MTV UK, may 25th 2003
[Interviews with the full band]
The interviews were held backstage at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London. The TV special, which also featured live footage from the gig, was first aired on june 8th 2003.
[Live 'Paranoid Android' clip]
Thom: "It's London, therefore we're TERRIFIED!
[Live 'There There' intro clip]
Thom: "What would you like to know? [cut] See, your camera's wonky. [cut] That's one's straight!
['There There' clip ends]
Jonny: "It's traditional for us to do warm-up shows, and we just felt like a whole tour of warm-up shows would be good for us.
Ed: "This tour is about just going out there and playing live again, and we haven't done it for a while, now. To play in front of a partisan audience, and in these really lovely venues, it's a bit like our pre-season friendlies.
[Live clip from concert, crowd cheering and Thom saying “Good evenin'!”]
Jonny: "Yeah, we wanted to start off like this, it just feels quite natural to go from a studio with six or seven people in, to a room with a few hundred and then slowly build up that way. Anything else would just be too artificial, I think.
[Live 'There There' clip]
Ed: "I think there's sort of the exuberance and sheer joy of playing again and realising how lucky we are to be playing these songs and to be in this position. I think there's a lot of joy in five people playing in a room. Which hasn't happened for a while, so... [laughs]
[Live 'There There' clip]
Thom: "I don't know quite exactly what happened. I just... I understand why I'm into music now. And I'm sure I go through phases where I don't understand but right now I'm... every time we go on stage, to me it's actually a fairly... what's the word... it's extremely important to me. Yeah.
Colin: "Apart from the pressures of having lots of cameras pointing at you, it's just the determination to try to enjoy the concerts and listening to each other on stage and stuff and enjoy just performing together. Celebrating in that, as well, is kind of the most important thing because that's when all of the things that are good, the accidental good things, happen.
Thom: "You have uplifting gigs, and they're great. And then you have gigs that are like... [sound of him hitting something] but sometimes really good things happen in them and... that's music: you don't really know until afterwards.
[Live 'Idioteque' clip]
Colin: "A lot of the fans have downloaded the music. I don't know how they've done it, but they've downloaded the music before it came out, off the Internet.
Phil: "Definitely a good thing, because it's a lot for us to remember. So it's nice to have a prompt [??] around.
Thom: "The new songs were already on the net when we went on tour, before we recorded the record. So, it's not really affected the shows, because scarily enough after the first show people knew most of it!
Phil: "But in terms of, you know, the stuff going up, the actual tracks that went up at the time, we felt that was a bit of a shame because that's not how we'd have chosen to actually present the album in the first place, really, for first listening. So we felt a little compromised by that, but the tracks have been out there for a while because we toured them last summer.
Jonny: "There's still enough surprises going on even for each other!
Colin: "There's some surprises going off on stage!
Jonny: "It's fine really.
Colin: "So, yeah.
[Live '2+2=5' clip]
Ed: "I haven't listened to the album for a long time now, for about eight weeks, but I remember when we finished it, I was so proud of it and the fact that we'd got... I mean, the energy is a big thing. I don't think we've had this kind of energy since The Bends.
Thom: "Took a long time off... we'd done, what was it? Five records – Kid A and then Amnesiac being the last ones – and at the end of that it was lots of “Uh, why are we doing this? Oh! Ah, yeah!” Lots of, basically, rediscovering why we were involved in this, really.
Phil: "It's not that we didn't get on during Kid A, but it was a bit of a... it did have its arduous points.
Colin: "This record is a lot closer to when we used to play in all the village halls around Oxfordshire, and listened to everything on the foretrack, yeah.
[Live 'Everything In Its Right Place' clip]
Jonny: "We were actually using the writing and recording technique that we used as teenagers, which is very self-obsessed, wherein you record your rehearsals and take them home and listen to them, and decide what's good and what's working. So we were listening to a lot of ourselves, really.
Colin: "Yeah.
Jonny: "Which is very, obviously, narcissistic.
Thom: "I just sort of discovered the joy in music again... which sounds, really, quite awful, but it's sort of true! [chuckles].
Jonny: "It was two weeks of recording but it was also, before that, two or three months of writing and rehearsing and getting everything into the stage of being able to record it quite quickly. It was a bit like setting up an elaborate photograph and then taking one shot of it, but spending a while getting things right.
Phil: "More than the material, from where we were at between the five of us, it's a very relaxed relationship at the moment, I think. It's very open. It's very supportive isn't it? Warm! [chuckles]
[Live 'Paranoid Android' clip]
Thom: "'What's new from our shows?' Hey, what's new? Nothing – we're the same. We're desperately trying to be the same. We just keep missing...
[Live 'Go To Sleep' clip]
Phil: "I think we are better musicians now, so I think we seem a better band, really. I think we're groovy, you know?
Ed: "Yeah, we're definitely! We've got oil in our hips!
Phil: "Yeah... for old blokes?
Ed: "For old blokes! [chuckles]
[Live 'The National Anthem' clip]
Jonny: "Live shows are, obviously, more immediate by their nature, so even some of the songs that have maybe been a little bit veiled on the recordings, everything is quite clear and present in a live concert. That's why they're exciting, I suppose.
Phil: "Actually having that amount of material now – six albums worth of material and all the b-sides – I think that's affected our performance because you've got a lot to chose from, so you don't run that risk of getting bored.
[Live 'The Gloaming' clip]
Thom: "Good music is a joyful thing, no matter if it's slow or what some people call depressing, whatever. When it works, it's joyful. And I've sort of discovered that.
Ed: "The thing about us is that we don't... we're sort of contrary buggers in the sense that we don't do things unless we really want to do them. If it feels like it's some kind of... we're like this jukebox or whatever, then that's not us, that's not what we're about. So, as Phil was saying, we have this ability to now change our set a lot so it keeps us on our toes. It keeps us interested, and emotionally involves the music, which I think is something we've always had, and it's a very important part of what we do.
[Live 'Everything In Its Right Place' clip]
Jonny: "It's interesting how a lot of the songs were written having worked out how to play the previous two albums live and techniques we learned to play. Those studio recordings informed how we wrote these songs. So that's where a lot of the new instruments have come from.
Ed: "There are songs like 'Fake Plastic Trees' that suddenly... I mean, for a while a song like that... you know, you play it every night and then you... you know, on Kid A and Amnesiac we weren't playing it every night and it didn't quite feel... it felt like occasionally we were trotting out a greatest hit. But now there's a sort of resonance to it, and it's great because you revisit some of these songs, and sometimes they don't seem relevant and then nine years later they seem more relevant, if you like. There's relief as well. People... if anyone goes “weee!” for a song, that's great!
[Live 'Karma Police' clip of crowd singing along]
Thom: "[laughing] You think I have a responsibility to give the...? 'Me, I have a responsibility to give the fans a good time.' That just sounds kinky to me.
Jonny: "It is very strange when they come from so far away.
Colin: "We have friends from America who came over to England in the late seventies and saw people like Buzzcocks and Joy Division, Magazine and stuff like that. That kind of passion and curiosity following good music... if there's anyone who's into us in those kind of ways then I just think we'd be pathetically grateful, really.
Thom: "The people I know that do that enjoy the fact that sometimes it goes wrong anyway. They tend to talk to people about it. I mean, they really don't care at all. It's kind of like a hanging out thing.
[Live concert clip of Thom addressing the audience: “Now, you may have noticed that there are some cameras around... [crowd cheers] I don't know what they're doing here!”]
Ed: "It's purely representative of where he is and also where we are as a band. If you're relaxed, then you don't tend to bother... you're more open. You haven't got the defence. I mean, we have been, in the past, quite defensive because there have been a lot of things that we haven't necessarily felt comfortable with doing this. When you become a band and you release records, you get into it because you play music and then you decide to release records, and you enter that whole arena of promotion and marketing. Some of these things are not... they're not bad things, but they still some things that we haven't felt comfortable with. But now, only after 12 years of doing this, there's a kind of “Okay, this is what we do and if we want to get our record heard by people – which is ultimately what we want to do – these are the things that you have to do.”
Thom: "Rather than running scared a lot of the time, I'm kind of into using what I've got. Which is that camera there and that camera there, and you, and that light there, and the microphone when someone hands me it, and a drum machine, and these four other guys that I'm mates with. I'm really into just using it for my own evil purposes...
[Live concert clip of Thom introducing 'The Gloaming': The next song we'll do... there's a song called 'The Gloaming', and I dunno why I wrote the words I wrote, but afterwards I decided it was about the rise of the right, especially in Europe and America. Those loonies, man, you gotta bury them, gotta lock them in the cupboard again!”]
Thom: "Stuff in the world... talk about thing... the politics or whatever, I think the energy for that I try and focus in the music itself when we're doing it, because politics is quite a poisonous subject and extremely addictive and spirals out of control. It's only because of the music that we ended up creating, that I was able to explore those things. That, I felt, was the best place for this blind terror to end up. Someone gave me a tape a few years ago, which was an interview with John Coltrane (don't know why they gave me that) and it's really bizarre. It's an interview that was never actually printed, but it's cassette-tape. This guy's following him round after the show and they sort of get on, and John Coltrane actually opens up – which he didn't do a lot. And he's just saying “You know I got involved in the politics for a while and then I just decided to channel it down my horn because that was the best place for it to be, because everywhere else was ugly”, and that's basically how I feel. I get drawn into it, but how I feel about it is best left in the music, I think.
[Live 'Go To Sleep' clip]
Thom: "It's not mine! Nothing to do with us. [exaggerated cough]
Ed: "I was just passing the venue earlier and there were all these posters around, and no one's paying the blindest bit of notice to them!
Thom: "Releasing a record is an excuse to mess with people's heads, to me.
Ed: "It was one of those ideas that came from the studio after a few drinks and a few smokes. The drive from our studio into Oxford involves... there's always a lot of traffic at rush hour time and you always get those posters tied on with a bit of string to like... “£124,000! Do you want to earn it in one day?”
Thom: "I'm very fascinated by the idea of putting things in the wrong place. For us... [to himself] that's right... someone ran a story saying that they put them up all round L.A., and someone thought was we were doing was holding auditions for popstars! That Radiohead thought it was a really good idea to get... young blood. And they just so missed the point! It was brilliant!
Ed: "I guess it's... we hope that people might ring up this number if they notice it, but there so much of this stuff going on that I think we liked the idea of it sort of seeping in into the occasional Radiohead fan. We like that sort of attention to detail.
[Live '2+2=5' clip]
Thom: "I think it's true that becoming a dad is sort of... obviously it colours your perspective. I used to really hate people who just said that... bla bla bla... Used to really wind me up, but it's actually true. But it also... I mean, personally, from my heart, I believe that regardless of all this glitzy media nonsense, I basically think that we're entering a very, very dangerous phase. The West has decided it's in charge, and the West is now setting itself up – not for good intentions, not for the benefit of mankind, not for the future. The people in charge, globally, are maniacs. They are maniacs and they, unless we sort it out, are gonna deprive us of a future. And I know I'm paranoid and neurotic, I've made a career out of it, hurrah. But it's the truth. Having a child made me think “Oh, my God. In fifty years time, he might not have anything to live for at all.” Most people don't have the time to think about it. Those people who watch MTV don't think about it – they don't have time. I don't have time. Luckily, I'm paranoid and neurotic so I make the time.
[Live 'Paranoid Android' clip]
Thom: "'What's new from our shows?' Hey, what's new? Nothing – we're the same. We're desperately trying to be the same. We just keep missing...
[Live 'Go To Sleep' clip]
Phil: "I think we are better musicians now, so I think we seem a better band, really. I think we're groovy, you know?
Ed: "Yeah, we're definitely! We've got oil in our hips!
Phil: "Yeah... for old blokes?
Ed: "For old blokes! [chuckles]
[Live 'The National Anthem' clip]
Jonny: "Live shows are, obviously, more immediate by their nature, so even some of the songs that have maybe been a little bit veiled on the recordings, everything is quite clear and present in a live concert. That's why they're exciting, I suppose.
Phil: "Actually having that amount of material now – six albums worth of material and all the b-sides – I think that's affected our performance because you've got a lot to chose from, so you don't run that risk of getting bored.
[Live 'The Gloaming' clip]
Thom: "Good music is a joyful thing, no matter if it's slow or what some people call depressing, whatever. When it works, it's joyful. And I've sort of discovered that.
Ed: "The thing about us is that we don't... we're sort of contrary buggers in the sense that we don't do things unless we really want to do them. If it feels like it's some kind of... we're like this jukebox or whatever, then that's not us, that's not what we're about. So, as Phil was saying, we have this ability to now change our set a lot so it keeps us on our toes. It keeps us interested, and emotionally involves the music, which I think is something we've always had, and it's a very important part of what we do.
[Live 'Everything In Its Right Place' clip]
Jonny: "It's interesting how a lot of the songs were written having worked out how to play the previous two albums live and techniques we learned to play. Those studio recordings informed how we wrote these songs. So that's where a lot of the new instruments have come from.
Ed: "There are songs like 'Fake Plastic Trees' that suddenly... I mean, for a while a song like that... you know, you play it every night and then you... you know, on Kid A and Amnesiac we weren't playing it every night and it didn't quite feel... it felt like occasionally we were trotting out a greatest hit. But now there's a sort of resonance to it, and it's great because you revisit some of these songs, and sometimes they don't seem relevant and then nine years later they seem more relevant, if you like. There's relief as well. People... if anyone goes “weee!” for a song, that's great!
[Live 'Karma Police' clip of crowd singing along]
Thom: "[laughing] You think I have a responsibility to give the...? 'Me, I have a responsibility to give the fans a good time.' That just sounds kinky to me.
Jonny: "It is very strange when they come from so far away.
Colin: "We have friends from America who came over to England in the late seventies and saw people like Buzzcocks and Joy Division, Magazine and stuff like that. That kind of passion and curiosity following good music... if there's anyone who's into us in those kind of ways then I just think we'd be pathetically grateful, really.
Thom: "The people I know that do that enjoy the fact that sometimes it goes wrong anyway. They tend to talk to people about it. I mean, they really don't care at all. It's kind of like a hanging out thing.
[Live concert clip of Thom addressing the audience: “Now, you may have noticed that there are some cameras around... [crowd cheers] I don't know what they're doing here!”]
Ed: "It's purely representative of where he is and also where we are as a band. If you're relaxed, then you don't tend to bother... you're more open. You haven't got the defence. I mean, we have been, in the past, quite defensive because there have been a lot of things that we haven't necessarily felt comfortable with doing this. When you become a band and you release records, you get into it because you play music and then you decide to release records, and you enter that whole arena of promotion and marketing. Some of these things are not... they're not bad things, but they still some things that we haven't felt comfortable with. But now, only after 12 years of doing this, there's a kind of “Okay, this is what we do and if we want to get our record heard by people – which is ultimately what we want to do – these are the things that you have to do.”
Thom: "Rather than running scared a lot of the time, I'm kind of into using what I've got. Which is that camera there and that camera there, and you, and that light there, and the microphone when someone hands me it, and a drum machine, and these four other guys that I'm mates with. I'm really into just using it for my own evil purposes...
[Live concert clip of Thom introducing 'The Gloaming': The next song we'll do... there's a song called 'The Gloaming', and I dunno why I wrote the words I wrote, but afterwards I decided it was about the rise of the right, especially in Europe and America. Those loonies, man, you gotta bury them, gotta lock them in the cupboard again!”]
Thom: "Stuff in the world... talk about thing... the politics or whatever, I think the energy for that I try and focus in the music itself when we're doing it, because politics is quite a poisonous subject and extremely addictive and spirals out of control. It's only because of the music that we ended up creating, that I was able to explore those things. That, I felt, was the best place for this blind terror to end up. Someone gave me a tape a few years ago, which was an interview with John Coltrane (don't know why they gave me that) and it's really bizarre. It's an interview that was never actually printed, but it's cassette-tape. This guy's following him round after the show and they sort of get on, and John Coltrane actually opens up – which he didn't do a lot. And he's just saying “You know I got involved in the politics for a while and then I just decided to channel it down my horn because that was the best place for it to be, because everywhere else was ugly”, and that's basically how I feel. I get drawn into it, but how I feel about it is best left in the music, I think.
[Live 'Go To Sleep' clip]
Thom: "It's not mine! Nothing to do with us. [exaggerated cough]
Ed: "I was just passing the venue earlier and there were all these posters around, and no one's paying the blindest bit of notice to them!
Thom: "Releasing a record is an excuse to mess with people's heads, to me.
Ed: "It was one of those ideas that came from the studio after a few drinks and a few smokes. The drive from our studio into Oxford involves... there's always a lot of traffic at rush hour time and you always get those posters tied on with a bit of string to like... “£124,000! Do you want to earn it in one day?”
Thom: "I'm very fascinated by the idea of putting things in the wrong place. For us... [to himself] that's right... someone ran a story saying that they put them up all round L.A., and someone thought was we were doing was holding auditions for popstars! That Radiohead thought it was a really good idea to get... young blood. And they just so missed the point! It was brilliant!
Ed: "I guess it's... we hope that people might ring up this number if they notice it, but there so much of this stuff going on that I think we liked the idea of it sort of seeping in into the occasional Radiohead fan. We like that sort of attention to detail.
[Live '2+2=5' clip]
Thom: "I think it's true that becoming a dad is sort of... obviously it colours your perspective. I used to really hate people who just said that... bla bla bla... Used to really wind me up, but it's actually true. But it also... I mean, personally, from my heart, I believe that regardless of all this glitzy media nonsense, I basically think that we're entering a very, very dangerous phase. The West has decided it's in charge, and the West is now setting itself up – not for good intentions, not for the benefit of mankind, not for the future. The people in charge, globally, are maniacs. They are maniacs and they, unless we sort it out, are gonna deprive us of a future. And I know I'm paranoid and neurotic, I've made a career out of it, hurrah. But it's the truth. Having a child made me think “Oh, my God. In fifty years time, he might not have anything to live for at all.” Most people don't have the time to think about it. Those people who watch MTV don't think about it – they don't have time. I don't have time. Luckily, I'm paranoid and neurotic so I make the time.
[Live 'Paranoid Android' clip]