Radiohead: Pop Is Dead

Eager Italian journalist for Rolling Stone excited Radiohead fans with news of a finished new 10-track album in the recent edition of the magazine. The follow-up to 2007’s “In Rainbows”, on the contrary, is still in the process of completion, says guitarist Jonny Greenwood on the band’s official blog, Dead Air Space.  "I think this Italian writer has, either through over-enthusiasm or frustration at all my non-committal answers, mistranslated me a little,” Greenwood stated on the website. “In fact we haven’t quite finished the album — in the studio at the moment — nor have we yet considered any touring. The plan is to have no plan until the record is finished… hope that’s a little clearer!"

This isn’t the first occasion for the album’s release to be misquoted. Spinner reported in June that guitarist Ed O’Brien hoped to be finished in “a matter of weeks”. Looking back at their debut release of ‘Pablo Honey’, this interview from 1993 shows that the band’s time scale for album recording hasn’t always been quite so elongated…

Radiohead look set to become one of the bands of ’93. After the excellent album “Pablo Honey” and single releases “Creep” and “Anyone Can Play Guitar”, the band follow it up with a brand new single and tour, The single ‘Pop is Dead’ is (to use another cliché) is storming. Steve Janes talks to Colin Greenwood.

The band has had a lot a praise attributed to them. Does that actually create any pressure: being named as best band of ‘93

“I don’t know. It seems the praise has all been taken by Suede this year and there doesn’t seem to be any left for any other band but I think people have said good things about us. However, there has been no concerted media blitz which I think is a good thing for us. I think the album we have done isn’t a great album, but it is a good album. There are some great songs on it I think and there are some good building blocks for future stuff.”

I’m impressed with it; it is a very good debut album.

“Yeah it really is a great album. There’s a song on it called “Stop Whispering”, we played it down a bit because it’s like our favourite song and we didn’t do it justice.”

You’ve been compared to everyone from Kingmaker to R.E.M

“Kingmaker to R.E.M and Mott the Hoople and the Jam. One of the things they tried to do was hang this new wave glam attributed to us.”

They didn’t try to  say Radiohead were  like The Auteurs!

“Exactly. The Pulp and Auteurs again. That didn’t really stick either.”

Are you pleased that you can’t be boxed?

“I don’t think we can’t be boxed because the music doesn’t mean anything, it’s because we take our influences from so many different sources. We all like completely different things and so that creates a healthy basis for writing and stuff like that. I’m a soul merchant; my big excitement at the moment is American Music Club. I know we all went to school together, but you know I think it’s more important to judge each song as it sounds. We definitely haven’t got an overall sound.”

The album ‘Pablo Honey’ seems to go through a few different sounds. You can’t say this sounds like this. You just listen to it and think Radiohead, but you do cover a few different feels through it.Do you want to mention any? One of my favourites is ‘Creep’. A lot of people have said the same. Is it true it was basically more of a rehearsal and the tape kept running?

“Yes, we weren’t going to do that. This time last year we were in the studio recording two songs with the two Americans and we set everything up to record live. We were all standing in the studio room and they said why don’t you play something to check the recording levels on the mix on the desk and we thought, what shall we play? We didn’t want to play either of the songs we were doing, we wanted something different, and so we played Creep, and called it the Scott Walker song. We have a bit of a habit of calling songs after someone we like. Vegetable we called the Neil Young song. So we put it down and Jonathon didn’t know what to play, (because I don’t think he liked the song very much), he played all his guitar stuff and they turned it down and said man you’ve got to do that Scott Walker cover. We said it wasn’t a cover and they said you’ve GOT to do that song. So, that ended up being the main song of the session and the other two songs became B sides.”

Were you disappointed with Radio One not play listing ‘Creep’?

“Yeah that was a bad time because the record wasn’t promoted very well.”

It’s a pity because as a single it’s very good. I comes across that it wasn’t done. It’s got a different feel to it. The guitar part isn’t considered, it’s just emotion.

“Yeah. Obviously bits and pieces have been added, but the bare bones of the track like the guitar and drums were all done then in one take. So it sounds a bit tentative at the beginning if you listen to it, which I think adds to it really.”

What about your soul influences?

“I used to play in a funk band at college. It’s really nice to play in a funk band when there are four hundred people dancing in front of you, rather than like an indie band, where there are twenty people standing at the back with their arms folded. It’s quite confrontational or emotional. Saying that, at the same time it is really exciting to play…but we were playing other people’s stuff. This Radiohead stuff is very exciting to play because we get bored very easily and we don’t want the audience to get bored.”

I’ve heard a lot about your performances from a couple of mates, and both reports said you were stunning on stage.

“Each performance is quite different because we don’t give a polished performance each time and I quite like that. Sometimes it really takes off and is a good performance, we are never really bad. I think it is a case of people being really surprised when they see us play live because we have two guitars and it’s also surprising how close it is to the album, but just as different at the same time.”

How different is the interpretation of songs live, is it more edgy?

“It’s faster, potentially. Fasted and louder and harder, but with quiet dynamics. We are more of a performance band really but making the album was an interesting experience.”

You completed the album in three weeks, that was really fast…

“We knocked it out in three weeks and in retrospect it wasn’t really a good thing to do in a way.”

For the amount of work that has gone into it though, it is a very impressive debut. Are you happy with the album now you’ve lived with it for a while?

“Well, it was actually completed in less than three weeks, two weeks and five days and two days mixing. It is a good album; it has four great tracks on it. If an album has four good tracks on it, then you’re sorted.”

What are your favourites on the album?

‘Creep’. ‘Vegetable’ is also great. It’s a bit faltering at points and I quite like that, recording an album is a real clichéd thing. Bands say we want to sound like we sound live, and you’re not going to get it to sound like that. If you want to get it to sound like that, then you do a live album but saying that, you have to get the next best thing, catching what a song needs. From the album I Really Like You: Creep, Vegetable and I quite like Ripcord, that ties in very well with the album and the lyrics are mostly related. I really love the lyrics to Vegetable because it ties in well with the music. Blow Out is great as well.

What do you make of ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’?

“I like that one as well because it is kind of weird. The way the songs are written are quite diverse on the album. It’s mainly Thom who writes them and the rest of us either add bits or come up with something and we work from there.”

‘Pop is Dead’ is the new single, it’s not long since the release of the album. Do you have that much material?

“We didn’t want to release another song off the album. John Harrison slagged us off in the N.M.E for releasing it, but it’s the same as any other band. Suede do it. The ones that were the B sides like You and Thinking About You were very different the way they were recorded, that’s what we first got out and wanted out as quickly as possible. When you think about us on Parlophone it’ a miracle that they put out some of the stuff that we’ve done Last year a lot of people said, why didn’t you sign with an Indie label, the fat is we were turned down by most Indie labels.”

And you were picked up by Parlophone?

“We could have gone with other people but most of the Indies turned us down because we were too song based and not noisy enough. We took the first thing that we thought was good and we didn’t want to stick around, we didn’t want to play companies off against each other. You meet people who can put your records into the shops and that is the most important thing they’ve been really good so far”

Have they tried to affect you in any way?

“No, not at all. They were completely against releasing Pop Is Dead because it’s not on the album and the whole record company ethos is, you release the album first, then you release a couple of singles from it But because of the way that album and single sales are going at the moment it doesn’t really make any difference really. The whole emphasis we’ve got at the moment is to keep things fresh all the time and try get new stuff out, things go so fast.”

Did you do a radio edit of Creep?

“Yeah, that’s another thing, there is a version that says “you’re so special” – because you’re not allowed to swear on the radio in this country. N.M.E got hold of a radio copy and they reviewed that, and, because the swear word wasn’t on it, they thought it was the sale copy so they said that this was an example that if you signed to EMI you got your dicks cut off or something. Then two weeks later they gave Sonic Youth single of the week and praised them for doing a radio edit so that the kids could listen to it. The record company gives us a lot more independence than a lot of friends who are signed to Indie labels have. Basically, the record company haven’t got a clue what we’re doing, which is also really helping us because we have to work hard to control things ourselves Also, if things are going well they are surprised every time, so they get into it. But they didn’t expect anything amazing anyway, so we can keep expectations not too high. The worst thing is if you do really well and you don’t after that. We just want to keep building like we were building live support last year on tour.”

Tell me more about ‘Pop Is Dead’…

“It’s not very long, it’s only two and a half minutes and is going to be backed with a new acoustic song called Banana Co and live versions of Creep and Ripcord. Pop Is Dead is like an explanatic statement kind of thing. Oh no! Pop Is Dead, it died a horrid death by back catalogue. It basically says that you can only sell so many albums before every one has got one. It’s nice to make a few statements for people to react against it and say oh not it’s not!”

What are you up to next, are you shooting a video for Pop Is Dead?

“Yeah we are shooting a video for it. Videos are funny things. They cost a ridiculous amounts of money, although what we do are to budget. We didn’t want to do one for this. The other two didn’t get shown outside of MTV.”

Is it going to be that different when you headlining yourselves?

“We’ve done one tour as well as headlining and it’s completely different. The last time practically all venues had sold out and you tailor your set accordingly. We had this really bad review at Christmas because we played a support set when we were headlining because we didn’t have a clue. When you’re headlining you play to people who have come to see you, when you support people don’t normally come to see you. Because you’re playing to people who know the song, if not the words, you have to raise your performance, not that you don’t play well when your supporting, because you’re playing for yourselves and not for the band after you, it’s a completely different stage craft, it’s really great.”

For the latest …go http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/