My Life in Radiohead: Bassist Colin Greenwood on His New Book, the Band's Future and Much More
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I'm Brian Hyatt. This is Rolling Stone Music Now. Today, I'm bringing you an interview with Colin Greenwood, Radiohead's bass player. Colin has a beautiful new book out called How to Disappear, a photographic portrait of Radiohead.

In addition to being a killer musician and a very charming human being, it turns out he's a gifted photographer who's been snapping pictures of his bandmates for years. Colin and I talked about his book, his years in Radiohead, his side work on tour with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the future of his band, and much more. Here's that interview. ♪

I was really struck by the beauty of these photos in the book, the lyricism of the passages you wrote around them, and an overarching sense of something that I don't always get from sort of memoirs and images taken by people in bands, which is that you've loved being in Radiohead. That was really one thing I took away. There wasn't enough, like, embittered school settling for you. Exactly. Exactly.

I'm saving that for the next volume. When you look at the photographs, you know, and I was writing whilst I was looking at them, I suppose, you know, they don't lie. On the whole, it was a very intense and rewarding experience. And we've all known each other since we were kids. So I don't think there's any kind of question of historic, um,

enmities or scores to settle or anything like that because we all know each other too well maybe I could have made something up about terrible sort of selfishness of sharing a room with Ed O'Brien in the early days what struck me about doing the book was that really the photographs

sort of made more started when we set up our own recording studio which kind of makes sense so when we were like more sort of itinerant before um i didn't wasn't taking so many pictures because it felt less centered i suppose so that's why we were up and running in the studio around 2002

Two? And then the pictures start from around there, 2003. So that makes sense. Yeah, it's kind of a sort of gentle romp through the middle years of Radiohead. Well, there's that line in the movie Lady Bird where they say that paying close attention to something is akin to love. Yeah, devotion. Yeah.

The reason I take those pictures is because there's something happening that I was loving or happy or excited about or devoted to. Definitely, I wasn't like documenting any kind of conflict or strife, you know. So there's another, there could be another set of photos. That's what you're saying, but you didn't take them. Well, we'd have like meetings where we discuss things heatedly about what we were doing, what we weren't doing, what we might do next or whatever.

But I wouldn't be taking pictures for that. They're just more like scheduling and working and making decisions. So they wouldn't be that interesting, really. Just a bunch of like middle-aged blokes sitting around an old pine table, you know. So it's much more fun to see everyone like in there making things, I think. Absolutely. Do you develop your own pictures? Yeah, I've got my little darkroom. Most of the photographs in the book are professionally developed by professionals. I've got a little darkroom in an old kitchen in my house that I...

haven't been into for ages but it's enormous fun to mix the chemicals and be hands-on it's like analog isn't it's like records it's like as opposed to streaming you get to like get your hands dirty I did a little bit of that myself in my life and there's something very soothing about a dark room on multiple levels yes it's something you can you can listen to podcasts and music and

And it works with your brain. It's not distracting, you know. Like some forms of exercise, you can't really... I can't listen to music or podcasts. But you can multitask in the darkroom, can't you? It's really lovely. You are currently on tour with Nick Cave. Just finished 33 shows, two months. Now, I did want to ask, at Paris, did you have any awareness that Bob Dylan might have been there? No, Nick was saying that Bob wanted to...

have a cuppa with Nick in Antwerp when we were in Antwerp but it didn't work out on the schedule I don't think I read that tweet so I presume Bob Dylan was at the show which was amazing I'm gutted that I missed him you know what it's like when you're on tour and

Don't get to see people because you're away and everything. Bob Dylan just finished his tour over here last week when we were away. I mean, I love that. Well, they're both amazing storytellers and deal in big stories about love, loss and salvation. It's amazing. Bob is more active on Twitter than, you know,

Tom. Yeah. At least, you know, Bob Dylan has seen you play bass, which is nice. Yeah, that is amazing. He's seen me make a mistake in one song. That's all I can think about that's been recorded. But I must stop going on about it because it sounds really silly and obsessive. But yeah, just think about that. Isn't that incredible that Bob Dylan was at a show that I played at? Maybe. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You

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So what are your plans for the rest of the year? If you're done with it. Oh, well, my plans are to rest up at home in Oxford and practice some music and maybe go back to the dark room, deal with the piles of mail and magazine subscriptions that have threatened to stop me from getting into my house. That's kind of it, really. Nothing very exciting. Do you know, is next year...

A blank for you? No, there are some promising things on the horizon that I frustratingly can't mention right now, except in a tantalizingly teasing way. I'm desperate to share with you, but I can't. Well, it is the 30th anniversary of the Benz next year, and there are rumors of a box set to accompany that. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. That's cool.

I mean, I kind of might have known it, but you know, I'm sure they got told. So that's not, are you being, are you being elusive or you genuinely were not focused on? No, I've been so focused on Nick Cave and the Bad Seas for the last two months, I

I don't know what plans are afoot in Radiohead land. So that's very exciting. I love the bends. Yes, good and strong album. It was kind of overlooked when it came out in America because people had written us off as like one hit wonders with Pablo Honey with Creep on it. So a number of music journalists had the same conversation when OK Computer came out. They were like, well, you know, we jumped on it because...

The Capitol sent everyone a copy of the bands and people didn't really listen to it. And it became this sort of word of mouth sleeper hit. So when OK Compute came out, everyone was like, I'm not going to do that again and checked it out straight away. The pictures of Johnny in the book, as you say, he's the only member of the band who delighted perhaps in being photographed by you. He's incorrigible. Yeah.

It didn't make me think, you know, it's funny. I don't know much about your home lives growing up. What can you share about just, you know, the two of you became great musicians. What was the atmosphere in the house that might've led to that or not led to that, that you were pushing against? How did that all come to be? Well, I just guess it was before the internet. So you made your own entertainment really. And

Early days in computer games, though. So we had a ZX Spectrum. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's like an early computer. An obscure one in the US, but yes, I had the Apple II around that time, probably. In England, that would be like having the BBC Model B. That would be, like, seriously impressive. So, yeah, we just would sort of play the occasional video game, and we practiced and played lots of music. My brother taught himself how to play guitar. He was playing viola.

at school and I was having classical guitar lessons and then listened to a lot of Joy Division magazine post-punk soul R&B Otis Redding and everything in between really yeah just a lot of sort of

listening to music and rehearsing endlessly in village halls with the band. That's before social media. God, imagine if we'd like started up during social media. You'd never get anything done. But what little you had done would be everywhere. And how did your mom feel about all this? She used to say, at least it keeps you off the street.

Which I love the idea that she thought that if we weren't like practicing being in a band after school, we'd be like busy at railway stations, like selling drugs or like stealing cars. But my favorite thing, she used to call our music, bompty bump music. And then she didn't, and that as in rock and roll. And then, you know, when we started doing sorts of more electronic stuff,

She used to call it, I can't remember, like blippity-block or something, blippity-block. But actually, I mean, I'm not trying to tell you your job now, but that's actually quite an accurate sort of description of the creative arc of Radiohead from bompity-bomp to blippity-block. Do you know what I mean? It's brilliant. You nailed it. Yeah.

Bompity-bomp to blippity-blop. And then a sort of... But she sort of missed out on the sort of nuances of the fusion of traditional music with electronic sounds and stuff like that. You know, I want to actually call that bompity-blop or something or blippity-bomp. She's actually very supportive in her own way. She gave me the money to buy my first guitar. And yeah, bless her, bless her. And yeah, classically...

as with seemingly all bass players it wasn't the instrument you imagined yourself playing no that's right guitar but you you ended up on bass because that was what was needed that's right because ed o ed o'brien had already bought a guitar and he was going to play guitar and as i say that i think i really dodged a bullet on that one playing guitar in the same band as like my brother and tom and ed i think it would have been a hiding to nothing so um i

I think it weirdly suits my personality as well, which is kind of, I like to think, sort of empathetic and supportive. Were Johnny's sort of wildly eclectic, broad musical tastes evident early on, or was that something that evolved? Was he listening to dissonant classical music in his room as a teenager, or did that sort of all come...? He didn't just listen to anything. I mean, his first record was...

It was Cool for Cats by Squeeze on pink vinyl that my mother threw away because she thought it was obscene. Seven inch pink vinyl. But he'd listen to anything. And I think he learned guitar by the Pixies and Lou Reed's album New York. Then he was in the Thamesville Youth Orchestra playing the viola, which I always forget because I don't know how many times he went. So, you know, he's one of these people who can just pick anything up and make something cool out of it. And, um...

I think he did that. But then I think he did music at school. I didn't do music at school. And I think that gave him a different...

tributaries to explore that I wasn't aware of. Were you competitive at all as a musician? No, not really because he's so amazing that I didn't feel I'm so proud of him. There was no sibling rivalry. I sometimes think he wasn't a great birthday gift giver, but he did buy me The Queen is Dead by the Smiths on vinyl for my birthday. Well, it must have been '84. He was very thoughtful and kind.

If I had to design a set of influences for a bass player, I don't know that I could do better than the fact that you were listening to Otis Redding records and Peter Hooks playing. The way a producer would want you to play bass, I mean, there are other ways of playing, but as far as being the glue, as you were told while you were recording Creep. You are the glue. Yes. Paul Q. Calderi. And that is apparently what you were told recording Creep, that

That you are the glue. You are the glue. And it's interesting. You are the glue on that song. Your bass playing is very prominent. Yeah. It does really groove. It's not really something you think about maybe listening to that record because you're so distracted by the, what did your mom call it? The... Bompity Bomp. Yeah, by the Bompity Bomp. That was definitely our Bompity Bomp period, not our Blippity Blop. Yeah, we recorded it in Chipping Norton Recording Studios, which is the home of...

The Blues Horizon folk label with, what was his name? Richard Vernon. And it's in the countryside in the Cotswolds, which is like, you know, it's where all the sort of rich people now live in the Cotswolds. We recorded it in, I don't know, with Paul and Sean. You know, they came from Fort Apache in Massachusetts. Jerry Rafferty's Baker Street was recorded there as well. I always remember the engineer who was a lovely guy called Barry.

He liked my brother because my brother played viola and recorder and things. And he thought my brother was a tasteful musician. And then one morning, my brother came downstairs to the control room to the studio for work wearing a fall T-shirt. And that did not go down well because they'd done a session that had been quite disruptive, punctuated by barrels of beer because there's a lot of beer made in the Cotswolds.

and barry had watched marquis smith sing with lyrics written on the back of a fag packet on his back in the studio lying on the floor i guess inebriated that was quite funny but it was great it was really yes that's what i remember of that and i remember they left the guitar amps like they're very keen on leaving the guitar amps on all night so you've got that cooking sound and the

And yeah, they were great, those two. They met at Yale together. They were at college at Yale. They used to hang speakers out of the boxes of the quads out of their windows and listen to loads of Roxy music and stuff. The classic 90s thing would have been to realize as soon as you recorded that song that it was a potential hit and be scared of it. But I'm not sure that that happened. Well, we didn't realize, did we? So it was realized by other people.

I think if we'd realized it was going to be so successful, we'd have probably screwed it up or self-sabotaged like we have done before, since rather. Your writing in the book reminded me of an interesting thing about the early years, which is that you mostly rehearsed. It wasn't like an American bar band or something. That's right. You played and played and played, but not to audiences. And I was thinking about how much that must have really shaped

to this day, maybe even the core of the band that it's this, it's, it's more about playing to each other in some way. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. There wasn't much performance going on. So it wasn't until we signed a deal, really, that we ever played anywhere outside Oxford. So we had this vision of America where all these bands who played in America were fabulously honed because they spent years on this incredible club circuit, refining their skills. And we were just a bunch of schoolboy, art school chancers who were drying our hands in that English semi-professional way.

That's why we were so keen and desperate to get to America. And we had such a cushy first ride because we had that hit with that song Cree, which meant that we could...

have a tour bus. So we never toured America with a van. Isn't that crazy? We played all these clubs and they were all selling out because of the success of Creep. So we were doing our first ever club tour of America in a bus with beds and driving up to these venues which had people queuing around the block to come and see us. And at the same time, you know, every record in some way was like a drama, a struggle, you know, and with the Benz

The next album, the struggle and drama was, geez, like we had this, we had this song. It's, it overwhelmed everything. How do we proceed? Are we going to be perceived as, as a one hit wonder? All of that. And probably many other things hovered over that album. Is that where the,

drama and struggles for each album began? Well, I remember we did a very brief session with a very nice man called Mark Stent, who's known as Spike Stent. Have you heard of him? Sure. We did early sessions for In Rainbows, a record called In Rainbows, when Nigel wasn't available. He was doing something, I can't remember. It was struggling with him.

And he was outside having a fag at our studio. And he just said to me, look, Colin, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. So, you know, so bless him. So I don't think it's particularly, you know, unusual that it was difficult. Well, there are times when it can be difficult. You know, it's just how it is. You know, so that's how it was. What stands out about recording the band's

Well, it's more about certain things that were happening around the time around it as well, which stands out about it, that maybe not directly had things to do with making the record, but was sort of linked to it because they were happening when we were in London making the record. I'll give you one example. We were looking at supports for going on tour, and we got a cassette of songs from this band that might support us called Oasis. The Irony

And, you know, it was from the first record or something. I don't know, but it was really obviously amazing. And then when we were making the record, our producer, John Leckie, took us to go and we had a night off because it was, I went to see Jeff Buckley. Yeah. Wow. At the Garage, do a solo show just with his Fender Telecaster and Pint of Guinness and a Fender Twin Amp. And I remember John McEnroe was in the audience and Chrissie Hynde was

who left the love bless her i i've since i know now i didn't know her then but i'm friends now was there and we watched this spellbinding solo show in the room above the garage in islington in london in 1994 and i watched him play all the songs from that first record plus drink a pint of guinness in one go and then we went back to the studio and tom recorded the vocal for fake plastic trees

So that was kind of amazing. I suppose that would be the one cherishable memory. Talk about a

Influence doesn't... I mean, it's rare that you can point to direct influences with Tom, but there's definitely an influence there. The night. Isn't that incredible? The same night that he sang, so did Tom. That's about as direct an influence as you can get. Well, yeah, there was some kind of, like, connection charge, whatever, contact. Because we didn't talk to him or anything afterwards, obviously, because we said we wanted to go back to the studio, you know. But it was amazing. In fact, and I'll tell you what, and then Leckie took us out one time to see...

Oh, God, Lee Morgan played, you know, because my brother's a big fan. Well, we were sort of, you know, the whole acid jazz thing. It's at Dingwalls, which is like a jazz club in Camden. So we went to see Lee Morgan one night, I remember. But bless, bless John Leckie. Make your next move with American Express Business Platinum. You'll get five times membership rewards points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on amextravel.com.

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jumping ahead. It's quite extraordinary. I mean, you made these, it's not different from being like, I helped make Sergeant Pepper. You made Kid A, you made OK Computer. You've done these albums that will live forever. Is that something you can kind of sit with and appreciate?

Well I feel very grateful and we worked with Nigel Godrich you know and he had a very strong sense of the cultural history of the recording medium he was a massive fan of Pink Floyd, Beatles, Abbey Road you know it's in his blood you can see that he's done a whole bunch of projects with people like his heroes or people

like Roger Waters and Paul McCartney. He told me a great Paul McCartney story when he made a record with him. It's called Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. Yes.

He said to Paul that he would love to make a record with him and the proviso would be that Paul would be like playing the instruments. It was at Rack Studios where we did the bends. The first day of recording arrived and Paul was there with his assistant. He had this like, I don't know, like a Japanese bass guitar or something and like an Ampeg, a bit like a PV bass amp or something. Nigel's like, where's the, you know,

the Honda, where's the violin bass? Where's all the old gear and everything? Paul was like, what do you want me to get all that? And it's like, it was in a windmill in Brighton, apparently. Do you want that stuff? And I was just like, yeah.

So he, so they got the van out and drove down and picked up all the old gear. Is that crazy? The craziest thing about that is he had already gone through this. Elvis Costello has exactly the same story from like 20 years or 15 years earlier. Everyone who works with Paul, he brings his new shit and then they're like, Paul, get the Hoffner. He has to go through this every time. I mean, of course it just speaks very highly of Paul McCartney's creativity and his,

you know, and forward motion all the time, you know. It's brilliant, isn't it? But he played drums, he did the drums and, you know, obviously just fantastic. I guess maybe Nigel was also reaching back into the stuff that he did with like Ram and those solo records, Moloch and Tyre records, which have now become these

sort of indie guitar touchstones, haven't they? That period that he made those records himself and Temporary Secretary and stuff like that. Nigel's sense of the soundstage and the sound picture and the stereo field is truly

I would say unmatched. It still has matched Radiohead's ambitions. Well, I talked to him recently and what he says he does, I think he's right. He's very good at making something sound beautiful. He's got that's his, you know, as everyone gets older, you become aware of what you do for good or for ill. I think he's right. He has this gift of presenting the music in such a way that it's just very beautiful sounding, very appealing.

because that might not be what somebody wants an artist might want it to sound really ugly and savage and thin and whatever or really whatever i don't know so you know it's just it's an incredible skill and talent that he has and we're very lucky to work with him and to um you know

him and John. I was once in the studio with James Taylor and he was recording an album and finished a take and he said, it sounds good, which is important in this line of work. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. James Taylor.

Yeah, amazing. I saw Tom play the bridge benefit with Neil Young on stage with James Taylor and they were doing, is it Come Undone? What's the song? The Neil Young song. Not Come Together, Come Something. And Tom sung harmonies to it and James Taylor. Comes the Time. Comes the Time. Yeah. And James Taylor, who's super tall. Yeah. I don't think he knew Tom or anything at the time. This must have been like, I don't know, 2000 or something. Yeah.

leant over and put his arm around Tom at the end of the song just to say, "Wow." That's why I saw Phil Lesher the first time as well with the other ones, which is amazing. I was like, "Oh my God, I get it." That was magical. That was Neil Young Bridge benefit in 2000 or something. Phil, an example of someone who did everything "wrong" for traditional bass playing but was a magnificent bass player.

So rushy. Yes. There's nothing like mellow laid back about. I don't know that I remember, you know, it was just incredible. It's all this shuffle, you know, it's amazing. You mentioned in the book that Nigel played, I am the walrus or someone. Yeah. Yeah. Ed, Ed, Ed and Nigel did. That's right. As a sort of reminder of, of how high one could reach. Cause it, well, that was the room. We started the session there in Jane Seymour's.

And that was the room we put, we did Paranoid Android. Well, most of the record was done in that room, actually, I think. All of it, if not all of it. I can't remember. So that's kind of amazing. It just sounded great. It just sounded amazing. Whatever reason it was, that room, it was a sort of library in this old country house. And we started it listening to I Am The Walrus. And

and that sort of sound collage. Yeah, just incredible. Then what just came out was Get Back, which is like anyone who wants to know what it's like to be in a band, like just endlessly sitting around drinking tea and staring at each other in drafty village halls. It's just like that. It was just like that. What a film, though. Yeah.

Have you witnessed moments of, witnessed or been part of moments of creativity as startling? You must have, as when Paul suddenly manifests Get Back sitting there? Yeah, there's that song called Weird Fishes in Rainbows. In the deepest ocean

And that's the sort of coming in on a morning and then there's like a backbeat and then some chords and it all just sort of falls into place in a really nice way. But a lot of the time, obviously, Tom's got songs that he's bringing to the studio as well. And then it's just about working out parts and arrangements and things. But the other thing about that film was how great a guitarist John Lennon was. Yes.

His big hands, I've noticed, when, you know, it's his rhythm parts are very, he does a lot with the pinky, these extensions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That are extremely, I find torturous if I try to play them. It's a big part of what he does. It's incredible, isn't it? Yeah. And how protective they are of him as well, towards the end, you know, when they're talking about future possible plans.

He's obviously the one they all see as the fragile, sort of damaged one. It's very touching, it's very poignant, isn't it? I guess one thing people were wondering about Radiohead is, I mean, you guys played together once this year, but is there any concern that the band is in the past tense at this point? The last time we put something out was 2018, and then various people wanted to do other things, and then coronavirus happened.

And then still catching up with that really. And then doing the book signings. I've been doing these book signings in England and Europe. So obviously these people come to get their book signed. A lot of them like young people as well.

they just want to know they just want to come and see the band and you know and when we're going to play again if we're going to play again whatever i just think that it's a really good reason to play is to play for people who love your music really that's a really wonderful it sounds really obvious but nick nick cave nick talks about it a lot about serving your audience

and your fans and people who love what you do that's a very cool thing to do and that's something that i can support and get behind is is that a feeling shared universally among the band oh i'm sure we all as a band care very much about people who like our music because if you look about how everything we've done we've always tried to do everything ourselves and not whether it's

making records or merchandise or artwork or everything. It's always been done by us because we, all we care about is that connection we have with the people that like our music. So I'm sure we're all aware of that and we all care about it. So, you know, it feels almost impolite to ask, but one would have to wonder what you think of this mile. Well,

Why would that be impolite? I don't know. It just feels like, because I think from the outside, people would think, oh, is it an awkward thing that these guys went off and did a separate thing? I think that that's probably just from the outside, but that's why it feels impertinent or something to us. I think it's great that everyone, you know, Ed's got his things, Phil's got his thing, Johnny's got his film stuff, Tom's doing his solo stuff.

I'm doing my stuff. And it's been really challenging and rewarding to do different things outside of the Radiohead world. And I think the other thing now with streaming and Spotify and things like that is that people today who like music of whatever age are less fussed about when music was made or was going to be made. It's much less teleological, whatever that word is, much less sort of tied down to periods of

you know, you'll have a playlist with like Fleetwood Mac on it and I don't know, Big Thief or someone. And also genres. People don't really care about periods and they just want to listen to good music. Even though algorithms will steer you in the direction of certain types of music. Algorithms are more sort of conservative and sort of genre casting than human beings are. But, so I don't think he really matters really, you know. You know, so...

about that stuff. And I think it's really great, again, going back to what I said, it's great for people who like Radiohead, might really like The Smile, might really like Nick Cave, might really like, you know, so I just think it's all like a big, lovely, it's a big jungle. You know, there's lots of room for lots of different things to happen in the jungle. When a couple members of the band go off and do something else, people wonder, is that controversial with the other members? I mean, I've definitely seen that kind of speculation. Right, right.

Really? Well, it's all about people's creativity. That's the only thing that really matters. When you guys got together and played, what was the purpose of that? It was just basically to check in with each other, I suppose, because we hadn't done it for so long. I guess it was also because I think maybe Tom and Johnny were off going to do some stuff.

And Ed was going to go, everyone was going to go off and do more stuff again. So I guess that was the purpose of it, just to see, you know, just to see, because it was something we could all do because we were all around that time. Yeah, it was really fun. And it was really nice just to run through stuff. And yeah, it was easier to do than...

Just getting around a table or whatever or going somewhere. What did you play? Oh, we ran through like the bends. We ran through loads of stuff. We played for a day, maybe two. I can't even remember how many days we played for. And we had another two days booked as well. And then we decided to knock it on the head because it was not because it was bad, but because it was like, well, my brother said we could rehearse it. We could do this for like another week or so and we could go out on tour if we wanted to.

Not that we're going to, but it would be fine. So, yeah. So we thought, well, rather than just like going round and round it again, we just thought, well, that's good. We know we can do that. That's fun. We enjoy being with each other. So let's leave on a high. You need a rehearsal on a high. Yeah. And then what will it take to reconvene?

reconvene again? Does there have to be another meeting around a wooden table? I think it depends what everyone's doing with their other projects, really. Because, you know, as a group, everyone's very generous to a fault about everything else that's happening in everyone's lives. So I guess it's about, you know, I mentioned a lot of people's lives, that's about working out what's happening on the diary. You want to get out there and play for the fans, especially young fans who've never seen you. Yeah, that's right. What is your degree of confidence that that will happen? About...

What? That Radiohead will reconvene and play for the people. Well, I'd like to do it, but it's not... I mean, it's a collective decision, so it's not something that I can make any kind of comment on without everybody talking about it. Are you optimistic, though? I don't have any axe to grind about it, and I can't speak for other people, because it's not fair on them. So we'll just have to wait and see. And then just emotionally, this experience of...

going through these pictures and writing these lovely passages. How has it changed the way you look back at this past many years with this band? Well, I think that's what they say. Apparently, as you get older, you regard the past with more benevolence and less sort of grumpiness.

But I didn't have that much grumpiness to do anyway. But I look at it and I think that we worked really hard. We were very focused on what we were doing and we were very devoted to it. And we were very lucky, but we made a lot of our own luck, as they say. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to start talking about it without sounding like some kind of cheat sort of...

post-rock biopic summary about everything. And the other thing is looking back at stuff it's really weird because I don't really look back at anything. So, you know, if I hadn't taken the photographs I wouldn't have written the words because the only reason I wrote the words is that my friend Nicholas, the editor, said well you have to write the words too which I actually enjoyed in the end and I'm really proud of as well. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just I'm just really proud of what I've made because I think it's really beautiful and

It's printed in Verona. It's designed by a guy who worked with Gerhard Steidl in Hannover. It's just like a properly beautiful thing. It's as good as anything we've made as a band in terms of

a record or a limited edition, anything like that. It's very, very beautiful. And it's made with a lot of care and attention. You have a gift as a photographer. There's, there's a profundity and a, and a, and a stillness, a lovely stillness to these images. Even the ones that are, I love that you captured even on, first of all, how unusual is it to have a, to have a member of the band take pictures on stage? In the middle of a song. Yeah.

in the middle of the song. I know what I love about the first photograph in the book, first or second is Tom playing a guitar, like in the courtyard at our studio. And if you look behind him, you can see a flight case. Yes. I love that. There's this beautiful sort of farm, you know, courtyard at the studio of an old barn that we worked in. And then just in the distance behind him, like the cover of the book, you can see one of the flight cases and,

that was used, you know, for travelling around the world. So even right at the beginning of the book, it's the first...

You know, the word is not foreground, you know, of the traveling that happens. There's a great picture of Tom with a keyboard, a laptop and his suitcase behind him, which also has a lot of that in it. Yeah, that's right. He used to carry that stuff all around with him, you know, and like we used to carry around these. I was thinking about this. He used to carry around us in the 90s, these Henry Kloss things.

model 10 portable hi-fi systems before the bluetooth speakers existed they were like made out of pelican case peli cases and they had like a little amplifier and two satellite speakers they weighed a ton and we carried them like everywhere put them in our hotel rooms and plugged a disc man in and would listen like listen obsessively to whatever music we could find you know isn't that crazy

Yeah, it's lovely. You know, it's real dedication to something. The pictures of Tom, you know, the ones where he's playing, in every single one he's transported. Yeah. It's remarkable. Every time he's playing an instrument or when he's plugging in plugs to the modular synth, he's clearly in the music rather than in the physical space. Yeah, that's right. He takes it very seriously. He's a very...

I'm sure you've seen him play guitar, but he's probably, for my money, one of the finest guitarists in the world. He's one of the best guitarists I know, like rhythm guitarists, because of the way he plays the guitar. Like you say, it's sort of part of his...

The way he rolls with his shoulders when he plays is part of his body. He's just an incredibly physically connected to, and like you say, that's how he's always been. With Johnny, one thing I get is how cerebral he is, comes across in the pictures. I see thought.

They're very different how they work, which is probably why they complement each other so well. Yeah, I agree. What's going on with the picture where Tom is wearing goggles and holding a drumstick? That's a good question. That's for this. It's a song from the B-side of In Rainbows, I think. It was called Bangers and Mash. Yeah. There's some bunch of loops that Nigel put together and Tom got to play the drums on it, which he loved. Yeah.

So we'd soundcheck when we were on tour touring in Rainbows in America. Anytime my brother would love saying, why don't we soundcheck Bungus and Mash because I don't think I practiced it enough. Just because he knew that Tom would get very excited and gets a chance to play the drums again. And then he wore those so he didn't poke his eye out with the drumsticks.

It wasn't some kind of sort of sub, sort of Roger Watersque sort of homage to World War II or something, some kind of reference to, you know, Britain after the war and the diet of bangers and mash and the RAF. No, it's just because he didn't want to poke his eye out with the drumstick. He was that violent and uncontrolled with the drumsticks? He's a wild and crazy guy when he's behind the kit. He really is. He's like Monster in the Animals. No, in the Muppets.

I've become a big fan of Charles Mingus and I've known for a long time that the national anthem was influenced by him. But until I read your book, I didn't know it was specifically the Town Hall concert album that was the inspiration. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, for Tom, especially. I was just listening to Caravan actually this morning, you know, Duke Ellington with Max Roche and Charlie Mingus. And there's kind of similar vibe in that it's like something that sort of...

They knew what the chords were, but it was sort of thrown down. Ellington just threw it down and said, I'm not going to give you...

music to you can play what you want on this is what the song is. There's a sort of amazing tension, sort of discipline free for all on that. That's just so inspiring. There's a fascinating picture of Tom. It seems a bit more recent where he's behind some barricade and staring out at the skyline. Yeah, that's it. I'm just about to go on stage in front of 70,000 people in Chicago Lollapalooza. Wow.

I took a whole bunch of pictures of us all hugging each other before we went on stage, but they were all really blurry because the light was so shit and I wasn't a very good photographer. So I wanted to have different types of photographs, like backstage, going on stage, you know, but those ones didn't really come out. You mentioned the fear before going on stage. Yeah, that's right, because there's nothing you can do to avoid it.

because you're about to go on when you're about to go on and anything can happen you don't jump on going this is going to be like two and a half hours of pure ecstasy but then it's kind of amazing that's what I love about what I do is that it's it's made me do stuff I could never it sounds really trite no but it's like yeah it's just like that with with with Nick with Nick Cave it's just yeah just about that that moment of like sort of

trepidation before you walk on in front of all those people. But then of course when you do walk on and they're all clapping and cheering and waving, it's just the best feeling.

I really don't have any kind of fear or anxiety about that, really. One of my favorite spaces to be on is on a stage. The most safe sort of comforting, welcoming place to be. It's another sort of dark room, in a way. It is, because you're just going to see what's going to happen next. And this is Ark. It's this journey that you take everyone that you go on and

Yeah, it's like another dark room. That's right. You also mentioned that you're not bothered much about the set list with Radiohead because you're ready to play anything and everything. And I thought that was interesting because that means you're ready to play anything in the catalog, which is a large catalog. That's right. Yeah, that's me and my brother. We're not allowed to participate in the set.

So, but that's right. Yeah. You know, I'm quite happy to play out, but that, you know, it's really important, but their flow is really important. I think I'm very good at that. So, you know, it's like with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, you know, it came up with a really good order of the songs that works really well. And yeah, I know I said to them, so they asked me what I thought about it. And I said, I can't help you. On the tour I've just done with Nick, the two things he learned about Radiohead is Greenwoods don't sing.

Because they asked me if I wanted a microphone to sing on the songs. And the other thing is Greenwoods don't do the set list. He found that highly amusing and he repeated it quite a few times. Whatever reason. The final picture of the book is from 2016 and it's this lovely picture of the constellation of the cell phones looking out into the audience. Yeah. And his hands up in supplication. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks. Yeah. Gratitude.

Yeah, it circles back to what we were talking about earlier, which is that I think that, you know, it can be enough to play together for people who love what you do, really, you know. So, which may not be something you think about, like, when you're, like, 22 and it's 1990-something, you know. Although saying that, we were always massive fans of U2 and...

And the idea that they went to America and they played lots and lots of shows and worked really hard to earn the audience's support. So maybe things have gone full circle there too. I mean, yeah, there reaches a point. You two have done tours now where they don't necessarily have a new album. They're just playing.

you know, or they put an old album. That is a thing that people start becoming more comfortable with. Well, Adam came to the Nick Cave show on Saturday. It's a bit like with Nick Cave. I guess he's like 10 years older or something or ahead of the game. Just very wise and supportive and sounds really cheesy. But it's like I did the thing with him for his bass podcast and I just got to talk to him. And it's just really nice talking to somebody who

had sort of similar conversations about really small silly little things like how hard it is to hold a plectrum when you're playing a song really you're not used to holding a plectrum and it starts to slip out of your hand stuff like that you know like little housekeeping details it was very kind of him and i was very grateful for the conversation and i was really chuffed that he came along and saw the bad seed show in london

two weeks ago on Saturday. There's a huge debate over which is better, which is more classic. And it's rare that bands even have a catalog that's good enough that people can really have these arguments. But Kid A versus OK Computer, there's a massive debate. I know that when we were ranking albums for the Rolling Stone 500, there were many people with partisans. And then there's younger people who say, no, actually, In Rainbows is their best album. So do you have a dog in that fight? None of them are. Yeah.

Ask him what my favorite Radiohead album is. If you had to weigh in on that particular argument. I really like, I haven't listened to it for a while from beginning to end, but I love Kid A. At this time of year, for some reason, it speaks to me as this wintry record.

Maybe it's the artwork, I don't know. No, it's the sound. Yeah, it's something sort of glacially sort of... Yes. How to disappear and sort of... So that's beautiful. I like in Rainbows because it's basically more of a sort of band record, live band album type thing in some weird way. But there are moments in all of them that I really love for me. So I love Bloom on... Is that on King of Limbs? Oh, my love, oh

Yes. And I like separate. Anything with a sort of melodic, groovy bass line, I'm down with. And I wish, what's the one I wish had been on the record? Staircase. Walk down a staircase.

Yeah, that's a great one. That's me and my brother, like, fantasizing that we're in some kind of Blade Runner-esque sort of 80s, sort of neon Michael Mann sort of funk thing. Right, it was released with the Daily Mail, that one. But that would have been, that's great. I really love that song. I love that version from in the bass. That's what's on the record. It's a live recording, which is cool as well. And then last of all, I was asking you about

allowing yourself to appreciate the fact that you were part of making these albums and you sort of deflected to praising Nigel Godrich. But I wonder if you can, if you can feel a sense of satisfaction in the sense of, yeah, you know, I helped make...

okay computer i helped make kid a these are albums that will live forever yeah i think so i was doing this book signing in paris this week and there were these young girls probably in their like late early 20s late teens and they wanted and said i don't know if you've heard this before but they were like they asked me to sign their book and everything and they said can you also start put on a page do a drawing and then we'll scan it and we'll get them tattooed on to get them tattooed

I can't draw. I demurred. I said, I just can't do that. And I got out of it by saying politely, you know, that you wouldn't want to a drawing of like, you know, anything I could do like as a tattoo, because it would just be, you know, I couldn't. The only thing worse than that is if I actually tattooed it as well.

So that was amazing that they would be interested in that. And it was just, like I said, it was just really, it sounds cheesy to say it, but sort of very humbling. Just these people from all over the world. So I just, it's that thing where I have such deep thankfulness, but I feel that I like the idea that anything has much more to do with people who like our music than me. Does that make sense? I think so.

This young kid, he said, oh, my sister's like a massive fan. She lives in Dagestan and she can't be here because she's living in Dagestan. And can you say hi to her on FaceTime? So you FaceTime and there's this 16 year old girl wearing not full hijab or anything, but like a veil or whatever. And she's just like really excited to be talking about her favorite Radiohead track from Dagestan in Paris.

on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. So that's what it means to me. It's what it means to her, to like a 16-year-old girl in Dagestan. And that's our show. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, subscribe to Rolling Stone Music Now wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us five stars and a nice review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify because that's always appreciated. But as always, thanks so much for listening and we will see you next week.

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