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 Youful. It was quiet yet explosive, even haunting,
Speaker 1: and its refrain had a powerful hook.
Speaker 2: I wish how 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 a mark. The
Speaker 1: band calls themselves Adams for Peace. You don't do a
Speaker 1: lot of press, were you doing? It was an on
Speaker 1: an as needed basis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on a need to know basis, Yeah, yeah, 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.
Speaker 2: Well, it's just it was. I did a record on
Speaker 2: my own called The Eraser a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Was that your first solo record?
Speaker 2: Yes, first time. I sort of worked on my own
Speaker 2: with Nigel who when he produces Radiohead, and it came
Speaker 2: out it was okay, people liked it a bit. A
Speaker 2: couple of years after I suddenly thought I really want
Speaker 2: to actually because it was all done, it was all programmed,
Speaker 2: 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's genius drummer from LA. And anyway, we
Speaker 2: got it together and it turned into this thing became
Speaker 2: really exciting, and we ended up calling the band Atoms
Speaker 2: for Peace and making a record out of the excitement
Speaker 2: of that. And it was all brand new to me
Speaker 2: because I'd been in the same band since I was
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: It was a good. Yeah, it was a totally different process.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always fun if you know what you're
Speaker 2: aiming at. If you know what the tunes are, you're
Speaker 2: not trying to write them, you're just emulating what's already
Speaker 2: been written. That makes it fun straight away, because it's
Speaker 2: a different sort of creative process, So you're not struggling
Speaker 2: around in the dark for a way into a piece
Speaker 2: of music. You're figuring out how to strip it down
Speaker 2: to its all essentials, especially if it's something's been written
Speaker 2: on a computer, and then you have to humanly learn
Speaker 2: how to play it. It brings in this quite interesting
Speaker 2: thing with the feel of what you're playing. Anyway, it's
Speaker 2: loads of different things, but it's a lot more fun
Speaker 2: and a lot more relaxed if you're not trying to write,
Speaker 2: you know, which is what also all the time what
Speaker 2: we're trying to do with Radiohead.
Speaker 1: What's the first time or first experience you had with
Speaker 1: using computers to create music?
Speaker 2: That was I think after we did Okay Computer I
Speaker 2: finally in the late late nineties you could like go
Speaker 2: on tour with the laptop and it was powerful enough
Speaker 2: that you could record, edit, use synthesizers built into it
Speaker 2: and it wouldn't crash and it was fairly stable. So
Speaker 2: I first started getting into it then, And what I
Speaker 2: thought was really interesting is when we were working on
Speaker 2: Okay computer, I started using learning the software that we
Speaker 2: were using the studio to edit. We were still mostly
Speaker 2: 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 me. So I definitely was
Speaker 2: much more into blurring that up.
Speaker 1: Did Naj produce both your solo albums?
Speaker 2: Yeah he does. He does the lot and all of
Speaker 2: the radio Head album, Yeah he does. Well.
Speaker 1: When you attribute that to having that kind of faith in.
Speaker 2: Someone, for me, it's sort of you find someone you trust.
Speaker 2: I mean not all the time, and we do argue
Speaker 2: a lot, but to have someone who's like a sounding
Speaker 2: board all the time. It makes everything so much more
Speaker 2: fun because if you're if you're knocking out ideas, you
Speaker 2: can't edit them and knock them out at the same time.
Speaker 2: Like if you're on stage and you're trying to get
Speaker 2: through your part or whatever, you have to have someone
Speaker 2: out front saying, okay, that's not working. I mean I
Speaker 2: do on my own a lot. I do work. You know,
Speaker 2: you generate ideas, but all I then have is a
Speaker 2: mountain ideas that gradually I then have to sit through
Speaker 2: and it just takes so long. It's so much more
Speaker 2: fun sharing it with someone.
Speaker 1: What did he think about your forays into computerized music?
Speaker 2: Oh, he was into it. I did wonder when I
Speaker 2: first started doing it, but he was into it because
Speaker 2: he watched me doing it in such a different way
Speaker 2: to him. I mean, I was like a kid being
Speaker 2: given a hammer. I was just hammering away and stuff.
Speaker 2: I didn't really know what I was doing, but he
Speaker 2: was kind of fascinated about that, you know, and he'd
Speaker 2: come and literally tidy up the 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 the now?
Speaker 2: Well, then it was. I was obsessed with AFX twin
Speaker 2: then and O Tekra. There was a lot of really
Speaker 2: interesting things happening Britain. Then on this label called Warp
Speaker 2: and it was it was a.
Speaker 3: Funny Spells warp w arp, like the floor is warped, Yeah,
Speaker 3: after the fun Yeah. And then I say, with your accent,
Speaker 3: that could have been anyone in four wards when I said, on.
Speaker 1: This label called Warm Warm, Wall w Warp, Yeah, say
Speaker 1: it like we say it here in the United States.
Speaker 2: War it's war country and Western record bit.
Speaker 1: Your bottom down there, boy? So you were you is?
Speaker 1: You were? You were obsessed with the music that was
Speaker 1: on Warp 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?
Speaker 2: Well not really. It's just like I ended up being
Speaker 2: in a band signing this to this big record label,
Speaker 2: and it's a band with big letters, so certain things
Speaker 2: go with that. But yet when I was at college,
Speaker 2: I was listening to a lot of other things, and
Speaker 2: after a while it was like, oh, this is is
Speaker 2: really annoying that I felt like we couldn't break out
Speaker 2: of that. So I just started forcing us to break
Speaker 2: out of that because it didn't make sense to me.
Speaker 1: You've been with those guys for how long now we.
Speaker 2: Started when we're sixteen Radiohead, which is now I'm forty four,
Speaker 2: so that's 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 there,
Speaker 1: like they were the New York Yankees. You know, there's
Speaker 1: 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: this suff What do you attribute.
Speaker 2: That to persistence? My great diplomatic skills.
Speaker 1: Not but there must be times when they've I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget McCartney said to me even the Beatles
Speaker 1: got tired of being the Beatles. Were the times you
Speaker 1: guys sat there and looked at each other and said,
Speaker 1: 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. But it changes.
Speaker 1: 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. 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 their 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. That was it.
Speaker 1: What's your preparation before you do a live show before
Speaker 1: you go because in the studio it's obviously a whole
Speaker 1: different animal.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, there's no preparation for the studio. Do you know?
Speaker 2: It's bull in a china shop most of the time,
Speaker 2: which is how it should be, I think.
Speaker 1: And performing live, yeah, what's give it to me a
Speaker 1: couple of hours before you go out there and you've
Speaker 1: got to blow this thing out for all these people.
Speaker 2: Just stone cold silence, basically almost meditative. Well, yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: I do that 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 2: And I was like, how the hell do you do that? Man?
Speaker 2: 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 EM'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. I
Speaker 2: need to be completely empty.
Speaker 1: We're taking a break, 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 not a bad thing to be. Yeah, And then
Speaker 2: I tried to do I read like when I was
Speaker 2: ten or something. I read that he'd built his first
Speaker 2: guitar himself, which is the one he still plays. So
Speaker 2: I tried to do that, but my efforts was and.
Speaker 1: Then said she were not Brian may in s handcrafting
Speaker 1: the guitar, and I.
Speaker 2: Had to cheat with the neck on the guitar I
Speaker 2: found in old someone a neighbor gave me a neck
Speaker 2: of an electric guitar. That's great, Okay, that's good. But
Speaker 2: you know I was ten or eleven, so I was
Speaker 2: trying to like bolt it to get to this other
Speaker 2: piece of wood that I'd cut out, and it was
Speaker 2: just a disaster. But it kind of worked, but it
Speaker 2: was ugly.
Speaker 1: Was your family musical?
Speaker 2: Not really?
Speaker 1: 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 the family up.
Speaker 1: 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 neither of your parents were artists musicians?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: When the guitar came into your life when 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 never?
Speaker 2: Then? It was?
Speaker 1: It was you weren't running around your bedroom imitating Jagger
Speaker 1: and you thought like you.
Speaker 2: And my whole thing was we didn't have any sound
Speaker 2: system in the house. We had nothing, no high fi
Speaker 2: nothing except for in my dad's car and had a
Speaker 2: tight player in it. So I went and would sit
Speaker 2: for hours. I would sit for hours, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was the sound of Brian May's guitar. Actually, it's
Speaker 2: one of those funny things where you know, when you
Speaker 2: turned 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 of 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. But that was me somehow.
Speaker 1: Those and then and then the guitar, and you're trying
Speaker 1: to fashion your own guitar by the time you were eleven,
Speaker 1: And then when you take another step toward deepening your
Speaker 1: commitment how old are you when you form the band sixteen?
Speaker 2: I did have a band when I was eleven, But
Speaker 2: what's an eleven year old band sound like? Yeah? No,
Speaker 2: 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, then 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.
Speaker 2: I got it because he was dressed like Morrissey and
Speaker 2: he had some cool socks, and I saw he'd had
Speaker 2: a guitar. I had no idea whether he could play
Speaker 2: or not. I didn't really care. I got Colin because
Speaker 2: I knew Colin could play very well, and I needed
Speaker 2: a bass player. He could play very well, but he
Speaker 2: had never played bass before. And his brother Johnny was
Speaker 2: this mythical musical prodigy. So wroped him in. And then
Speaker 2: Phil was the only drummer we knew anyway, So and
Speaker 2: and he had a house down the road that we
Speaker 2: could rehearse him.
Speaker 1: And you're all and you lived where you grew up
Speaker 1: were well, this.
Speaker 2: Was at Abingdon School in near Oxford.
Speaker 1: And then when you form Radiohead when you're.
Speaker 2: Sixteen, basically, yeah, we started sort of writing, doing demos
Speaker 2: and messing about and it was, you know, it was
Speaker 2: quite interesting straight away that it was quite I think
Speaker 2: because Field had quite a lot of experience. He was
Speaker 2: a bit older and he'd had his own band, so
Speaker 2: he knew how to put things together a bit. And
Speaker 2: in fact we used to go and do demos in
Speaker 2: his sister's bedroom, like right from the beginning, which which
Speaker 2: was great. I mean, there's nothing better than just starting
Speaker 2: off by just trying to write demos from scratch, even
Speaker 2: though you can't really play, even though you don't know
Speaker 2: each other. That's where you start, you know. It's kind
Speaker 2: of a 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're sing. What do you think your
Speaker 1: greatest strength is? If you had to pick one.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm doing. I like the fact
Speaker 2: that I still don't know what I'm doing, I think, well,
Speaker 2: not honestly, I can't go. I'll go through whole phases
Speaker 2: of months where i'n't got a clue. I regularly lose
Speaker 2: complete confidence in what I'm doing. Why do you think
Speaker 2: that is? Umm, because I have the same condition. Why
Speaker 2: partly because I think I don't quite understand how it
Speaker 2: happens after the fact, When.
Speaker 1: When what happens when the appreciation comes.
Speaker 2: To you know, when you're piecing something together right, things
Speaker 2: will fall into place how you make it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: in some ways, the nicest bit about the creative thing,
Speaker 2: or 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 that 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: Is this the teacher that you often credit with you
Speaker 1: 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 mentoring.
Speaker 1: Is it 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?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, that would be bad. Yeah, how about
Speaker 2: you go to the other I think my father used
Speaker 2: to think I used to get too advertising, which is
Speaker 2: like really brilliant. Yeah, I'd really be good at that.
Speaker 1: Other people, well, one thing you're good at is avoiding.
Speaker 1: My original question, which was what do you think you're
Speaker 1: best at? And let's try to choose if you can,
Speaker 1: if you may, if you don't mind, confine yourself to
Speaker 1: the list, I provide, what do you think you're best at?
Speaker 1: This is multiple choice guitar band, kind of paternal figure, songwriting, producing, singing.
Speaker 2: I guess singing.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm glad you chose that one. I was driving,
Speaker 1: I was I think when I popped the words singing
Speaker 1: the way I did, I was trying to do or singing.
Speaker 1: What was singing to you? How did your singing evolve
Speaker 1: where you arrived, at where you are now, where most
Speaker 1: people say you have one of the most evocative singing
Speaker 1: voices in all of music.
Speaker 2: Today, melancholy to the point of well, people who.
Speaker 1: Loved who loved radio, they crave their music, and they
Speaker 1: 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. Right, you know, my favorite singers like Bjork.
Speaker 2: When I watched Byork 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're one of the few
Speaker 1: people going to use that phrase when I watched B.
Speaker 1: York sing, Yeah, most of us say, well, when I
Speaker 1: listened to B.
Speaker 2: Yorky and it's in here, it's right here, they say,
Speaker 2: you know, with with with in yoga and stuff that
Speaker 2: whatever it is, can't remember that that spot at the
Speaker 2: top of the forehead that you really Most singers like
Speaker 2: Neil Young's the same. He sings into this spot in
Speaker 2: his head and what he's singing he's already heard. Do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, He's hearing it come out.
Speaker 2: The same with Buork when she's singing, she's singing what
Speaker 2: she's hearing, So there's no force. It's a force in itself.
Speaker 2: It took me a while to get that, you know,
Speaker 2: even when we were on tour with Iram back when
Speaker 2: we're doing the Benz in ninety six or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: I was still trying to figure it out. Then watching
Speaker 2: 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. Why it
Speaker 2: just does it? Just do it? Well, Yeah, there's probably
Speaker 2: some physical element to it, but also just where you're at,
Speaker 2: you know, because singing is nothing but like probably like acting,
Speaker 2: sing is nothing but being in a moment.
Speaker 1: That's it, and where you're at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you do like when I used to be
Speaker 2: like you know, when when you're trying to singing or whatever, chrele,
Speaker 2: I remember sort of okay, computer, I still had this
Speaker 2: thing like, well, I need to be a little bit
Speaker 2: half cut when i'm you know, I need to do
Speaker 2: something or other beforehand. So I thought I'm in the
Speaker 2: right space, man, where it's all bollocks because basically you've
Speaker 2: just got to learn to be there with it. When
Speaker 2: you do it, you're not trying to prove anything. You're
Speaker 2: not trying to get anywhere, you're not trying to achieve anything.
Speaker 2: You're not trying to get this emotion across. You're not
Speaker 2: in this space trying to get this space across. You're
Speaker 2: not trying to get this mindset across or anything. You're
Speaker 2: 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. It's just mind bending?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're sick of it and you
Speaker 1: want to be done with it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You do sometimes, but not it's never really. The
Speaker 2: music is everything else, you know, primarily what we'll just
Speaker 2: stresses 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: just 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. It is a problem. It is
Speaker 1: a problem, but it's not we're supposed to say that.
Speaker 1: 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 2: I don't care about the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you care about what's going on. If I said
Speaker 1: to you that, I snapped my fingers and you go
Speaker 1: back to having a very normal life and you're not
Speaker 1: you at all? What everything that goes with it, and
Speaker 1: the rest of the world is elevated and the rest
Speaker 1: of the world gets better. Things you care about. Think
Speaker 1: of an issue you care and I say to you, Tom,
Speaker 1: yorke Tom, your Tom. You go back and the world
Speaker 1: gets better, would you make that change.
Speaker 2: To find better?
Speaker 1: It's a tricky question, but you do. It's not an
Speaker 1: either or, But you do care about other things. Is
Speaker 1: there an issue that you are embracing now? Is there
Speaker 1: something you're involved with that 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. Yeah, that's right. I don't think that's entirely
Speaker 2: down to us, but I think it definitely helped that
Speaker 2: we were making their life extremely difficult everywhere they turned.
Speaker 2: But challenge now is to turn the Arctic into a reserve,
Speaker 2: so it can't happen because what that was going to
Speaker 2: do is create this gold rush, you know, or rush
Speaker 2: up there, which was just going to be insane. And
Speaker 2: this at the same time where the ice is melting. Basically,
Speaker 2: they only started considering it was a possibility because the
Speaker 2: eyes was melting. They thought, Okay, great, maybe got a
Speaker 2: better chance for drilling, which is like.
Speaker 1: A global global less oil to him, 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, but it
Speaker 2: was the first one and the government didn't want to
Speaker 2: do it. Blair didn't want to do it. But we
Speaker 2: found this interesting loophole and got thousands of people to
Speaker 2: send letters in and said at the bottom of the
Speaker 2: letter to the at the MP police, can you pass
Speaker 2: this on to Blair? Right? And apparently they were obliged
Speaker 2: to pass on these letters. So Blair was literally getting
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of letters,
Speaker 2: which doesn't normally happen. And he did pass the law
Speaker 2: after much arguing and me refusing to meet him because
Speaker 2: it was during the Iraq War and all sorts of
Speaker 2: critical 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 Colis 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: Bigit 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, who was like technically, you know, maybe speaking
Speaker 2: for the people a little bit. But basically they were
Speaker 2: all special interest and they had the ear of government.
Speaker 2: And I just thought, hang on, hang on a minute,
Speaker 2: how did this happen? Anyway? Where where were we a
Speaker 2: minute ago?
Speaker 1: I know where I want to go?
Speaker 2: Okay, go on and go there.
Speaker 1: Then your children, Oh no, no, that's too much for
Speaker 1: a jump.
Speaker 2: Hang on where we Let's finish with this first? H
Speaker 2: 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 and how old are they? Twelve and seven?
Speaker 1: So one seven the age that you decided you wanted
Speaker 1: to be Brian may The's twelve and by then he's
Speaker 1: he he would already have made his guitar with that
Speaker 1: neck that was eleven. I think you said to the
Speaker 1: other kids, 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. We just hang out.
Speaker 2: You know, we're friends. But I don't think you know
Speaker 2: that there's a burning ambition to be musicians or anything. Really,
Speaker 2: even though he's really good, he's for pleasure. I mean
Speaker 2: at that age that's good, right. His fatherhood affected your work, yes,
Speaker 2: but not really that you have the obvious things where
Speaker 2: you would go out on the road more if you
Speaker 2: didn't have children. Yep, absolutely, but that's not necessarily a
Speaker 2: bad thing at all. You know, being on their road
Speaker 2: is it's a it's not a great necessary it's it's
Speaker 2: you don't want to do it all your life. You
Speaker 2: get a little bit on it gets a little unhealthy
Speaker 2: quite quickly mentally, if not physically.
Speaker 1: Has it 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. It's great.
Speaker 1: But Tom Yorke is the first to admit that it
Speaker 1: takes work to keep it fun in the studio and
Speaker 1: 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 2: you know, because it gets in the way.
Speaker 1: More in a minute with Tom Yorke, this is Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. Given the
Speaker 1: level of success that Radiohead has reached, I did have
Speaker 1: certain expectations of Tom's lifestyle. I mean, I'm assuming you're
Speaker 1: in a world where that your phone must have rang it.
Speaker 1: Maybe it stopped because you kept saying no. But maybe
Speaker 1: everybody's like, you know, Bonno wants to pick you up
Speaker 1: tomorrow and fly you to Saint Bart's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that never appealed. I don't hang out with people
Speaker 2: because they are who they are, necessarily unless I'm a
Speaker 2: big admirer of them, Like I mean, I stalked ed
Speaker 2: Norton for ages until eventually he gave it because I'm
Speaker 2: a big admirer of him. I think it's brilliant. So
Speaker 2: I hang out with him a bit occasionally. 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.
Speaker 1: No tangentially related to that. As you've gotten older and
Speaker 1: you look around the musical landscape, what you see, does
Speaker 1: it 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: Is in the mainstream. In the mainstream, there's nothing in
Speaker 2: the mainstream. The mainstream is just avoid you know, to me,
Speaker 2: I mean, what's weird about putting a record out? Now?
Speaker 1: 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. That's that, right, Okay. Next, basically,
Speaker 2: you know, like in this country the radio is tied
Speaker 2: up and people don't really listen to radio in the
Speaker 2: same way. It's it's music's going through a weird time
Speaker 2: because on the one hand, as ever, there's always really
Speaker 2: exciting music being made. It's never not being made. It's
Speaker 2: a question of whether you're going to get to hear
Speaker 2: it or not. And I mean I kind of I
Speaker 2: kind of knew the game was up a few years
Speaker 2: ago when one of our sort of team of people
Speaker 2: came in saying Nokia wanted to offer you millions of
Speaker 2: pounds because they want content for their phones. And this
Speaker 2: is like in two thousand, I don't know, early two thousands,
Speaker 2: and you're like content, what you know, content? What you
Speaker 2: mean music?
Speaker 1: Yes? Okay? Content? Maybe that? Yes? Yeah, just could be music. Stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: stuff could be got snoring.
Speaker 2: Have you got some stuff? You know, and you're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: And I think, really my problem with it is it's
Speaker 2: like it's now like something to fill up the hardware with,
Speaker 2: you know, the music itself has become secondary to that,
Speaker 2: which is a weird thing to me. It's like, and
Speaker 2: I think that will change because there's only so many
Speaker 2: different permutations of the same hardware you can make before
Speaker 2: people go, well, actually, I have an iPod now, so thanks.
Speaker 2: So I think things will change, and I think the
Speaker 2: radio will change, and sooner the better, because no matter
Speaker 2: what way you look at it, the most pleasurable experiences
Speaker 2: you ever have is like when something's played to you
Speaker 2: you don't know. We'll like going around to friend's house
Speaker 2: and they'll stick a tune on you, Like what the
Speaker 2: hell is there? You know, which 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, you know, and you know you.
Speaker 1: Share now everywhere you go. Music is everywhere.
Speaker 2: It's everywhere, but it's not nice. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's content.
Speaker 2: Ye, content is king that bullshit will change, And when
Speaker 2: it does, then I think we'll have a resurgence. The
Speaker 2: underbelly will come back overbelly and then well.
Speaker 1: If it's middle age, it'll be overbelly. Well you have
Speaker 1: a ways to go there.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be taking some slimming pill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we know in the way that you talked
Speaker 1: about this pebble in the borderfall and content and music marketing. Now,
Speaker 1: so if that changes, certainly, which it has, does your
Speaker 1: willingness to release your music into that world change? I mean, like,
Speaker 1: for example, an obvious example, maybe too obvious, is you
Speaker 1: don't want to play Creep anymore. Now do you sit
Speaker 1: there and say, like, if the Sultan of Brunei called
Speaker 1: you up and said, I want you to come to
Speaker 1: Brunei and we give you a million pounds, just play Creep.
Speaker 1: I would play Creep and you can go home.
Speaker 2: I would say to the Sulting 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 worse whatever. That's what I'd say, trillion and
Speaker 2: I'd say no, but I'm up.
Speaker 1: He will you retire a song that way? Why do
Speaker 1: you do that?
Speaker 2: Well? I don't not necessarily retire it. I mean I
Speaker 2: don't recognize it as me, which is kind of quite
Speaker 2: interesting when I expecting it, just that voice, I don't
Speaker 2: even recognize that. It's kind of odd. Whatever you want,
Speaker 2: you're so fucking special. But then I remember hearing I
Speaker 2: remember hearing Lou read like on some radio station in
Speaker 2: the Dublin years and years ago, and they were asking
Speaker 2: inevitably about the underground and they said, yeah, or sometimes
Speaker 2: it comes on. I'm like, oh, this is cool. What's this?
Speaker 2: And then I realized it's about an underground? Wow? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I kind of know what he means to sort of
Speaker 2: you get to the point where like, what's that? Like?
Speaker 1: I sounds pretty good.
Speaker 2: Blood.
Speaker 1: So you're forty three years old, forty four, forty four
Speaker 1: years old, but it's just our professional courtesy that we
Speaker 1: shave a year off of all of our already, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of them. You're in the now and you're in
Speaker 1: the here, what have you. And I'm not saying that glibly,
Speaker 1: and you're know what I'm saying, but you're not somebody
Speaker 1: who like Mick Jagger, for example, Like I wonder if
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger is going to hit a day, like does
Speaker 1: it happen in a day? Like as Mick Jagger in
Speaker 1: bed one day and he picks it the phoney, He's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I just can't do it anymore. I can't
Speaker 1: get out of this bed. I can't do another fucking
Speaker 1: show again. And it's over. Like do you think of
Speaker 1: other things? I think all the time of the next
Speaker 1: thing I'm gonna do. Yeah, the next thing. You don't
Speaker 1: have to tell us what it is, but you.
Speaker 2: Or no, I mean, it would end if something happened
Speaker 2: to my voice. I don't know. Certain things could make
Speaker 2: it physically stop, and it will stop at some point,
Speaker 2: something will happen. But for me, yeah, I'm always hearing
Speaker 2: different things. There's always half finished things, which you ask
Speaker 2: poor old Nigel he knows about that. There's always a
Speaker 2: mountain of half stuff. I want to get into stuff
Speaker 2: I've started stuff I want to you know. But I
Speaker 2: also think it's good to sort of take breaks because
Speaker 2: I've gone straight from this radio tour last year, which
Speaker 2: was a really heavy mother but really good fun, straight
Speaker 2: into doing sort of atoms for 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 with what I do is slightly different because
Speaker 2: what I do it Actually, unless you're literally spending, unless
Speaker 2: you are just literally working too hard, it's a regenerative thing.
Speaker 2: I find that I'm well. I mean, my family, my
Speaker 2: friends know that I'm a nicer person if I'm working
Speaker 2: and I'm into what I'm doing than if I stop.
Speaker 2: There is a period where I'm fairly unbearable if I
Speaker 2: do stop too long, Yeah, for too long time 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. I need to. I can't write unless
Speaker 2: I have a period where restored. Well no it's not restored,
Speaker 2: 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?
Speaker 2: Russian politics and stuff.
Speaker 1: He teaches.
Speaker 2: No, he's the mayor of all what do you mean
Speaker 2: all sorts of ship investigations on people? He studied Russian
Speaker 2: Oxford and then went into various.
Speaker 1: Are your parents all there? What do your I would
Speaker 1: love 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. 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 do you go into advertising? Yes? Well,
Speaker 2: you know it was like fair enough. I was pissed
Speaker 2: off with them at the time, but you know it's
Speaker 2: kind of what that's what you do, isn't it. I mean,
Speaker 2: well to everybody's parents.
Speaker 1: Right when I left a pre law program and I
Speaker 1: was destined to go to law school and I went
Speaker 1: into the acting program, my mother was She literally screamed
Speaker 1: at me out.
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 says, it's complete waste of time, doesn't mother.
Speaker 1: But when it became successful with my business, mother was like,
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of them. 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, corny 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?
Speaker 2: Well, my mate theater film, my mate Stanley don Wood
Speaker 2: who I went to art college with, who does all
Speaker 2: our art work with. I mean, I do it with
Speaker 2: him kind of thing. We always have these lovely plans
Speaker 2: about we want to go and live in Berlin for
Speaker 2: a month and just paint and get in trouble and
Speaker 2: things like that. We call ourselves the Sunday Painters and
Speaker 2: we go on bad painting trips. We did one where
Speaker 2: people well they're bad painting trips because I'm involved there
Speaker 2: was one of my favorite ones was we went on
Speaker 2: the moors down in Cornwall. Do you know what I
Speaker 2: mean by the moors and Dartmore basically, which is very
Speaker 2: very very bleak, but really beautiful. We were in the
Speaker 2: stone Circle, drove part of the way, walked the rest
Speaker 2: away with these big canvases and paints. But we only
Speaker 2: we discovered we only had purple and blue and yellow,
Speaker 2: so we thought, well, okay, we'll use that, and we
Speaker 2: painted landscape all afternoon. But they were purple and blue
Speaker 2: and yellow. Some poor women I remember coming like late afternoon,
Speaker 2: coming and ask us, asking us for directions. We're both
Speaker 2: sitting there, you know, canvases up like this, all huddled
Speaker 2: up with the hoods on, you know, just in this,
Speaker 2: and this ball woman comes up, asks for asks, directions
Speaker 2: somewhere rather and then looks at the paintings. That just
Speaker 2: wanders off, like.
Speaker 1: Have another career. I hope you're not counting on.
Speaker 2: It was like, didn't think the purple is working.
Speaker 1: It was like me being in Italy and this beautiful
Speaker 1: couple they were like late, they were older, and the
Speaker 1: men walked up to me in a camera and he said,
Speaker 1: schools a schooser is a photo and he's pointing to me,
Speaker 1: and his wife is triangularly and I go oh, and
Speaker 1: I put my arm around his wife to take a photo.
Speaker 1: He goes, no, no, you photo of you? Take the
Speaker 1: photo the mountain in the background. I was like, oh god,
Speaker 1: bless Yeah, they don't know who I am. I should
Speaker 1: move here, I should move here. You mentioned someone gave
Speaker 1: you that push his mentorship in your career. Do people
Speaker 1: come to you and do you give them a push
Speaker 1: a little bit? I mean, you must have a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the music world, young people who look
Speaker 1: 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 they yeah, and You're like, how could you? How
Speaker 2: could you feel off me? I don't see any of
Speaker 2: 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: and 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: 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, has 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, it'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 thing
Speaker 2: will 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 shit,
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 take 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.
Speaker 2: I don't know, really, you don't know Jammy is like
Speaker 2: you're so Jammy, like you just I'm dating myself. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's a total floke, man, it's not really. You're just lucky.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm British, right, so I assume I'm just lucky.
Speaker 2: There's no skin involved. I'm Jammy goes on.
Speaker 1: This is from Tom Yorke's most recent album, Amok. He'll
Speaker 1: 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