WEBVTT - From the Archives: Thom Yorke 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.280 Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.520 season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.080 thought I'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:18.400 In nineteen ninety two, Radiohead released their stunning debut single 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:25.560 Creep When You'reful. It was quiet, yet explosive, even haunting, 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.320 and its refrain had a powerful hook. I wish our special, 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:41.320 so fucking special. Radioheads frontman and principal songwriter Tom York 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.320 is my guest, and if it was his wish to 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.000 be special, the world granted it. York's band has become 0:00:48.000 --> 0:01:03.280 a commercial and critical success, selling over thirty million albums. 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:09.319 Radiohead's music actively resists definition. Each new album explores a 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:13.480 different sound, delighting their followers and scooping up more fans 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:27.360 along the way. The New York Times called Radiohead rock's 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:31.800 most experimental top ten band, and this spirit of experimentation 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.960 isn't limited to their music. In two thousand and seven, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.199 York and his bandmates released In Rainbows on their website. 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.880 First fans were invited to pay what they wanted for 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.600 the album. Radiohead may not have been the first to 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.400 thummets nose the music industrial complex but they might be 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.920 the first to do so and sell out a major arena. 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.680 That said, Tom York hasn't necessarily been comfortable under the spotlight. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.320 He complains about celebrity worship and I wasn't sure what 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:03.080 to expect. 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.360 Actually, I got you a health food snack, did you Yeah, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.640 because someone told me you were like all vegetarian and that. 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.440 Tom Yorke has a new record out Amok. The band 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:25.960 calls themselves Adams for Peace. You don't do a lot 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.639 of pros. Were you doing? I was an an as 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.359 needed a basis, yeah, on a need to know basis, Yeah, yeah, 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:33.359 kind of. 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:35.560 I kind of need to explain what I'm doing a 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.840 bit with the Adams for Peace thing, just a little 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:43.600 bit because it's something different and some vague effort to 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.880 explain myself occasionally I think is morally acceptable. 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.240 Tell us about the Adams for Peace. Well, it's just 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:51.120 it was. 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.760 I did a record on my own called The Eraser 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:54.840 a few years ago. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.400 Was that your first solo record? Yes, first time. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:59.799 I sort of worked on my own with Nigel who 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:04.160 Normal who produces Radiohead, and it came out it was okay. 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:05.760 People liked it a bit. 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.320 A couple of years after, I suddenly thought I really 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:10.760 want to actually because it was all done, it was 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.680 all programmed, it was all computers and stuff, and I thought, actually, 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:16.880 I really I'm curious to know what it would be 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:18.560 like to actually get a band together to play this. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:20.799 And it was an excuse to go on a jolly 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.320 to LA and hang out. And I emailed friends of 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.120 mine who I knew like the record. One was Flee 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.520 from the Chili Peppers. One was my friend Joey, who's 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.120 drummed with everybody who's genius drummer from LA And anyway, 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.480 we got it together and it turned into this thing 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.480 became really exciting, and we ended up calling the band 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:47.000 Atoms for Peace and making a record out of the 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.440 excitement of that. And it was all brand new to 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.200 me because I've been in the same band since I 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:52.680 was seventeen sixteen. 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:57.840 And when you do that, when you go into another 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:01.440 room with people, it's not so much assuming and you 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.000 can help me that you want to not play with 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.000 those guys anymore. You just want to play with different 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:07.360 people for a change. It was a good. 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.000 Yeah, it was a totally different process. I mean, it's 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.480 always fun if you know what you're aiming at. If 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:13.800 you know what the tunes are, you're not trying to 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:17.200 write them, you're just emulating what's already been written. That 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.640 makes it fun straight away, because it's a different sort 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.440 of creative process. 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:20.919 So. 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.159 You're not struggling around in the dark for a way 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.800 into a piece of music. You're figuring out how to 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.480 strip it down to its all essentials, especially if it's 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:34.839 something's been written on a computer, and then you have 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.719 to humanly learn how to play it. It brings in 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.839 this quite interesting thing with the feel of what you're playing. Anyway, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.840 it's loads of different things, but it's a lot more 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:46.880 fun and a lot more relaxed if you're not trying 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.800 to write, you know, which is what also all the time, 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:51.000 what we're trying to do with Radiohead. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.680 What's the first time or the first experience you had 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.919 with using computers to create music? That was. 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.200 I think after we did Okay Computer I finally in 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.840 the late late nineties you could like go on tour 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.279 with the laptop and it was powerful enough that you 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.240 could record, edit, use synthesizers built into it and it 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:14.640 wouldn't crash and it. 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:15.480 Was fairly stable. 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.480 So I first started getting into it then. And what 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.040 I thought was really interesting is when we were working 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:25.599 on Okay computer, I started using learning the software that 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.160 we were using the studio to edit. We were still 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.480 mostly working on tape old school, but I suddenly thought, well, 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.400 hang on a minute, if I can learn how all 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.039 this equipment works, I'll have a completely different way of 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.919 thinking about how to write. So I forced myself to 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:45.640 learn all this equipment and learn to use the laptop 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.960 because a lot of music I was into was being 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.720 made electronically anyway, and I kind of thought it would 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.039 be interesting to do it within the band, because you 0:05:56.040 --> 0:06:00.560 know a band. Normally musicians don't fall into doing the 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.800 production side of it or building the tracks. They're like, 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:06.720 stay this side of the studio of fence with the 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.520 mics and let someone tell you. So I definitely was 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:13.760 much more into blurring that up. 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.680 Did not produce both your solo albums, Yeah he does. 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.920 He does the lot all of the radio Head album, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:20.560 Yeah he does. 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.160 Well. When you attribute that to having that kind of faith. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:27.440 In someone, for me, it's sort of you find someone 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:29.640 you trust. I mean not all the time, and we 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.400 do argue a lot, but to have someone who's like 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.360 a sounding board all the time. It makes everything so 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.680 much more fun because if you're if you're knocking out ideas, 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.280 you can't edit them and knock them out at the 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.840 same time. Like if you're on stage and you're trying 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:49.800 to get through your part or whatever, you have to 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.359 have someone out front saying, okay, that's not working. I 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.160 mean I do on my own a lot. I do work. 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.200 You know, you generate ideas, but all I then have 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.000 is a mountain ideas that gradually I then have to 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.719 sit through and it just takes so long. It's so 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.120 much more fun sharing it with someone. 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.560 What did he think about your forays into computerized music? Oh, 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:11.240 he was into it. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:13.360 I did wonder when I first started doing it, but 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.800 he was into it because he watched me doing it 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:20.480 in such a different way to him. I mean, I 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.640 was like a kid being given a hammer. I was 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.320 just hammering away and stuff. I didn't really know what 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.640 I was doing, but he was kind of fascinated by that, 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:29.840 you know, and he'd come and literally tidy up the 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:31.560 mess down on the computer. 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:34.920 What were other people who were other people that were 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.520 working in that in that area that you listened to 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.000 who are making well? Then it was. 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:47.080 I was obsessed with AFX twin then and O Tekra. 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.280 There was a lot of really interesting things happening Britain. 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.720 Then on this label called Warp and it was it was. 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:59.080 A fun spell warp w arp, like the floor is warped, yeah, 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.720 after the fun Yeah. And then I say, with your accent, 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.440 that could have been anyone of four wards. When on 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:13.920 this label called War Warm, Wall w Wop, Yeah, saying 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.440 like we saying here in the United States War it's 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.200 war country and Western record like bitch your bottom down there, boy? 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.200 So you were you is? You were? You were obsessed 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.320 with the music that was on Woop Records. 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.280 Because it didn't have any guitars and I was having 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.880 a troubled relationship with my guitar at the time. 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:35.520 Is that true? Well not really. 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:38.160 It's just like I ended up being in a band 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.040 signing this to this big record label, and it's a 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.480 band with big letters, so certain things go with that. 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.079 But yet when I was at college, I was listening 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.880 to a lot of other things, and after a while 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.280 it was like, oh, this is is really annoying that 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.079 I felt like we couldn't break out of that. So 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.640 I just started forcing us to break out of that 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:00.920 because it didn't make sense to me. You've been with 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.120 those guys for how long Now we started when we're 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:09.240 sixteen Radiohead, which is now I'm forty four, so that's 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:09.760 quite a while. 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.480 And some bands that have had tremendous longevity, obviously the 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.000 Rolling Stones are the premier example. They've changed partners over 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:18.719 theres like they were the New York Yankees. You know, 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.880 there's somebody else playing third base every four or five years. Yeah, 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.160 but you guys, it's the same cast of people all 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.200 of a sudden. What do you attribute that to persistence? 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:33.640 My great diplomatic skills not but there must be time 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:35.960 to when they've I mean, I'll never forget McCartney said 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:37.520 to me, even the Beatles got tired of being The 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.880 Beatles were the times you guys sat there and look 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:41.120 at each other and said, I think we're done. 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.959 I do that frequently, frequently, I mean, at least the 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.839 others two not as much. They just wait for me 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:48.199 to do it. 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.319 But it changes. It's like, yeah, it's like to stick around. 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.360 I'm feeling it's coming up. I mean, you know, something 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:59.040 to do with the fact we haven't done any useful 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.160 for three weeks. It goes through these phases. You know, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.640 we've grown up together. It's weird. I mean, So, we 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.000 just did a tour last year, right, and it was probably, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.920 in theory, the scariest one we've ever done, because it 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.160 was lots of big gigs, which I normally am spending 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:16.600 my time trying to shy away from. 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.280 Why because you can't achieve technically in a large space 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:21.240 where you normally want. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.240 To exactly that you can't get across to people the 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.640 right way, I felt. So we did spend a lot 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.960 of time and effort coming up with like a stage 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.560 design which used screens in a certain way which made 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.599 it intimate, even though you know, some nights was like 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.400 thirty or forty thousand people trying to create some sort 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.560 of intimacy with that, and when it worked, it was insane. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.040 It was because the upside of playing to that many 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.959 people is you have this really crazy collective energy that 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.640 you can tap into like a crowd, you know. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:53.520 Thing. 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.000 There's one show we did in Phoenix that sticks in 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.920 my mind where there was something about maybe that it 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.080 was in Phoenix and people don't get the opportunity. Those 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.760 sort of people don't get the opportunity to get together 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.480 that often or something. There was some sort of excitement 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.240 within the crowd that was so great to play with. 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.040 When we hit it musically, it felt like the whole room, 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.760 the whole of the building was moving. Honestly, we both 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.120 came off, you know, yeah, and it's bombed. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.280 I understand that not from my own experience, but from 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.520 seeing artists perform. 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.120 You know, I often ask myself, why the hell would 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.240 you put yourself through this? Because it's very stressful. It's 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.599 a lot of pressure, and for me mentally, I just 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.959 build myself up to it in my head gradually and 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.920 it sounds really precious, but it messes with my head. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:46.920 I want to get to that, but I want to 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.319 come around it and say, your music has such a 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.640 spiritual quality to it. There's a spiritual element to it, 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.960 and not a stated one. It just emanates a vibe. 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:00.199 To me, it comes to me that yeah, but to me, 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.640 that comes off the audience. That's what I find. It's 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.800 something that's developed. It's not like we're not going into 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.560 this intending to do any of that. It just sort 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.360 of happens when when the waves go right, you know, 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.959 when the waves fall into place, then you'll get to 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.120 the end of the song and you can feel, Okay, 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:18.480 we've done whatever it is. 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:45.760 That was it. What's your preparation before you do a 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.480 live show before you go because in the studio it's 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:50.640 obviously a whole different animal. 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.800 Correct, Yeah, there's no preparation for the studio. Do you 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.679 know it's bull in a china shop most of the time, 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.120 which is how it should be, I think, and performing live, yeah, that's. 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.040 What's give it to me. A couple of hours before 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:04.439 you go out there and you've got to blow this 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.280 thing out for all these people. Just stone cold silence, 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.280 basically almost meditative. Well, yeah, I do. I do that 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:13.520 and focused. 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.760 I stand on my head for a bit and I 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:20.600 basically I'm completely on my own until five minutes before 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.559 we go on, and then we're all in the room together, 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.560 pacing up and down like wild animals, and then then 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.079 we're on. But when we first started doing big shows, 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.760 it was with my from Michael Stipe, and he does 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.040 the total opposite. He literally he'll be talking to you 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.040 and then someone taps in the shoulder and then they're on. 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.480 And I was like, how the hell do you do that? 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:38.760 Man? 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.679 And I tried to do it like that, couldn't it, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.920 And so I ended up going, did you get any 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.839 indication why Stipe could do that? There's a lot of 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.760 nice spiritual tones inside of R. E. M's music too. 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.000 Yeah, No, I don't know. I think what he used 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:59.000 to do was you'd stand there for the first two 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:03.280 tunes move. He was a sort of lightning conductor, and 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:05.440 he was just waiting for it to hit, and then 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.920 when it hit, he was off, but he would wait, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.040 and if it wasn't going to hit, he was still 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.559 there three or four tunes later, and waiting He kind 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.600 of warmed up in front of everybody, gauging it all. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.600 Whereas I can't do that because I have to sort 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.520 of be clear of everything before, you know whatever. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:34.480 I need to be completely empty. We're taking a break. 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:35.440 Stay with us. 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.400 I started playing guitar when I was seven. I sat 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.040 down and said I was going to be Brian May 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:58.400 and I was not a bad thing to be. Yeah, 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.200 And then I tried to do I read like when 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.400 I was ten or something. I read that he'd built 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.160 his first guitar himself, which is the one he still plays. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.280 So I tried to do that, but my efforts was 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.840 and then said she were not Brian May no handcrafting 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:16.320 of the guitar. 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:17.720 And I had to cheat with the neck on the 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.560 guitar I found in old someone a neighbor gave me 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:22.400 a neck of an electric guitar. 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:22.880 Was that great? 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.840 Okay, that's good, But you know I was ten or eleven, 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:27.440 so I was trying to like bolt it to get 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.280 to this other piece of wood that I'd cut out, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:31.880 and it was just a disaster. But it kind of worked, 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:33.000 but it was ugly. 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:35.640 Was your family musical? Not really? No. 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.040 The only one that sticks out is apparently my great grandmother. 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.520 She'd get really hammered and then stay up playing her 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.360 pump organ thing downstairs all night and keep. 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.120 The family up. You were around, did you witness that? 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.040 I met her once and she was kind of she 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.080 wore black and was quite scary when I was really tiny. 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.800 But nowither of your parents were artists musicians? No, no, no, no. 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.520 When the guitar came into your life when you or seven, 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.680 Brian May or no, was it music itself? And were 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.560 you moved by music itself? Or was it like many 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.760 people when they're very young? Was it rock stardom? Was 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.400 never then it was it was you weren't running around 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.560 your bedroom imitating Jagger and you thought like you. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.360 My whole thing was we didn't have any sound system 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.800 in the house. We had nothing, no high fi nothing 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.280 except for in my dad's car and had a tight 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:35.800 player in it. So I went and would sit for hours. 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.200 I would sit for hours, and you know, it was 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.760 the sound of Brian May's guitar. Actually, it was one 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.760 of those funny things where you know, when you turned 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.680 something up and you're in a very controlled, loud environment, 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:51.760 just that sound was just you know, nothing else was that. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.000 When you're that small and you've never I've never really 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:01.400 heard music particularly at all up until that point. You know, 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:03.800 it's funny. It's got a weird thing. But I mean, 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.240 lots of kids at that age, you know, their parents 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.840 didn't really have high fires or anything as such. The 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:11.439 only guy I did know who had a high fight 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.359 down the road only played abbat, which I thought was 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:14.719 worse than not having one. 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:18.960 But that was me somehow. Those and then and then 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.040 the guitar, and you're trying to fashion your own guitar 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.399 by the time you were eleven, and then when you 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.720 take another step toward deepening your commitment. How old are 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.240 you when you form the band sixteen? I did have 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.400 a band when I was eleven, But what's an eleven 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:34.480 year old band sound like? 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:36.360 Yeah? 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.920 No, it were not very good at all, but it was. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.639 It was very exciting, like going around to a friend's 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.160 house is setting up and jamming, and all our mates 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.400 would come and hang out and girls, which I thought, 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:55.680 this is interesting. Yes, as puberty hit, but that sort 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:57.960 of fell to bits because I kept fighting with the drummer. 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.120 And then when I was six, I was thinking, well, okay, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.440 I need to get this together really and just went 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.600 around the school sort of choosing people. 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.000 So you went around picking people. I got it because 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:11.199 he was. 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.440 Dressed like Morrissey and he had some cool socks, and 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:15.960 I saw he'd had a guitar. I had no idea 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:17.400 whether he could play or not. I didn't really care. 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.640 I got Colin because I knew Colin could play very 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:22.200 well and I needed. 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:22.520 A bass player. 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:24.840 He could play very well, but he had never played 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:29.600 bass before and his brother Johnny was this mythical musical prodigy, 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.479 so wroped him in and then Phil was the only 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.040 drummer IN knew anyway, so and and he had a 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:37.600 house down the road that we could rehearse him. 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:39.439 And you're all and you lived where you grew up 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:40.480 were well. 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.679 This was at Abingdon School in near Oxford. 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:48.000 And then when you form Radiohead when you're sixteen. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.639 Basically yeah, we started sort of writing, doing demos and 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:54.920 messing about and it was, you know, it was quite 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.760 interesting straight away that it was quite I think because 0:18:57.800 --> 0:18:59.440 Field had quite a lot of experience. He was a 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.399 bit older, and he'd had his own band, so he 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:07.760 knew how to put things together a bit. And in 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.040 fact we used to go and do demos in his 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.400 sister's bedroom, like right from the beginning, which which was great. 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.800 I mean, there's nothing better than like just starting off 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.440 by just trying to write demos from scratch, even though 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.880 you can't really play, even though you don't know each other. 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:26.840 That's where you start, you know. It's kind of a 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:28.720 nice way to figure out where you're about. 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.840 What do you think you do best? You lead a band, 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:38.600 you well, you play guitar, you write music, you produce music, 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.520 you do and you sing. What do you think your 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.399 greatest strength is? If you had to pick one, I 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.800 don't know what I'm doing right. I like the fact 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.359 that I still don't know what I'm doing. I think, well, 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.920 not honestly, I can't go I'll go through whole phrases 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:57.600 of months where i'n't got a clue. I regularly lose 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.880 complete confidence in what I'm doing. Why do you think 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.840 that is? Umm, because I have the same condition. 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:11.320 Why partly because I think I don't quite understand how 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:15.080 it happens after the fact, When. 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.119 When what happens when the appreciation comes to. 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.840 You know, when you're piecing something together right, things will 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.520 fall into place how you make it. Yeah, I mean, 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.000 in some ways, the nicest bit about the creative thing, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.520 of nicest bit about recording and writing is this sort 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:36.280 of weird limbo where you in between scratching away scratching away, 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.160 nothing really happening, nothing really happening, and then something wants 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.720 to be built and starts to get built. You just 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:44.879 have to let it happen, and then it gets to 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.399 the end and you and you look at it a 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.240 few months later and go, huh damn. It's sort of 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.199 weird amnesia that goes with it. Something will happen, one 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:55.640 little sound goes off, and you go well, that's really 0:20:55.720 --> 0:21:02.359 nice for me. When I was at school, I didn't 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.720 get on with the school system at all. I see it, 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.760 and my son the same, that sort of the mechanics 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:11.720 of how a school operates and how you're supposed to 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.600 blend in or whatever. So I hid in the music 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:18.920 stroke art department and had a great time there and 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.600 discovered that actually that's what I wanted to do. Straight away, 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.720 the heads of both schools just saw what I was 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:27.000 up there. 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:28.800 This is this the teacher that you often credit with 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:30.640 here or yeah, what was the teacher's. 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.919 Name, Terry James, But it was him and my art 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:36.879 teacher as well. Actually it was like someone sort of 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.480 takes you under their wing and say, well, you know what, 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:40.600 you're actually quite good at that. 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:42.879 Mentoring is a very critical thing in this business. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.200