Now Magazine, 14-20.08.97

RADICAL OK COMPUTER DISC BOOTS UP UK'S MAGNIFICENT FIVE

Radical OK Computer disc boots up UK's magnificent five.
By Kim Hughes


With the fleet-footedness of a purse-snatcher, a scalper darts across the street toward two people approaching the Opera House, tickets in hand.

He eclipses the best efforts of his competition by 10 seconds easy and stuns his prey with his daring negotiation of passing traffic.

It's June, and England's Radiohead, passports already dog-eared from yet another hysterical promo trip to Japan, are playing their first North American show in support of their third disc, OK Computer.

This little gig - a combination industry showcase and humble introduction to their newest work - is the most coveted of the year.

The few hundred publicly available tickets have sold out in an astonishing 48 seconds, not just because the affable Oxford quintet has never played such a small house in town, nor because their live shows juxtapose studio-like precision with white-knuckled temerity and include an impressive selection of shakers and claves.

No, the madness stems from OK Computer, a highly complex work, at once beautiful and tortured, sinister and weirdly hopeful, the bounty of endless rehearsals, gigs and post-mortems.

Recorded at Radiohead's Oxford studios and a Bath manor owned by actor Jane Seymour, the disc is a watershed, a Big Rock Record but with better lyrics than most, and fans aren't the only ones blindsided by its arrival.

Smitten critics have struggled to pinpoint the magic rushing through the music -- its themes of disenfranchisement and technological impotence shot through a grandiose landscape of guitars, piano, drums and assorted whazzits, its fearless embrace of darkness and light boiled down to a cold, detached spoken-word centrepiece.


Random work

"It's funny when people say to us that it sounds like a complete work, when the way we actually did it was very fragmented," singer Thom Yorke offers. "It was never all one album with one sound. It was really, really random.

"Most of the songs on this record are one performance, with virtually nothing changed but with months of analysis. Because of the instruments we used and because it was the same five people doing it, it has a cohesive sound."

Ironically, in a business that rewards backbiting with slavish press coverage, fellow musicians have been unanimous in their praise of OK Computer. Veruca Salt's Louise Post can't shut up about it. Neither can Courtney Love or REM, the latter ad hoc keepers of the Radiohead flame. Even Echo & the Bunnymen blowhard Ian McCulloch - a man so conceited that only the occaasional mirror receives his praise - allows that the band might be as goodd as his.

Actually, they're better. Yorke, especially, is a rare talent, capable of heart-stopping highs and lows. When he sings, he doesn't just convey emotions, he embodies them, absorbing and distilling sadness, fear, anguish and passion through his skin.

Live, he's electrifying and can literally silence jam-packed rooms. The aftershocks linger long after the guitar-guided Radiohead machine fires up.

And so tonight, in an unprecedented switcheroo on the hallowed concert enterprise, Mr. Scalper isn't selling tickets to Radiohead's concert. He's begging to buy and he can't find any takers. He'll doubtless be on hand for their show at Arrow Hall Tuesday, since 75 per cent of the available 6,000 tickets sold out in a single morning, the rest the next day.

The down-to-earth quintet - singer/guitarist Yorke, versatile guitarist/ keyboardist Jonny Greenwood, elder brother, bon vivant bassist Colin Greenwood, peripatetic guitarist/singer Ed O'Brien and dramatically shorn drummer Phil Selway, songwriters all - may find the hoopla discombobulating, but they're too gracious to proclaim their own preeminence in rock. Fortunately, the queue of those willing to do it for them stretches round the block.

"We're hypercritical within the band, but when you put it out to people, they're more forgiving," Yorke confesses, as he, O'Brien and Colin Greenwood bravely face a conveyor belt of journalists the day after the Opera House gig.

"It's a good job we do go out in public. Otherwise, we'd have given up years ago. Going out and playing shows and hearing what people think of the record means we don't fall into a black hole of our own self-criticism."

"Every song seemed to come from a different direction", Yorke continues, elaborating on the new album. ""Subterranean Homesick Alien" was the product of our buying an electric piano. "Exit Music" is a song that wrote itself."

"The day we did it, we received delivery of a mellotron we had bought. You can buy these remodelled, remade mellotrons that are exactly the same as the originals."

"So we got this thing and the first thing we did with it was all the voices on "Exit Music", and after that the song came together in two days. That was the first thing that really got me, where I said 'Wow.'"

"But lots of songs were really hard, like "Paranoid Android" - just getting all the parts to fit together. We didn't know how we were going to get there, we just knew we would."

"It's true", confirms Greenwood softly."We kept playing with these new toys. We do this as much for our amusement as for the people listening to the record."

"It's also valid to go off in different directions and not really know where you're going", Yorke says. "The only thing I get worried about is, once you start doing that you can do it endlessly. It's self-perpetuating and it can get quite dull."

"Some of the songs we discarded were ones that worked with just guitar, bass and drums. But because we didn't have that head on, we just left them for now. And that's what OK Computer was all about -- just wandering off down paths and getting lost."

In that light, the fact that the group self-produced the new record - effectively learning how to scream "Stop!" on their own rather than tweaking and noodling on into infinity - is even more admirable. But then, thee writing was on the wall in 1995 with their brilliant second disc, The Bends, which also rattled the craniums of critics and musicians worldwide.

Typically, the group won't cop to any sort of vision. OK, maybe just a little.

"For me", says O'Brien,"the biggest high I got from reactions to The Bends was, I've got friends who do not listen to bands with guitars. They're just into dance music. And universally, they would say they'd come back from a rave or whatever and would stick on The Bends to chill out and--"

"How", snaps Yorke incredulously, "can you chill out to The Bends?"

"I know", O'Brien continues, "but my friends said that even though they weren't into that kind of music it was the only guitar album of 95/96 that they really loved. That was very, very cool."

"Yes", counters Yorke, "but there's also the element of people hearing that a record is cool and feeling as though they'd better say they like it. I'm sorry, I'm quite cynical. There are records every year that are like that."

"The classic example of that", Greenwood gamely interjects, "was Massive Attack's Blue Lines, which was mentioned by every journalist in the UK one year and went on to sell 40,000 copies."


Honey numbers

Nice try, but The Bends sold more than three times that in Canada alone. The barely three-month-old OK Computer has already surpassed platinum here and elsewhere. And let's not forget the numbers racked up by their 93 debut, Pablo Honey.
Not that the group is idly hanging around waiting to collect its lovely awards. The work continues, including collaborations between various members of Radiohead and Michael Stipe for the soundtrack to the forthcoming Velvet Goldmine film, and with DJ Shadow for the forthcoming U.N.K.L.E. Mo' Wax label showcase.

If video remains a sore spot with the group - "The videos we made for The Bends", steams O'Brien, "cost twice what the album cost. I can't justify that" - they nevertheless uphold the Radiohead tradition of excellence.

"If we have to do it", gripes Yorke, "we might as well make sure they're bloody good". The plan is eventually to shoot clips for each song on the new disc".

"I think the difference between making The Bends and making OK Computer", surmises Yorke, "was that we weren't answerable to any particular group. When we first, first started, before we got signed, I felt we could do anything and come from any angle and it wasn't relevant. It just didn't matter because no one was watching."

"And that was the one thing about OK Computer that really excited me. It just didn't matter. I know it sounds wanky, but it's like the Beatles - with their good records, you can tell that they just didn't care. That's how to write songs."

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Spin Magazine, 07.07.1996

HARMONY IN MY HEAD

Harmony in Radiohead's The Bends reveals a band whose musical flights go far beyond "Creep" - and, as J.D. Considine discovers, rely on none of the usual Britpop poses.


Oxford University may be celebrated for its grassy quads, ancient architecture, and lush, well-ordered gardens, but what a visitor experiences is mostly walls, some of them elegant and artful, some menacingly medieval. Gates are few and far between, and are inevitably graced with a sign announcing that thus-and-such college is closed to visitors.

"Have you read Jude the Obscure?" asks Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. He's drinking coffee in the very proper lounge of Oxford's very proper Forte Grande Randolph Hotel, looking for all the world like Martin Short doing Johnny Rotten. "The whole book is about Jude trying to get into the university, and then not being able to do it. and in the end driving himself crazy."

"You know, for one very pretentious moment, we nearly called the band 'Jude,' among many other hundreds of names," says Jonny Greenwood, who with his gangly limbs, rucksack, and anorak, looks like a student rather than the band's lead guitarist and keyboard whiz.

"The other one was 'Music,' " adds Yorke with a cackle. "Phew, eh?"

Phew, indeed. Yet as wincingly precious as those names are, they do speak to two important points: first, that the members of Radiohead, like Jude, are perennial outsiders, never quite gaining entry to the hallowed halls of Britpop; and second, that music really is the most important thing the band has to offer. Because as every other band in Britain was out last year flogging its image, agenda, look or theory, Radiohead merely delivered an album of exceptional power and beauty called The Bends.

Packed with soaring melodies and dramatic bursts of instrumental color, it fitted no particular trend, instead wrapping each song in just the right combination of guitar crunch, keyboard hush, and rhythm-section push. Not the most obvious way to make music, but give it time and you're soon smitten. Just ask the British music press, which ranked The Bends right up with the far more fashionable work of Blur, Elastica, and Oasis. not bad for a band that refuses to trade Oxford for London. Initially part of the Thames Valley movement--a loose confederation of Oxford-area bands such as Ride, Slowdive, and Chapterhouse, whose specialty was a swirling, guitar-heavy sound and a total lack of stage presence--Radiohead made the leap from local to international in 1993 with the release of Pablo Honey, an album mainly known for giving the world "Creep."

A classic of the miserable-male genre, what put "Creep" over wasn't Yorke's well-phrased self-deprecation but the way Greenwood's hyperdistorted guitar bludgeoned the chorus into submission. No matter how many times you hear it, there's something about the car-trying-to-start hesitation of that power chord that leaves even well-adjusted listeners raving like Beavis and Butt-head. "Beavis nearly comes, doesn't he?" laughs Greenwood, recalling the "Creep" segment of Beavis and Butt-head.

"Creep" became so big, in fact, that it threatened to dwarf the band. Did they ever consider refusing to play the tune?

"Well, we had this chat with Michael Stipe," says bassist Colin Greenwood. Radiohead was opening for R.E.M., and R.E.M. had gone through a similar problem with "Losing My Religion." "Stipe always gives this little speech before they start to do the song, saying 'This isn't our song anymore. This is your song.' The fact that we were still doing 'Creep,' he thought, was really cool."

That's not to say the band wasn't tempted to ditch their "Creep." "The Beach Party," snorts Yorke. "We swore that would be the last time we'd do that fucking thing. An MTV beach party. Standing by a pool, because the sun didn't come out."

"At least we played well," offers Jonny Greenwood. "But I don't think the irony was lost on people. All these gorgeous, bikini-ed girls shaking their mammary glands, and we're playing 'Creep' and looking terrible."

"In the rain," adds Yorke.

It didn't help that the members of Radiohead hardly come across as party animals. As a group, they seem happy to converse quietly or sit nose-in-book while the world goes on around them. This has made rock stardom a shock. "A couple girls turned up yesterday, asking if this was the street where the guy from Radiohead lived," recounts Colin Greenwood with an ironic chuckle. "Having a stalker is such a '90s thing."

The success of The Bends has kept radiohead from being known only as the Creep band. Getting there wasn't easy. When radiohead began work on their second album, in February 1994, the British music press was once again arguing that what england needed most was bands with an easily pigeonholed attitude. So as Oasis, Blur, and others rose to the challenge, Yorke began to worry. "I was completely paranoid," he says. "Blur decided to be mods, so we had to decide to be something else. But I couldn't work out what it was. All of the things we like and were thinking of modeling ourselves on are fairly image-free."

"I remember when we first signed, someone said, 'what agenda do you have?' " says guitarist Ed O'Brien. "with British bands, there was this whole thing about having something to say. but, maybe naively, we said, 'it's about music.' and that's what it's about."

Radiohead's sound set the bends apart from everything else the British rock scene produced last year. Lush with aural detail and arresting arrangements, the album never settles into a specific genre, making it easy to get lost in the depth and drama of the songs. And while other Britpoppers lyrically opt for the cutting or clever, what Yorke goes for is resonance. It can be as simple as the artificiality implicit in the title "Fake Plastic Trees," or as deeply layered as the way "My Iron Lung" becomes a metaphor for a relationship as confining as it is sustaining.

But musical and verbal atmospherics often don't translate easily to MTV. Unlike "creep," the bends took a long while to climb the charts. "It's taken people a year to figure [the album] out, and now they're going 'fucking 'ell!' " gloats Yorke. Ironically, the idea for the Pulp Fictionish buzz clip breakout hit "High and Dry," came entirely from director Paul Cunningham. "I like the idea of it being someone else's song completely," says the singer. Otherwise, Radiohead's experience with video has been less than positive. "There was that American video woman," recalls Jonny Greenwood, as Yorke rolls his eyes. "She came over with us on a video shoot and said, 'Can't you make the little chap jump up and down a bit?'

"That kind of says it all."

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RAW, 13.01 - 13.02.96

Life on Planet Radiohead
by Clark Collis


"This is it. I'm sure this is the way. Just around the corner and... Oh bugger." We're backstage at the Southampton Guildhall late in the evening of November 7th last year, and Radiohead bass player Colin Greenwood is having what he admits is "a very Spinal Tap moment". Somewhere in the building's cavernous basement a party is taking place to celebrate the successful conclusion of Radiohead's latest UK tour. There will be alcohol. There will be celebrities (well, Roger Taylor from Queen anyway). Now all Colin has to do is find the damn place... The night has been going so well up to this point too. Some light dinner followed a quick spell on the information highway via one of the band's several laptop computers. Then there was the gig itself. A capacity crowd crawling the walls as Radiohead ploughed through material both old and new. They've always been tight but the last year on the road has seen them climb new heights with 'Creep', 'Fake Plastic Trees' and a weird, pounding 'Planet Telex' all melding together perfectly into a set now stretching out towards the two-hour mark. By the time they encored with a slyly operatic version of Bond theme 'Nobody Does It Better' the capacity crowd were almost too knackered to yell the place down, demanding more. Almost. That was then, however, and this is now. And now involves facing a sturdy but decidedly un-party-like fire-door at the end of yet another indistinguishable corridor. Colin thinks this could be it. He's pretty definite. The portal to Party Central. Booze Bonanza. The bassist pushes down the door's thick metal bar. "You know, people are always saying that we're like U2," says Colin as we gaze out at a vista that even the most extravagant of estate agents would have to describe as 'some old car park'. "But I'm sure this never fucking happens to Adam Clayton".

It's around 1981 and it takes the adolescent Thom Yorke about five seconds to realize that his new school is not going to be much fun. It's very big on (a) preparing you for a career in accountancy, (b) rowing and (c) kicking the shit out of anyone who objects to (a) or (b). Go figure. This is the last think that Thom needs. Not that life has exactly been peaches'n'cream up to this point anyway. Thom was born with a paralyzed left eye which, at first, the doctors thought would be a permanent condition. Then one day a specialist suggested that maybe a muscle graft might sort things out. The result was that Thom had five major operations before he was six years old. His vision improved but Thom had to wear a patch for a year. And now all this. An all-boys school just outside Oxford. At least Thom has a dream that doesn't involve chartered accountancy. On his eighth birthday he gets a Spanish guitar. From that point on Thom knows what he wants. He wants to be a pop star. So what if all he can play is 'Kumbaya'? He can learn. All he needs is the right people to help. Colin Greenwood is in the same year as Thom and, if anything, looks even thinner and sicker. They go to the same parties. Thom in heavy-duty mascara. Colin in a full, black bodystocking. They don't go to pick up the girls or get hammered. They go to take over the stereo system. Play a little Joy Division. A little Magazine. See how people liked them apples. One day Thom discovers that Colin can play the bass. That's two. Ed O'Brien is a different kettle of fish altogether. Enormously tall Ed actually looks a bit like Morrissey - if you squint - but he does play the guitar. That's three. All they need now is a drummer. The only suitable candidate, a guy called Phil Selway, is a couple of years older than them. And when you're at school, a couple of years is everything. In fact, it's some of Phil's contemporaries who are throwing Colin and Thom downstairs to see if they bounce. Still, Phil seems like a nice guy. It's worth a shot... And suddenly there are four. Well, five actually. Colin's younger brother, Jonny, is some sort of shit hot viola player. Unfortunately, there isn't much room for a viola in Oxford's newest post-punk pop band. Still, Jonny is very keen, and is told he can play harmonica. They rehearse every Friday. In fact that's how they get their first name. On A Friday. OK, so it's not great. But no one can think of anything better. Predictably, few of their parents are keen. Thom has to say that he's staying at a friends house when they start doing gigs. One day, the headmaster bans all electronic music from school. Bugger him. Bugger them all!

Then... school's out! Leaving Jonny behind they all go off to college in the autumn of 1987. Thom shoots off to Exeter University to do Fine Art and Literature. He starts to mess around with samplers and plays with local techno outfit Flickernoise. Phil and Ed are at Liverpool. Phil plays drums with a theatre production of Return To The Forbidden Planet. But he's thinking about packing the sticks away. Maybe getting a job in publishing. Colin has become Entertainment Officer at Peterhouse College in Cambridge. It isn't so bad. He plays in a few bands. In his final year he's put in charge of booking bands for the Peterhouse Ball. He books Humphrey Littleton. He books the James Taylor Quartet. He books himself three times. Somehow the band continues to rehearse during the holidays. They play some gigs. The Jericho Tavern in Oxford. London's Rock Garden. No one knows who the hell they are but it's still cool. Jonny switches from harmonica to guitar. In a couple of months he's caught up with Thom and Ed. By the time everyone has left college he's in a different league altogether.

1991. Time to get serious. They change their name to Radiohead and move into a house together in Oxford. It should be like The Monkees. It soon turns into the Adams family. They tear the wallpaper off hauling the Hammond organ in and out. The ashtrays overflow with fag butts. And every time you walk downstairs the carpet comes with you. Worse still, they find stuff that obviously belonged to the previous tenant. Ed finds a half-eaten pork pie. The teeth marks are still visible. Soon only Colin and Thom are left. They all try and get jobs. Phil already has his publishing thing sorted out. Ed starts working as a barman. Colin signs on at Our Price. Thom just stays at home playing ear-shattering techno music to anyone who will listen. There are few takers. They carry on practising. And gigging. And sending off demos. It's starting to sound good. Those three guitars hammering together like nobody's business. Thom's becoming a good frontman too. Not showy. Just there. Intense. Possessed. There.

It's mid-'91. One day the band get a call from Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge. Formerly members of new romantic never-quite-weres Aeriel FX, the pair have set up a management company and are looking for a band to cut their teeth on. They think Radiohead could be it. The band agree to let them have a go and, within months, a feeding frenzy starts among the record companies. In the end the band agree to sign with Parlophone at the end of 1991. Colin and Jonny's mum refuses to tell their grandad on the grounds that the shock would kill him. On the day they actually sign on the dotted line Radiohead travel down to London. Someone suggests that they go out for a drink afterwards. The band decline. The band hit the road in earnest. They support everyone who's no one. Kingmaker. The Sultans Of Ping. Spiritualized. Doctor And The Medics. In May 1992 they release the Drill EP. IT receives little radio play and only charts at 101. But still, these are the early days. And it feels good to actually see it in their hands. Their names. Their photograph. Their music. Anyway, the band have an ace up their sleeves. Incredibly, it came about by accident. Not the actual song. Not the way Thom sings 'You're special(sic)/You're so fucking special'. But those howling arhythmic word-of-God chords that cut in just before the chorus. They were accidental. Christ, Jonny didn't even know the tape was running. Anyway, the result is phenomenal and they know it. In interviews, Tom (sic) even says as much. ("That song will always be there. And in five, six, ten years time people will be saying that is a classic record.") This is the one. 'Creep' is it. 'Creep' is released in September '92. It reaches 72 in the charts.

October 1992. IT takes about 90 seconds for Jonny Greenwood to go from standing onstage to sitting in the front of the tour bus. As the guitarist clambers into the front seat and picks up his newspaper he can still just about hear the audience clamouring for more. Tonight was a great show. One of the best they've played. Great crowd reaction too. When Thom hit that chorus in 'Vegetable' ('I'm not a vegetaaable!') they went completely bananas. Then again, this is only The Fleece And Firkin in Bristol. Three hundred people tops. The band has been signed for over a year now and things are moving very slowly. Worse still, the press seems to have turned on them. Apparently Radiohead are a 'corporate' band. And a miserable git corporate band to boot. Jonny gave up his poly course to do this. The others have already got their degrees. But if Radiohead doesn't make it where does that leave him? No, a good gig. But there are still... concerns. The band record their debut album, Pablo Honey, in just three weeks. It sounds good. Maybe not perfect. But definitely good. Eventually, the band creep into the Top 40 with 'Anyone Can Play Guitar'. It makes the press think twice about writing them off. But, even so, it all seems so low-key. This definitely isn't the way Thom thought it would happen. Bizarrely, the news that will change the lives of Radiohead comes from Israel. Some DJ starts playing 'Creep'. Then another. Then another. 'Creep' enters the Israeli Top Ten. Radiohead are suddenly very big out there. It seems strange. How can they understand while England can't? Anyway, everyone is big somewhere. Jesus, there are probably remote parts of the Andes where Bros are still worshipped like gods. But then it starts happening everywhere. New Zealand. Scandinavia. Spain. Finally the big one. America. MTV has put 'Creep' on heavy rotation and the radio is playing it non-stop. Thom is shown a map which demonstrates the way 'Creep' is sweeping America. It reminds him of the attacking German armies at the start of Dad's Army. The band hit the road. They're ready for this. They've had ten years of practice. No more toilets though. They're now playing halls so big they virtually have their own gravitational pull. They play the Arsenio Hall show which they're told is a really big deal. They turn up at K-ROQ radio station and answer people's phone-in sex queries. Back in England 'Creep' is re-released. Suddenly, all the papers that had written them off as no-marks suddenly want interviews. Thom attempts to choke back his disgust. Sometimes he even succeeds. Radiohead return to the States. And Canada. And everywhere. Things start to get surreal. Pablo Honey ships half a million copies in America. Thom does an advert for jeans. When German journalists ask Colin and Thom whether they ever write anything together the pair start babbling about an imaginary composition entitled 'Your Wind In My Hair'. The journalists solemnly write it all down. The band are presented with gold discs in New York. They're taken away and re-presented in Los Angeles.

No one really knows when they start to lose it. But lose it they do. Somewhere aong the line it all becomes too much. Receptionists ask Thom, "Are you that 'Creep' guy?" The band start getting weird mail. One is from a convicted murderer who says he identifies with Thom. He writes back to people saying he's not a counsellor. Still the mail pours in. In the autumn of '93 they are forced to cancel an appearance at the Reading Festival due to a problem with Thom's voice. A Harley Street specialist says that his neck feels like concrete. And still the gigs roll on. In an attempt to alleviate the boredom they start to video everything. The people they meet. Themselves. Anything. Sometimes Thom is so pissed that he just ends up pointing the camera at the carpet. There are still high points - some American gigs with Belly, meeting R.E.M.'s Mike Mills and Bill Berry when they play the 40 Watt club in Athens, Georgia - but things just begin to fall apart. Even the constant demands from German journalists to hear 'Your Wind In My Hair' aren't funny anymore and soon the band disappear off intto their own little worlds and enter what Thom describes as "complete fucking meltdown". Jonny listens to talking books incessantly. Colin begins hanging out with the roadcrew. And Thom just stops communicating. Wondering how it came to this. They were friends, after all. Mates. And now all he wants to do is shut it all down. Pack his bags and get the hell out of there. At last it's over and the band return to England. Which is when things start getting really bad. For their second album the band will record in London at RAK Studios and eventually move to the famous Abbey Road to complete work. They've chosen John Leckie as their producer because he's the guy who made Magazine's Real Life. Leckie is one of the best but, having just come from watching The Stone Roses piss about for three years, he's in no hurry to nursemaid another band through that difficult second album. Things don't go well. The songs just aren't there. One of them sounds just like Guns N' Roses for God's sake. To make matters worse Thom becomes convinced that the rest of the band aren't trying. Eventually, the sessions are abandoned after Leckie tells them to do what the hell they like. But stop doing this. By this stage things have gotten so bad that even Hufford and Edge are worried enough to start looking around for another band to manage. They find one called Supergrass. And all the time the pressure is mounting. From the record company. From the fans. The message is clear. Go on. You can do it. Give us another 'Creep'.

September 1994. Ed O'Brien is in his parents' living room flipping through the band's library or home-made videos. An immensely amenable character, the guitarist dishes out cups of tea while giving a running commentary on tapes. They turn out to be a pretty mixed bag. The stuff from a year ago shows a bunch of people who look like they'd rather hammer nails in their own eyes than crack a smile. The more recent footage, though, is cheerier. There's Thom and Jonny getting steamed in a Japanese sake bar. And there's Colin shoving a Cornetto into his face at Bali airport. And there's Ed... um... staggering around in his hotel room ("I was very pissed. I think I may have been trying to simulate the Can-Can in front of some mirrors."). After a couple of hours Ed's dad returns from work and the guitarist scurries around tidying up. Suddenly, he wheels around. "This may sound a bit strange," he says piling up the video tapes behind the TV. "But don't get him talking about music." Fine, you think. Two hours of Max Bygraves reminiscences you can do without. Mr O'Brien Snr turns out to be as friendly as his offspring. A highly-regarded osteopath, he is clearly chuffed with the band's success and really seems to know his stuff. Actually, it turns out he really, really knows his stuff. "Who's that?" Ed's dad demands, peering at the TV set which is now showing a video of two women leaning against an enormous silver-grey tour bus. It was shot in October of 1993. Umm... Tanya Donnelly and Gail Greenwood. They're in a band called Belly. Ed buries his head in his hands. "Ah yes... Tanya. I do think the Throwing Muses are better off without her. Have you heard Kristen Hersh's acoustic album? It's absolutely fantastic..."

Ironically, what saves Radiohead is another tour. That desire not to let a decade of blood, sweat and friendship just disappear down the toilet. In fact, they had tried to sort things out at the end of '93. It was the first date of a European jaunt with James. Things were bad. Very bad. An emergency band meeting was called right after the band hit Hamburg. Drink was consumed. Souls bared. But it didn't change anything. The recording sessions proved that. In the sprinkg of '94 they head off to play a few dates in Mexico. The band have hit a total low and this is the last thing they need. Carrering around shitty Central American roads. Playing to people who, if they've heard of them at all, only know the song that is rapidly becoming the other C-word. They are, in short, people with absolutely nothing to lose. And it feels strangely good. The shows go well. More importantly, the band start talking again. Kidding around. Slowly remembering quite why they got into this stupid, corrupt kiss-ass business in the first place. By the time they return to England everything is just about alright again It's the songs that clinch it. Songs like the tortured anti-beauty lament 'High & Dry'. Or 'Black Star'. Or 'Bones'. They work quickly too. 'My Iron Lung' is recorded at a soundcheck at The Astoria. The pounding, almost Zeppelin-esque 'Planet Xerox' (sic) comes together after a drunken restaurant outing. (Thom will later admit that the lyrics are "total gibberish".). It feels good. By the time 'My Iron Lung' is refused A-listing by Radio One in September of '94 on the grounds of raucousness they can even see the funny side. What do they have to do to get playlisted? Record a charity record?

In March 1995 Radiohead finally release their second album, The Bends. An instant, joyous classic of scorched eath angst and wall-of-guitar attack, the record receives almost unanimously good reviews. The second single, a double A of 'High & Dry' and 'Planet Telex' (renamed after a quick chat with the Xerox lawyers) even features some dance remixes a good 10 years after Thom first started banging on about BPMs. OK, so there's the odd jibe about Radiohead becoming the next U2 - great. Either they're "all over" or they're "too big", but Thom takes it in his stride and starts muttering about his accountants urging a move to Dublin. Once again the band head out on a world tour. The venues in America may be smaller but the crowds seem to be getting into the new stuff and at least they're not at each other's throats anymore. The band start having fun with interviewers again. Colin starts telling people how he intends to set up a fellowship of rock'n'roll at Peterhouse with an entrance exam that would include sections on joint-rolling and how to deal with groupies. Things start getting fun during the summer when the band start supporting R.E.M.. Radiohead are big R.E.M. fans. At first, things are weird though. After all, what are you supposed to say to Michael Stipe? Soon everyone chills out. After the second date in Berlin both bands get plastered at a record company surrounded by inflatable balloons. The next day, Mike Mills shows Thom a letter that Bill Clinton has sent him sympathising over the bass-player's recent stomach troubles. Bizzare. By the time they start the American leg, Radiohead have started to teach R.E.M. the basics of cricket. Even the bad things seem alright. The new single 'Fake Plastic Trees' is derided as 'angst rock' in the movie Clueless. But it's then played incessantly on the soundtrack (but not on Radio One). They tour with Soul Asylum who turn out to be nice guys even though their music sucks. At a gig in Canada they have all their equipment nicked. Two years ago this would have just about finished them off but now it's just a blip. In fact Thom rather enjoys it. For one day everyone feels so sorry for them and everything is free. On September 4 they record 'Lucky' for the Bosnia-aid 'Help' album. Even given the do-it-in-a-day time restrictions it's relatively easy. Everyone feels very emotional. By the time Jonny overdubs a choir sample on the verse Thom has turned into a gibbering wreck. A month later 'Lucky' is chosen as a lead trackon the Help project's first EP. It's generally acknowledged as the finest thing on the album. It's not playlisted by Radio One.

Eventually, of course, we do reach the party. And there is alcohol. And there is music. And there is Roger Taylor from Queen. As you wander around the weirdly dub-tastic bar it's difficult not to conclude that just about every cliche about Radiohead is both true and hopelessly off the mark. Yes, they're the band that did 'Creep'. But they're also the band that did The Bends. Sure, they can be miserable, truculent sons-of-bitches. But they can also be - far more frequently - some of the politest, drollest people you could ever meet. And OK, their reputation on wanton behaviour may have more than a grain of truth to it. But, given half a chance, they're more than capable of transforming into blurry - eyed beer monsters with serious love-you-like-a-brother inclinations. Tonight, for example, is definitely a blurry-eyed beer monster night. Even Thom is in high spirits and takes all ribbings about his freshly coppered barnet like a trooper ("I was just fed up with being blond. Maybe Tango would be interested in me being slapped around the face by some big blob.") Predictably, after a brief rant by 'Cocktail King' Ed about how Delia Smith's promotion of humble cranberry is making the ingredients of his favourite cocktails impossible to find, talk turns to the band. In particular the future. After all, they've been 'That Band With The Great Single' and 'That Band With The Great Album'. What next? "The thinking at the moment is that the next record is going to be very up," explains Colin. "Just go in and do it. We just seem to be on a roll. I mean, we were only going to perform 'Nobody Does It Better' once on MTV. But we liked doing it so much that we've carried on. Mmm... Maybe an album of Bond themes wouldn't be such a bad idea". "Samplers!" Thom suddenly announces as a smirk ripples across his face. "That's the next thing we're getting. Nevermind video cameras and Powerbooks. Samplers are the future. Now all I've got to do now is convince everyone else..."

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Hot Press, 1996

Transistor Act

Whinging, yak-herding and masturbating over the Sunday dinner are just three of the tenuously-related subjects that come up for discussion as Stuart Clark gets completely wireless with Radiohead plankspanker from hell Colin Greenwood.


Brian Wilson once tried to decapitate brother Dennis with a cymbal, Liam and Noel Gallagher exchange regular kung-fu kicks on stage and Colin and Jon Greenwood have been known to, er, occasionally shout at each other. Quite loudly.

Yuh, demon plankspankers from hell they may be with guitars in their hands but in the sibling rivalry department, the fraternal Radiohead pair are a dead loss.

"What, you never heard about the time I attached electrodes to Jon's testicles backstage at Glastonbury?" blatantly lies Colin who at a Zimmer frame-necessitating 27 is the elder of the two. "I think there are a couple of people at EMI who wouldn't mind us going on a stress mis-management course because inter-band violence seems to be all the rage at the moment. It's a standard question we get asked and I always feel a bit guilty saying, 'well, no actually, we haven't hospitalised each other recently.' The trouble I think is that beyond the normal brotherly thing, I respect him as a person and a musician. I mean, Jonny's a great fucking guitarist which makes up for a lot of his unsavoury personal habits."

Forget comedy, you only have to glance through your average Pearl Jam/ Smashing Pumpkins/Hole interview to realise that incessant whingeing is the new rock 'n' roll. Radiohead, on the other hand, belong to that dreadfully un-hip bygone age where being in a successful band wasn't regarded as a life sentence in Sing Sing prison with no hope of parole.

"Again, there have been interviews - particularly in America - where I've felt guilty because we're not close to the point of self-destruction," reflects the bassist. "If someone genuinely feels that way, fair enough, they should say it but there are groups who use being fucked-up as a sales gimmick and I think that's unforgivably calculating and potentially damaging to the people who take their word as gospel. I never gave much thought to this 'responsibility to your fans' thing until we started getting letters in response to 'Creep'. Some of them were really, really heavy and I know Thom, especially, found it hard to deal with. I suppose that's because he wrote the words."

Indeed, Radiohead's small-but-perfectly-formed frontman recently confessed that, "I don't want to set myself up like that again. I've had letters from Death Row, guys who have killed people, and they're responding to the lyrics on 'Creep'. That scared the fucking hell out of me."

If Yorke was phased by his innermost personal thoughts becoming public property, it doesn't show on Radiohead's latest opus The Bends - an album so full of self-loathing that you almost expect it to slag itself off in reviews.

"Most of the genuinely creative people I've come across thrive on conflict," Greenwood continues. "You mentioned Pearl Jam a moment ago - well, I don't think Eddie Vedder would be able to write the songs that he does if the tension was missing from his life. Obviously I can't speak for Thom but generally within Radiohead there's always been this lack of confidence and a desire to be seen as underdogs. As childish as it might be, we're never happier than when we're triumphing over adversity."

Between you, me and Hot Press' half-dozen readers, how does Thom score on the miserablegitometer?

"If you caught him while he was writing his lyrics, probably a '7' or an '8' but otherwise he's a reasonably upbeat sort of person. It's not easy - you put stuff in a song because it's too difficult to talk about straight out and then you're expected to discuss it in minute detail with total strangers. Like everyone else, Thom has things that he needs to get out of his system but that doesn't necessarily mean he wants to psychoanalyse them in public."

I risk ex-communication from the Lightning Seeds fan club for uttering such heresy but there are moments on The Bends when the sheer gut-wrenching intensity of Yorke's lyrics shows most of today's pop music up for the hollow sham that it is. I use the word 'pop' advisedly because no matter how dark the subject, Radiohead never lose sight of the fact that you need a decent hook to hang it on in.

While their recent press has been almost embarrassingly fawning, there was a time when Greenwood and Co. were subjected to the sort of gratuitous abuse that makes you want to chuck in rock 'n' roll and take up yak-herding in Tibet. Might this have had something to do with Radiohead being university graduates rather than cor-blimey-stone-the-crows-and-make-no-mistake-missus cockney wideboys?

"I don't think it was particularly that," proffers Colin. "Most guitar music in the UK is the product of bands who have the money to be able to afford the equipment and that points towards the middle-classes. The first guitar I had when I was 15 I bought myself but my mum helped Jonny out with his and there was always a couple of quid there if we needed new strings or an amp repaired. It would've been far more street cred if we'd 'done a Sex Pistols' and nicked it but we didn't need to.

"The main reason, I think, that certain journalists reacted to us in a hostile way is that we didn't fit in with what they were trying to push at the time. We weren't dancey, we weren't political and we didn't have particularly great cheekbones. We could've developed a persecution complex about it but, to be honest, all it did was make us more determined to prove them wrong!"

Too bloody damn reasonable by half, that's Radiohead's problem. Having by some mad aberration of the UK educational system fluked his way into Cambridge, Colin set about getting himself elected College Ents Officer so that he could book the band he was in at the time for exorbitant fees.

"Actually, we did a pretty nifty cover of Elvis Costello's 'Pump It Up'," laughs Greenwood, who's obviously overcome the shame of being associated with a combo called On A Friday. "At one gig we did we had couples shagging on the lawn which I like to think was down to the seductive qualities of our music but I'd say had more to do with the vast quantities of beer that'd been consumed."

What did his mum make of Colin turning his back on the professions to become one of those acid-smoking, cannabis-injecting rock 'n' rollers?

"She wasn't too concerned about me because I'd already got my degree but she thought our manager was the son of Satan for taking Jonny away from the first year of his music studies course at Oxford. She still tells us off for swearing too much in interviews but otherwise she's well into the band and the music. Her favourite track on Pablo Honey was 'Thinking About You' which I never had the heart to tell her was about masturbation. Wanking's one of those subjects you can't really raise over Sunday dinner."

Not unless there's cream custard on the menu. Being a vindictive little sod, I have to admit that I derived great pleasure from the Mondays, Suede and The Wonder Stuff falling flat on their over-hyped faces in America while the runt of the Britpop litter, Radiohead, sailed effortlessly into the Billboard top 20.

"No one was more suprised when that happened than we were," Colin reflects. "We genuinely thought Pablo Honey was a good album but you only have to look at The Smiths or The Jam to realise that quality isn't always what wins through in the States.

"In fact, what it all boils down to is having the one song - like 'Creep'- which is distinctive enough to capture people's imaginations and gets pumped out on MTV 24 hours a day. Another half-decent track's useful if you want to get played on album radio but beyond that, it doesn't matter if the rest of the record's crap."

Having sampled the financial rewards that being big in America can bring, it's to Radiohead's considerable credit that The Bends doesn't contain a single moment that could be described as 'Son of Creep'.

"Somebody said to me the other day, 'it must be great no longer having anything to prove', and I told them, 'you must be joking!'

"There are a lot of people who've already written us off as a one-song band and getting back to being the underdog, we need to prove them wrong.

"I've got to hand it to EMI," he continues. "We feared they might be in and out the studio every five minutes asking where the next 'Creep' was but they pretty much left us to our own devices. We got quite a bit of stick when we originally signed to them because they were a major and therefore perceived as the enemy of all things alternative. They offered to set our own label up for us so we'd appear 'indie' but we felt that was a complete nonsense. Actually, I've got a mate in a band who're on Creation and he was saying to me, 'I wish we had the fucking distribution you do'. That's what's important - having your record in the shops so that people can buy it."

As a keen amateur rock 'n' roll psychologist, I've noticed that British bands who fail to crack the States always go into a state of denial - blaming everyone from Bill Clinton to Colonel Sanders for their inability to woo the baseball-capped masses when in fact it's their own arrogance that's he cause of them getting the bum's rush from Uncle Sam.

"The attitude that pisses Americans off is groups coming over and expecting the red carpet treatment because they were on the cover of The Melody Maker last week. That's certainly what happened to Suede in '93 although, in fairness, I don't think the record company helped by hyping them up to such an extent that whatever they did was going to be an anti-climax.

"There's also a different work ethic in the States. Bands are quite prepared to spend six months non-stop on the road which is not something we're used to in the UK where the circuit is a maximum of 20 or 30 gigs. You really have to gear yourself up psychologically for that sort of long haul because it's not only physically but mentally draining. Then again, we've had some brilliant experiences touring the States and going south of the border into Mexico rates as perhaps the best week of my life. It helps that I'm not married or seriously girlfriended whereas Phil, our drummer, has a wife and goes through severe withdrawal systems when he's not with her."

Excuse me while I surreptitiously dab a tear from my eye. What, when they're not being great big soppy girl's blouses, do Radiohead do for kicks?

"What, apart from our crocheting and flower-arranging?" Greenwood deadpans. "The same stuff as you probably."

And there I was thinking I was the only one who enjoyed the sheer animal thrill of philately!

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