themselves with something that rates as a benchmark
'90s album. Still, they had everyone worried for a while.
"I was shitting myself to be honest," says Hufford.
"Me and my partner started shopping around for another group to manage
(they ended up astutely plumping for SUPERGRASS) because they really
didn't look like they would make it. I'm glad they proved us so wrong."
"Most really brilliant bands don't know what they're
doing until their third or fourth album, so to have 'The Bends' acclaimed
as a really important album in NME opens so many new doors
in our heads," says Thom. "Maybe that will wipe out some of the paranoia
that I can hear in "The Bends'. I wish it wasn't there because it's
so uncomfortable. It shows how we were functioning as a band then."
_______________
It is 11.30pm and the Radiohead publicity machine
is putting up its shutters after another tough day on the southern
European leg of their world chat tour. Tomorrow they play an afternoon
gig for the benefit of local radio and press before the luxury of
three days off back in Oxford. Then it's off to Japan for another
week's press. With Thom's head in such a whirl it comes as no surprise
to him that he should find himself eating mud masquerading as pasta
in an Italian restaurant in the heart of Spain. He was doing the same
thing in reverse in Rome yesterday.
"Yeah, the food's revolting but it's a relief to
be in Europe again. We had this promo thing in America recently where
we were living through pure fucking hell on an average of three hours'
sleep a night. We were doing a gig at midnight to 100 people who didn't
give a fuck for some radio station who didn't give a fuck, getting
to bed at three, getting on a plane at six, getting to the next destination,
doing a day of interviews, getting to the soundcheck, something to
eat, back onstage at midnight..." His voice trails off in horror as
he pushes his slop around the plate in front of him.
"Five nights in a row, man. And people wonder why
you moan! The only reason that people could give me for not going
home was that in five years' time we might be lucky to find anyone
to talk to us. They've obviously said that to Tricky as well. He and
Portishead are both on the same ludicrous treadmill we're on, only
they're probably more realistic because I kept saying I was leaving.
But I didn't because I would've lost my job as a public relations
exercise."
— But you must think that 'The Bends' justifies
all this?
"Of course, I'm so glad we allowed ourselves to
make the record. It's great. We've always had this suspicion that
we're like Pink Floyd for people, even more so now because we keep
meeting people who like us and say we're influential, and we've sold
quite a lot of records, but like Pink Floyd everyone ignores us and
pretends we don't exist. It's like NME. Everyone reads it but
no-one will admit they like it. It's helped us though because it's
made us rely on things other than respect or support. We've never
had that inflated-ego, Manchester thing. We question everything we
do and I should really chill out. We're a good band and we've made
a good record. That's it."
As Thom swaps his plate of brownish green pasta
for a melted cheese and tomato butty optimistically described on the
menu as pizza, he excitedly discusses the direction he'd like Radiohead
to take next. He talks of computers, of techno, of politics and the
need to make space to change.
"I get really envious when I hear good jungle or
stuff on Warp or the Tricky album. I get this sense that they made
it in isolation and that there wasn't this need to be in a bollocks
guitar band going 'I want my guitar solo'. There's none of that, and
there's none of that in Radiohead either. None of that 'we're going
change the world with six strings and loads of drugs', and I'm proud
of that. It's not that I believe there isn't anything new to be done
with the guitar. I hear it with Jonny every day of the week, so I
don't think guitar bands are dead by any means, but I've heard what
Supergrass are doing before. It's fine, but I'm not interested. There's
just this sense of innocence and adventure working with computers
that's so exciting. We touched on it on the album with 'Planet Telex'
and I'd like to explore that more. Depends on the songs."
— Do you think you'll be able to move away from
the personal, introverted lyrics of 'The Bends'?
"I've been trying to write something political
but it's hard not to come up with Live Aid '80s bollocks. I'm going
to keep trying because I think it's a shame that music is purely entertainment
now. It's like saying the painting you hang in your house shouldn't
mean anything, it just looks nice. It's not true. But I don't think
anyone has the guts to say anything outside typical song barriers.
It's all good time music, and you know how I love that.
I have a problem with politics being a separate
entity anyway. It's the same with music. You go home, put on a record
and watch the Nine O'clock News and everything has its place in isolation.
It's as if everything is a marketable 45 minutes. You make one record
and then the next time make the same thing with 'New Improved' on
it and that's your life. Buy Simple Minds! New and Improved but a
bit old and dodgy now!"
— Or U2, a band you're sometimes compared to...
"Wrongly, of course. Except U2 are different, same
with The Fall, Tom Waits, Talking Heads. Different because at some
point they stopped being a publicity machine and got a life. That's
what we're most conscious of, a need to stop being this tumble dryer
spewing stuff out. Those are the acts we'd like to emulate.
There'll come a point when we'll say 'enough'.
Otherwise we could be selling anything, just playing dodgy clubs in
America going deaf. In America they want your angst if you're skinny
and white or your soul if you're black. It's geared around narrow
MTV parameters and there's not a lot you can do. Over there it's like
going to your parents' 50th wedding anniversary every day. You've
got to serve sausage rolls, wear shorts and be nice. It doesn't matter
what you've said in NME in England, you've still got to kiss
ugly arse over there. That's why we've got to engineer enough room
not to do that much longer. And I think with the record, and all this
work we're doing now, it'll allow us that space to grow."
Sometimes I wonder what on earth enables us to
be a band," says Thom, gesturing towards his colleagues around the
dinner table. "We don't look, dress, talk or behave like bands. Friends,
yes, but a band..."
It's true. As the Radiohead office tie is slowly
loosened with each fresh intake of Spanish wine, the behaviour is
not that of debauched rockers but more akin to drunk, off-duty teachers.
Ed and Johnny are peppering their conversation
about Hanif Kureishi's Black Album with the occasional shout
of "lions!", which isn't particularly funny but keeps them amused.
Drummer Phil is talking sincerely about his wife with one of the Spanish
record company employees, while Colin is revealing how he'd like to
start a fellowship in rock'n'roll at his old Cambridge college, Peterhouse.
"When I'm 40 I see myself as some sad, tweed-jacketed,
leather-patched Sterling Morrison academic with my own tugboat and
creative writing course. I've got this fantasy of mixing rock with
academia; I like the combination of the deep and the superficial.
I'd be a seedy middle-aged you-know-what with a string of vastly successful
albums, hanging around the lecture hall with my nubile 18- to 21-year-old
students. I'd have black shades and a pathetic red Porsche outside.
The other plan is to start the rock fellowship, which costs a quarter
of a million pounds. Part of the interview to join would be how well
you roll a spliff or deal with groupies, stuff like that. It would
be the combination of the deep and the ephemeral that Radiohead are
all about."
Thom doesn't see this mature group personality
as a product of their public school education, however.
"Imagine what it was like! I didn't see a girl
for seven years except on the bus home. You leave at 17 and they've
arrested your emotional development. You have to learn rudimentary
communication skills. It's meant to be a preparation for life but
it took me five years to get any grasp of reality after I left."
Johnny is even more damning: "I just associate
it with incredibly arrogant and insincere people. They make 10 per
cent come out as go-getting businessmen and 90 per cent leave as confused
Fall fans. I remember reading Mark E Smith saying that public schoolboys
were the scum of the earth and the next day everyone came in saying,
'He's right, we're just like that, we're complete wankers!'"
But Radiohead have collectively escaped both traps.
They've emerged as a thoughtful, sensitive, progressive rock group
in an era that encourages none of those things. And now they're coming
to terms with that.
"It's taken me two years to accept that I do this
for a living," says Thom, "to realise that I don't have to sell myself
in the way margarine is sold forever. I'm not a relaxed person but
I'm more relaxed now I don't have to prove something. I'm calmer because
'The Bends' justifies our position. Everything isn't a fucking battle
now. It's just a question of whether I can enjoy it more now."
And then he leaves the restaurant to return to
his hotel. Back to his strange bed to prepare for another day's rigorous
self-promotion. He's not happy, but he knows he might be one day.
