LIME: Two earlier album titles you toyed with included Are You Listening and 2+2-5. Both are vastly different from the eventual Hail To The Thief. Explain.
ED O’BRIEN: One of the titles WASN’T going to be ‘Are You Listening’. That was just a mischievous rumour but 2+2=5 was a contender. Hail To The Thief is pertinent to the times we live in. Lyrically, this album reflects a lot of the fears of the present and future. We’re living in a time when there are a lot of thieves around. When we were making this album, the big Enron scandal broke. Those men stole money from pension funds! (Quietly) We have a thief in the White House, he stole the election. And you’ve got corporations not paying their taxes. The title is a comment on the hypocrisy ‘cos it’s always the blue-collared thieves who’re marked out but there’s an incredible amount of white-collar thievery going on.

Does having deeper pockets make making music easier? Or does it take away that creative edge?
That’s the old dilemma faced by a lot of artists. In some ways, having deeper pockets means you’re not in debt to anyone, so no one has the right to say how you should be making music. But it’s a fine line to tread. If you look at the history of very rich and successful bands, the general pattern of behaviour is, all that money creates more distractions which take them away from music. The three houses and the yacht down in the Mediterranean require looking after, and suddenly their interest in music dissipates. You must be very careful not to get into this very attractive but expensive lifestyle you feel you need to maintain. If you don’t have that, then I think you can continue for a lot longer.

Have you been seduced into this vicious cycle?
I hope not! It took a while for Radiohead to get used to having some money. In the first 10 years, money was not an issue because there was none. We’ve never made decisions purely on a financial basis. If there’s an art versus commerce decision, art always comes first. Money’s been great in allowing me to go on nice holidays, to live in a nice house and drive a nice car but it’s by no means the be all and end all. I was very happy BEFORE I had the money.

Are some singers paid more than they’re worth?
Not really. I have lots of musician friends who make no money at all. I think what happens is the top 1 per cent take a lot of the money from everyone else. And you can be sure the record company’s earning a lot more. With that amount of revenue being generated, I don’t see why it shouldn’t go to the people who’re in it. It’s only a small amount that goes to the artist anyway.

The band has a rep for being low-key. You turned up for various projects unannounced. Are you embarrassed about your fame?
Not embarrassed, but maybe uneasy with it. We didn’t start this thing to be individually famous. We wanted to sell records, make music and have as many people hear it. There’s a constant conflict being in a band that’s successful and relatively well-known. Stepping outside to attend the opening of a club or whatever is just not our style. Someone described celebrity as “the new herpes”. I quite like that, ‘cos they’re right.

Your fans include Marilyn Manson, Blur, REM and Madonna. Are you flattered?
Of course. It’d be rude not to acknowledge that and be thankful for it. It’s great whenever anyone says they like our band ‘cos that’s what I wanted – for people to like us. Michael Stipe [of REM] gave us a real boost in 1995 when he said Radiohead were “frighteningly good”. That was pretty cool.

You also said the biggest criticism you have of yourselves is that you all think too much, since you’re all university grads. So musicians should be... thick?
No, no, no! It’s important to think, obviously. But you can think too much about the small details and get side-tracked. At times, you’ve just got to let things go, Something’s done is done. You move on.

When Radiohead first released Pablo Honey in 1993 [featuring monster hit ‘Creep’], many dismissed the band as one-hit wonders. With six albums to date, was there ever a time you believed those cynics?
No, never! (Guffaws) I’ve always known we weren’t a one-hit wonder. When we were recording Pablo Honey, Thom was already writing The Bends. It was never a worry.

Third album OK Computer won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album in 1998. Is being popular in the US more important than acceptance in your homeland?
No, it’s not. We have more success in America and that’s great but we wanted to have success in England, too. It’s very nice having success abroad ‘cos in your home country, people tend to be the harshest critics of what you do. You open your mouth and they immediately judge you ‘cos they can tell what kind of background you’ve had or where you come from. In other countries, you don’t have that kind of baggage. It’s gratifying people accepted us based on our music and what we say, not our past and what we look like.

Before you joined Radiohead, what other ambitions did you have?
I can’t really remember ‘cos we were 16 when we got Radiohead together. Like all teenagers, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a deep-sea fisherman, then I wanted to be a farmer. (Laughs)

A lot of wannabe musicians give up school for a musical career. What do you think of this trend?
I wouldn’t tell anyone what to do. You’ve got to follow what’s right for you. Each person has a different path. We didn’t give up school. We went on to university and that served us well. Elvis Presley and U2 didn’t go to college and it served them well. Do whatever you feel is right. There’s no harm going to college but there’s no rush. It depends on what’s right for you.

The band nearly broke up during the recording of Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001). What’s the most common thing you fight about?
We don’t really fight but the thing we always disagree and have healthy arguments about are the track listings for each record. That’s always the crunch time.

Were there any such disagreements while making this album?
Oh yeah! There always are. But it was actually the most fun and peaceful album we’ve made, even though it definitely got a little heated at times towards the end.

When you read reviews about your albums, what amuses or annoys you the most?
I didn’t read the reviews for Amnesiac, I wasn’t particularly interested at the time. I read the reviews for Kid A and I enjoyed a lot of them. What annoys me is when critics say Radiohead are being deliberately obtuse or difficult. I don’t think that is the case at all. We’re not trying to confuse people, we’re just not spoon-feeding them. Society has gotten very lazy in many ways, When you go see a film, you’re spoon-fed everything. You don’t have to think. That’s why I enjoyed the sci-fi flick, Solaris, because it makes you think. It’s amazing that at this stage in the 21st century, we’re using that big muscle called the brain even less and less. It’s like, listen, you can think for yourself! You’re quite capable, just read the lyrics!

Hail To The Thief is in stores