Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next
Speaker 1: season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
Speaker 1: thought I'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, Radiohead released their stunning debut single
Speaker 1: Creep When You'reful. It was quiet, yet explosive, even haunting,
Speaker 1: and its refrain had a powerful hook. I wish our special,
Speaker 1: so fucking special. Radioheads frontman and principal songwriter Tom York
Speaker 1: is my guest, and if it was his wish to
Speaker 1: be special, the world granted it. York's band has become
Speaker 1: a commercial and critical success, selling over thirty million albums.
Speaker 1: Radiohead's music actively resists definition. Each new album explores a
Speaker 1: different sound, delighting their followers and scooping up more fans
Speaker 1: along the way. The New York Times called Radiohead rock's
Speaker 1: most experimental top ten band, and this spirit of experimentation
Speaker 1: isn't limited to their music. In two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: York and his bandmates released In Rainbows on their website.
Speaker 1: First fans were invited to pay what they wanted for
Speaker 1: the album. Radiohead may not have been the first to
Speaker 1: thummets nose the music industrial complex but they might be
Speaker 1: the first to do so and sell out a major arena.
Speaker 1: That said, Tom York hasn't necessarily been comfortable under the spotlight.
Speaker 1: He complains about celebrity worship and I wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: to expect.
Speaker 2: Actually, I got you a health food snack, did you Yeah,
Speaker 2: because someone told me you were like all vegetarian and that.
Speaker 1: Tom Yorke has a new record out Amok. The band
Speaker 1: calls themselves Adams for Peace. You don't do a lot
Speaker 1: of pros. Were you doing? I was an an as
Speaker 1: needed a basis, yeah, on a need to know basis, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of.
Speaker 2: I kind of need to explain what I'm doing a
Speaker 2: bit with the Adams for Peace thing, just a little
Speaker 2: bit because it's something different and some vague effort to
Speaker 2: explain myself occasionally I think is morally acceptable.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the Adams for Peace. Well, it's just
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: I did a record on my own called The Eraser
Speaker 2: a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Was that your first solo record? Yes, first time.
Speaker 2: I sort of worked on my own with Nigel who
Speaker 2: Normal who produces Radiohead, and it came out it was okay.
Speaker 1: People liked it a bit.
Speaker 2: A couple of years after, I suddenly thought I really
Speaker 2: want to actually because it was all done, it was
Speaker 2: all programmed, it was all computers and stuff, and I thought, actually,
Speaker 2: I really I'm curious to know what it would be
Speaker 2: like to actually get a band together to play this.
Speaker 2: And it was an excuse to go on a jolly
Speaker 2: to LA and hang out. And I emailed friends of
Speaker 2: mine who I knew like the record. One was Flee
Speaker 2: from the Chili Peppers. One was my friend Joey, who's
Speaker 2: drummed with everybody who's genius drummer from LA And anyway,
Speaker 2: we got it together and it turned into this thing
Speaker 2: became really exciting, and we ended up calling the band
Speaker 2: Atoms for Peace and making a record out of the
Speaker 2: excitement of that. And it was all brand new to
Speaker 2: me because I've been in the same band since I
Speaker 2: was seventeen sixteen.
Speaker 1: And when you do that, when you go into another
Speaker 1: room with people, it's not so much assuming and you
Speaker 1: can help me that you want to not play with
Speaker 1: those guys anymore. You just want to play with different
Speaker 1: people for a change. It was a good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a totally different process. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: always fun if you know what you're aiming at. If
Speaker 2: you know what the tunes are, you're not trying to
Speaker 2: write them, you're just emulating what's already been written. That
Speaker 2: makes it fun straight away, because it's a different sort
Speaker 2: of creative process.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: You're not struggling around in the dark for a way
Speaker 2: into a piece of music. You're figuring out how to
Speaker 2: strip it down to its all essentials, especially if it's
Speaker 2: something's been written on a computer, and then you have
Speaker 2: to humanly learn how to play it. It brings in
Speaker 2: this quite interesting thing with the feel of what you're playing. Anyway,
Speaker 2: it's loads of different things, but it's a lot more
Speaker 2: fun and a lot more relaxed if you're not trying
Speaker 2: to write, you know, which is what also all the time,
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do with Radiohead.
Speaker 1: What's the first time or the first experience you had
Speaker 1: with using computers to create music? That was.
Speaker 2: I think after we did Okay Computer I finally in
Speaker 2: the late late nineties you could like go on tour
Speaker 2: with the laptop and it was powerful enough that you
Speaker 2: could record, edit, use synthesizers built into it and it
Speaker 2: wouldn't crash and it.
Speaker 1: Was fairly stable.
Speaker 2: So I first started getting into it then. And what
Speaker 2: I thought was really interesting is when we were working
Speaker 2: on Okay computer, I started using learning the software that
Speaker 2: we were using the studio to edit. We were still
Speaker 2: mostly working on tape old school, but I suddenly thought, well,
Speaker 2: hang on a minute, if I can learn how all
Speaker 2: this equipment works, I'll have a completely different way of
Speaker 2: thinking about how to write. So I forced myself to
Speaker 2: learn all this equipment and learn to use the laptop
Speaker 2: because a lot of music I was into was being
Speaker 2: made electronically anyway, and I kind of thought it would
Speaker 2: be interesting to do it within the band, because you
Speaker 2: know a band. Normally musicians don't fall into doing the
Speaker 2: production side of it or building the tracks. They're like,
Speaker 2: stay this side of the studio of fence with the
Speaker 2: mics and let someone tell you. So I definitely was
Speaker 2: much more into blurring that up.
Speaker 1: Did not produce both your solo albums, Yeah he does.
Speaker 2: He does the lot all of the radio Head album,
Speaker 2: Yeah he does.
Speaker 1: Well. When you attribute that to having that kind of faith.
Speaker 2: In someone, for me, it's sort of you find someone
Speaker 2: you trust. I mean not all the time, and we
Speaker 2: do argue a lot, but to have someone who's like
Speaker 2: a sounding board all the time. It makes everything so
Speaker 2: much more fun because if you're if you're knocking out ideas,
Speaker 2: you can't edit them and knock them out at the
Speaker 2: same time. Like if you're on stage and you're trying
Speaker 2: to get through your part or whatever, you have to
Speaker 2: have someone out front saying, okay, that's not working. I
Speaker 2: mean I do on my own a lot. I do work.
Speaker 2: You know, you generate ideas, but all I then have
Speaker 2: is a mountain ideas that gradually I then have to
Speaker 2: sit through and it just takes so long. It's so
Speaker 2: much more fun sharing it with someone.
Speaker 1: What did he think about your forays into computerized music? Oh,
Speaker 1: he was into it.
Speaker 2: I did wonder when I first started doing it, but
Speaker 2: he was into it because he watched me doing it
Speaker 2: in such a different way to him. I mean, I
Speaker 2: was like a kid being given a hammer. I was
Speaker 2: just hammering away and stuff. I didn't really know what
Speaker 2: I was doing, but he was kind of fascinated by that,
Speaker 2: you know, and he'd come and literally tidy up the
Speaker 2: mess down on the computer.
Speaker 1: What were other people who were other people that were
Speaker 1: working in that in that area that you listened to
Speaker 1: who are making well? Then it was.
Speaker 2: I was obsessed with AFX twin then and O Tekra.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of really interesting things happening Britain.
Speaker 2: Then on this label called Warp and it was it was.
Speaker 1: A fun spell warp w arp, like the floor is warped, yeah,
Speaker 1: after the fun Yeah. And then I say, with your accent,
Speaker 1: that could have been anyone of four wards. When on
Speaker 1: this label called War Warm, Wall w Wop, Yeah, saying
Speaker 1: like we saying here in the United States War it's
Speaker 1: war country and Western record like bitch your bottom down there, boy?
Speaker 1: So you were you is? You were? You were obsessed
Speaker 1: with the music that was on Woop Records.
Speaker 2: Because it didn't have any guitars and I was having
Speaker 2: a troubled relationship with my guitar at the time.
Speaker 1: Is that true? Well not really.
Speaker 2: It's just like I ended up being in a band
Speaker 2: signing this to this big record label, and it's a
Speaker 2: band with big letters, so certain things go with that.
Speaker 2: But yet when I was at college, I was listening
Speaker 2: to a lot of other things, and after a while
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, this is is really annoying that
Speaker 2: I felt like we couldn't break out of that. So
Speaker 2: I just started forcing us to break out of that
Speaker 2: because it didn't make sense to me. You've been with
Speaker 2: those guys for how long Now we started when we're
Speaker 2: sixteen Radiohead, which is now I'm forty four, so that's
Speaker 2: quite a while.
Speaker 1: And some bands that have had tremendous longevity, obviously the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones are the premier example. They've changed partners over
Speaker 1: theres like they were the New York Yankees. You know,
Speaker 1: there's somebody else playing third base every four or five years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you guys, it's the same cast of people all
Speaker 1: of a sudden. What do you attribute that to persistence?
Speaker 1: My great diplomatic skills not but there must be time
Speaker 1: to when they've I mean, I'll never forget McCartney said
Speaker 1: to me, even the Beatles got tired of being The
Speaker 1: Beatles were the times you guys sat there and look
Speaker 1: at each other and said, I think we're done.
Speaker 2: I do that frequently, frequently, I mean, at least the
Speaker 2: others two not as much. They just wait for me
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: But it changes. It's like, yeah, it's like to stick around.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling it's coming up. I mean, you know, something
Speaker 2: to do with the fact we haven't done any useful
Speaker 2: for three weeks. It goes through these phases. You know,
Speaker 2: we've grown up together. It's weird. I mean, So, we
Speaker 2: just did a tour last year, right, and it was probably,
Speaker 2: in theory, the scariest one we've ever done, because it
Speaker 2: was lots of big gigs, which I normally am spending
Speaker 2: my time trying to shy away from.
Speaker 1: Why because you can't achieve technically in a large space
Speaker 1: where you normally want.
Speaker 2: To exactly that you can't get across to people the
Speaker 2: right way, I felt. So we did spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time and effort coming up with like a stage
Speaker 2: design which used screens in a certain way which made
Speaker 2: it intimate, even though you know, some nights was like
Speaker 2: thirty or forty thousand people trying to create some sort
Speaker 2: of intimacy with that, and when it worked, it was insane.
Speaker 2: It was because the upside of playing to that many
Speaker 2: people is you have this really crazy collective energy that
Speaker 2: you can tap into like a crowd, you know.
Speaker 1: Thing.
Speaker 2: There's one show we did in Phoenix that sticks in
Speaker 2: my mind where there was something about maybe that it
Speaker 2: was in Phoenix and people don't get the opportunity. Those
Speaker 2: sort of people don't get the opportunity to get together
Speaker 2: that often or something. There was some sort of excitement
Speaker 2: within the crowd that was so great to play with.
Speaker 2: When we hit it musically, it felt like the whole room,
Speaker 2: the whole of the building was moving. Honestly, we both
Speaker 2: came off, you know, yeah, and it's bombed.
Speaker 1: I understand that not from my own experience, but from
Speaker 1: seeing artists perform.
Speaker 2: You know, I often ask myself, why the hell would
Speaker 2: you put yourself through this? Because it's very stressful. It's
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure, and for me mentally, I just
Speaker 2: build myself up to it in my head gradually and
Speaker 2: it sounds really precious, but it messes with my head.
Speaker 1: I want to get to that, but I want to
Speaker 1: come around it and say, your music has such a
Speaker 1: spiritual quality to it. There's a spiritual element to it,
Speaker 1: and not a stated one. It just emanates a vibe.
Speaker 2: To me, it comes to me that yeah, but to me,
Speaker 2: that comes off the audience. That's what I find. It's
Speaker 2: something that's developed. It's not like we're not going into
Speaker 2: this intending to do any of that. It just sort
Speaker 2: of happens when when the waves go right, you know,
Speaker 2: when the waves fall into place, then you'll get to
Speaker 2: the end of the song and you can feel, Okay,
Speaker 2: we've done whatever it is.
Speaker 1: That was it. What's your preparation before you do a
Speaker 1: live show before you go because in the studio it's
Speaker 1: obviously a whole different animal.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, there's no preparation for the studio. Do you
Speaker 2: know it's bull in a china shop most of the time,
Speaker 2: which is how it should be, I think, and performing live, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: What's give it to me. A couple of hours before
Speaker 1: you go out there and you've got to blow this
Speaker 1: thing out for all these people. Just stone cold silence,
Speaker 1: basically almost meditative. Well, yeah, I do. I do that
Speaker 1: and focused.
Speaker 2: I stand on my head for a bit and I
Speaker 2: basically I'm completely on my own until five minutes before
Speaker 2: we go on, and then we're all in the room together,
Speaker 2: pacing up and down like wild animals, and then then
Speaker 2: we're on. But when we first started doing big shows,
Speaker 2: it was with my from Michael Stipe, and he does
Speaker 2: the total opposite. He literally he'll be talking to you
Speaker 2: and then someone taps in the shoulder and then they're on.
Speaker 1: And I was like, how the hell do you do that?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: And I tried to do it like that, couldn't it,
Speaker 1: And so I ended up going, did you get any
Speaker 1: indication why Stipe could do that? There's a lot of
Speaker 1: nice spiritual tones inside of R. E. M's music too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I don't know. I think what he used
Speaker 2: to do was you'd stand there for the first two
Speaker 2: tunes move. He was a sort of lightning conductor, and
Speaker 2: he was just waiting for it to hit, and then
Speaker 2: when it hit, he was off, but he would wait,
Speaker 2: and if it wasn't going to hit, he was still
Speaker 2: there three or four tunes later, and waiting He kind
Speaker 2: of warmed up in front of everybody, gauging it all.
Speaker 2: Whereas I can't do that because I have to sort
Speaker 2: of be clear of everything before, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: I need to be completely empty. We're taking a break.
Speaker 1: Stay with us.
Speaker 2: I started playing guitar when I was seven. I sat
Speaker 2: down and said I was going to be Brian May
Speaker 2: and I was not a bad thing to be. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And then I tried to do I read like when
Speaker 2: I was ten or something. I read that he'd built
Speaker 2: his first guitar himself, which is the one he still plays.
Speaker 1: So I tried to do that, but my efforts was
Speaker 1: and then said she were not Brian May no handcrafting
Speaker 1: of the guitar.
Speaker 2: And I had to cheat with the neck on the
Speaker 2: guitar I found in old someone a neighbor gave me
Speaker 2: a neck of an electric guitar.
Speaker 1: Was that great?
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good, But you know I was ten or eleven,
Speaker 2: so I was trying to like bolt it to get
Speaker 2: to this other piece of wood that I'd cut out,
Speaker 2: and it was just a disaster. But it kind of worked,
Speaker 2: but it was ugly.
Speaker 1: Was your family musical? Not really? No.
Speaker 2: The only one that sticks out is apparently my great grandmother.
Speaker 2: She'd get really hammered and then stay up playing her
Speaker 2: pump organ thing downstairs all night and keep.
Speaker 1: The family up. You were around, did you witness that?
Speaker 2: I met her once and she was kind of she
Speaker 2: wore black and was quite scary when I was really tiny.
Speaker 1: But nowither of your parents were artists musicians? No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: When the guitar came into your life when you or seven,
Speaker 1: Brian May or no, was it music itself? And were
Speaker 1: you moved by music itself? Or was it like many
Speaker 1: people when they're very young? Was it rock stardom? Was
Speaker 1: never then it was it was you weren't running around
Speaker 1: your bedroom imitating Jagger and you thought like you.
Speaker 2: My whole thing was we didn't have any sound system
Speaker 2: in the house. We had nothing, no high fi nothing
Speaker 2: except for in my dad's car and had a tight
Speaker 2: player in it. So I went and would sit for hours.
Speaker 2: I would sit for hours, and you know, it was
Speaker 2: the sound of Brian May's guitar. Actually, it was one
Speaker 2: of those funny things where you know, when you turned
Speaker 2: something up and you're in a very controlled, loud environment,
Speaker 2: just that sound was just you know, nothing else was that.
Speaker 2: When you're that small and you've never I've never really
Speaker 2: heard music particularly at all up until that point. You know,
Speaker 2: it's funny. It's got a weird thing. But I mean,
Speaker 2: lots of kids at that age, you know, their parents
Speaker 2: didn't really have high fires or anything as such. The
Speaker 2: only guy I did know who had a high fight
Speaker 2: down the road only played abbat, which I thought was
Speaker 2: worse than not having one.
Speaker 1: But that was me somehow. Those and then and then
Speaker 1: the guitar, and you're trying to fashion your own guitar
Speaker 1: by the time you were eleven, and then when you
Speaker 1: take another step toward deepening your commitment. How old are
Speaker 1: you when you form the band sixteen? I did have
Speaker 1: a band when I was eleven, But what's an eleven
Speaker 1: year old band sound like?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, it were not very good at all, but it was.
Speaker 2: It was very exciting, like going around to a friend's
Speaker 2: house is setting up and jamming, and all our mates
Speaker 2: would come and hang out and girls, which I thought,
Speaker 2: this is interesting. Yes, as puberty hit, but that sort
Speaker 2: of fell to bits because I kept fighting with the drummer.
Speaker 2: And then when I was six, I was thinking, well, okay,
Speaker 2: I need to get this together really and just went
Speaker 2: around the school sort of choosing people.
Speaker 1: So you went around picking people. I got it because
Speaker 1: he was.
Speaker 2: Dressed like Morrissey and he had some cool socks, and
Speaker 2: I saw he'd had a guitar. I had no idea
Speaker 2: whether he could play or not. I didn't really care.
Speaker 2: I got Colin because I knew Colin could play very
Speaker 2: well and I needed.
Speaker 1: A bass player.
Speaker 2: He could play very well, but he had never played
Speaker 2: bass before and his brother Johnny was this mythical musical prodigy,
Speaker 2: so wroped him in and then Phil was the only
Speaker 2: drummer IN knew anyway, so and and he had a
Speaker 2: house down the road that we could rehearse him.
Speaker 1: And you're all and you lived where you grew up
Speaker 1: were well.
Speaker 2: This was at Abingdon School in near Oxford.
Speaker 1: And then when you form Radiohead when you're sixteen.
Speaker 2: Basically yeah, we started sort of writing, doing demos and
Speaker 2: messing about and it was, you know, it was quite
Speaker 2: interesting straight away that it was quite I think because
Speaker 2: Field had quite a lot of experience. He was a
Speaker 2: bit older, and he'd had his own band, so he
Speaker 2: knew how to put things together a bit. And in
Speaker 2: fact we used to go and do demos in his
Speaker 2: sister's bedroom, like right from the beginning, which which was great.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's nothing better than like just starting off
Speaker 2: by just trying to write demos from scratch, even though
Speaker 2: you can't really play, even though you don't know each other.
Speaker 2: That's where you start, you know. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: nice way to figure out where you're about.
Speaker 1: What do you think you do best? You lead a band,
Speaker 1: you well, you play guitar, you write music, you produce music,
Speaker 1: you do and you sing. What do you think your
Speaker 1: greatest strength is? If you had to pick one, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm doing right. I like the fact
Speaker 1: that I still don't know what I'm doing. I think, well,
Speaker 1: not honestly, I can't go I'll go through whole phrases
Speaker 1: of months where i'n't got a clue. I regularly lose
Speaker 1: complete confidence in what I'm doing. Why do you think
Speaker 1: that is? Umm, because I have the same condition.
Speaker 2: Why partly because I think I don't quite understand how
Speaker 2: it happens after the fact, When.
Speaker 1: When what happens when the appreciation comes to.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're piecing something together right, things will
Speaker 2: fall into place how you make it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: in some ways, the nicest bit about the creative thing,
Speaker 2: of nicest bit about recording and writing is this sort
Speaker 2: of weird limbo where you in between scratching away scratching away,
Speaker 2: nothing really happening, nothing really happening, and then something wants
Speaker 2: to be built and starts to get built. You just
Speaker 2: have to let it happen, and then it gets to
Speaker 2: the end and you and you look at it a
Speaker 2: few months later and go, huh damn. It's sort of
Speaker 2: weird amnesia that goes with it. Something will happen, one
Speaker 2: little sound goes off, and you go well, that's really
Speaker 2: nice for me. When I was at school, I didn't
Speaker 2: get on with the school system at all. I see it,
Speaker 2: and my son the same, that sort of the mechanics
Speaker 2: of how a school operates and how you're supposed to
Speaker 2: blend in or whatever. So I hid in the music
Speaker 2: stroke art department and had a great time there and
Speaker 2: discovered that actually that's what I wanted to do. Straight away,
Speaker 2: the heads of both schools just saw what I was
Speaker 2: up there.
Speaker 1: This is this the teacher that you often credit with
Speaker 1: here or yeah, what was the teacher's.
Speaker 2: Name, Terry James, But it was him and my art
Speaker 2: teacher as well. Actually it was like someone sort of
Speaker 2: takes you under their wing and say, well, you know what,
Speaker 2: you're actually quite good at that.
Speaker 1: Mentoring is a very critical thing in this business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's it's enough at that age, it's enough
Speaker 2: to just get a little push and then okay.
Speaker 1: Or does someone push you in a different direction, yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah that would be bad. Yeah, how about you
Speaker 1: go to the other I think you need to.
Speaker 2: I think my father used to think I used to
Speaker 2: get to advertising, which is like really brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd really be good at that. Other people well,
Speaker 1: one thing you're good at is avoiding. My original question,
Speaker 1: which was what do you think you're best at? And
Speaker 1: let's try to choose if you can, if you maybe
Speaker 1: you don't mind confine yourself to the list, I provide,
Speaker 1: what do you think you're best at? Okay? This is
Speaker 1: multiple choice guitar band, kind of paternal figure, songwriting, producing, singing.
Speaker 1: I guess singing. Okay, I'm glad you chose that one.
Speaker 1: I was driving. I think when I popped the words
Speaker 1: singing the way I did, I was trying to do
Speaker 1: or singing. What was singing to you? How did your
Speaker 1: singing evolve where you arrived at where you are now
Speaker 1: where most people say you have one of the most
Speaker 1: evocative singing voices in all of music today, melancholy to
Speaker 1: the point of well, people who loved, who love radio Head,
Speaker 1: they crave their music, and they crave particularly you were singing.
Speaker 2: Well, basically I went to music. I went to a
Speaker 2: few singing lessons, but that was basically just so I
Speaker 2: could literally breathe.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, one of my favorite singers, like Byork. When
Speaker 2: I watched b York sing, I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 2: sort of sing with her and watch you do it.
Speaker 1: And I was gonna say, you'ree of the few people
Speaker 1: going to use that phrase when I watched B. York
Speaker 1: saying yeah, most of us say, well, when I listened
Speaker 1: to B. York and it's.
Speaker 2: In here, it's right here, they say, you know, with
Speaker 2: with with in yoga and stuff that whatever it is,
Speaker 2: I can't remember that that spot at the top of
Speaker 2: the forehead that you really most singers like Neil Young
Speaker 2: is the same. He sings into this spot in his
Speaker 2: head and what he's singing he's already heard, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, He's hearing it come out. The same
Speaker 2: with Buork when she's singing, she's singing what she's hearing,
Speaker 2: so there's no force. It's a force in itself. It
Speaker 2: took me a while to get that, you know, even
Speaker 2: when we were on tour with ira Em back when
Speaker 2: we're doing the Benz in ninety six or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: Still I was still trying to figure it out. Then
Speaker 2: watching Michael and wanting to sound like Michael, but I couldn't,
Speaker 2: you know, because my voice is in a different tone
Speaker 2: completely and so on. But what I did learn, what
Speaker 2: you know, watching him, was again that thing of like
Speaker 2: watching someone who their voices in sort of command of
Speaker 2: them rather than the other way around. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 2: very natural, but it takes a long time for that
Speaker 2: to become natural. I think, like any singer, it takes
Speaker 2: a long time to find that thing and it keeps
Speaker 2: changing to me how I sing now or to me
Speaker 2: it feels different to a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Why it just does it just because to do it?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there's probably some physical element to it, but
Speaker 2: also just where you're at, you know, because singing is
Speaker 2: nothing but like probably like acting, singing is nothing but
Speaker 2: being in a moment.
Speaker 1: That's it and where you're at. Yeah, when you do like.
Speaker 2: When I used to be like you know, when when
Speaker 2: you're trying to singing or whatever, channle I remember sort
Speaker 2: of okay, computer, I still had this thing like, well
Speaker 2: I need to be a little bit half cut when
Speaker 2: i'm you know, I need to do something or other beforehand.
Speaker 2: So I thought I'm in the right space, man, Where
Speaker 2: it's all bollocks because basically you just got to learn
Speaker 2: to be there with it. When you do it, you're
Speaker 2: not trying to prove anything. You're not trying to get anywhere,
Speaker 2: You're not trying to achieve anything. You're not trying to
Speaker 2: get this emotion across. You're not in this space trying
Speaker 2: to get this space across. You're not trying to get
Speaker 2: this mindset across or anything. You're just letting it happen.
Speaker 1: When you do this now, when you live inside your
Speaker 1: life now, whether you're performing live or you're producing and
Speaker 1: recording music, do you feel different now that you're older?
Speaker 1: I mean, the chasm between when you're sixteen when you're
Speaker 1: forty three is extraordinary, isn't it? Just it's just mind bending? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're sick of it and you
Speaker 1: want to be done with it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You do sometimes, but not, it's never really. The music
Speaker 2: is everything else, you know, primarily what we'll just stresses
Speaker 2: of life whatever. You know, something's good.
Speaker 1: So your life is not like I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of people think they think that successful artists, whether it
Speaker 1: is walk across this bed of rose petals all day,
Speaker 1: the greatest torment of our life is do we go
Speaker 1: to Paris on spring break or Anguilla? My god, I
Speaker 1: can't I can't answer that. It is a problem. It
Speaker 1: is a problem, but it's not we're supposed to say
Speaker 1: that But what I'm saying is is that they think that, like,
Speaker 1: do you ever sit there? You're very active socially. Yes,
Speaker 1: I guess you care. You've made some comments about world affairs.
Speaker 1: I don't care about the world. Yeah, you care about
Speaker 1: what's going If I said to you that, I snapped
Speaker 1: my fingers and you go back to having a very
Speaker 1: normal life and you're not you at all with everything
Speaker 1: that goes with it, and the rest of the world
Speaker 1: is elevated and the rest of the world gets better.
Speaker 1: Things you care about? Think of an issue you care.
Speaker 1: Can I say to you Tom yorke Tom, your Tom,
Speaker 1: you go back and the world gets better, would you
Speaker 1: make that change to find better? It's a tricky question,
Speaker 1: but you do. It's not an either or. But you
Speaker 1: do care about other things. Is there an issue that
Speaker 1: you're embracing now? Is there something you're involved in that
Speaker 1: or where I'm going?
Speaker 2: I well, in my slack asked fashion, I was helping
Speaker 2: Greenpeace do this thing which was trying to stop drilling
Speaker 2: in the Arctic. But it sounds like it's kind of
Speaker 2: working because the company seemed to be pulling out because
Speaker 2: they can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's entirely down to us, but I
Speaker 2: think it definitely helped that We're making their life extremely
Speaker 2: difficult everywhere they turned. But challenge now is to turn
Speaker 2: the Arctic into a reserve so it can't happen, because
Speaker 2: what that was going to do is create this gold rush,
Speaker 2: you know, or rush up there, which was just going
Speaker 2: to be insane. And this at the same time where
Speaker 2: the ice is melting. Basically they only started considering it
Speaker 2: was a possibility because the was melting. They thought, Okay, great,
Speaker 2: maybe got a better chance for drilling, which is like
Speaker 2: a global global you.
Speaker 1: Mean less oil to them, it means more Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was kind of stuck in that for
Speaker 2: a while because, yeah, the to me, the irony of
Speaker 2: it was too much. I don't know where I'll go next.
Speaker 2: I don't I find it very stressful. I did get involved.
Speaker 2: A few years ago. We did this thing in Britain,
Speaker 2: the first Climate Change Act, which meant the government is
Speaker 2: committed to reducing CO two emissions twenty fifty by ninety percent,
Speaker 2: and now lots of countries have got it. It was
Speaker 2: the first one and the government didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2: Blair didn't want to do it, but we found this
Speaker 2: interesting loophole and got thousands of people to send letters
Speaker 2: in and said at the bottom of the letter to
Speaker 2: the at the MP police, can you pass this on
Speaker 2: to Blair? Right? And apparently they were obliged to pass
Speaker 2: on these letters. So Blair was literally getting thousands and
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of letters, which
Speaker 2: doesn't normally happen. And he did pass the law after
Speaker 2: much arguing and me refusing to meet him because it
Speaker 2: was during the Iraq War and all sorts of critical
Speaker 2: of Yeah, well, any normal human being would be anyway.
Speaker 2: I was very glad I did it, and the people
Speaker 2: I was working for at the time it was with
Speaker 2: Friends of the Earth, and it was really inspiring and
Speaker 2: I became really good friends with the guy who's running
Speaker 2: Friends of the Earth at the time, Tony Juniper, who
Speaker 2: now works with Prince Charles. And it was a great period.
Speaker 2: But I just burnt me out getting that close to politics.
Speaker 2: The most fascinating figure that we work with was the
Speaker 2: lobbyist that we had our one lobbyist, So like we
Speaker 2: went into this Port Colors house in Britain, you probably
Speaker 2: have the equivalent here. I don't know what it's called,
Speaker 2: but Port Cullis House was built for the lobbyists. It
Speaker 2: was built for special interests to go and sit with
Speaker 2: a cup of coffee, round table about this size and
Speaker 2: wait for MPs to go past colin of them, sit
Speaker 2: them down and lobby them in.
Speaker 1: Big Congress the Capitol building.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I found it completely fascinating, you know, because it's
Speaker 2: there's hundreds of these people walking around, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: none of them are lobbying for us, except when you
Speaker 2: maybe possibly could argue that our one mate, Friends of
Speaker 2: the Earth was like technically, you know, maybe speaking for
Speaker 2: the people a little bit, but basically they were all
Speaker 2: special interest and they had the ear of government.
Speaker 1: And I just thought, hang on, hang on a minute,
Speaker 1: how did this happen? Anyway? Where where were we a
Speaker 1: minute ago? I know where I want to go? Okay,
Speaker 1: go on and go there. Then your children, Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: that's too much for a jump. Hang on where we
Speaker 1: Let's finish with this first? Then your children. I'm lost.
Speaker 1: Now do your children know who you are and what
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're used to it. They're used to people coming
Speaker 2: up and saying hello. But most of the time it's
Speaker 2: very friendly and that's normal. That's their normal, that's what
Speaker 2: they've grown up.
Speaker 1: And how old are they? Twelve and seven? So one
Speaker 1: seven the age that you decided you wanted to be
Speaker 1: Brian May the twelve and by then he's he he
Speaker 1: would already have made his guitar with that neck. That
Speaker 1: was eleven. I think you said to the other kids,
Speaker 1: where are they at?
Speaker 2: Basically, my son is a great drummer, but I don't
Speaker 2: know if you want to do that forever or not.
Speaker 2: He's like not bothered really, which is cool. You know,
Speaker 2: he just and he comes and hangs out with me
Speaker 2: when I'm working in my studio.
Speaker 1: We just hang out. You know, we're friends.
Speaker 2: But I don't think you know that there's no burning
Speaker 2: ambition to be a musicians or anything. Really, even though
Speaker 2: he's really good, he's for pleasure. I mean at that
Speaker 2: age that's good, right.
Speaker 1: His fatherhood affected your work, yes, but not really that
Speaker 1: you have the obvious things.
Speaker 2: Were you you go out on the road more if
Speaker 2: you didn't have children, Yep, absolutely, But that's not necessarily
Speaker 2: a bad thing at all. You know, being on their
Speaker 2: road is it's a it's not a great war. It's
Speaker 2: it's you don't want to do it all your life.
Speaker 2: You get a little bit on it gets a little
Speaker 2: unhealthy quite quickly mentally, if not physically.
Speaker 1: Has been difficult for you, mentally.
Speaker 2: Uh, it can be different. It means it's it's wicked
Speaker 2: fun a bit too much. It's either wicked fun or
Speaker 2: really awful, like when you're sick. Then it gets really
Speaker 2: it's a roll bumber man.
Speaker 1: Have to get out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, try to sing your way through the notes that
Speaker 2: you can't find because you're so sick or whatever. That's
Speaker 2: really super stressful. But you know, it is a massive
Speaker 2: buzz and there's no denying it.
Speaker 1: It's great. But Tom Yorke is the first to admit
Speaker 1: that it takes work to keep it fun in the
Speaker 1: studio and on tour.
Speaker 2: It's very difficult to play with people you don't if
Speaker 2: there's problems between you, for example, if the issues come up.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm very much I'm a librin and I
Speaker 2: need to sort it out. I can't have stuff hanging around.
Speaker 1: You know, because it gets in a way more in
Speaker 1: a minute with Tom Yorke, this is Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to here's the thing given the level of
Speaker 1: success that Radiohead has reached. I did have certain expectations
Speaker 1: of Tom's lifestyle. I mean, I'm assuming you're in a
Speaker 1: world where that your phone must have rang it maybe
Speaker 1: it stopped because you kept saying no, but maybe everybody's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Bono wants to pick you up tomorrow and
Speaker 1: fly you to Saint Bart's. Yeah, that never appealed.
Speaker 2: I don't hang out with people because they are who
Speaker 2: they are, necessarily unless I'm a big admirer of them,
Speaker 2: Like I mean, I stalked at Norton for ages until
Speaker 2: eventually he gave it because I'm a big admirer of him.
Speaker 2: I think it's brilliant. So I hang out with him
Speaker 2: a bit occasionally.
Speaker 1: And Flea.
Speaker 2: I've always really admired Flea anyway, so even before it
Speaker 2: became an issue of sort of playing with him.
Speaker 1: Tangentially related to that, As you've gotten older and you
Speaker 1: look around the musical landscape, what you see does it
Speaker 1: appeal to you? Meaning of the music that's popular music,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's selling now the most successfully. Have you
Speaker 1: moved into a different place with that or do you
Speaker 1: admire a lot of what's being done.
Speaker 2: In the mainstream. In the mainstream, there's nothing in the mainstream.
Speaker 2: The mainstream is just avoid you know. To me, I mean,
Speaker 2: what's weird about putting a record out?
Speaker 1: Now? Really?
Speaker 2: And this is not like sour grapes at all. It's
Speaker 2: just the fact the volume, literally the sheer volume stuff
Speaker 2: that gets put out. It's like this huge fucking waterfall
Speaker 2: and you're just thrown your pebble in and it carries
Speaker 2: on down the waterfall.
Speaker 1: That right, Okay.
Speaker 2: Next, basically, you know, like in this country, the radio
Speaker 2: is tied up and people don't really listen to radio
Speaker 2: in the same way. It's it's music's going through a
Speaker 2: weird time because on the one hand, as ever, there's
Speaker 2: always really exciting music being made. It's never not being made.
Speaker 2: It's a question of whether you're going to get to
Speaker 2: hear it or not. And I mean I kind of
Speaker 2: I kind of knew the game was up a few
Speaker 2: years ago when one of our sort of team of
Speaker 2: people came in saying Nokia wanted to offer you millions
Speaker 2: of pounds because they want content for their phones. And
Speaker 2: this is like in two thousand, I don't know, early
Speaker 2: two thousands, and you're like content, what you know, content.
Speaker 2: What do you mean music? Yes, okay, content maybe that yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: just stuff could be music stuff, yeah, stuff could be
Speaker 2: got snoring?
Speaker 1: Have you got some stuff? You know?
Speaker 2: And you're like okay, And I think, really my problem
Speaker 2: with it is it is like it's now like something
Speaker 2: to fill up the hardware with, you know, the music
Speaker 2: itself has become secondary to that, which is a weird
Speaker 2: thing to me. It's like, and I think that will
Speaker 2: change because there's only so many different permutations of the
Speaker 2: same hardware you can make before people go, well, actually
Speaker 2: I have an iPod now, so thanks. So I think
Speaker 2: things will change, and I think the radio will change,
Speaker 2: and sooner the better, because no matter what way you
Speaker 2: look at it, the most pleasurable experiences you ever have
Speaker 2: is like when something's played to you you don't know, well,
Speaker 2: like going around to a friend's house and they'll stick
Speaker 2: a tune on.
Speaker 1: You, Like what the hell is it? You know? Which
Speaker 1: is what it's about?
Speaker 2: You know, that's why we're like going into a store
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, like and the New Smith's
Speaker 2: records come out, and like and I'm going up to
Speaker 2: the guy. I think that's like he's really cool, Like
Speaker 2: the indie store in town and just talking to him
Speaker 2: about music for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: You know, and you know you share now everywhere you go.
Speaker 1: Music is everywhere.
Speaker 2: It's everywhere, but it's not nicely. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's content.
Speaker 2: Content is king that bullshit will change. And when it does,
Speaker 2: then I think we'll have a resurgence. The underbelly will
Speaker 2: come back overbelly and then well.
Speaker 1: If it's middle aged, it'll be overbelly. Well you have
Speaker 1: ways to go there. I'm going to be taking some
Speaker 1: slimming pills. Yeah, but no, we in the way that
Speaker 1: you talked about this pebble and the waterfall and content
Speaker 1: and music marketing. Now, so if that changes, certainly, which
Speaker 1: it has, does your willingness to release your music into
Speaker 1: that world change? I mean, like, for example, an obvious example,
Speaker 1: maybe too obvious, is you don't want to play Creep anymore.
Speaker 1: Now do you sit there and say, like, if the
Speaker 1: Sultan of Brunei called you up and said I want
Speaker 1: you to come to Brunei and we give you a
Speaker 1: million pounds, just play Creep, I would play Creep and
Speaker 1: you can go home.
Speaker 2: I would say to the something of BRUNEI, why do
Speaker 2: you have that house near me that you never use.
Speaker 1: I can just meet you down the block.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, it's an empty house, man, it
Speaker 2: must be worth whatever. That's what I'd say, trillion, and
Speaker 2: I'd say no obvious.
Speaker 1: But am.
Speaker 2: The hell?
Speaker 1: When you retire a song that way? Why do you
Speaker 1: do that? Well? I don't not necessarily retire it.
Speaker 2: I mean I don't recognize it as me, which is
Speaker 2: kind of quite interesting when I hearing just that voice,
Speaker 2: I don't even recognize that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of odd. Whatever you want, you're so fucking special.
Speaker 2: But then I remember hearing I remember hearing Lou read
Speaker 2: Like on some radio station in Dublin years and years ago,
Speaker 2: and they were asking inevitably about the underground and he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: or sometimes it comes on. I'm like, oh, this is cool,
Speaker 2: what's this?
Speaker 1: And then I realized it's an underground comments.
Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, I kind of know what he means to
Speaker 2: sort of you get to the point where you're like,
Speaker 2: what's that?
Speaker 1: Like? Sounds pretty good? Blood. So you're forty three years old,
Speaker 1: forty four, forty four years old, it's just our professional
Speaker 1: courtesy that we shave a year off of all of
Speaker 1: our already. Yeah, all of them. You're in the now
Speaker 1: and you're in the here what have you? And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that glibly and you're know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: But you're not somebody who like Mick Jagger, for example,
Speaker 1: Like I wonder if Mick Jagger is going to hit
Speaker 1: a day, like does it happen in a day? Like
Speaker 1: as Mick Jagger in bed one day and he picks
Speaker 1: it the phone, He's like, you know, I just can't
Speaker 1: do it anymore. I can't get out of this bed.
Speaker 1: I can't do another fucking show again. And it's over.
Speaker 1: Like do you think of other things? I think all
Speaker 1: the time of the next thing I'm gonna do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: next thing. You don't have to tell us what it is,
Speaker 1: but you or no? I mean.
Speaker 2: It would end if something happened to my voice.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Certain things could make it physically stop, and it will
Speaker 2: stop at some point, something will happen. But for me, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm always hearing different things. There's always half finished things,
Speaker 2: which you ask poor old Nigel he knows about that.
Speaker 2: There's always a mountain of half stuff. I want to
Speaker 2: get into stuff, I've started stuff I want to you know,
Speaker 2: But I also think it's good to sort of take
Speaker 2: breaks because I've gone straight from this radio tour last year,
Speaker 2: which was a really heavy mother but really good fun,
Speaker 2: straight into doing sort of atoms stuff and not really
Speaker 2: had a break. And so breakers do a breakers do,
Speaker 2: because what I've found with a breaker can be an
Speaker 2: incredibly exciting thing with that thing of like you just
Speaker 2: all the stuff you want to do, but you just
Speaker 2: force yourself not just force yourself to wait and get
Speaker 2: back into just time and space and yeah, not being
Speaker 2: in music all the time, I think, because it's like anything,
Speaker 2: you start to go in small circles, so you've got
Speaker 2: to stop when that happens.
Speaker 1: I've had to practice that now. I mean, I got
Speaker 1: married again and my wife is pregnant and I'm going
Speaker 1: to have a kid, and I really sat and thought
Speaker 1: about that way that I want to have a more
Speaker 1: ordinary and more normal handling of my emotions. I think
Speaker 1: the best way to put it is what people in
Speaker 1: my business say, which is would you rather live it
Speaker 1: in real life or words you rather play it on screen?
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking I want to walk away from it
Speaker 1: because I'd rather live it in real life now than
Speaker 1: play it on screen.
Speaker 2: I think it with what I do is slightly different
Speaker 2: because what I do it actually unless you're literally spending,
Speaker 2: unless you are just literally working too hard, it's a
Speaker 2: regenerative thing. I find that I'm well, I mean, my family,
Speaker 2: my friends know that I'm a nicer person if I'm
Speaker 2: working and I'm into what I'm doing than if I stop,
Speaker 2: and there is a period where I'm fairly unbearable if
Speaker 2: I do stop too long, Yeah, for too long probably, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a threshold. But like, if you want to shift
Speaker 2: right with your work, if you want to shift, if
Speaker 2: you're writing, if you're being creative at all, you kind
Speaker 2: of have to stop to make that shift because if
Speaker 2: you just I'm constantly creating, I've got this mounting of
Speaker 2: brilliant ideas. You're making the basic mistake that you're assuming
Speaker 2: all your ideas are brilliant, where in fact, the more
Speaker 2: you do they're probably the more it kind of your
Speaker 2: thing in reverse, because actually I need to go and
Speaker 2: do normal shit.
Speaker 1: I need to.
Speaker 2: I can't write unless I have a period where you're restored. Well, no,
Speaker 2: it's not restored, just just reset. I'm like just normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal.
Speaker 1: Speaking of normal, do you have siblings. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: have a brother? What does he do? Russian politics and stuff?
Speaker 1: He teaches? No, he's the mayor of all.
Speaker 2: What do you mean all sorts of ship investigations on people?
Speaker 2: You studied Russian Oxford and then went into various.
Speaker 1: Are your parents all there? What do your I always
Speaker 1: let people in your business? Above all? What are your
Speaker 1: parents and your brother make of you going from being
Speaker 1: Tom York Tom to becoming Tom York.
Speaker 2: Well, my brother was in a band of his own
Speaker 2: for a while as well, so he has a slightly
Speaker 2: like he can see what it is from another point
Speaker 2: of view.
Speaker 1: What do my parents think? I don't know.
Speaker 2: They like when I was a kid, they didn't approve.
Speaker 2: Now that I'm happy, Why.
Speaker 1: Do you go into advertising? Yes?
Speaker 2: Well you know it was like fair enough. I was
Speaker 2: pissed off of them at the time, but you know
Speaker 2: it's kind of what that's what you do, isn't it?
Speaker 1: I mean, well to everybody's parents. Right when I left
Speaker 1: a pre law program and I was destined to go
Speaker 1: to law school and I went into the acting program,
Speaker 1: my mother was She literally screamed at me over the past.
Speaker 2: My mom was very upset when I when I chose
Speaker 2: to go to art college because she'd been to art
Speaker 2: college and she said, it's a complete waste of time,
Speaker 2: doesn't bother And.
Speaker 1: When it became successful with my business mother was like,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of him. Oh my god, this is wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of bonkers, like seeing them backstage at
Speaker 2: a really big show that will come to a big
Speaker 2: show and there's all sorts of shit came off with
Speaker 2: my mates. They're doing whatever, you know, and there's my
Speaker 2: mom and I going that was fun, cornie beer or whatever.
Speaker 1: When you do step away from it, what are their
Speaker 1: art are you? Are you interested in art photography? Well,
Speaker 1: my mate theater.
Speaker 2: Film, my mate Stanley don Wood who I went to
Speaker 2: art college with, who does all our art work with.
Speaker 1: I mean I do it with him kind of thing.
Speaker 2: We always have these lovely plans about we want to
Speaker 2: go and live in Berlin for a month and just
Speaker 2: paint and get in trouble and things like that. We
Speaker 2: call ourselves the Sunday Painters and we go on bad
Speaker 2: painting trips. We did one where people they're bad painting
Speaker 2: trips because I'm involved there was one of my favorite
Speaker 2: ones was we went on the moors down in Cornwall.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean by the moors and
Speaker 2: Dartmore basically, which is very very very bleak, but really beautiful.
Speaker 2: We were in the Stone Circle, drove part of the way,
Speaker 2: walked the rest away with these big canvases and paints.
Speaker 2: But we only we discovered we only have purple and
Speaker 2: blue and yellow, so we thought, well, okay, we'll use that,
Speaker 2: and we painted landscape all afternoon, but they were purple
Speaker 2: and blue and yellow. Some pool women I remember coming
Speaker 2: like late afternoon, coming and ask us, asking us for directions.
Speaker 2: We're both sitting there, you know, canvases up like this,
Speaker 2: all huddled up with the hoods on, you know, just.
Speaker 1: Doing this, and.
Speaker 2: This ball woman comes up, asks for asks for directions
Speaker 2: or somewhere rather, and then looks at the paintings.
Speaker 1: That just wonders off like, good luck, have another career.
Speaker 1: I hope you're not counting on it. Always like, didn't
Speaker 1: think the purple is working for it. Was like me
Speaker 1: being in Italy and this beautiful couple. They were like late,
Speaker 1: they were older, and the man walked up to me
Speaker 1: in the camera and he said, schools A schooser is
Speaker 1: a photo and He's pointing to me and his wife
Speaker 1: is triangularly and I go oh, and I put my
Speaker 1: arm around his wife to take a photo. He goes, no, no,
Speaker 1: you photo and you take the photo the mountain in
Speaker 1: the background, and I was like, oh, god, bless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't know who I am. I should move here,
Speaker 1: I should move here. You mentioned someone gave you that
Speaker 1: push his mentorship in your career. Do people come to
Speaker 1: you and do you give them a push a little bit?
Speaker 1: I mean, you must have a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the music world, young people who look up to you.
Speaker 2: One of the best buzzes really is that thing where
Speaker 2: someone comes up who's new and they're really into you know,
Speaker 2: I'm really into what they're doing. It's really fascinating and
Speaker 2: it's really totally new to me. But yet the occasions
Speaker 2: when the yeah and You're like.
Speaker 1: How could you?
Speaker 2: How could you feel off me? I don't see any
Speaker 2: of my stuff, but they see it, and I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's so cool, especially when it's like like it's in
Speaker 2: hip hop, Like really you know people within hip hop
Speaker 2: who are into Radiohead. I'm like, I find that so
Speaker 2: fascinating because I mean, obviously I'm massively into hip hop,
Speaker 2: and we we use hip hop as a reference point
Speaker 2: in the way we build tracks and stuff. But but really, wow,
Speaker 2: that's bonkers. Obviously that's one of the really good bits.
Speaker 2: But it's not really mental ship. It's just people who
Speaker 2: you admire good at their ship, you know.
Speaker 1: And when it happens, it happens. How does success make
Speaker 1: you feel?
Speaker 2: How does it make me feel? Something which I think
Speaker 2: is well, howes it make me feel? It's always been
Speaker 2: a little bit far away from me And the only
Speaker 2: time it sort of makes sense is when we play
Speaker 2: in front of people, you know, and the rest of
Speaker 2: the times like, well, it's it's just it's who I've
Speaker 2: been for so long I can't tell you because it's
Speaker 2: just that's what it is. And I think I've probably
Speaker 2: been doing it more than I haven't in my life
Speaker 2: in terms of years, in terms of time. So most
Speaker 2: of the time I don't really notice and people come
Speaker 2: up and I go, well, that's nice, you know, thanks
Speaker 2: very much. And it's not like I'm not grateful. I'm
Speaker 2: just I just don't notice. And then sometimes some will
Speaker 2: whack you over the head and you go, BlimE me,
Speaker 2: things like doing the first time we did Saturday in life,
Speaker 2: for example, and you go, really, people give a ship
Speaker 2: because sometimes you can't. You don't know, you don't know
Speaker 2: you've got on the inside, you can't see it. And
Speaker 2: also you spent so long running away from it, and
Speaker 2: I don't feel like I run away from it now
Speaker 2: because there's nowhere to run.
Speaker 1: To run.
Speaker 2: And also it is like, yeah, I'm really grateful for
Speaker 2: I'm it's very incredibly lucky.
Speaker 1: There's a very good point, there's nowhere to run and
Speaker 1: still do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I just think I'm well Jammy. As
Speaker 2: we say, it's just really jammy, especially in the US,
Speaker 2: you know, like people really give a shit, and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I guess I have one more question, was what does
Speaker 1: well Jammy mean? I don't know, really, you don't know.
Speaker 2: Jammy is like you're so Jammy, like you just I'm
Speaker 2: dating myself.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, it's a total floke, man, it's not really.
Speaker 1: You're just lucky.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm British, right, so I assume I'm just lucky.
Speaker 2: There's no skill involved. I'm Jammy.
Speaker 1: Goes off. This is from Tom York's most recent album, Amok.
Speaker 1: He'll be touring in support of the album later this year.
Speaker 1: Find out more on our website. Here's the Thing dot org.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing. Comes from w
Speaker 1: NYC Radio.