Jam! 17.10.00
JAM! interviews Radiohead
Paul Cantin
Although Radiohead won't be releasing any music videos from their current album, Kid A, the group has compiled live footage shot on their current tour and submitted it to video channels.
The band's Jonny and Colin Greenwood told JAM! Music they have no interest in putting together the kind of music clips they have previously prepared for songs such as "Just," "Fake Plastic Trees" and "Creep."
But any video outlet hankering for a Radiohead clip is welcome to play the concert footage, which shows the group performing various songs from Kid A during the European leg of their current tour.
"A lot of (the video channels) are going to be given (live videos), so we'll see whether they play them. That is okay, showing footage of a band playing can be interesting, if you like music. Watching a band mime, though ...," Jonny Greenwood said during interviews in Toronto on Monday, prior to the group's sole Canadian performance Tuesday in the sold-out Sears Theatre at the Air Canada Centre.
"We'll see who shows it. It is going to be submitted as bits and pieces we have done (in concert), on videotape."
Canada's music video channel, MuchMusic, confirmed late Monday that they have received the band's collection of concert footage, and at an upcoming meeting will consider whether they'll air the results.
Like much of Radiohead's approach with Kid A, their attitude towards videos has been unconventional. Typically, any new, high-profile release is preceded by a single and video clip to accompany the song. In this case, no official single or video has been released from Kid A.
Instead, artist Stanley Donwood, who prepared the album's cover in collaboration with singer Thom Yorke, has worked with animators to create moving versions of the album graphics - brief animated snippets the group haas dubbed "blips," which have circulated through the Internet and have been incorporated into TV ads for the album.
"They're just adverts, and they are also very long adverts," Jonny Greenwood says of traditional music videos.
"Four minutes is too long for a car advert, so it is certainly too long (for a record). Stanley Donwood, who works with Thom on the artwork, is making (the artwork) move and animating parts of it. That is really good, but not beyond 20 seconds.
"Music videos just make me think of (Peter Gabriel's) 'Sledgehammer', and that was when it was innovative. Talking Heads. It is like tap-dancing, is what I compare it to. It had its day, really... I think miming is absurd."
Here's some other wisdom dropped by the Brothers Greenwood during their interview with JAM!.
On their next album, provisionally to be released in the spring, drawn from songs recorded for, but cut from, Kid A
Jonny: "We've got about 13 or 14 songs which we need to edit a little bit, maybe take a couple out, maybe remix one or two, put them in the right order, and then it is done."
Colin: "I"m not sure they are two records. We had that group of songs to make one record, and the other ones are left over. It's that we had, say, 23 songs and we wanted to have around 47 minutes of music, so we chose the best combination out of that number (for Kid A), and the rest are waiting on the bench, waiting to be picked for the next team lineup."
Jonny: "We wanted to release them as well, but we don't know how yet, or what combination. We are still working out how to release these songs."
Colin: "We haven't decided what it is going to be like. It is a combination of like, more conventional, perhaps, but also more dissonant stuff. But it continues on from Kid A, really, I think. It was all done in the same recording period. It is all a whole. We'll see. It is good playing them live, though. 'Dollars And Cents' and 'Knives Out.' It is cool. It is good."
On the satisfaction of Kid A entering the charts in the top spot
Jonny: "Of course it is gratifying. But someone pointed out to me that going in at number one on the charts means none of them have heard it yet. So maybe we don't know (if that means they like the record)."
On Kid A's unconventional sound, a departure from the more structured sound of previous albums OK Computer and The Bends
Jonny: "It sort of feels like some of the people... think there are a few bands that sound like us. I think maybe some of them thought or hoped we'd make a record that sounds like them, but maybe a bit better or something, do you know what I mean? That is sort of backwards... And we didn't (make that kind of record)."
On the decision to keep an online diary at the band's website while making Kid A
Jonny: "(The diary was an alternative to) talking briefly to a press person who writes a much longer piece, which is sent to newspapers, edited and printed. By the time the person who likes you reads something about you, it has gone through five people. So it is quite nice to gab on and the rubbish that we do. (Doing it online) shuts out people who haven't got the Internet, which is still lots of people. That is the only bad thing.
On the evolving live arrangements of the songs on Kid A
Colin: "It is very important as a way to stave off tour boredom. It is very important to have music that is a bit more open-ended. Not much different, but you can have some variation when you play it night-to-night. 'Everything In Its Right Place' has changed. Like, everyone is playing all over it now. On the record, it is just Thom and (producer) Nigel Godrich playing with it."
On the horn section featured on the song "The National Anthem," which appeared with the group on last weekend's Saturday Night Live guest spot
Colin: "I think we all think it is not a good idea to have other musicians on stage. It taints the experience of the live performance."
Jonny: "Plus the economics stopped Big Bands touring in 1953."
Colin: "There is a very good reason for that."
Jonny: "I was listening to them (on stage), turning around. All that noise is terrifying. It is louder and more terrifying than any guitar I've heard."
Colin: "Like Angus Young in his shorts."
On the documentary Meeting People Is Easy, which was shot while Radiohead undertook promotional duties for OK Computer
Jonny: "It was a very fair representation of what somebody unconnected with the band would be surprised about if they followed us around on tour. (The director, Grant Gee) emphasized the parts that surprised him. So obviously it is not like that all the time. Sometimes you are sat on the beach in Australia having a day off, thinking this is the greatest. I think he was surprised to see what goes on, so he made a film about it. That is always going to be far more interesting than the guys having a beer backstage and laughing."
Colin: "But it is a carefree existence. It is fantastic. You get to travel around and see other cities and enjoy the food from various cultures and play in interesting places. It is great. I love it. It is fantastic. I feel that we are incredibly lucky, obviously. There's no sense of us thinking it is hard."
On things they just won't do as part of their career as musicians
Colin: "You can change things by accepting less. If we all wanted to have castles in Spain, as we say in the rock business, we would be doing loads of videos and doing a big tour sponsored by Volkswagen, and we would have done a Moby and sold our music for advertising around the world, for $16 million. But since we don't have castles in Spain, we don't come across those kinds of decisions. (Radiohead has been offered) adverts for drinks. Drinks companies want to do advertising on our website."
Jonny: "ISPs want to have close connections with us."
Colin: "It is fine if someone else wants to do it. We've been very lucky not to have to."
On performing in a big, travelling tent in Europe, and whether they'd consider doing the same thing in North America
Jonny: "It is a good venue. Just find a big field, not too far from the city. We played in parks and stuff like that, Belgium, France, and stuff like that. (It could work in North American), if you have any big, flat spaces, with good transport."
On the various musical influences on Kid A
Jonny: "Different people we stole from, really. Coltrane, Charlie Mingus. Kraftwerk. Can. We take what we can. Bits and pieces. We are always comparing what we do to other records we like. Whereas other people compare it to other records we've released. And it is a very different."
Paul Cantin
Although Radiohead won't be releasing any music videos from their current album, Kid A, the group has compiled live footage shot on their current tour and submitted it to video channels.
The band's Jonny and Colin Greenwood told JAM! Music they have no interest in putting together the kind of music clips they have previously prepared for songs such as "Just," "Fake Plastic Trees" and "Creep."
But any video outlet hankering for a Radiohead clip is welcome to play the concert footage, which shows the group performing various songs from Kid A during the European leg of their current tour.
"A lot of (the video channels) are going to be given (live videos), so we'll see whether they play them. That is okay, showing footage of a band playing can be interesting, if you like music. Watching a band mime, though ...," Jonny Greenwood said during interviews in Toronto on Monday, prior to the group's sole Canadian performance Tuesday in the sold-out Sears Theatre at the Air Canada Centre.
"We'll see who shows it. It is going to be submitted as bits and pieces we have done (in concert), on videotape."
Canada's music video channel, MuchMusic, confirmed late Monday that they have received the band's collection of concert footage, and at an upcoming meeting will consider whether they'll air the results.
Like much of Radiohead's approach with Kid A, their attitude towards videos has been unconventional. Typically, any new, high-profile release is preceded by a single and video clip to accompany the song. In this case, no official single or video has been released from Kid A.
Instead, artist Stanley Donwood, who prepared the album's cover in collaboration with singer Thom Yorke, has worked with animators to create moving versions of the album graphics - brief animated snippets the group haas dubbed "blips," which have circulated through the Internet and have been incorporated into TV ads for the album.
"They're just adverts, and they are also very long adverts," Jonny Greenwood says of traditional music videos.
"Four minutes is too long for a car advert, so it is certainly too long (for a record). Stanley Donwood, who works with Thom on the artwork, is making (the artwork) move and animating parts of it. That is really good, but not beyond 20 seconds.
"Music videos just make me think of (Peter Gabriel's) 'Sledgehammer', and that was when it was innovative. Talking Heads. It is like tap-dancing, is what I compare it to. It had its day, really... I think miming is absurd."
Here's some other wisdom dropped by the Brothers Greenwood during their interview with JAM!.
On their next album, provisionally to be released in the spring, drawn from songs recorded for, but cut from, Kid A
Jonny: "We've got about 13 or 14 songs which we need to edit a little bit, maybe take a couple out, maybe remix one or two, put them in the right order, and then it is done."
Colin: "I"m not sure they are two records. We had that group of songs to make one record, and the other ones are left over. It's that we had, say, 23 songs and we wanted to have around 47 minutes of music, so we chose the best combination out of that number (for Kid A), and the rest are waiting on the bench, waiting to be picked for the next team lineup."
Jonny: "We wanted to release them as well, but we don't know how yet, or what combination. We are still working out how to release these songs."
Colin: "We haven't decided what it is going to be like. It is a combination of like, more conventional, perhaps, but also more dissonant stuff. But it continues on from Kid A, really, I think. It was all done in the same recording period. It is all a whole. We'll see. It is good playing them live, though. 'Dollars And Cents' and 'Knives Out.' It is cool. It is good."
On the satisfaction of Kid A entering the charts in the top spot
Jonny: "Of course it is gratifying. But someone pointed out to me that going in at number one on the charts means none of them have heard it yet. So maybe we don't know (if that means they like the record)."
On Kid A's unconventional sound, a departure from the more structured sound of previous albums OK Computer and The Bends
Jonny: "It sort of feels like some of the people... think there are a few bands that sound like us. I think maybe some of them thought or hoped we'd make a record that sounds like them, but maybe a bit better or something, do you know what I mean? That is sort of backwards... And we didn't (make that kind of record)."
On the decision to keep an online diary at the band's website while making Kid A
Jonny: "(The diary was an alternative to) talking briefly to a press person who writes a much longer piece, which is sent to newspapers, edited and printed. By the time the person who likes you reads something about you, it has gone through five people. So it is quite nice to gab on and the rubbish that we do. (Doing it online) shuts out people who haven't got the Internet, which is still lots of people. That is the only bad thing.
On the evolving live arrangements of the songs on Kid A
Colin: "It is very important as a way to stave off tour boredom. It is very important to have music that is a bit more open-ended. Not much different, but you can have some variation when you play it night-to-night. 'Everything In Its Right Place' has changed. Like, everyone is playing all over it now. On the record, it is just Thom and (producer) Nigel Godrich playing with it."
On the horn section featured on the song "The National Anthem," which appeared with the group on last weekend's Saturday Night Live guest spot
Colin: "I think we all think it is not a good idea to have other musicians on stage. It taints the experience of the live performance."
Jonny: "Plus the economics stopped Big Bands touring in 1953."
Colin: "There is a very good reason for that."
Jonny: "I was listening to them (on stage), turning around. All that noise is terrifying. It is louder and more terrifying than any guitar I've heard."
Colin: "Like Angus Young in his shorts."
On the documentary Meeting People Is Easy, which was shot while Radiohead undertook promotional duties for OK Computer
Jonny: "It was a very fair representation of what somebody unconnected with the band would be surprised about if they followed us around on tour. (The director, Grant Gee) emphasized the parts that surprised him. So obviously it is not like that all the time. Sometimes you are sat on the beach in Australia having a day off, thinking this is the greatest. I think he was surprised to see what goes on, so he made a film about it. That is always going to be far more interesting than the guys having a beer backstage and laughing."
Colin: "But it is a carefree existence. It is fantastic. You get to travel around and see other cities and enjoy the food from various cultures and play in interesting places. It is great. I love it. It is fantastic. I feel that we are incredibly lucky, obviously. There's no sense of us thinking it is hard."
On things they just won't do as part of their career as musicians
Colin: "You can change things by accepting less. If we all wanted to have castles in Spain, as we say in the rock business, we would be doing loads of videos and doing a big tour sponsored by Volkswagen, and we would have done a Moby and sold our music for advertising around the world, for $16 million. But since we don't have castles in Spain, we don't come across those kinds of decisions. (Radiohead has been offered) adverts for drinks. Drinks companies want to do advertising on our website."
Jonny: "ISPs want to have close connections with us."
Colin: "It is fine if someone else wants to do it. We've been very lucky not to have to."
On performing in a big, travelling tent in Europe, and whether they'd consider doing the same thing in North America
Jonny: "It is a good venue. Just find a big field, not too far from the city. We played in parks and stuff like that, Belgium, France, and stuff like that. (It could work in North American), if you have any big, flat spaces, with good transport."
On the various musical influences on Kid A
Jonny: "Different people we stole from, really. Coltrane, Charlie Mingus. Kraftwerk. Can. We take what we can. Bits and pieces. We are always comparing what we do to other records we like. Whereas other people compare it to other records we've released. And it is a very different."
Labels: Colin Greenwood, interviews, Jonny Greenwood, Kid A, Radiohead
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