[recording starts here]

Bob Boilen: "It’s always interesting to hear what they gravitate towards and find in the music they love, the common thread that makes its way into the music they create. Today we have one of our favorite musicians, Thom Yorke, the singer, and songwriter, and guitar player and electronic musician, with Radiohead. We’ll talk about the music on Radiohead’s recent CD In Rainbows, and his 2006 solo cd The Eraser. Thom Yorke gave us a list of some of his favorite musicians, and that’s where we begin.

Bob: "Where do you, Thom Yorke, find your music?

Thom: "Where in the house or...

Bob: "Well, Yeah, where in the house do you keep...

Thom: "It’s locked in a safe actually...

Bob: "Where do you hear new stuff from?

Thom: "Mostly these days inside the swap-round from members of the band. Because we all have our little... niches is not quite the right word, but we all have our particular tastes, that are always very different. I spend a lot of time now downloading stuff because there are not a lot of shops really in my area that are selling the stuff I want to hear. So I use a website called boomcat a lot and... you know... various others... bleep... I even sometimes have to go to the I-tunes.

Bob: "Do you miss that? I mean did you do that when you were a kid... go to record shops and maybe have a friend or a person behind the counter that would help you out... and help you find stuff?

Thom: "Yeah, I miss it a lot, I think... I mean I’m fairly ignorant of how it is in the US, but it strikes me that my experiences in the US is much more positive in terms of independent shops than over here.

Bob: "I think it’s the luck of the draw... and I think that is true of radio too...

Thom: "Yeah

Bob: "Which is... in certain cities... great radio...

Thom: "Yeah...

Bob: "Other cities... other places... forget it... there’s just not a way in the world you’re gonna find good tunes...

Thom: "Yeah, it’s hit and miss here. The shops that I love going to go under fairly quickly. I mean it’s um... It’s also taste... there’s a big shop that sells lots of house music... but I just can’t go in there, it drives me crazy, you know... They have a little tiny little electronica section in the corner. I just can’t do it anymore. I used to do it. I used to face them down and go in, but. It’s just not worth it now.

Bob: "Pick me something that, let’s say in the last handful of years, that has really knocked you out.

Thom: "Okay, well... um... Where would I start. I’d start probably with um, with the Liars, actually. Drums Not Dead... the album Drums Not Dead. I had been listening to them since their first record. And I’m struggling to remember what the first record was called now, but um, I think they were based in New York originally... but when they made this record, which was, what, 2 Yeahrs ago now? They moved to Berlin um and it’s like all over the record in the most extraordinary way. Uh, they’re essentially, well they started out as a, I hate the term Art Rock, but that’s kind of, if you want to do it briefly, that’s what it was. Um and then by the time they made Drums Not Dead, they seemed to basically be... they’re obviously going out clubbing all the time. But they were still using their instruments too, just creating this nightmare industrial music but using you know quite soft and sensitive sounds, and lots of drums, surprisingly enough. Its as much about the way the record’s put together for me, I don’t know how on earth they arrived at the thing they did, basically, after listening to it endlessly in my car. I still haven’t got it worked out. Which is, you know, sometimes for me I enjoy records just for that... where as the rest of my family will be looking at me very puzzled while I play it.

Bob: "I want to play a little for people who haven’t heard Liars... the record is Drums Not Dead... do you have a favorite cut that I should play?

Thom: "(deep breath)... OH...um... if I had a pair of headphones, I could... 'cause like ...It’s that classic thing... where I can’t remember which um...

Bob: "Let’s skip through it real quick for you like it was you...

Thom: "Okay Great

Bob: "And you can tell me... well that’s the one... and then we’ll...

Thom: "You mean you can actually play it?

Bob: "Yeah, Yeah...

Thom: "Okay great... that’s a pretty good one, no next one... that’s the first one isn’t it... Laughs... well, that would scare them... no... that’s designed just to frighten people I think... Yeah, that one’s designed to frighten people as well... um this one is very beautiful, there’s probably an easy way in... Drums Get a Glimpse... that is, isn’t it? Was that?...

Bob: "We’re fast forwarding a little... just...

Thom: "Oh okay... so we... Now this is... Is that track five?

Bob: "Yeah that was five, you wanna do that?

Thom: "Uh, no this is track six now isn’t it?

Bob: "Yeah

Thom: "Let’s have a listen to this one a second... Yeah, okay... that one... The Wrong Coat for You Mount Heart Attack... He’s very lovely...

(Song Plays)

Bob: "Do you think they created that music at that tempo or do you think it’s all slowed down later?

Thom: "No no I think they uh... I would put my money on them having worked in layers. It’s that really odd thing where you start the gray area between sequencing and performing a track where you’re cutting and pasting things. Uh but because if you use live sounds, you can duplicate and copy and loop without really knowing where it stops and starts. Where it’s repeating, where it isn’t. And that’s one of the crazy things about it... the record. No, I think, um, it sounds like it slowed down, but that’s just probably because they were working in the middle of the night (laugh). If you know what I’m saying.

Bob: "Yes, indeed. So talk about that gray area, because you’ve lived in that gray area, I assume in writing music, Yeah?

Thom: "Yeah, absolutely... It’s uh. It’s...

Bob: "Explain to people what happens...

Thom: "Well, I mean now-a-days, you know, everybody has access to things like Garage Band and stuff. When you discover for the first time that you can create new music out of sections of what you’ve done... you know... if you, if you improvise, say for 5 minutes, over something, and they you take a pattern of it, you know... and it falls in a strange place... and ... blah, blah, blah, you start to think in different ways. And the downside of it is you can get incredibly lazy. You can be. . (host laughs), no I mean, it’s an absolute curse, you know...it’s a constant sort of, um, dilemma for for the band really. Because it sucks certain things away that you can... oh... well you, we can tie this up, we can cut this here, we can put this here... But if you if you’re not approaching it in a lady fashion... if you’re approaching it as um a sort of strict concept as part of, you know, part of the writing process, as the Liars are obviously doing on this record. You can end up with something really crazy, really original. Because you’re open to it... you know? Well, well, what excites me about it is the fact that you’re never really sure what is what, you know?

Bob: "I’ve been an electronic musician for a long time...

Thom: "Yeah...

Bob: "And the beauty I find in the selection there and the stuff that you do is that my image... at least I imagine that the person who started making this music had no idea where they were going to wind up...

Thom: "Absolutely

Bob: "And so when you as a listener take it in, you’re on the journey, as they were on the journey. And that’s, to me, the exciting part.

Thom: "Yeah, well this is, this is what, um, Nigel, who we work with...um the producer

Bob: "Nigel Godrich.

Thom: "Yeah... his thing is always... is... is... speed.

Bob: "What do you mean?

Thom: "If you drag to a halt, if you’re sitting there as happens occasionally, well more than occasionally, you spend hours uh cutting and chopping and blah, blah, blah, it’s very dull, you know. Whereas... It is! And things grind to a halt and the energy of the piece that you’re working on is dead, you know. And he’s really good at basically stopping that from happening um, and keeping things moving. Because, essentially... like any creative process, you can get sucked into it, um and you’re ceasing to be, as you said, opening to what’s happening, cease to be prepared to be surprised or whatever. You know?

Bob: "So, there’s lots of rat holes to go down...and you don’t want to go down.

Thom: "Um, I’m... of all of us I’m the absolute worst at that.

Bob: "Pick me another cut from your list.

Thom: "Uh... well. Predictably enough, if you know anything about me, I would choose Modeselektor. Uh, 'cause I’m still unhealthfully obsessed by the “two German guys”... crazy guys from Berlin who, um, Yeah. Uh... um I would choose, um... the album Hello Mom! And a track called Kill Bill Vol. 4 because it’s the most full on club track... complete with guys talking in the toilets beforehand... laughs... it is just... it is... you know...

Bob: "Okay, let’s listen to this... It’s Modeselektor... it’s a band, they’re from Germany, and then we’ll come back and we’ll talk to Thom Yorke.

(Modeselektor plays)

Bob: "Do you get to go out to clubs?

Thom: "Um, no... laughs...

Bob: "Is it over? You must have some...

Thom: "It’s all over man... It’s all over...

Bob: "That’s a shame...

Thom: "In my head I’m still going to clubs!

Bob: "Can you put on a wig or something...

Thom: "Yeah... Uh... Yeah...hang on... anyway... um Yeah, That... I like that because it’s so dumb! It’s fantastically, fantastically dumb... but actually, it’s not... Um... And it sounds wicked on my speakers at home... really loud...

Bob: "When you say it’s dumb... just make sure we get the... it’s dumb because they have people talking in the bathroom and it’s really funny? And there’s humor and yet you love the beat... is that kinda what you...?

Thom: "Dumb as in, you know the music is just like... this is pure, like..., let’s create something that’s coming out the speakers that makes us want to do what we want to do. And that’s it. They’re not thinking about it’s just like that. It’s what it is. You know... I mean the nasty square waves in there... it’s great...

Bob: "Really rips up... Have you ever ripped up speakers trying to do that kind of music?

Thom: "No... actually... in college I used to do that... but that was a long time ago...he says, trying not to sound depressed... oh well... someone take me out!

Bob: "You spent some time doing a record in 2006 of your own, you used a lot of electronics.

Thom: "Yeah

Bob: "What sort of stuff do you work with? I mean I’ll get a little geeky... You can talk either about the kind of gear you do or even just the sound you were after. You’re obviously in love with the club and the dancey sound and you have a penchant for some sort of pulse...

Thom: "Um... Yeah... whew... I’m trying to... it was a very um... securitious route... that particular record. Because it was things that’d been kicking around... um... virtually everything generated inside a laptop, uh, as I was traveling around, and so on. And then uh, there’s almost no hardware at all... apart from a few bits of bass and guitar and drums... but um... I think um... it was as much to me as um,... there’s an old Aphex Twin always... well. I won’t say always talks about... but I heard from a couple people, uh, his big thing is, you know, when you get a new piece of gear, you know... that’s your writing period... you know... I mean, when you’re getting your head round it. That’s when you create the stuff... it’s actually the same as if you get a new guitar or a new piano, a new instrument. There’s this amazing period where you’re scrabbling around... you’re not quite sure what’s going on and everything is basically, you know, tripping you out... For me that was the main inspiration on doing The Eraser thing. It was just finding my way around all this stuff... that you know... I was coming to pretty cold I was having to learn pretty fast quite a lot of it. 'cause I didn’t actually... I think I only really started throwing myself into learning about sequences in 2000 before that I’d never really gone anywhere near them. In terms of inspiration, I don’t know.I was... it was doing it for me in a way, you know. A lot of it was fragments that where then assembled. Bits and pieces and random stuff that I would just knock off if I couldn’t sleep in the middle of night... and then somewhere within the midst of that there would be 4 bars and I’d be like... oo. Hello, what’s this?... you know so it was very, very, cut paste, random collage all over the shop, and that’s the interesting thing about. I mean I’ve been working on stuff recently, um... and . it’s...not

Bob: "When you say working on stuff, you mean working... sort of...

Thom: "Just a

Bob: "... back to that same sort of...

Thom: "on my...

Bob: "set up as you did for the solo record...

Thom: "Yeah... just um scratching around starting things up you know and um it’s a completely different mindset. I just thought I’d just throw myself straight back into it but I think a lot of it is down to the excitement of having a new piece of gear, you know?

Bob: "It’s kid of like in a way, it’s like if you get a new guitar you’re kind of collaborating with the luthier, the person who made your instrument. For me when I get new gear that’s electronic, I always feel like I’m kind of collaborating with the engineers, the designers who made these amazing things that you can, for example, move an object around and the pitch might change, you know... Whatever it is... you know... and it isn’t so much a solo, lonely thing... did you ever get that feeling?

Thom: "Yeah, well, I mean the new sort of if you’re talking about the collaboration the new thing for us that’s exciting us is we just got a load of these things called lemurs which are like computer um assignable controller things you know but it’s all on a flat screen and you can do what you want with it. It’s like a

Bob: "So anything can make anything else happen...

Thom: "Yeah, it’s wild man. I mean for us... for the rest of the band, um and Nigel... the downer has always been whenever we delve into the computer effects and stuff it’s a very one man process and it’s all click mouse la la la... and it’s very dull. But suddenly you have the potential to create brand new instruments with different patches that you’ve built, um, suddenly there is a physical manifestation of a bunch of stuff that’s actually been really difficult to, interact with, you know.

Bob: "Well, let me play a little bit this cut. This is your cut, it’s skip divided... and uh this is the ... it’s a Modeselektor re-mix... Let’s give a listen to that and we’ll come back...

(Plays Skip Divided)

Bob: "Laughs... They did a great job... How’d they go about doing that? Did they approach you, did you take...

Thom: "I Um no I sent the elements through... uh, that track gets progressively more strange... it starts out fairly normal like that and it just gets more alarming...

Bob: "Well we’ll put that all on line for people to hear.

Thom: "We did a few remixes actually, we did one with burial... I did one... I sent one to him... there was one from fortet as well... It was really kind of ... it was quite a fun thing to do really.

Bob: "And this was a remix ep that people can get like through I tunes and stuff.

Thom: "There’s a few, Yeah... in fact that was downloadable off of boomcat but I think they’re making physical copies of it now.

Bob: "You’ve pick up a bunch of... a couple things now that have been instrumental, uh... do you have people who you like hearing their words as well as their music?

Thom: "(laughs)... good point!...Well there ... there were some words in that Liars one... no, if you want to talk about words... I would say the most inspirational wordsmith for me at the moment, bizarrely, is uh Madvillain... um... The guy’s a genius... um...

Bob: "These are two folks right... these are MF Doom.

Thom: "Ya MF Doom is, is your rhymes and MadLib is mostly the beats and stuff... The album’s called MadVillainy. I’m a big fan of MadLib anyway, but um... the combination of his lo/fi beats and Madvillains random semi nonsense, but not...like... what I love about MadLib... MadVillain is he’s just on the edge of the free styling thing all the time. And he is just coming from right the back of your head. I’ve got a poet friend of mine called Jamie um... McKendrick in Oxford. Most of the time he doesn’t really write lyrics and stuff... and he’s you gotta listen to this guy. I say, it’s like Bob Dylan but without any folk... no folk... no... none of that... it’s like the last 50 Yeahrs hasn’t happened.

Bob: "It’s almost like Dada in some ways... because anything can happen...

Thom: "Yeah, absolutely, I mean, it just takes a lot of courage to like knock out these rhymes the way he does I think.

Bob: "Pick out something 'cause there’s a lot on... there’s a lot of cuts on this record.

Thom: "God man, Yeah, you can start with Accordion, actually... track 2... let’s try that... let’s listen to that for a minute.

(Plays...)

Bob: "Hey Thom can we pick yet another cut 'cause there’s lots of... there’s so many different styles ...

Thom: "Yes... that’s the kind of a bit though... I love that one but it’s a bit of a downer... try Meat Grinder... the next one?

(Plays...)

Bob: "That’s Frank Zappa... (still playing)

Thom: "Huh?

Bob: "It’s Frank Zappa playing in the background...

Thom: "Is it Zappa? I mean I dunno nothing about Zappa.

Bob: "Yeah, Yeah, that’s who it is...

Thom: "How funny...

(Plays...)

Thom: "Oh Yeah... Yeah this one... this one’s so cool... Which one’s this? This is still 3 isn’t it? Or have we moved on to Bistro now?

Bob: "It’s still three.

Thom: "Yeah...

Bob: "This is Meat Grinder...

Thom: "This is the one... use this one...

Bob: "Let’s shut up and we’ll give em a listen.

Thom: "Okay.

Bob: "Good

(Plays...)

Thom: "laughs

Interviewer: laughs...

Thom: "See?

Bob: "Wow, how’d they get the Hawaiian stuff in there.

Thom: "They just do!

Bob: "Yeah, they do... I don’t’ know if you know who Jack Lalaine is by any chance...

Thom: "Ut uh...

Bob: "He’s this guy who had an exercise show on television in the 50’s and 60’s here in America and he was just... I mean the guy always looked like he was about 27 Yeahrs old, even when he was like 77... he was a real character and just a reference to what went on in that song could come from every single place... including...

Thom: "Yes, my favorite one is Auchtung! Did you hear that in the middle? Genius!

Bob: "So I don’t know how someone like that comes up with writing words. Do you think it just...

Thom: "I think he smokes draw...

Bob: "How do you come up with writing words?

Thom: "Unfortunately not the same way... Laughs

Bob: "So I love hearing what you have to say... it doesn’t through for me in the first ten times I hear your stuff. Sometimes it’s a Yeahr later that I finally get all the words that you say... Do you like that that happens to people... they don’t get it right away... or that they might make up things that they think might be what you are saying?

Thom: "I um...

Bob: "Do you care...

Thom: "I no, uh... it surprises me... um I think I think probably if you ask most musicians they’re surprised/dumfounded when it’s not obvious first time round when you play it for someone. I mean I have that trouble with the band some times... like, you know... Everything In Its Right Place was the absolute classic example of that.

Bob: "How so...

Thom: "Well, it has an extra beat in it... which I didn’t even realize... And Johnny’s like... It doesn’t cycle normally... it doesn’t cycle right... I’m like... What? I had the same thing with Videotape where I didn’t realize that I had moved the one two beats earlier than it should be... soo... that wasn’t...

Bob: "So you’re writing words and they’re trying to make up sort of line things up into some 16 bar or whatever... and it’s...

Thom: "Well they’re just... ya, they’re just trying to ... it’s just a bit of a brain mesh so it takes a bit of time... But, but you know it’s a genuine shock to me that, Oh... it’s not blindingly obvious... 'cause it’s blindingly obvious to the person who writes it, I think... always.

Bob: "Now you’re talking about the content, of the lyrics as opposed to the rhythm of it...

Thom: "No... well... um... well it’s all kinda the same thing, um, to me... I mean lyrics obviously is a different thing because of the nature of if your words are any good then what you’re, what you’re trying to get across is um always going to be. Meaning in the normal sense of the word is not exactly what you’re trying to do. I mean, I think off the top of my head a song like Reckoner for example. I’m singing those words because I have to sing those words. Uh it was necessary for me to sing those words with that melody at that time... Much like it’s necessary, you know... to uh... have toast in the morning... or whatever. That’s what has to happen. And the words make you feel good or they make you feel better or whatever. They’re there to fulfill something, some need in you, you know. But increasingly I fall into bad habits where I then worry about you know meaning afterwards or whatever... which... 'cause you’re writing songs...you kinda think well, maybe I should worry about that. But actually I think it’s a deeply unhealthy thing to you know... it’s sort of ah...

Bob: "Why is it unhealthy? Because the people aren’t going to get the meaning of it anyway or it’s too... or it ruins it if you’re too self conscious...

Thom: "It reduces, Yeah, it can reduce it... You reduce the initial energy...your initial response to things because initial responses are always best in this particular case... laugh...

Bob: "Now your set of words right there confused the hell out of me...

Thom: "Oh good... Therein I’ve illustrated my point completely. Inaudible.

Bob: "So, if I take a song... like Nude. There’s a line about painting yourself white I think...

Thom: "Yep

Bob: "Filling in the noise... it’s a beautiful image... should I just leave it as that image... to whatever my image is... or... or... care about what you thought it was...

Thom: "Well that’s a classic example of um... that was the first thing I wrote and tried for a very long time to change it to something in quotes “better” um and “in quotes better” was because well I mean you look at it on paper and it’s like we what the hell is that? You know... and you could say the same thing about Neil Young, for example. Uh a lot of the time... his best work... my favorite lyrics... I’m sorry not his best, my favorite lyrics of his are um the ones that are obviously off the cuff. You know they just come straight out... I think one of the things I love about um what’s that song Ambulances? It’s just a series of stanzas that seeming unreleating... in fact he evens starts talking about the fact that there’s no meaning to the song half way through it. But the set of images add the set of lyrics add up to an emotion that you can’t put your finger on but it leaves you sort of better off at the end of it. And that to me is the idea. I mean we only print lyrics I think on records because um, my pronunciation is not very good and actually I’d like people to understand sometimes... Sometimes it’s kinda like,... um... no, that’s not right...you got that wrong... you know... when you go on um unofficial sites and they’re trying to transcribe things that aren’t typed out yet or whatever. So you kind of... actually, you want to make it vaguely clear. 'cause otherwise what do you do?

Bob: "You wind up singing these songs, something that you scribbled on paper that felt good one night and now you’re singing em you know four Yeahrs later... to a crowd of a whole lot of people. When you sing these songs, when you’re doing these things live, do the resonate again? Can they, can they fall flat for you? How does that work?

Thom: "Well the most disconcerting piece of the whole process is like when you finish the record and you have to listen to it afterwards for whatever reason. And all the way through the creative process till the mastering and so on, you’ve never heard the holes, you’ve never heard the weaknesses. And then when it’s done, that’s all you can hear... And it’s horrible. So...

Bob: "The weaknesses is all you can hear...

Thom: "Yeah... I guess it’s like filmmakers when they finish a film they can’t watch it, you know.

Bob: "What about distance? What about time?

Thom: "Yeah, Yeah, that’s the point. The point is, the only way to heal that is to move on to something else. Which is, you know, sort of what we’re trying to do in various ways at the moment before we go out. Because that’s the only way to see it for what it is. 'cause by that point it’s everybody else’s, its not yours, and you can’t understand what the hell you’ve been doing for the last three Yeahrs anyway. Um, you know... But you know when you got back to the older stuff, it makes sense. So, it’s just one of those things. And the point for us when you gout out live, it’s it’s um... you get back to, on a good night, you get back to the point where the initial energy was for writing the toon in the first place. You know and I think especially for someone like Johnny, it’s really vital to him creatively to have that. 'cause it keeps him reminded of the point of it, you know?

Bob: "Let’s play Nude for folks... It’s the waltz number from your record...

Thom: "Laughs... We’re talking to this guy, um we’re talking to a guy... Diplo? Um, Yeah, he’s worked with MIA stuff and and, he’s currently... poor chap, he’s currently trying to do a remix of it... and I sent him an e-mail saying, “and the main thing is you got... is to keep it in sync same? And he’s like Yeah, I’m down with that, man... laughs... and keep it okey dokey... I can’t wait to hear it... Anyway... this is the original...

(Nude Plays)

Bob: "Whew... the waltz from In Rainbows. It’s really a good song, you should be so proud of that tune.

Thom: "Yeah, I like that tune... I still like that tune.

Bob: "Did you remix them for the... I mean I got that one when I bought it from for the... whenever it was in November, no in October. When it’s a CD now is it mixed again?

Thom: "No it’s just um... it’s just the full... you know... it’s the... it’s the full monty.

Bob: "It wasn’t that particular cut, there were other cuts that sounded different to me.

Thom: "It’s just the strength of the, it’s just that weird thing, where uh... The MP3 thing was um... I think, uh... we wanted to make sure that people could get it so it wasn’t the biggest um...

Bob: "Couple of bits held out...

Thom: "Laughs... No! No! No man! It just got reduced a bit um, which 'cause we didn’t want it to take ages to download and stuff... Not the least of which because it would have blown our server apart.

Bob: "Well... It totally worked out so... so glad you did it. Take us out on a cut ... one more?

Thom: "Oh Yeah, okay... What else we got on...

Bob: "Autechre?

Thom: "OH Yeah... Oh god, man it’s LP 5 isn’t it?

Bob: "You want us to skip through it?

Thom: "No, no... uh... Yeah... please is that alright?

Bob: "Sure...

Thom: "Next... Actually... have a listen to this one... I can hear them turning off in droves... Laughs... Gets going in a minute... Skip...

Thom: "No... this is a good one though... it’s a good one actually... Hang on hang on hang on... no skip to the next one... it is a bit of a long intro...That one, see we’re on 2 now aren’t we? Yes, didn’t you hear him nod? Yeah,... No... Uh next... there you go, what’s that one? 3?

Bob: "This is called Rae... r-a-e?

Thom: "Oh, okay...

Bob: "We can keep going info you want?

Thom: "Yeah... fold for rap 5 is next, isn’t it? Is that right? No... no this one’s pants...next... Oh Yeah that one... This sounds great... That’s great that one... That’s a good way to end... ...Yeah... what’s that called that one?

Bob: "Uh... It’s VOSE IN... I donno how you say it.

Thom: "Of course it is! (laughs) Alright... have you heard the new ... It’s mental...

Bob: "Do you know how to say it?

Thom: "No, there isn’t a way to say it. I think they put their elbows on the keyboard.

Bob: "Thanks for doing this today...

Thom: "Thanks, it was a pleasure actually. I haven‘t done any talking for a while... it’s nice.

Bob: "Thom Yorke speaking to us from the BBC Studios in Oxford.

[recording ends]