Melody Maker, 06.1995 Headcases



Radiohead’s The Bends is one of the albums of the year. We already know this. We also know that Thom Yorke is the next richeykurt rock’n’roll martyr. But what we don’t know is that the ’head are all mad bastard jokers obsessed with trousers, booze and shagging! Or are they?



Caitlin Moran meets the men behind the myths.





“ Oh, for Christ’s sake, I did not write this album for people to slash their fucking wrists to ”. But they are Thom, they are. Whether Thom Yorke likes it or not, “The Bends” is now an integral part of this end of the century/culture of despair thing we keep hearing so much about on the “6 o’clock news” and in The Guardian and in The Mirror and in The Sun and in The Times, and every hour on the hour on the radio.



“In Utero”, “The Holy Bible”, “The Bends”. This is your library as you go under for the third and final time. “In Utero”, “The Holy Bible”, “The Bends”. (Now I can’t climb the stairs/ Pieces missing everywhere/ Prozac/ Painkillers/ Crawling on all fours... Drying up in conversation... all your insides fall to pieces/ You just sit there wishing you could still make love... you will be the one screaming out... I try to behave but it eats me everything is broken)  this is your diary for the last year. This is your day-to-day.



“ It’s not my fucking day to day. It’s not my life. These lyrics aren’t self-fulfilling. The Bends isn’t my confessional. And I don’t want it used as and aid to stupidity and fucking wittery. It’s not an excuse to wallow. I don’t want to know about your depression-if you write to me, I will write back angrily telling you not to give into all that shit ”. Thom taps his knife briskly on his wine glass. He takes a deep breath. He is clearly very annoyed. He spits: “ Shut up, fuck off, and go and buy The Smiths’ back catalogue instead. Our music is of no use to you ”.





Beating Yourself Up From The Inside



So, if “The Bends” is not the final sigh of a man in a warm bath with razor blade on hand to cure those itchy wrists, where does the weight, the steam-roller head-fuck of “The Bends” come from?



Repulsion. Internalised repulsion. This is, in essence, what one is dealing with when writing about Radiohead. Thom Yorke isn’t another desperate, depressive Kurt or Richey-style rock’n’roll martyr  the truth spins along the lines of: Thom has tantrums which he turns in on himself, and burn him up from the inside, hence the fall-out of sparks and friction. Thom’s disgust with the world is large and the “job” he holds down forces him to do things that make him shudder  the slime-fed corporate lunches; the meet and greets; the re-recorded radio-jingle whoring; the desperate insincerity  this isn’t why he’s spent a decade in a band. This isn’t why he hauls himself out of bed and writes down the music that drifts in with sleep; this isn’t why he embarked on the American tour with “Creep” that nearly finished off the band. Thom feels the “business end” of the music industry holds him back from the music and the adrenaline gut-kick that comes with something as simple as playing a great live set. He worries that meeting too many gits in suits will take the “sturm und drang” from his storm-symphonies; that knowing what “units” are will take the poetry from his soul and sully his friendship with the rest of the band.



Now, worry coupled with impotence makes panic, and long-stewed panic leads to anger. And as you can’t slap the hand that holds the paycheck, all you can do is beat yourself up from the inside. For caving in and letting slide your morals. Internalised repulsion. Couple this with the enormous pressure of writing a follow-up to the million-plus selling “Pablo Honey” and you have the twisted emotions that ribbon “The Bends”. Despite the heavy strobing, future-machine roll of “Planet Telex”; Thom’s rasping voice as he confesses he “used to fly like Peter Pan”; the vertiginous waltz of “Nice Dream”; the broken-backed lament of “Black Star”; the whole air of triumphalist misery...despite all of this, and unlike “The Holy Bible” and “In Utero”, “The Bends” is not a diary album. These are half-remembered traumas, not current ones; nightmare-songs on behalf of the scared and the scarred and the shattered. Empathy for the bedevilled. That’s what we are dealing with, in a very real sense, when we talk about Radiohead. And yet, on the other hand, we’re dealing with Colin’s trousers. This job never gets any easier. Radiohead aren’t too happy about their recent press  more specifically they aren’t too happy with The Stud Brother’s bleak front-cover story detailing the raw emotions that produced “The Bends”. So unhappy in fact, the Melody Maker photographers were told to fuck off at the recent Bristol Sound City bash. Coupled with even the most cursory glance at “The Bends” frustration-laden lyric-sheet, and varied reports that Thom is “moody” and “troubled”, and the rest of the band not far behind in the angst-ridden stakes, you half expect to see a hyperactive semi-circle of ambulances around the hotel door, bearing worryingly heavy stretchers.



“ Oooooh, it is hot. I feel I’m melting just like a runny ice-cream. Mmmmmmm, ice-cream. I just fancy one, don’t you? My favourite’s choc chips. How about you ? You can’t really beat rum ’n raisin, can you ? I think I got squiffy on rum ’n raisin once. Oh, I did feel peculiar ”.



On stage, Johnny Greenwood is a blur of glossily tossed hair, coat-hanger hips and shiny, squalling guitar. His brother, Colin, looks impassive  sharp-suited, concentrating on his bass. Maybe thinking about art, or fine china. Offstage, they are Viz’s “Pathetic Sharks”. We are in Rome, on a day so hot the walls have heat-rash and the Coliseum is wearing shorts. Johnny, on the other hand is wearing a 100 per cent wool T-shirt, having mislead the rest of his clothes is Paris, and Colin is fretting about his suit. “ It’s smart. But is it too smart? ” he worries. “ I don’t want to look desperate ”, “ But you are desperate ” his brother quietly reminds him. “ We call him Shabba ”, guitarist Ed O’Brien chips in, “ you know, Shabba Ranks, Mr Loverman. He likes the ladeez ”.



Ed is tall, dark, handsome and wise and polite. He is very much like Frasier, the moral Mountie from BBC’s Due South. He is so polite in fact, that one imagines he says ma’am after every utterance. “ OK Rome are you ready to fucking rock’n’roll? Ma’am ” Like that. It’s because of his politeness that one assumes Ed purposely hasn’t pointed out the more usual cockney rhyming slang connotations of his new nickname. Welcome to the bleak, miserable, polite world of Radiohead.



Case in point: the band’s entrance to tonight’s gig.





The Gig



Colin strides onto the stage. This is a proud moment for Radiohead  nay, Britain  as the band are the first non-Italian band to play the prestigious slot on Cornetto FM. Four million people are listening. All of EMI Italia are watching from seats ringed high around the stage, executive jewellery shimmering in the light. The “vibe” all day has been that “The Bends” will be one of those Huge International Crossover Albums, and will continue selling for the next 15 to 20 years, thus enabling Radiohead, as greying forty-something’s to buy large Angst Farms in Scotland and retire.



But this is all in the future. The present is still fresh and contains Colin shining sweaty as the lights dim and he breaches the further reaches of the stage. Perhaps his Angst Farm future is weighing on his shoulders and ruining the line of his suit- for lo! Suddenly a cog in Colin’s brain clicks into the place and he wheels around, only to realise...that he is alone! Yup, tonight, Radiohead are represented by Colin and no one else but Colin. He spins on his heel, and looks desperately for his bandmates. Thom, Jonny, Ed and drummer Phil Selway can be seen through a small window at the back of the stage, pointing at Colin and laughing. Ed is pulling what can only be described as “Nyuuuur” faces. Thom is doubled over, and you can almost hear his wheezy laughter from a hundred yards away. This is what Radiohead are like. There is no accident waiting to happen here. No obituaries due for the next 40 years. Move along, please.





Thom



We don’t see much of Thom Yorke for the first 10 hours in Rome. The first time we do see him close up is in the tour van, driving from the gig to a restaurant. Thom’s face is creased up in a Muttley out of “Dastardly and Muttery” cackle as Colin asks, with increasing Pathetic Sharkness, “ Are we there yet? ” Thom has been absent the rest of the day  hidden in his hotel room when we arrived, lost inside himself the rest of the time. At 2 a.m., around a drunken and riotous restaurant table, the summons finally comes. “ Thom is ready to see you now ”. Thom is sick of interviews. You feel it seeping from every pore as you approach his chair. You can tell from the resigned slump in his back as you sit down. This is a man who doesn’t want to be asked what his influences are. He will punch anyone who want to know about Creep. We decide to approach this one sideways, all crab-like and sneaky.



What’s the best party you’ve ever been to then?



“ Eh? ”



Best party  which one?



“ Hmmmmmmm ”



Thom thoughtfully pours a small vineyard into his glass, then drinks it. All of it.



“ There was a summons ”, he begins, “ it felt like that. I was at university. You have been chosen to attend The Greatest Party Ever, held by, erm, this guy. All meet at such and such a place. Bring a sleeping bag. So I toddled along, breathlessly, anticipation building, and met a fair-sized crowd. The agenda was carefully set. We all had to get in this car, and let it roll down a hill with the lights on. I think there were a few crashes. Then we built huge fires to see by, as it was right at this point, and starting taking the car apart, and made musical instruments out of the various components. With what was left of the car, we made a huge Chinese dragon, which we danced around in. These shamanic drumbeats started up from somewhere, and we all started twitching and gyrating until daybreak. It was pretty pagan. Then we crashed out in the open in our sleeping bags, and I was awoken at 7 am by the smell of bacon and some loon with a megaphone shouting ‘Wake up! Time to die!’. That was pretty cool ”.



Yeah, that is pretty cool. I was expecting the usual, “Well, me and a couple of mates and a couple of birds and a sick-pack...”. “ Well, I was special and artistic even at that age ”, Thom says, heavy on the irony. Rock’n’roll is all about gangs, packs  were you ever in a gang? Thom hoots. “ Heh, heh, heh, Nah, the only gang I was ever in kicked me out! ” Why so ? “ I had Velcro buckles on my trainers instead of laces. They thought I was letting their cool down. Bastards ”.



Thom relaxes in his chair, and picking up his glass, savours the bouquet of his very good red wine. Then he belts it down in one. I figure I can slip in a music question. Thom, did you or did you not, as the intro to “Planet Telex”, nick the middle eight to Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”? “ Whaaaaaat? ”. “Live and Let Die”. You did, didn’t you? “ No, let’s be very clear where we nicked things from ”, Thom says, bristling. “ We nicked “Planet Telex” from “Tago Mago” by Can. So fuck off, we are arty us ”. Thom grins. It’s a beautiful thing. He drinks more wine. He seems at peace with the world. Right ...





Big Important “Newsnight” Questions



So, Thom, you are rock martyr up-in-flames, fame-as-your-crucifix, black hole sun bloke, no?



“ Smack addict ”, adds Thom, now heavy on the sarcasm. “ Don’t forget smack addict. I like a big bowl of smack for breakfast. Big crack pies too ”. He sighs, and starts reeling off a list: “ I like morphine, I like David Lynch, I like graveyards, I like defacing dolls, I like wearing ripped dresses and make-up, I love turning crosses upside down and setting fire to them  and I’m gonna top myself any day now ”. He raises his eyebrows and stares intensely. Then he giggles.



“ Let’s get one thing clear  I didn’t write this album for people to slash their fucking wrists to. That last feature the Melody Maker did was so, so fucking strange. I can’t really complain about it, because every single word on those pages I said  but the conclusions they drew! And that whole debate on depression the Melody Maker held (where “The Bends”, and Thom in particular, were cited as party of “The Holy Bible”/“In Utero”/rickykurt triangle)...in a music paper? Excuse me? ”



Thom giggles again, in disbelief. “ The whole thing was qualified by saying, ‘Oh, I had a mate who chucked himself off a bridge or something’ ”. Thom rolls his eyes, “ ‘and therefore I know all about this, I have something valid to say about it’. It all just seemed reminiscent of the time Pepsi discovered Generation X, and it’s answer for Generation X, this whole demographic, this whole cultural trend was to come up with Pepsi Maw. Y’know like, ‘We know you’re all feeling bad and nihilistic and suicidal, so...here’s Russell Senior from Pulp to say ‘Stuff and nonsense!’’ Jesus, I found it all really offensive. The ultimate insult ”.



Why ? You seem really het up.



“ Because...because... ” Thom falters for a minute, and stutters. “ Because I’ve felt like that, I’ve known how it feels to...well! And to have it written about in the music papers seems like depression has become the property of music hacks ”.



Have you ever met Taylor Parkes?



Depression is property. He drives around in a big Depression van, handing out angst to the poor. But anyway, vulture-eyed-depression-watchers will have noticed the past tense in Thom’s outburst. “Known how it feels”. There’s no gaping wound here  just a few, silvery thin scars. The past. The past.





Another Big, Important “Newsnight” Question



So, Thom, do you think “The Bends” is a depressive album?



“ I’ve got a theory ”, he says, tipping back in his chair. “ I have a theory that all good music is uplifting, whether it be chirpy acoustic guitars and stuff about ‘taking the weather with you’, or whether it sounds like Joy Division with lyrics about your dog dying in a well ”. Bizarrely enough, Jim Shaw from the ever-cheery Cranes has an identical theory. Maybe something to do with making beautiful music. But you figure it’s sad because beauty is terrifying, and always doomed? Whatever.



“ And it’s incredibly annoying that no one’s noticed the giggles in that album ”, Thom continues.



Hello?



“ The song “The Bends” is completely jokey, completely taking the piss. None of that stuff had ever happened to us when we wrote it” .



What, the “They brought in the CIA/The tanks and the Marines/To blow me away/To blow me sky high” bit? Are going do all that stuff on your American tour?



“ No, all that stuff about aeroplanes and not knowing who your real friends are. That was our Bowie pastiche! Our joke song! ”. Thom laughs. “ And really do wish I’d never written that fucking song  it’s become the bane of my life. Hunddreds of journalists asking  every single fucking interview: ‘Do you wish it was the sixties?’ No, I don’t wish it was the fucking sixties  Levis jeans wish it was the sixties  I certainly fucking don’t. ”



Why did you make the album?



“ I can’t remember ”. Thom stirs the ash in the ashtray with a matchstick. “ I really can’t remember what emotions I took into “The Bends”  which I think is the mark of a good album. I know I never thought songs like Bulletproof would work  it was too slow and soppy. But even though I find it uncomfortable to listen to the album. I still think it blows the opposition away. Fucking Bush  urgh. Spit. People in Calvin Klein underpants desperate to prove they have an affinity with... “The Bends” is miles ahead of every other fucking band, miles... ”



Thom stops suddenly and looks uncomfortable. He has been boastful. This is not polite, and therefore against the Radiohead Rules of Conduct. He says six “I dunnos” as penance and has another drink.





Colin’s Trousers



This is Colin at 4 a.m.: “ I mean ”, he says, slumping in his chair “ I’m in a band, we’re reasonably successful, I’ve got a very nice suit  I’m not even a bad person  so why can’t I get a shag? ” He pulls a face, slurps morosely at his wine, and gestures for a light. Someone holds a candle across the table, and drips molten wax on his trousers, in one action cutting his chances of getting laid by a quarter. “ Oh! My trousers! Fuck! ”. This is how you should think of Radiohead.





Product



“ The single? Oh, it’s a big moving broken-hearted ballad, innit? ” Thom grins, wickedly. “ I almost killed myself writing it ”. He grins again. Radiohead’s The Bends is one of the albums of the year. We already know this. We also know that Thom Yorke is the next richeykurt rock’n’roll martyr. But what we don’t know is that the ’head are all mad bastard jokers obsessed with trousers, booze and shagging! Or are they?Caitlin Moran meets the men behind the myths.”. But they are Thom, they are. Whether Thom Yorke likes it or not, “The Bends” is now an integral part of this end of the century/culture of despair thing we keep hearing so much about on the “6 o’clock news” and in The Guardian and in The Mirror and in The Sun and in The Times, and every hour on the hour on the radio.“In Utero”, “The Holy Bible”, “The Bends”. This is your library as you go under for the third and final time. “In Utero”, “The Holy Bible”, “The Bends”. (Now I can’t climb the stairs/ Pieces missing everywhere/ Prozac/ Painkillers/ Crawling on all fours... Drying up in conversation... all your insides fall to pieces/ You just sit there wishing you could still make love... you will be the one screaming out... I try to behave but it eats me everything is broken)  this is your diary for the last year. This is your day-to-day.”. Thom taps his knife briskly on his wine glass. He takes a deep breath. He is clearly very annoyed. He spits: “”.So, if “The Bends” is not the final sigh of a man in a warm bath with razor blade on hand to cure those itchy wrists, where does the weight, the steam-roller head-fuck of “The Bends” come from?Repulsion. Internalised repulsion. This is, in essence, what one is dealing with when writing about Radiohead. Thom Yorke isn’t another desperate, depressive Kurt or Richey-style rock’n’roll martyr  the truth spins along the lines of: Thom has tantrums which he turns in on himself, and burn him up from the inside, hence the fall-out of sparks and friction. Thom’s disgust with the world is large and the “job” he holds down forces him to do things that make him shudder  the slime-fed corporate lunches; the meet and greets; the re-recorded radio-jingle whoring; the desperate insincerity  this isn’t why he’s spent a decade in a band. This isn’t why he hauls himself out of bed and writes down the music that drifts in with sleep; this isn’t why he embarked on the American tour with “Creep” that nearly finished off the band. Thom feels the “business end” of the music industry holds him back from the music and the adrenaline gut-kick that comes with something as simple as playing a great live set. He worries that meeting too many gits in suits will take the “sturm und drang” from his storm-symphonies; that knowing what “units” are will take the poetry from his soul and sully his friendship with the rest of the band.Now, worry coupled with impotence makes panic, and long-stewed panic leads to anger. And as you can’t slap the hand that holds the paycheck, all you can do is beat yourself up from the inside. For caving in and letting slide your morals. Internalised repulsion. Couple this with the enormous pressure of writing a follow-up to the million-plus selling “Pablo Honey” and you have the twisted emotions that ribbon “The Bends”. Despite the heavy strobing, future-machine roll of “Planet Telex”; Thom’s rasping voice as he confesses he “used to fly like Peter Pan”; the vertiginous waltz of “Nice Dream”; the broken-backed lament of “Black Star”; the whole air of triumphalist misery...despite all of this, and unlike “The Holy Bible” and “In Utero”, “The Bends” is not a diary album. These are half-remembered traumas, not current ones; nightmare-songs on behalf of the scared and the scarred and the shattered. Empathy for the bedevilled. That’s what we are dealing with, in a very real sense, when we talk about Radiohead. And yet, on the other hand, we’re dealing with Colin’s trousers. This job never gets any easier. Radiohead aren’t too happy about their recent press  more specifically they aren’t too happy with The Stud Brother’s bleak front-cover story detailing the raw emotions that produced “The Bends”. So unhappy in fact, the Melody Maker photographers were told to fuck off at the recent Bristol Sound City bash. Coupled with even the most cursory glance at “The Bends” frustration-laden lyric-sheet, and varied reports that Thom is “moody” and “troubled”, and the rest of the band not far behind in the angst-ridden stakes, you half expect to see a hyperactive semi-circle of ambulances around the hotel door, bearing worryingly heavy stretchers.”.On stage, Johnny Greenwood is a blur of glossily tossed hair, coat-hanger hips and shiny, squalling guitar. His brother, Colin, looks impassive  sharp-suited, concentrating on his bass. Maybe thinking about art, or fine china. Offstage, they are Viz’s “Pathetic Sharks”. We are in Rome, on a day so hot the walls have heat-rash and the Coliseum is wearing shorts. Johnny, on the other hand is wearing a 100 per cent wool T-shirt, having mislead the rest of his clothes is Paris, and Colin is fretting about his suit. “” he worries. “”, “” his brother quietly reminds him. “”, guitarist Ed O’Brien chips in, “”.Ed is tall, dark, handsome and wise and polite. He is very much like Frasier, the moral Mountie from BBC’s Due South. He is so polite in fact, that one imagines he says ma’am after every utterance. “” Like that. It’s because of his politeness that one assumes Ed purposely hasn’t pointed out the more usual cockney rhyming slang connotations of his new nickname. Welcome to the bleak, miserable, polite world of Radiohead.Case in point: the band’s entrance to tonight’s gig.Colin strides onto the stage. This is a proud moment for Radiohead  nay, Britain  as the band are the first non-Italian band to play the prestigious slot on Cornetto FM. Four million people are listening. All of EMI Italia are watching from seats ringed high around the stage, executive jewellery shimmering in the light. The “vibe” all day has been that “The Bends” will be one of those Huge International Crossover Albums, and will continue selling for the next 15 to 20 years, thus enabling Radiohead, as greying forty-something’s to buy large Angst Farms in Scotland and retire.But this is all in the future. The present is still fresh and contains Colin shining sweaty as the lights dim and he breaches the further reaches of the stage. Perhaps his Angst Farm future is weighing on his shoulders and ruining the line of his suit- for lo! Suddenly a cog in Colin’s brain clicks into the place and he wheels around, only to realise...that he is alone! Yup, tonight, Radiohead are represented by Colin and no one else but Colin. He spins on his heel, and looks desperately for his bandmates. Thom, Jonny, Ed and drummer Phil Selway can be seen through a small window at the back of the stage, pointing at Colin and laughing. Ed is pulling what can only be described as “Nyuuuur” faces. Thom is doubled over, and you can almost hear his wheezy laughter from a hundred yards away. This is what Radiohead are like. There is no accident waiting to happen here. No obituaries due for the next 40 years. Move along, please.We don’t see much of Thom Yorke for the first 10 hours in Rome. The first time we do see him close up is in the tour van, driving from the gig to a restaurant. Thom’s face is creased up in a Muttley out of “Dastardly and Muttery” cackle as Colin asks, with increasing Pathetic Sharkness, “” Thom has been absent the rest of the day  hidden in his hotel room when we arrived, lost inside himself the rest of the time. At 2 a.m., around a drunken and riotous restaurant table, the summons finally comes. “”. Thom is sick of interviews. You feel it seeping from every pore as you approach his chair. You can tell from the resigned slump in his back as you sit down. This is a man who doesn’t want to be asked what his influences are. He will punch anyone who want to know about Creep. We decide to approach this one sideways, all crab-like and sneaky.What’s the best party you’ve ever been to then?Best party  which one?Thom thoughtfully pours a small vineyard into his glass, then drinks it. All of it.”, he begins, “”.Yeah, that is pretty cool. I was expecting the usual, “Well, me and a couple of mates and a couple of birds and a sick-pack...”. “”, Thom says, heavy on the irony. Rock’n’roll is all about gangs, packs  were you ever in a gang? Thom hoots. “” Why so ? “”.Thom relaxes in his chair, and picking up his glass, savours the bouquet of his very good red wine. Then he belts it down in one. I figure I can slip in a music question. Thom, did you or did you not, as the intro to “Planet Telex”, nick the middle eight to Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”? “”. “Live and Let Die”. You did, didn’t you? “”, Thom says, bristling. “”. Thom grins. It’s a beautiful thing. He drinks more wine. He seems at peace with the world. Right ...So, Thom, you are rock martyr up-in-flames, fame-as-your-crucifix, black hole sun bloke, no?”, adds Thom, now heavy on the sarcasm. “”. He sighs, and starts reeling off a list: “”. He raises his eyebrows and stares intensely. Then he giggles.Thom giggles again, in disbelief. “”. Thom rolls his eyes, “”.Why ? You seem really het up.” Thom falters for a minute, and stutters. “”.Have you ever met Taylor Parkes?Depression is property. He drives around in a big Depression van, handing out angst to the poor. But anyway, vulture-eyed-depression-watchers will have noticed the past tense in Thom’s outburst. “Known how it feels”. There’s no gaping wound here  just a few, silvery thin scars. The past. The past.So, Thom, do you think “The Bends” is a depressive album?”, he says, tipping back in his chair. “”. Bizarrely enough, Jim Shaw from the ever-cheery Cranes has an identical theory. Maybe something to do with making beautiful music. But you figure it’s sad because beauty is terrifying, and always doomed? Whatever.”, Thom continues.Hello?What, the “They brought in the CIA/The tanks and the Marines/To blow me away/To blow me sky high” bit? Are going do all that stuff on your American tour?”. Thom laughs. “Why did you make the album?”. Thom stirs the ash in the ashtray with a matchstick. “Thom stops suddenly and looks uncomfortable. He has been boastful. This is not polite, and therefore against the Radiohead Rules of Conduct. He says six “I dunnos” as penance and has another drink.This is Colin at 4 a.m.: “”, he says, slumping in his chair “” He pulls a face, slurps morosely at his wine, and gestures for a light. Someone holds a candle across the table, and drips molten wax on his trousers, in one action cutting his chances of getting laid by a quarter. “”. This is how you should think of Radiohead.” Thom grins, wickedly. “”. He grins again. Labels: Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, interviews, Jonny Greenwood, Melody Maker, Radiohead, The Bends, Thom Yorke Melody Maker, 23.10.1993 Radiohead, By Paul Lester



I’ve heard screaming before, but nothing quite like that. At once exhilarated and anguished, it is the scream of a girl on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “ I love you, Thom! ” The scream is four syllables long, very sharp and extraordinarily loud, somehow managing to pierce the commotion of the Providence, Rhode Island crowd and the noise blasting out of Radiohead’s enormous PA.



“ I love you, Thom! ” There it goes again, sharper and louder now, a terrifying mix of frightened child, ecstatic weenie, and wailing banshee. Of course, I have no trouble hearing the scream  everyone in Club Lupo’s, Jesus, everyone in Providence can hear the yell-from-hell; it’s just that I don’t seem to be able to work out where the fuck it’s coming from. “ I love you Thom! ” That does it, I’ve got to find out who on earth is responsible for this orgiastic moan-cum-death rattle. So, as Radiohead build towards the climax of their finale, “Pop Is Dead”, I wade into the fray, a claustrophobic crush of pretty preppies, frat-house freaks, cropped jocks, sweaty crowd-surfers and all-round psychos. And there she is again, squashed between the Beavis and Buttheads, the tiny kid with the giant voice. “ Hey! Look at this! ” the drenched (new) waif calls out, instantly recognising me from the hotel where Radiohead and The Maker have been staying and on whose doorstep she has been camping out over the last few days in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of her heroes. The girl, Sharon Bouchard, 21, from Massachusetts  is shivering, not from cold, but like she’s just seen a ghost, or Christ, or the ghost of Christ. “ Oh my God ”, she sighs, “ that was the best thing I’ve ever seen. They are just awesome ”. Suddenly, Sharon starts pulling up her sweatshirt to reveal her midriff. It is purple. So determined was she to get close to Thom E Yorke  Radiohead’s singer, guitarist and reluctant messiah  that she braves the melee, risking, in the process, such irrelevancies as life and limb. I guess that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re in love. “ He is sooo gorgeous ”, swoons Sharon, prodding at her equally bruised thighs and grinning, oblivious to the gawping hordes, oblivious to the pain. Clearly she can’t feel a thing. Obviously, she would do it all again. “ Course I would! ” she beams. “ Anyway, it doesn’t hurt a bit ”. Brett who?



I’ve seen bigger bands. I’ve seen better bands. I’ve seen U2 in Germany, New Order at Reading, Public Enemy at Wembley and Barry White in Manchester, so, no, you can’t possibly blame me for assuming I’d seen it all. And I have, in a sense. But I’ve never seen five undernourished ex-college boys from the Home Counties inspire such reckless enthusiasm, such devotion, such love. I’ve never seen a fan letter for an “indie” band from a man in Death Row before. I’ve never seen a bunch tagged “ugly losers” by hacks in their home country make so many luscious teenies (male and female) on the other side of the Atlantic quiver and shake. I see all of this and more in America with Radiohead. Yeah, that Radiohead. The Radiohead we all used to studiously ignore when they were called On A Friday. The Radiohead we sort of began to notice when their monument of misery, “Creep”, crawled out of Parlophone last September. The Radiohead we begrudgingly gave press space when their next slabs of caustic plastic, “Anyone Can Play Guitar” and “Pop Is Dead”, scraped the charts (respectively numbers 32 and 42) and their debut album, Pablo Honey, reached the Top 30. The very same Radiohead we pushed aside in our rush to sanctify Suede and who we're now being forced to (re-)assess in the light of the “Creep” re-issue (Number seven with loads of bullets) and the band’s impressive Stateside success  the LP has shifted upwards of half a million units, while estimates suggest it will have sold a cool million by the end of the year. Yes, indeed. That Radiohead. Embarrassed? Nous?



No. Not us. Never. We know no shame and have even less pride. Besides, Radiohead, we now realise, are worth every cringing second of the shameless volte-face it takes to be granted an audience with them. Certainly Thom E Yorke  a man who seems to have taken Elvis Costello’s early “Revenge And Guilt” persona and multiplied it severalfold  is becoming a fascinating figure at the centre of British pop. If the sensitivity, irritability, suspicion, rage and anxiety displayed in Yorke’s words are anything to go by, he should be a chap with a chip the size of a small banana republic on his shoulder. And if the savage riffing and thrillingly conventional “Music For Lapsed Rock Fans” is how I describe Radiohead later, to the band’s assent attack of the players is any measure, then Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar), Ed O'Brien (rhythm guitar), Colin Greenwood (bass) and Phil Selway (drums) will be bullish and brash, defensive and aggressive, in the mould of the young Joe Strummer and Paul Weller. Wrong! Radiohead are disarmingly charming, articulate on every subject from representative democracy to fin de siecle Muggletonian ascetism, erudite from morning till night and educated to the max. Their received pronunciation has more in common with royalty than rockers. And they could probably knock out the odd authoritative political column for The Guardian in their spare time. And I can’t help wondering, as I watch Thom leave the Providence gig, head towards the tour bus and reduce a startled female to a trembling wreck (Sharon Bouchard!), and the Greenwood brothers get swamped by autograph hunters, whether these strange (banal?) pop rituals are beneath them. And I can’t help wondering just who are these pale young men whose songs and sounds, eyes and skin are exciting thousands of music lovers thousands of miles from home.



“ He’s great, but what is his problem? ” asked Steve Mack of That Petrol Emotion when he first saw Thom E Yorke at a Radiohead gig last year. The crusty kitten-hunk had a point. Yorke may well be as much of a gentleman as the others in the band; it’s just that he’s rather more prone to bouts of moodiness. And don’t forget that the enigmatic singer is the man responsible for this little litany of lacerating self-loathing: “I’m better off dead” (“Prove Yourself”); “I failed in life” (“Stupid Car”); “What do you care when all the other men are far, far better?” (“Thinking About You”); “All my friends said bye-bye” (“Faithless The Wonder Boy”); and of course “I wish I was special” (“Creep”). Back in the Providence hotel bar, and bearing in mind his reputation for sporadic fits of pique, even black periods of nihilistic despair, I approach Thom cautiously and repeat that Petrol enquiry: what is his problem?



Nursing a bootle of Beck’s in the corner, he reasons, “ I'm a lot of different people when I write ”.



I hear you’ve been in a steady, happy relationship for three years. How come you sound so haunted and hurt, fierce and fucked off/up in your songs?



“ You can feel those things in any relationship ”, he explains, eyeing me from beneath his Cobain-ish blonde fringe, apparently unaware of the fact that Sharon Bouchard (again!) is spying on him, a la Fatal Attraction, from a nearby table. “ Am I for real? ” he repeats. “ Good question. I am sincere about what I do ”.



How about that line from Faithless: “I can’t put the needle in”  have you ever been tempted in one of your more downer moments, to try hard drugs? Or were you just flirting with heroin imagery?



“ I wouldn’t be that pretentious to play the Kurt Cobain ”, he winces. “ That phrase is more about trying to get back at people, get nasty ”.



Tonight, you introduced “Yes I Am” (the b-side of “Creep”) by saying, “this is for all the people who shat on us”. What made you say that?



“ That was just... I wrote that song about the sensation of being the underdog for so long, and how suddenly everyone’s nice to you. And it’s like, ‘Fuck you,’ ” he snarls, offering a glimpse of the human behind the hysteria.



More glimpses: Thom was born in Scotland [sic] 25 years ago (it’s his birthday on the day of this bar confessional. Ed and Colin present him with a book by the lading dissident intellectual, Noam Chomsky), moving to Oxford when he was seven. His childhood was all right, but he hated his public school (“ It was purgatory ”, he says. “ It nurtured all the worst aspects of the British middle-class: snobbery, lack of tolerance and right-wing stupidity. ”) After a tortuous gailed romance (“ Have you ever seen ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?’ It was like that for a year and a half, lots of fighting in public ”), Thom went to Exeter University where he studied English and Fine Art, shaved his head, started DJing and discovered he had a dangerous taste for drink (“ I almost died from alcohol poisoning once ”, he shudders at the memory. “ I lost it for a bit. ”). Thom doesn’t say whether or not things got so bad he ever thought about ending it all (“ Might have done, might not have done, ” he half laughs), but he does agree with my theory that “Creep” is the exact inverse of The Stone Roses’ “I Wanna Be Adored”: the former is fuelled by self-pity, the latter by arrogance  both by egocentricism bordering on narcissism. “Creep” is saying “I Wanna Be Abhorred”, isn’t it?



“ Yeah, definitely ” Thom is quick to agree but slow to disclose any more. “ It’s about [pause]... It’s about sympathy [longer pause]... This is all very hard. If, erm... Yeah I s’pose. Mmmm [very long pause]... As soon as I say this, everyone will take the piss. It’s just, I think [pause for several centuries]... Part of me is always looking for someone to turn around, buy me a drink, give me a hug and say it’s all right ”, he says at last, breaking the painful silence. “ Because I just go off on one. For days I can’t talk to people. And it shocks me because I’m still doing it. I want to be alone and I want people to notice me  both at the same time. I can’t help it. There’s this book, Famished Road, where the main character has these forces following him around and pulling him about  I feel like that ”, Thom continues to bare his soul and disprove the idea that commercial reward + public acclaim = emotional stability. “ It sounds really tossy, this. If I was a painter, it would be like, ‘Wow! That’s wonderful!’ But this is pop and in pop you’re not meant to say things like this ”.



You are if you’re Radiohead. You are if you’re Thom E Yorke. And you are if you’re one of the dandy Greenwood duo. Jonny is 21, Colin is 25. Their father died when they were young, leaving their mother to worry about her two wayward sons. “ She thought Jonny was being dragged away by the forces of evil ”, confides Colin the day after the Rhode Island gig, chainsmoking Camel cigarettes inside the tour bus now parked outside the Avalon  the venue for tonight’s Boston show. “ She got a bit better when she saw us on Top Of The Pops. Mind you, she thinks everyone on that programme’s a drug-taking lunatic. Actually, she’s not happy unless she’s worrying. Very Radiohead, that. We’re all worriers, you know. Even when there’s nothing left to worry about ”. Jonny, who left Oxford Polytechnic after one term to concentrate on the band, is Radiohead’s resident musical genius, the Bernard Butler to Thom’s Brett Anderson. Something of a prodigy at school, he played viola for the Thames Valley orchestra, then began hanging around with Colin and Co as soon as the group started. Pretty soon, all five members were sharing a house in Oxford, just like the Monkees. “ No, Banana Splits “, corrects Jonny, joining me in the scorching Indian summer heat on the pavement  sorry, sidewalk  outside the Avalon. “ Which of us was the father figure? No patriarchs! We were all mothers ”. I ask Jonny whether he thinks Radiohead have achieved success in the States rather quicker than Suede because the latter are more of a tease and Americans mistrust any ambiguity of any kind. “ Are we more boyish? Ooh no ”, he grimaces, genuinely peeved at my proposal. Jonny later admits to being more than slightly repulsed by a nipple ring given to him by a female fan who appeared stark naked at his hotel door a few nights ago, and asks me, at the end of our chat, not to mention the gender of his partner back home. Meanwhile, Jonny’s staring at the sun, telling me this: “ We get fans of both sexes. Groupies? That’s a terrible word. How Seventies. No, we don’t get offers. We’re not the Manic Street Preachers. We’re a testosterone-free band. We didn’t form this group to unleash our libidos on the general public ”. Colin, who has a degree in English from Cambridge University, spent his formative years in the kitchen at parties with Thom, wearing black bodystockings and garish mauve and green shirts and generally, as you do, trying to halt the hegemony of goth. Another one of Colin’s favourite pastimes was outraging the boys at school (Radiohead attended the same school, although, apart from Colin and Thom, they were all in different years) by getting off with their male friends. Then he went to college and really let his hair down. “ We all pretty much shot our load at college in terms of drinking and drugs ”, admits the most candid member of the band, squinting at the sun coming through the bus window and closing the blinds as scores of Radiohead’s new American fans mill about on the street below, waiting for their bass-playing idol to emerge. “ It was nothing extreme ”, he adds, sounding for all the world like an Oxbridge don with an epicurean bent. “ Nothing more than speed or dope. Smack? No! People can’t afford that indulgence in terms of time and money these days. I remember at college ”, he goes on, furiously inhaling and exhaling, “ there was this chemist on the corner  it was the local methadone dispensing clinic. I used to walk past and see all these junkies queuing up. Then I’d walk round the corner and they’d be shooting up, which wasn’t very nice... ” Colin has already informed me that Brett Anderson’s celebrated remark  “ I’m a bisexual who’s yet to have a homosexual experience ”  was lifted from the notorious slacker manual, Generation X. What about those early gay encounters of yours, Colin?



“ Yeah, well. Yeah, well. Yeah! ” he laughs, momentarily embarrassed before divulging: “ Well, yeah, I had a couple of flings at college with some guys. But my girlfriend knows about them, so it’s all right. She doesn’t like me hanging out with her gay friends in London too much, just in case I get tempted! I’ll show you a photo of her if you want. She’s a biker. She’s more rock ’n’ roll than me. She’s a biker woman. She got three bikes on our holiday in Greece. You know, I was the only guy in Greece on the back of a bike with a woman on the front! ” he chuckles, leaping up to dig a photograph of Madeleine, his crazy biker chick girlfriend, out of his travel bag.



Ed is the only member of Radiohead who doesn’t have a partner back home. There are advantages to this. For one, he has more money than the others (a homesick, lovestruck Colin has spent about 600 pounds ringing Madeleine every night. Drummer Phil doesn’t disclose a precise amount for his nocturnal calls to girlfriend Kate [sic], but he does tell me that he wishes he’d bought shares in British Telecom). For another, he gets to flirt with women on the road. Like Tanya Donnelly of Belly, for example, who  take note, “True Stories” fans  has just broken off her engagement with her US rocker boyfriend.



Even as we speak, Radiohead’s playmate, Tanya, is jumping down the steps of Belly’s astrodome of a tour bus and interrupting my chat with Ed as we sit in the shade outside the Avalon. “ Sorry! ” Tanya squeals in my general direction after bounding towards Ed to plant a big kiss on his cheek, that legendary “shark with lipstick” smile forming on her face. “ I thought you were just some college geek doing an interview ”. (Memo to 4AD: you can forget about any more Belly front covers.) Ed’s parents split up when he was 10, although he moved back in with his father in Oxford five years ago  he’s 26 now, but his dad, a Happy Mondays fan, is pretty cool. After a regular adolescence (“ I used to think girls hated me ”, he says. “ I couldn't speak to girls till I was 17 ”), Ed went to Manchester University, then did his “Jack Kerouac” bit, taking a greyhound bus around America, exorcising most of his bacchanalian tendencies.



“ Someone held a party for us the other night and none of us went, ” he laughs. “ Drinking just depresses me nowadays. Until recently I was drinking very heavily and I loved it. But then it started to act as a depressant. I like to smoke dope a lot, but that’s about it. Crack and coke? We’ve been offered it. I am intrigued, but... The same goes for girls  there’s a hidden rule that no one goes with groupies. I hate that side of things, it’s so dirty and seedy. It might be all right in a Guns N’ Roses video, but it’s not for us. We’re quite a moral band, you know ”.



I don’t speak to Phil Selway  who only last night was stopped outside the band’s tour bus by a girl and asked whether he was “ the roadie or just a hanger on? Oh, and can you get me Thom’s autograph? ”  until after Radiohead’s storming appearance in front of 3,000 devotees at New York’s Roseland theatre. I know it was storming because Thom’s skinny-rib black jumper is hanging over a heater pipe in the band’s dressing-room after the gig and it is dripping with sweat. Really. Drip, drip, drip. I also know it was storming because all sorts of record company and MTV types are schmoozing and salivating and generally declaring Radiohead to be the best new band since whoever, the cure to all known diseases, etc, etc. You wouldn’t know it was storming to look at Ed, who, after a puff or 27 of, well, puff, has got what he calls “the fear”. And you definitely wouldn’t know it to look at Thom E Yorke. Evidently, schmoozing with record company and MTV types comes just below verruca removal on his list of likes.



Fearing the onset of one of Thom’s “moods”, I drag Phil into a corridor and ask him why he thinks Radiohead have Made It Big in the United States, as opposed to, just to pick a name at random, Suede (interesting fact: Suede immediately faxed their congratulations on hearing that Pablo Honey had gone gold). “ Americans like our Englishness ”, says the drummer, Liverpool Poly graduate and former Nightline counsellor (true!), leaning against a drab, grey wall. “ It’s a far more abrupt kind of Englishness than Suede’s, more energetic, more frenetic and direct ”. Just as Phil is starting to get into his stride, a rude American strides over to where we’re standing and starts listening to our conversation. Surreally enough, it turns out to be Michael O’Neil, production assistant on MTV, better known as the voice behind America’s latest lobotomised cartoon cult, Beavis, of Beavis and Butthead infamy. “Radiohead rock, man!”, O’Neil/Beavis announces, unprompted, as Phil and I exchange looks of the “An Uzi, an Uzi, my kingdom for an Uzi” variety. “Are they gonna be big? Let’s quote-unquote: ‘Bigger Than U2’! Definitely. They know how to write songs, they know how to sing and they know how to play. They’re cred. They’ve got attitude. They’re alternative crossover! They’re like Jim-Morrison-meets-Jimi-Hendrix. MTV love them. They’re rockin’ the country!” Huh-huh, huh-huh. Only this time, the joker’s not joking. Radiohead’s acid anthems and simply twisted pop is just what Europe, America, the world ordered. One million people can’t be wrong. Can they? Labels: Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, interviews, Jonny Greenwood, Melody Maker, Pablo Honey, Phil Selway, Radiohead, Thom Yorke , By Paul LesterI’ve heard screaming before, but nothing quite like that. At once exhilarated and anguished, it is the scream of a girl on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “” The scream is four syllables long, very sharp and extraordinarily loud, somehow managing to pierce the commotion of the Providence, Rhode Island crowd and the noise blasting out of Radiohead’s enormous PA.” There it goes again, sharper and louder now, a terrifying mix of frightened child, ecstatic weenie, and wailing banshee. Of course, I have no trouble hearing the scream  everyone in Club Lupo’s, Jesus, everyone in Providence can hear the yell-from-hell; it’s just that I don’t seem to be able to work out where the fuck it’s coming from. “” That does it, I’ve got to find out who on earth is responsible for this orgiastic moan-cum-death rattle. So, as Radiohead build towards the climax of their finale, “Pop Is Dead”, I wade into the fray, a claustrophobic crush of pretty preppies, frat-house freaks, cropped jocks, sweaty crowd-surfers and all-round psychos. And there she is again, squashed between the Beavis and Buttheads, the tiny kid with the giant voice. “” the drenched (new) waif calls out, instantly recognising me from the hotel where Radiohead and The Maker have been staying and on whose doorstep she has been camping out over the last few days in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of her heroes. The girl, Sharon Bouchard, 21, from Massachusetts  is shivering, not from cold, but like she’s just seen a ghost, or Christ, or the ghost of Christ. “”, she sighs, “”. Suddenly, Sharon starts pulling up her sweatshirt to reveal her midriff. It is purple. So determined was she to get close to Thom E Yorke  Radiohead’s singer, guitarist and reluctant messiah  that she braves the melee, risking, in the process, such irrelevancies as life and limb. I guess that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re in love. “”, swoons Sharon, prodding at her equally bruised thighs and grinning, oblivious to the gawping hordes, oblivious to the pain. Clearly she can’t feel a thing. Obviously, she would do it all again. “” she beams. “”. Brett who?I’ve seen bigger bands. I’ve seen better bands. I’ve seen U2 in Germany, New Order at Reading, Public Enemy at Wembley and Barry White in Manchester, so, no, you can’t possibly blame me for assuming I’d seen it all. And I have, in a sense. But I’ve never seen five undernourished ex-college boys from the Home Counties inspire such reckless enthusiasm, such devotion, such love. I’ve never seen a fan letter for an “indie” band from a man in Death Row before. I’ve never seen a bunch tagged “ugly losers” by hacks in their home country make so many luscious teenies (male and female) on the other side of the Atlantic quiver and shake. I see all of this and more in America with Radiohead. Yeah, that Radiohead. The Radiohead we all used to studiously ignore when they were called On A Friday. The Radiohead we sort of began to notice when their monument of misery, “Creep”, crawled out of Parlophone last September. The Radiohead we begrudgingly gave press space when their next slabs of caustic plastic, “Anyone Can Play Guitar” and “Pop Is Dead”, scraped the charts (respectively numbers 32 and 42) and their debut album, Pablo Honey, reached the Top 30. The very same Radiohead we pushed aside in our rush to sanctify Suede and who we're now being forced to (re-)assess in the light of the “Creep” re-issue (Number seven with loads of bullets) and the band’s impressive Stateside success  the LP has shifted upwards of half a million units, while estimates suggest it will have sold a cool million by the end of the year. Yes, indeed. That Radiohead. Embarrassed? Nous?No. Not us. Never. We know no shame and have even less pride. Besides, Radiohead, we now realise, are worth every cringing second of the shameless volte-face it takes to be granted an audience with them. Certainly Thom E Yorke  a man who seems to have taken Elvis Costello’s early “Revenge And Guilt” persona and multiplied it severalfold  is becoming a fascinating figure at the centre of British pop. If the sensitivity, irritability, suspicion, rage and anxiety displayed in Yorke’s words are anything to go by, he should be a chap with a chip the size of a small banana republic on his shoulder. And if the savage riffing and thrillingly conventional “Music For Lapsed Rock Fans” is how I describe Radiohead later, to the band’s assent attack of the players is any measure, then Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar), Ed O'Brien (rhythm guitar), Colin Greenwood (bass) and Phil Selway (drums) will be bullish and brash, defensive and aggressive, in the mould of the young Joe Strummer and Paul Weller. Wrong! Radiohead are disarmingly charming, articulate on every subject from representative democracy to fin de siecle Muggletonian ascetism, erudite from morning till night and educated to the max. Their received pronunciation has more in common with royalty than rockers. And they could probably knock out the odd authoritative political column for The Guardian in their spare time. And I can’t help wondering, as I watch Thom leave the Providence gig, head towards the tour bus and reduce a startled female to a trembling wreck (Sharon Bouchard!), and the Greenwood brothers get swamped by autograph hunters, whether these strange (banal?) pop rituals are beneath them. And I can’t help wondering just who are these pale young men whose songs and sounds, eyes and skin are exciting thousands of music lovers thousands of miles from home.” asked Steve Mack of That Petrol Emotion when he first saw Thom E Yorke at a Radiohead gig last year. The crusty kitten-hunk had a point. Yorke may well be as much of a gentleman as the others in the band; it’s just that he’s rather more prone to bouts of moodiness. And don’t forget that the enigmatic singer is the man responsible for this little litany of lacerating self-loathing: “I’m better off dead” (“Prove Yourself”); “I failed in life” (“Stupid Car”); “What do you care when all the other men are far, far better?” (“Thinking About You”); “All my friends said bye-bye” (“Faithless The Wonder Boy”); and of course “I wish I was special” (“Creep”). Back in the Providence hotel bar, and bearing in mind his reputation for sporadic fits of pique, even black periods of nihilistic despair, I approach Thom cautiously and repeat that Petrol enquiry: what is his problem?Nursing a bootle of Beck’s in the corner, he reasons, “”.I hear you’ve been in a steady, happy relationship for three years. How come you sound so haunted and hurt, fierce and fucked off/up in your songs?”, he explains, eyeing me from beneath his Cobain-ish blonde fringe, apparently unaware of the fact that Sharon Bouchard (again!) is spying on him, a la Fatal Attraction, from a nearby table. “” he repeats. “”.How about that line from Faithless: “I can’t put the needle in”  have you ever been tempted in one of your more downer moments, to try hard drugs? Or were you just flirting with heroin imagery? The Sunday SF Chronicle, 1993 Radiohead Interview by Tom Lanham

“Love songs have been killed by mainstream music, and to actually write a love song is kind of a peculiar thing to do these days.”

Thom York [sic]

Right from their inception in a snobby Oxford private school in the late 1980s, through to their haranguing of unappreciative fellow pop stars and music critics, Radiohead has always had a big hang-up about being undervalued. This sense of grievance, shared by Jonny Greenwood (guitar), Colin Greenwood (bass), Ed O’Brien (guitar/backing vocals), Phil Selway (drums) and the particularly bolshie Thom Yorke (vocals/guitar), manifests itself in aggressively self-pitying lyrics about such problems as the élitist attitudes of Oxford students (Prove Yourself) and the bitterness of unrequited love (Creep), and a fierce “if you can’t join them, beat them” outlook  a take on the world that led this nominally indie band to sign with EMI to amplify the commercial clout of their melodic sound.



Their first EP, “Drill” (1992)  a tinny collection of demos recorded when the band was still known as “On a Friday” mixed antisocial moaning with R.E.M.-ish strumming and vocals, interspersed with Nirvana-ish wails of guitar, and was not greatly welcomed. “Creep” (1992), however, was different. Not realizing the tape was running, the band recorded the song in one spontaneous take, and so captured something of the abrasive excitement of their three-guitar sound when played live. The band’s stock rose with critics and punters alike after the release of the next two EPs, “Anyone Can Play Guitar” and “Pop Is Dead”, and their debut album, “Pablo Honey” (1993), surged into the UK Top 30.



Despite this taste of success, however, the lads weren’t happy. Thom told his public, “if you’re not interested, fuck you,” and the band insisted they were perfectly happy to develop their skills without the help of the national papers (who still weren’t interested in them). And they had mixed feelings over the release of the uneven, poorly sequenced and overly familiar “Pablo Honey”, which featured six previously heard tracks. So it was under a cloud that they departed on a headlining tour of Europe in May 1993, only to hear some weeks later that, as if by magic, “Creep” had become the most requested alternative track on US radio, with heavy MTV rotation to match. Quickly changing their plans to building up a “word of mouth” reputation, Radiohead shot off to America for the first of several sell-out tours which would eventually have them CO-headlining with Belly, and supporting such luminaries as Tears for Fears.



Rock: The Rough Guide



Thom Yorke and Colin Greenwood have just finished their morning bowl of granola, and they have something on their minds.



“ Do you know where we can get some used Levi’s 501’s? ” they inquire. “We can’t go back to England without some.” Given that the vocalist and bassist, respectively, for Oxford’s curious new combo Radiohead are on their final promo junket stop in San Francisco and only have a couple of hours before the flight leaves, they probably won’t be diving into any Jean pools. “ But these pants are impossible to get back home, ” they whine  as are the stylish Ray-Ban sunglasses they’re proudly sporting.



Stateside status symbols are important to these Brits, eager to prove themselves against the U2s, Cures and Depeche Modes back home. They’ve released an engaging Anglopop debut that contains one of the memorable numbers of ’93, a self-deprecating little ditty dubbed “Creep”. Yorke positively oozes uneasiness in the slithery chorus of “I wish I were special/ But I’m a creep/ I’m a weirdo“ and that feeling is magnified by the song’s unassuming arrangement, which sort of, oh, creeps along. And who hasn’t felt like a creep at some point in any given relationship?



Q: I read where you failed at being an art student. Is such a thing possible?



THOM: The way I failed was, I went to college one morning, presented them with my paintings, and they told me I couldn’t paint. That was about halfway through. I then disappeared for a month and came back with all these other works, so I didn't actually fail at all. I got a degree in Art and English.



Q: Your sound’s a very artistic one, not to mention American.



THOM: Without being too obvious, I hope. We have a great many favorite American bands, just like the Beatles did. Any British band that refuses to admit the fact they’re influenced by American culture is lying through their teeth, because Britain doesn’t have a culture. All Britain ever does is take American culture and sell it back to America again. “Prove Yourself” was kind of written about that. Oxford’s a very intimidating place, but not in normal sorts of violent way  it’s like Los Angeles was for the brief time we were there. After the first few hours of novelty value, the California sunshine gets quite intimidating in the same kind of way.



COLIN: Yeah, there’s always a pressure on people to be known, to be doing something.



Q: Who is this “Creep,” exactly?



THOM: Creep is more the way people look at you. The guy in the song doesn’t necessarily believe that he’s a creep, but he’s being told he is. But these things change. “Creep” is the term for someone who follows people around and drinks on his own in bars and stuff, but the idea came from a rocky relationship I was having. I find it very disturbing that there are thousands and thousands of these wonderful love songs which aren’t really wonderful at all, and it’s evident that the people who were writing them have never even been close to anything resembling the emotions they represent. Love songs have been killed by mainstream music, and to actually write a love song is kind of a peculiar thing to do these days.



Q: Your album title, Pablo Honey, is rather unique, too.



THOM: That comes from the “Jerky Boys” crank-call tapes, the one where he rings up this guy and pretends to be the bloke’s long-lost mother  he just chooses names at random from a phone book. We picked the tape up from Chapterhouse, who picked it up when they were on tour over here.



Q: I read where there was a recent poll in England that asked kids to name their personal heroes, and they chose the video game character the Sonic Hedgehog.



COLIN: Yes. We played that in the studio while we were making the record. We love Sega.



THOM: We figure that we shouldn’t be doing music anymore, but music for video games. We ran into these 12-year-olds one day playing video games, and they asked us what we did. We said we were in a band, and they just weren’t very impressed. They said, “Get out of it! Get into writing tunes for Sega!” All the record companies in England are really paranoid about it, because the retail shops in Britain sell more games than they do records. But that’s OK, we’re going into virtual reality rock. We’ll never leave our homes. We’ll have rehearsals in cyberspace.



COLIN: You have these new pop stars like the Sonic Hedgehog that’re creations of the company, not human beings, so they’re controlled completely. But we’re not Sonic, we can’t be programmed to do things that the record companies want us to do. Sonic’s not going to walk out on Sega and threaten to sign to Nintendo, now is he?



Q: Which pops up in your song “Vegetable”: “I am not a vegetable/ I will not control myself.”



THOM: A lot of things I write come from really simple ideas. That was a funny song because I had a lot of phrases floating around [in my head]. But the principal image I had in my head was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and all the people who sit around the main area in the film but don’t actually do anything except drool or go to the toilet without knowing it. But when you read the book, you find out that The Chief is the main character, and that’s the brilliant thing about it  nobody speaks to him because he’s the idiot.



The song “Anyone Can Play Guitar” is slagging off that whole “I want to be Jim Morrison“ thing. When they released Morrison’s lyrics as poetry, I thought, “Oh, God.” It just showed what he was  a real piss-head. There were flashes, though, and he was very good-looking. And in that sense, I’d like to be Jim Morrison.



Q: So instead of the “Lizard King”, you’d like to be known as....



THOM: Any reptile would be fine. Radiohead Interview by Tom LanhamRight from their inception in a snobby Oxford private school in the late 1980s, through to their haranguing of unappreciative fellow pop stars and music critics, Radiohead has always had a big hang-up about being undervalued. This sense of grievance, shared by Jonny Greenwood (guitar), Colin Greenwood (bass), Ed O’Brien (guitar/backing vocals), Phil Selway (drums) and the particularly bolshie Thom Yorke (vocals/guitar), manifests itself in aggressively self-pitying lyrics about such problems as the élitist attitudes of Oxford students (Prove Yourself) and the bitterness of unrequited love (Creep), and a fierce “if you can’t join them, beat them” outlook  a take on the world that led this nominally indie band to sign with EMI to amplify the commercial clout of their melodic sound.Their first EP, “Drill” (1992)  a tinny collection of demos recorded when the band was still known as “On a Friday” mixed antisocial moaning with R.E.M.-ish strumming and vocals, interspersed with Nirvana-ish wails of guitar, and was not greatly welcomed. “Creep” (1992), however, was different. Not realizing the tape was running, the band recorded the song in one spontaneous take, and so captured something of the abrasive excitement of their three-guitar sound when played live. The band’s stock rose with critics and punters alike after the release of the next two EPs, “Anyone Can Play Guitar” and “Pop Is Dead”, and their debut album, “Pablo Honey” (1993), surged into the UK Top 30.Despite this taste of success, however, the lads weren’t happy. Thom told his public, “if you’re not interested, fuck you,” and the band insisted they were perfectly happy to develop their skills without the help of the national papers (who still weren’t interested in them). And they had mixed feelings over the release of the uneven, poorly sequenced and overly familiar “Pablo Honey”, which featured six previously heard tracks. So it was under a cloud that they departed on a headlining tour of Europe in May 1993, only to hear some weeks later that, as if by magic, “Creep” had become the most requested alternative track on US radio, with heavy MTV rotation to match. Quickly changing their plans to building up a “word of mouth” reputation, Radiohead shot off to America for the first of several sell-out tours which would eventually have them CO-headlining with Belly, and supporting such luminaries as Tears for Fears.Thom Yorke and Colin Greenwood have just finished their morning bowl of granola, and they have something on their minds.” they inquire. “We can’t go back to England without some.” Given that the vocalist and bassist, respectively, for Oxford’s curious new combo Radiohead are on their final promo junket stop in San Francisco and only have a couple of hours before the flight leaves, they probably won’t be diving into any Jean pools. “” they whine  as are the stylish Ray-Ban sunglasses they’re proudly sporting.Stateside status symbols are important to these Brits, eager to prove themselves against the U2s, Cures and Depeche Modes back home. They’ve released an engaging Anglopop debut that contains one of the memorable numbers of ’93, a self-deprecating little ditty dubbed “Creep”. Yorke positively oozes uneasiness in the slithery chorus of “I wish I were special/ But I’m a creep/ I’m a weirdo“ and that feeling is magnified by the song’s unassuming arrangement, which sort of, oh, creeps along. And who hasn’t felt like a creep at some point in any given relationship?I read where you failed at being an art student. Is such a thing possible?Your sound’s a very artistic one, not to mention American.Who is this “Creep,” exactly?Your album title, Pablo Honey, is rather unique, too.I read where there was a recent poll in England that asked kids to name their personal heroes, and they chose the video game character the Sonic Hedgehog.Which pops up in your song “Vegetable”: “I am not a vegetable/ I will not control myself.”So instead of the “Lizard King”, you’d like to be known as.... Labels: Colin Greenwood, interviews, Pablo Honey, Radiohead, San Francisco Chronicle, Thom Yorke NME, 11.09.1993 Creeping Up with the Joneses*

(*Jesus Jones that is)



Their album outsells Suede’s by 15 to 1, their single is in the Top 50 and MTV can’t play their video enough times  in America, that is. Are RADIOHEAD destined to be the greatest British band we never had? PAUL MOODY visits the band in their hometown of Oxford and reckons it’s about time we claimed them as our own.





It’s midnight and Radiohead are still trying to prove how un-rock’n’roll they are. Here’s bass playing Oscar Wilde lookalike Colin: “ We did this gig in Dallas, and afterwards this beautiful girl homed in on Ed. She said her parents were away, that she had loads of coke and that they could be back there in ten minutes. We had a day off the next day and everything, he could’ve easily gone with her, but he didn’t. That’s just so typical of the way we are. ” He muses on this for a moment: “ God knows why he didn’t go. ”



THE ENGLISH ARE COMING! A newsflash: Life for Radiohead is changing. In America, “Creep” is glued to the MTV schedules and has breached the top 50; “Pablo Honey” has sold half a million copies and is outrunning Suede’s sales by 15 to one, and even Arnie (not known for his indie upbringing) has made noises to the effect that he wants “Creep” to be featured somewhere in his next film. This is ground-breaking stuff.



The last time such waves were created by an English group. Jesus Jones and E.M.F seized hold of the top US charts and embarrassed us for weeks. But now they are buying the best English rock album of the year (source: Moody’s Almanack) in droves whilst Radiohead singles have to stage pitched battles to get into our own Top 40. The terrible thing is, this time the Americans have actually got it right, whereas our greatest previous exports The Smiths, Stone Roses, the Mondays  always managed to baffle them.



Oddly, Radiohead are chronically underrated here. A correspondent for an adult rock mag assures me their readers will have no idea who their singer is; the tabloids have even adopted the band as a plaything to wrap their ‘Unknowns Storm US Chart’ headlines around. As things stand then, they are little short of being the Fixx (80’s pomp poppers loved in the states and loathed over here).



Colin: “ No! No! Don’t call us the Fixx! We’ve been thinking that ever since it all started taking off in America. We’re releasing “Stop Whispering” as the follow up single over there and apparently a load of radio stations are already behind it, so hopefully we’ll counteract all that. ” But the Fixx had more than one hit in America!



“ Oh no! The thing is we desperately want to be successful over here. If it was a choice between the two then I think I’d want success here, personally. ”



Hmm. Things seem not to be as well in Radiohead’s paradise as they might be. Despite massive success in America (in comparison to most of the bands featured in these pages their sales elevate them to the level of demi-gods) the band seem ill at ease with the conjecture and plagued with doubts about the microscopic press attention now pursuing them.



We’ve come to Oxford to catch them away from the pressure cooker strains of America (and to see a low key Reading warm up at the Venue, scene of the “Creep” video) but the mood seems to be one of wariness, of a reticence to become re-involved in the clutches of the press. Ideally we’re here to gauge the mood of Thom, to see how someone whose songs are consumed with fear and self-loathing is coping with the holy grail of pop stardom, but this is proving difficult. He is apparently ‘interviewed out’ following the press circus surrounding “Creep” in America, and now leaves all such duties in the hands of band diplomats Colin and John Malkovich clone Phil. So we whizz around Oxford in a bright red Mini, talking about nothing, until we end up in Colin’s flat 20 minutes before they go on, discussing the day they signed their souls away.



Colin: “ It was a typical Radiohead day that we went down to London to sign the contracts and then decided to come straight back. Someone suggested we should go out for a drink so we split up and agreed to go out later on. Except by now it was pouring with rain and we spent hours walking around Oxford getting soaked looking for each other. ”



Phil: “ The thing is, we always knew it was going to happen, even when we were On A Friday. We all went off to college but we knew we'd end up back together in the end. There was no one driving force, we were all determined to make it work. ”



The gig is amazing. Thom, his hair is a shaggy mustard and white peroxide, is in best frazzled mode, detonating the “It’s inevitable” chorus of “Ripchord&r“dquo;; lashing into “Vegetable”; and careering through a white hot “Pop is Dead” like revenge for it having faltered on the steps of the British Top 40. Jonny, his gaze never lifted from the floorboards two inches in front of him, circumnavigates an endless stream of skyrocket riffs and later abruptly disappears in search of a party where teenage hearts will melt in his honour. The reception given to “Creep”, fizzing up from the jangled intro to the first titanic “You’re so fucking special” is the roar of a hundred support bands, happy just to be tangled up somewhere in the midst of the success story. Afterwards Thom is too exhausted to talk, and instead Colin and Phil frantically plug the gaps, squeezing out insights on their achievements in America along the way.



Colin: “ I think going to America holds a mirror up to yourself. It can be whatever you want it to be. There was a metal band out there that Capitol (Radiohead's US label) wanted to sign and they gave them everything they ever wanted. They took them to Sunset Strip, got them whatever they wanted and some hookers and let them live out all their fantasies. All we got were a couple of decent meals. ”



Next morning comes the news that Thom will, after all, see us at the hotel at noon. His entry, much like his behaviour the previous night, is one of the tiny, imperfect pop star, aloof to the polite cracked smiles at reception, impervious to the alarmed looks of the businessmen scattered around the lounge. So IS simple success what he's been looking for?



“ I can’t really take any of it seriously. America is such a wierd place. The people are really generous and nice and kind, but... it’s also got an energy that most European countries lack. It’s a dumb animal basically. ”



Did you not feel under the microscope out there?



“ Not really. I dreaded coming back to be honest. I didn’t feel so much under pressure from the press out there. I have a totally antagonistic attitude toward the press, especially the British press, because they’ve treated me like shit, and I really can’t handle it. I decided on the plane back over that I wasn’t going to talk to the British press, and I’m only doing this as an exception. Isn’t it an English attitude in general to find fault with ourselves whereas the Americans do exactly the opposite? They can’t even have slackers, say the whole grunge thing, without it being successful. ”



“ Well, they’re in love with success, but the thing about Britain is that you can’t do anything without being assimilated into the mainstream. Even pop groups can only exist if they appeal to the normal world. All the people in Art Colleges only end up in bands because that’s the only possible way of getting by. San Francisco is full of artists simply because they can survive doing that. ”



The general mood of the Radiohead camp seems to be one of extreme caution toward the vagaries of the music press whilst on a general slide toward the arms of America  They’re one of the great English pop groups who are leaving us  not because they want to, but because they feel as though there’s nothing left for them here. Thom IS acutely aware of his own position as the band’s figurehead but agonises over it to such a degree that his supposed deficiencies tend to tear him apart.



“ I am being really fucking difficult over things now. I’m much harder on myself and the rest of the band because it’s even more important that we get things right. ”



And what about that un-rock’n’roll tag, does that still apply?



Thom laughs a rock star laugh and runs his fingers through his mustard-white hair.



“ I dunno, not really. ”



He leaves, swaggering through the hotel foyer to aghast looks, into blazing afternoon sunshine. For the moment he’s recovered the confidence born in Los Angeles. His final words are “ I can’t wait to get back ”.



He’s the best pop star in Britain, but only until he reaches Heathrow. Creeping Up with the Joneses*(*Jesus Jones that is)Their album outsells Suede’s by 15 to 1, their single is in the Top 50 and MTV can’t play their video enough times  in America, that is. Are RADIOHEAD destined to be the greatest British band we never had? PAUL MOODY visits the band in their hometown of Oxford and reckons it’s about time we claimed them as our own.It’s midnight and Radiohead are still trying to prove how un-rock’n’roll they are. Here’s bass playing Oscar Wilde lookalike Colin: “” He muses on this for a moment: “THE ENGLISH ARE COMING! A newsflash: Life for Radiohead is changing. In America, “Creep” is glued to the MTV schedules and has breached the top 50; “Pablo Honey” has sold half a million copies and is outrunning Suede’s sales by 15 to one, and even Arnie (not known for his indie upbringing) has made noises to the effect that he wants “Creep” to be featured somewhere in his next film. This is ground-breaking stuff.The last time such waves were created by an English group. Jesus Jones and E.M.F seized hold of the top US charts and embarrassed us for weeks. But now they are buying the best English rock album of the year (source: Moody’s Almanack) in droves whilst Radiohead singles have to stage pitched battles to get into our own Top 40. The terrible thing is, this time the Americans have actually got it right, whereas our greatest previous exports The Smiths, Stone Roses, the Mondays  always managed to baffle them.Oddly, Radiohead are chronically underrated here. A correspondent for an adult rock mag assures me their readers will have no idea who their singer is; the tabloids have even adopted the band as a plaything to wrap their ‘Unknowns Storm US Chart’ headlines around. As things stand then, they are little short of being the Fixx (80’s pomp poppers loved in the states and loathed over here).” But the Fixx had more than one hit in America!Hmm. Things seem not to be as well in Radiohead’s paradise as they might be. Despite massive success in America (in comparison to most of the bands featured in these pages their sales elevate them to the level of demi-gods) the band seem ill at ease with the conjecture and plagued with doubts about the microscopic press attention now pursuing them.We’ve come to Oxford to catch them away from the pressure cooker strains of America (and to see a low key Reading warm up at the Venue, scene of the “Creep” video) but the mood seems to be one of wariness, of a reticence to become re-involved in the clutches of the press. Ideally we’re here to gauge the mood of Thom, to see how someone whose songs are consumed with fear and self-loathing is coping with the holy grail of pop stardom, but this is proving difficult. He is apparently ‘interviewed out’ following the press circus surrounding “Creep” in America, and now leaves all such duties in the hands of band diplomats Colin and John Malkovich clone Phil. So we whizz around Oxford in a bright red Mini, talking about nothing, until we end up in Colin’s flat 20 minutes before they go on, discussing the day they signed their souls away.The gig is amazing. Thom, his hair is a shaggy mustard and white peroxide, is in best frazzled mode, detonating the “It’s inevitable” chorus of “Ripchord&r“dquo;; lashing into “Vegetable”; and careering through a white hot “Pop is Dead” like revenge for it having faltered on the steps of the British Top 40. Jonny, his gaze never lifted from the floorboards two inches in front of him, circumnavigates an endless stream of skyrocket riffs and later abruptly disappears in search of a party where teenage hearts will melt in his honour. The reception given to “Creep”, fizzing up from the jangled intro to the first titanic “You’re so fucking special” is the roar of a hundred support bands, happy just to be tangled up somewhere in the midst of the success story. Afterwards Thom is too exhausted to talk, and instead Colin and Phil frantically plug the gaps, squeezing out insights on their achievements in America along the way.Next morning comes the news that Thom will, after all, see us at the hotel at noon. His entry, much like his behaviour the previous night, is one of the tiny, imperfect pop star, aloof to the polite cracked smiles at reception, impervious to the alarmed looks of the businessmen scattered around the lounge. So IS simple success what he's been looking for?Did you not feel under the microscope out there?The general mood of the Radiohead camp seems to be one of extreme caution toward the vagaries of the music press whilst on a general slide toward the arms of America  They’re one of the great English pop groups who are leaving us  not because they want to, but because they feel as though there’s nothing left for them here. Thom IS acutely aware of his own position as the band’s figurehead but agonises over it to such a degree that his supposed deficiencies tend to tear him apart.And what about that un-rock’n’roll tag, does that still apply?Thom laughs a rock star laugh and runs his fingers through his mustard-white hair.He leaves, swaggering through the hotel foyer to aghast looks, into blazing afternoon sunshine. For the moment he’s recovered the confidence born in Los Angeles. His final words are “”.He’s the best pop star in Britain, but only until he reaches Heathrow. Labels: Colin Greenwood, interviews, NME, Pablo Honey, Phil Selway, Radiohead, Thom Yorke Circus Magazine, 1993 Radiohead Plays For Creeps

by Mordechai Kleidermacher



If you’ve ever felt like a complete good-for-nothing loser (who hasn’t?), Radiohead’s your kind of band. These polite chaps from stately Oxford, England who say “ so kind of you to come when you show up at their gigs are flying the geek flag high with their misfit anthem “Creep”. It’s a glum-but-catchy ditty with these self-flagellating words: I wish I was special. You’re so fuckin’ special. But I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here. Not exactly the life of the party, but Radiohead doesn’t mind. “ We’re not really a have-a-good-time band, ” explains singer/guitarist/lyricist Thom Yorke in soft British tones. “ I’ve got this thing that pop music can be something completely different than what it is at the moment. Pop as a medium is very stale. The radio tends to be full of songs that aren’t that honest or frightening enough. Occasionally you get songs where you say, wow, someone’s actually tried desperately to rewrite the world how they see it or paint a genuine picture of what they’re seeing. You see it with songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Another Brick In The Wall”. We’re trying to do something a little bit left of center that makes people realize they’re still alive. We’re very much part of the Generation-X philosophy, I suppose. ”



Radiohead signed on about six years ago. The band’s members (Yorke, bassist Colin Greenwood, drummer Phil Selway and guitarists Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood, Colin’s brother), all in their mid-twenties, attended the same school and were reared on bands like Talking Heads, Magazine, Elvis Costello and R.E.M. The band’s released two previous EP’s, ’92’s “Drill” and “Creep”, which ignited a record industry buzz. At one Oxford gig more than thirty labels came down to hear Radiohead’s melancholy mix of dreamy vocals and gnashing guitars. “ It was scary, ” says Colin, “ every record company in the country was there. We couldn’t get them all on the guest list so they had to pay. ”



Creep’s hitting plenty of raw nerves as the band’s debut album, “Pablo Honey”, steadily creeps up the Billboard charts. As far as what inspired the song, Yorke says, “ I just wrote it in a drunken haze about five years ago. I thought it was crap. ” Not a surprising assessment from a self-proclaimed “Creep.” But is the song autobiographical? Yorke says that’s not important: “ I don’t think people are really actually interested whether it’s me or not. I mean they identify with the song, not with me. ”



And for all you creeps looking to bond with the main “Creep,” Yorke says back off. “ I get letters from people who obviously think I’m a creep, ” he says. “ Therefore they think there must be something in my head they can relate to, and they try and get at it, and that really pisses me off. I mean I understand why, I wrote the song, but that doesn’t mean people are allowed to get in my head. ”



Boy, what a creep. But then again, it takes one to know one. Radiohead Plays For Creepsby Mordechai KleidermacherIf you’ve ever felt like a complete good-for-nothing loser (who hasn’t?), Radiohead’s your kind of band. These polite chaps from stately Oxford, England who say “when you show up at their gigs are flying the geek flag high with their misfit anthem “Creep”. It’s a glum-but-catchy ditty with these self-flagellating words:Not exactly the life of the party, but Radiohead doesn’t mind. “” explains singer/guitarist/lyricist Thom Yorke in soft British tones. “Radiohead signed on about six years ago. The band’s members (Yorke, bassist Colin Greenwood, drummer Phil Selway and guitarists Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood, Colin’s brother), all in their mid-twenties, attended the same school and were reared on bands like Talking Heads, Magazine, Elvis Costello and R.E.M. The band’s released two previous EP’s, ’92’s “Drill” and “Creep”, which ignited a record industry buzz. At one Oxford gig more than thirty labels came down to hear Radiohead’s melancholy mix of dreamy vocals and gnashing guitars. “” says Colin, “Creep’s hitting plenty of raw nerves as the band’s debut album, “Pablo Honey”, steadily creeps up the Billboard charts. As far as what inspired the song, Yorke says, “” Not a surprising assessment from a self-proclaimed “Creep.” But is the song autobiographical? Yorke says that’s not important: “And for all you creeps looking to bond with the main “Creep,” Yorke says back off. “” he says. “Boy, what a creep. But then again, it takes one to know one. Labels: Circus Magazine, Colin Greenwood, interviews, Pablo Honey, Radiohead, Thom Yorke Radiohead’s bass player has been interviewed endlessly. One added weekly. ARTICLE OF THE WEEK The New Yorker - 08.20/27.01

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