September 16, 2025 • 51 mins
Thom Yorke, Radiohead and Atoms for Peace frontman, admits that, even after over 25 years in the business, performing is “either wicked fun or really awful.” He talks with Alec about his pre-show ritual—"I stand on my head for a bit"—and how he and his bandmates have been able to stick together since they were teenagers.
Originally aired April 1st, 2013
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next
season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
thought I'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.
In nineteen ninety two, Radiohead released their stunning debut single
Creep When You'reful. It was quiet, yet explosive, even haunting,
(00:26):
and its refrain had a powerful hook. I wish our special,
so fucking special. Radioheads frontman and principal songwriter Tom York
is my guest, and if it was his wish to
be special, the world granted it. York's band has become
(00:48):
a commercial and critical success, selling over thirty million albums.
Radiohead's music actively resists definition. Each new album explores a
(01:09):
different sound, delighting their followers and scooping up more fans
along the way. The New York Times called Radiohead rock's
most experimental top ten band, and this spirit of experimentation
(01:31):
isn't limited to their music. In two thousand and seven,
York and his bandmates released In Rainbows on their website.
First fans were invited to pay what they wanted for
the album. Radiohead may not have been the first to
thummets nose the music industrial complex but they might be
the first to do so and sell out a major arena.
(01:53):
That said, Tom York hasn't necessarily been comfortable under the spotlight.
He complains about celebrity worship and I wasn't sure what
to expect.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Actually, I got you a health food snack, did you Yeah,
because someone told me you were like all vegetarian and that.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Tom Yorke has a new record out Amok. The band
calls themselves Adams for Peace. You don't do a lot
of pros. Were you doing? I was an an as
needed a basis, yeah, on a need to know basis, Yeah, yeah,
(02:32):
kind of.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I kind of need to explain what I'm doing a
bit with the Adams for Peace thing, just a little
bit because it's something different and some vague effort to
explain myself occasionally I think is morally acceptable.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Tell us about the Adams for Peace. Well, it's just
it was.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I did a record on my own called The Eraser
a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Was that your first solo record? Yes, first time.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I sort of worked on my own with Nigel who
Normal who produces Radiohead, and it came out it was okay.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
People liked it a bit.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
A couple of years after, I suddenly thought I really
want to actually because it was all done, it was
all programmed, it was all computers and stuff, and I thought, actually,
I really I'm curious to know what it would be
like to actually get a band together to play this.
And it was an excuse to go on a jolly
to LA and hang out. And I emailed friends of
mine who I knew like the record. One was Flee
(03:27):
from the Chili Peppers. One was my friend Joey, who's
drummed with everybody who's genius drummer from LA And anyway,
we got it together and it turned into this thing
became really exciting, and we ended up calling the band
Atoms for Peace and making a record out of the
excitement of that. And it was all brand new to
(03:49):
me because I've been in the same band since I
was seventeen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And when you do that, when you go into another
room with people, it's not so much assuming and you
can help me that you want to not play with
those guys anymore. You just want to play with different
people for a change. It was a good.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, it was a totally different process. I mean, it's
always fun if you know what you're aiming at. If
you know what the tunes are, you're not trying to
write them, you're just emulating what's already been written. That
makes it fun straight away, because it's a different sort
of creative process.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You're not struggling around in the dark for a way
into a piece of music. You're figuring out how to
strip it down to its all essentials, especially if it's
something's been written on a computer, and then you have
to humanly learn how to play it. It brings in
this quite interesting thing with the feel of what you're playing. Anyway,
it's loads of different things, but it's a lot more
(04:44):
fun and a lot more relaxed if you're not trying
to write, you know, which is what also all the time,
what we're trying to do with Radiohead.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
What's the first time or the first experience you had
with using computers to create music? That was.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I think after we did Okay Computer I finally in
the late late nineties you could like go on tour
with the laptop and it was powerful enough that you
could record, edit, use synthesizers built into it and it
wouldn't crash and it.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Was fairly stable.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So I first started getting into it then. And what
I thought was really interesting is when we were working
on Okay computer, I started using learning the software that
we were using the studio to edit. We were still
mostly working on tape old school, but I suddenly thought, well,
hang on a minute, if I can learn how all
this equipment works, I'll have a completely different way of
(05:38):
thinking about how to write. So I forced myself to
learn all this equipment and learn to use the laptop
because a lot of music I was into was being
made electronically anyway, and I kind of thought it would
be interesting to do it within the band, because you
know a band. Normally musicians don't fall into doing the
(06:00):
production side of it or building the tracks. They're like,
stay this side of the studio of fence with the
mics and let someone tell you. So I definitely was
much more into blurring that up.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Did not produce both your solo albums, Yeah he does.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
He does the lot all of the radio Head album,
Yeah he does.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well. When you attribute that to having that kind of faith.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
In someone, for me, it's sort of you find someone
you trust. I mean not all the time, and we
do argue a lot, but to have someone who's like
a sounding board all the time. It makes everything so
much more fun because if you're if you're knocking out ideas,
you can't edit them and knock them out at the
(06:45):
same time. Like if you're on stage and you're trying
to get through your part or whatever, you have to
have someone out front saying, okay, that's not working. I
mean I do on my own a lot. I do work.
You know, you generate ideas, but all I then have
is a mountain ideas that gradually I then have to
sit through and it just takes so long. It's so
much more fun sharing it with someone.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
What did he think about your forays into computerized music? Oh,
he was into it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I did wonder when I first started doing it, but
he was into it because he watched me doing it
in such a different way to him. I mean, I
was like a kid being given a hammer. I was
just hammering away and stuff. I didn't really know what
I was doing, but he was kind of fascinated by that,
you know, and he'd come and literally tidy up the
mess down on the computer.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
What were other people who were other people that were
working in that in that area that you listened to
who are making well? Then it was.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I was obsessed with AFX twin then and O Tekra.
There was a lot of really interesting things happening Britain.
Then on this label called Warp and it was it was.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
A fun spell warp w arp, like the floor is warped, yeah,
after the fun Yeah. And then I say, with your accent,
that could have been anyone of four wards. When on
this label called War Warm, Wall w Wop, Yeah, saying
(08:14):
like we saying here in the United States War it's
war country and Western record like bitch your bottom down there, boy?
So you were you is? You were? You were obsessed
with the music that was on Woop Records.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Because it didn't have any guitars and I was having
a troubled relationship with my guitar at the time.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Is that true? Well not really.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It's just like I ended up being in a band
signing this to this big record label, and it's a
band with big letters, so certain things go with that.
But yet when I was at college, I was listening
to a lot of other things, and after a while
it was like, oh, this is is really annoying that
I felt like we couldn't break out of that. So
(08:56):
I just started forcing us to break out of that
because it didn't make sense to me. You've been with
those guys for how long Now we started when we're
sixteen Radiohead, which is now I'm forty four, so that's
quite a while.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And some bands that have had tremendous longevity, obviously the
Rolling Stones are the premier example. They've changed partners over
theres like they were the New York Yankees. You know,
there's somebody else playing third base every four or five years. Yeah,
but you guys, it's the same cast of people all
of a sudden. What do you attribute that to persistence?
My great diplomatic skills not but there must be time
(09:33):
to when they've I mean, I'll never forget McCartney said
to me, even the Beatles got tired of being The
Beatles were the times you guys sat there and look
at each other and said, I think we're done.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I do that frequently, frequently, I mean, at least the
others two not as much. They just wait for me
to do it.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
But it changes. It's like, yeah, it's like to stick around.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'm feeling it's coming up. I mean, you know, something
to do with the fact we haven't done any useful
for three weeks. It goes through these phases. You know,
we've grown up together. It's weird. I mean, So, we
just did a tour last year, right, and it was probably,
in theory, the scariest one we've ever done, because it
was lots of big gigs, which I normally am spending
(10:15):
my time trying to shy away from.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Why because you can't achieve technically in a large space
where you normally want.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
To exactly that you can't get across to people the
right way, I felt. So we did spend a lot
of time and effort coming up with like a stage
design which used screens in a certain way which made
it intimate, even though you know, some nights was like
thirty or forty thousand people trying to create some sort
of intimacy with that, and when it worked, it was insane.
(10:42):
It was because the upside of playing to that many
people is you have this really crazy collective energy that
you can tap into like a crowd, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Thing.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
There's one show we did in Phoenix that sticks in
my mind where there was something about maybe that it
was in Phoenix and people don't get the opportunity. Those
sort of people don't get the opportunity to get together
that often or something. There was some sort of excitement
within the crowd that was so great to play with.
When we hit it musically, it felt like the whole room,
(11:15):
the whole of the building was moving. Honestly, we both
came off, you know, yeah, and it's bombed.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I understand that not from my own experience, but from
seeing artists perform.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You know, I often ask myself, why the hell would
you put yourself through this? Because it's very stressful. It's
a lot of pressure, and for me mentally, I just
build myself up to it in my head gradually and
it sounds really precious, but it messes with my head.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I want to get to that, but I want to
come around it and say, your music has such a
spiritual quality to it. There's a spiritual element to it,
and not a stated one. It just emanates a vibe.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
To me, it comes to me that yeah, but to me,
that comes off the audience. That's what I find. It's
something that's developed. It's not like we're not going into
this intending to do any of that. It just sort
of happens when when the waves go right, you know,
when the waves fall into place, then you'll get to
the end of the song and you can feel, Okay,
(12:17):
we've done whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That was it. What's your preparation before you do a
(12:45):
live show before you go because in the studio it's
obviously a whole different animal.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Correct, Yeah, there's no preparation for the studio. Do you
know it's bull in a china shop most of the time,
which is how it should be, I think, and performing live, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
What's give it to me. A couple of hours before
you go out there and you've got to blow this
thing out for all these people. Just stone cold silence,
basically almost meditative. Well, yeah, I do. I do that
and focused.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I stand on my head for a bit and I
basically I'm completely on my own until five minutes before
we go on, and then we're all in the room together,
pacing up and down like wild animals, and then then
we're on. But when we first started doing big shows,
it was with my from Michael Stipe, and he does
the total opposite. He literally he'll be talking to you
(13:34):
and then someone taps in the shoulder and then they're on.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And I was like, how the hell do you do that?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Man?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And I tried to do it like that, couldn't it,
And so I ended up going, did you get any
indication why Stipe could do that? There's a lot of
nice spiritual tones inside of R. E. M's music too.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, No, I don't know. I think what he used
to do was you'd stand there for the first two
tunes move. He was a sort of lightning conductor, and
he was just waiting for it to hit, and then
when it hit, he was off, but he would wait,
and if it wasn't going to hit, he was still
there three or four tunes later, and waiting He kind
(14:13):
of warmed up in front of everybody, gauging it all.
Whereas I can't do that because I have to sort
of be clear of everything before, you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I need to be completely empty. We're taking a break.
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I started playing guitar when I was seven. I sat
down and said I was going to be Brian May
and I was not a bad thing to be. Yeah,
And then I tried to do I read like when
I was ten or something. I read that he'd built
his first guitar himself, which is the one he still plays.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
So I tried to do that, but my efforts was
and then said she were not Brian May no handcrafting
of the guitar.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
And I had to cheat with the neck on the
guitar I found in old someone a neighbor gave me
a neck of an electric guitar.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Was that great?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Okay, that's good, But you know I was ten or eleven,
so I was trying to like bolt it to get
to this other piece of wood that I'd cut out,
and it was just a disaster. But it kind of worked,
but it was ugly.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Was your family musical? Not really? No.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
The only one that sticks out is apparently my great grandmother.
She'd get really hammered and then stay up playing her
pump organ thing downstairs all night and keep.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The family up. You were around, did you witness that?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I met her once and she was kind of she
wore black and was quite scary when I was really tiny.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
But nowither of your parents were artists musicians? No, no, no, no.
When the guitar came into your life when you or seven,
Brian May or no, was it music itself? And were
you moved by music itself? Or was it like many
people when they're very young? Was it rock stardom? Was
never then it was it was you weren't running around
(16:15):
your bedroom imitating Jagger and you thought like you.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
My whole thing was we didn't have any sound system
in the house. We had nothing, no high fi nothing
except for in my dad's car and had a tight
player in it. So I went and would sit for hours.
I would sit for hours, and you know, it was
the sound of Brian May's guitar. Actually, it was one
(16:40):
of those funny things where you know, when you turned
something up and you're in a very controlled, loud environment,
just that sound was just you know, nothing else was that.
When you're that small and you've never I've never really
heard music particularly at all up until that point. You know,
(17:01):
it's funny. It's got a weird thing. But I mean,
lots of kids at that age, you know, their parents
didn't really have high fires or anything as such. The
only guy I did know who had a high fight
down the road only played abbat, which I thought was
worse than not having one.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
But that was me somehow. Those and then and then
the guitar, and you're trying to fashion your own guitar
by the time you were eleven, and then when you
take another step toward deepening your commitment. How old are
you when you form the band sixteen? I did have
a band when I was eleven, But what's an eleven
year old band sound like?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
No, it were not very good at all, but it was.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It was very exciting, like going around to a friend's
house is setting up and jamming, and all our mates
would come and hang out and girls, which I thought,
this is interesting. Yes, as puberty hit, but that sort
of fell to bits because I kept fighting with the drummer.
And then when I was six, I was thinking, well, okay,
(18:02):
I need to get this together really and just went
around the school sort of choosing people.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So you went around picking people. I got it because
he was.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Dressed like Morrissey and he had some cool socks, and
I saw he'd had a guitar. I had no idea
whether he could play or not. I didn't really care.
I got Colin because I knew Colin could play very
well and I needed.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
A bass player.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
He could play very well, but he had never played
bass before and his brother Johnny was this mythical musical prodigy,
so wroped him in and then Phil was the only
drummer IN knew anyway, so and and he had a
house down the road that we could rehearse him.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And you're all and you lived where you grew up
were well.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
This was at Abingdon School in near Oxford.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And then when you form Radiohead when you're sixteen.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Basically yeah, we started sort of writing, doing demos and
messing about and it was, you know, it was quite
interesting straight away that it was quite I think because
Field had quite a lot of experience. He was a
bit older, and he'd had his own band, so he
knew how to put things together a bit. And in
fact we used to go and do demos in his
(19:12):
sister's bedroom, like right from the beginning, which which was great.
I mean, there's nothing better than like just starting off
by just trying to write demos from scratch, even though
you can't really play, even though you don't know each other.
That's where you start, you know. It's kind of a
nice way to figure out where you're about.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
What do you think you do best? You lead a band,
you well, you play guitar, you write music, you produce music,
you do and you sing. What do you think your
greatest strength is? If you had to pick one, I
don't know what I'm doing right. I like the fact
that I still don't know what I'm doing. I think, well,
not honestly, I can't go I'll go through whole phrases
(19:52):
of months where i'n't got a clue. I regularly lose
complete confidence in what I'm doing. Why do you think
that is? Umm, because I have the same condition.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Why partly because I think I don't quite understand how
it happens after the fact, When.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
When what happens when the appreciation comes to.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You know, when you're piecing something together right, things will
fall into place how you make it. Yeah, I mean,
in some ways, the nicest bit about the creative thing,
of nicest bit about recording and writing is this sort
of weird limbo where you in between scratching away scratching away,
nothing really happening, nothing really happening, and then something wants
(20:40):
to be built and starts to get built. You just
have to let it happen, and then it gets to
the end and you and you look at it a
few months later and go, huh damn. It's sort of
weird amnesia that goes with it. Something will happen, one
little sound goes off, and you go well, that's really
nice for me. When I was at school, I didn't
(21:02):
get on with the school system at all. I see it,
and my son the same, that sort of the mechanics
of how a school operates and how you're supposed to
blend in or whatever. So I hid in the music
stroke art department and had a great time there and
discovered that actually that's what I wanted to do. Straight away,
(21:23):
the heads of both schools just saw what I was
up there.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
This is this the teacher that you often credit with
here or yeah, what was the teacher's.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Name, Terry James, But it was him and my art
teacher as well. Actually it was like someone sort of
takes you under their wing and say, well, you know what,
you're actually quite good at that.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Mentoring is a very critical thing in this business.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, because it's it's enough at that age, it's enough
to just get a little push and then okay.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Or does someone push you in a different direction, yeah,
well yeah that would be bad. Yeah, how about you
go to the other I think you need to.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I think my father used to think I used to
get to advertising, which is like really brilliant.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, I'd really be good at that. Other people well,
one thing you're good at is avoiding. My original question,
which was what do you think you're best at? And
let's try to choose if you can, if you maybe
you don't mind confine yourself to the list, I provide,
what do you think you're best at? Okay? This is
multiple choice guitar band, kind of paternal figure, songwriting, producing, singing.
(22:31):
I guess singing. Okay, I'm glad you chose that one.
I was driving. I think when I popped the words
singing the way I did, I was trying to do
or singing. What was singing to you? How did your
singing evolve where you arrived at where you are now
where most people say you have one of the most
(22:52):
evocative singing voices in all of music today, melancholy to
the point of well, people who loved, who love radio Head,
they crave their music, and they crave particularly you were singing.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Well, basically I went to music. I went to a
few singing lessons, but that was basically just so I
could literally breathe.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
You know, one of my favorite singers, like Byork. When
I watched b York sing, I've been lucky enough to
sort of sing with her and watch you do it.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And I was gonna say, you'ree of the few people
going to use that phrase when I watched B. York
saying yeah, most of us say, well, when I listened
to B. York and it's.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
In here, it's right here, they say, you know, with
with with in yoga and stuff that whatever it is,
I can't remember that that spot at the top of
the forehead that you really most singers like Neil Young
is the same. He sings into this spot in his
head and what he's singing he's already heard, you know
(23:58):
what I mean, He's hearing it come out. The same
with Buork when she's singing, she's singing what she's hearing,
so there's no force. It's a force in itself. It
took me a while to get that, you know, even
(24:19):
when we were on tour with ira Em back when
we're doing the Benz in ninety six or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It was.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Still I was still trying to figure it out. Then
watching Michael and wanting to sound like Michael, but I couldn't,
you know, because my voice is in a different tone
completely and so on. But what I did learn, what
you know, watching him, was again that thing of like
watching someone who their voices in sort of command of
(24:47):
them rather than the other way around. Yeah, but it's
very natural, but it takes a long time for that
to become natural. I think, like any singer, it takes
a long time to find that thing and it keeps
changing to me how I sing now or to me
(25:08):
it feels different to a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Why it just does it just because to do it?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well, yeah, there's probably some physical element to it, but
also just where you're at, you know, because singing is
nothing but like probably like acting, singing is nothing but
being in a moment.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
That's it and where you're at. Yeah, when you do like.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
When I used to be like you know, when when
you're trying to singing or whatever, channle I remember sort
of okay, computer, I still had this thing like, well
I need to be a little bit half cut when
i'm you know, I need to do something or other beforehand.
So I thought I'm in the right space, man, Where
it's all bollocks because basically you just got to learn
to be there with it. When you do it, you're
(25:52):
not trying to prove anything. You're not trying to get anywhere,
You're not trying to achieve anything. You're not trying to
get this emotion across. You're not in this space trying
to get this space across. You're not trying to get
this mindset across or anything. You're just letting it happen.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
When you do this now, when you live inside your
life now, whether you're performing live or you're producing and
recording music, do you feel different now that you're older?
I mean, the chasm between when you're sixteen when you're
forty three is extraordinary, isn't it? Just it's just mind bending? Yeah.
Do you feel like you're sick of it and you
(26:54):
want to be done with it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
You do sometimes, but not, it's never really. The music
is everything else, you know, primarily what we'll just stresses
of life whatever. You know, something's good.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So your life is not like I mean a lot
of people think they think that successful artists, whether it
is walk across this bed of rose petals all day,
the greatest torment of our life is do we go
to Paris on spring break or Anguilla? My god, I
can't I can't answer that. It is a problem. It
is a problem, but it's not we're supposed to say
(27:31):
that But what I'm saying is is that they think that, like,
do you ever sit there? You're very active socially. Yes,
I guess you care. You've made some comments about world affairs.
I don't care about the world. Yeah, you care about
what's going If I said to you that, I snapped
my fingers and you go back to having a very
normal life and you're not you at all with everything
that goes with it, and the rest of the world
(27:52):
is elevated and the rest of the world gets better.
Things you care about? Think of an issue you care.
Can I say to you Tom yorke Tom, your Tom,
you go back and the world gets better, would you
make that change to find better? It's a tricky question,
but you do. It's not an either or. But you
(28:13):
do care about other things. Is there an issue that
you're embracing now? Is there something you're involved in that
or where I'm going?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I well, in my slack asked fashion, I was helping
Greenpeace do this thing which was trying to stop drilling
in the Arctic. But it sounds like it's kind of
working because the company seemed to be pulling out because
they can't.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I don't think that's entirely down to us, but I
think it definitely helped that We're making their life extremely
difficult everywhere they turned. But challenge now is to turn
the Arctic into a reserve so it can't happen, because
what that was going to do is create this gold rush,
you know, or rush up there, which was just going
to be insane. And this at the same time where
(28:55):
the ice is melting. Basically they only started considering it
was a possibility because the was melting. They thought, Okay, great,
maybe got a better chance for drilling, which is like
a global global you.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Mean less oil to them, it means more Well.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, So I was kind of stuck in that for
a while because, yeah, the to me, the irony of
it was too much. I don't know where I'll go next.
I don't I find it very stressful. I did get involved.
A few years ago. We did this thing in Britain,
the first Climate Change Act, which meant the government is
committed to reducing CO two emissions twenty fifty by ninety percent,
(29:33):
and now lots of countries have got it. It was
the first one and the government didn't want to do it.
Blair didn't want to do it, but we found this
interesting loophole and got thousands of people to send letters
in and said at the bottom of the letter to
the at the MP police, can you pass this on
to Blair? Right? And apparently they were obliged to pass
on these letters. So Blair was literally getting thousands and
(29:55):
thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of letters, which
doesn't normally happen. And he did pass the law after
much arguing and me refusing to meet him because it
was during the Iraq War and all sorts of critical
of Yeah, well, any normal human being would be anyway.
I was very glad I did it, and the people
(30:15):
I was working for at the time it was with
Friends of the Earth, and it was really inspiring and
I became really good friends with the guy who's running
Friends of the Earth at the time, Tony Juniper, who
now works with Prince Charles. And it was a great period.
But I just burnt me out getting that close to politics.
The most fascinating figure that we work with was the
(30:38):
lobbyist that we had our one lobbyist, So like we
went into this Port Colors house in Britain, you probably
have the equivalent here. I don't know what it's called,
but Port Cullis House was built for the lobbyists. It
was built for special interests to go and sit with
a cup of coffee, round table about this size and
wait for MPs to go past colin of them, sit
(31:01):
them down and lobby them in.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Big Congress the Capitol building.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Anyway, I found it completely fascinating, you know, because it's
there's hundreds of these people walking around, and I'm like,
none of them are lobbying for us, except when you
maybe possibly could argue that our one mate, Friends of
the Earth was like technically, you know, maybe speaking for
the people a little bit, but basically they were all
special interest and they had the ear of government.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
And I just thought, hang on, hang on a minute,
how did this happen? Anyway? Where where were we a
minute ago? I know where I want to go? Okay,
go on and go there. Then your children, Oh no, no,
that's too much for a jump. Hang on where we
Let's finish with this first? Then your children. I'm lost.
Now do your children know who you are and what
you do?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, they're used to it. They're used to people coming
up and saying hello. But most of the time it's
very friendly and that's normal. That's their normal, that's what
they've grown up.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
And how old are they? Twelve and seven? So one
seven the age that you decided you wanted to be
Brian May the twelve and by then he's he he
would already have made his guitar with that neck. That
was eleven. I think you said to the other kids,
where are they at?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Basically, my son is a great drummer, but I don't
know if you want to do that forever or not.
He's like not bothered really, which is cool. You know,
he just and he comes and hangs out with me
when I'm working in my studio.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
We just hang out. You know, we're friends.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But I don't think you know that there's no burning
ambition to be a musicians or anything. Really, even though
he's really good, he's for pleasure. I mean at that
age that's good, right.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
His fatherhood affected your work, yes, but not really that
you have the obvious things.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Were you you go out on the road more if
you didn't have children, Yep, absolutely, But that's not necessarily
a bad thing at all. You know, being on their
road is it's a it's not a great war. It's
it's you don't want to do it all your life.
You get a little bit on it gets a little
(33:14):
unhealthy quite quickly mentally, if not physically.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Has been difficult for you, mentally.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Uh, it can be different. It means it's it's wicked
fun a bit too much. It's either wicked fun or
really awful, like when you're sick. Then it gets really
it's a roll bumber man.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Have to get out there.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, try to sing your way through the notes that
you can't find because you're so sick or whatever. That's
really super stressful. But you know, it is a massive
buzz and there's no denying it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
It's great. But Tom Yorke is the first to admit
that it takes work to keep it fun in the
studio and on tour.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It's very difficult to play with people you don't if
there's problems between you, for example, if the issues come up.
I mean, I'm very much I'm a librin and I
need to sort it out. I can't have stuff hanging around.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
You know, because it gets in a way more in
a minute with Tom Yorke, this is Alec Baldwin and
you're listening to here's the thing given the level of
success that Radiohead has reached. I did have certain expectations
(34:37):
of Tom's lifestyle. I mean, I'm assuming you're in a
world where that your phone must have rang it maybe
it stopped because you kept saying no, but maybe everybody's like,
you know, Bono wants to pick you up tomorrow and
fly you to Saint Bart's. Yeah, that never appealed.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I don't hang out with people because they are who
they are, necessarily unless I'm a big admirer of them,
Like I mean, I stalked at Norton for ages until
eventually he gave it because I'm a big admirer of him.
I think it's brilliant. So I hang out with him
a bit occasionally.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
And Flea.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I've always really admired Flea anyway, so even before it
became an issue of sort of playing with him.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Tangentially related to that, As you've gotten older and you
look around the musical landscape, what you see does it
appeal to you? Meaning of the music that's popular music,
I mean, what's selling now the most successfully. Have you
moved into a different place with that or do you
admire a lot of what's being done.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
In the mainstream. In the mainstream, there's nothing in the mainstream.
The mainstream is just avoid you know. To me, I mean,
what's weird about putting a record out?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Now? Really?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
And this is not like sour grapes at all. It's
just the fact the volume, literally the sheer volume stuff
that gets put out. It's like this huge fucking waterfall
and you're just thrown your pebble in and it carries
on down the waterfall.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
That right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Next, basically, you know, like in this country, the radio
is tied up and people don't really listen to radio
in the same way. It's it's music's going through a
weird time because on the one hand, as ever, there's
always really exciting music being made. It's never not being made.
It's a question of whether you're going to get to
(36:23):
hear it or not. And I mean I kind of
I kind of knew the game was up a few
years ago when one of our sort of team of
people came in saying Nokia wanted to offer you millions
of pounds because they want content for their phones. And
this is like in two thousand, I don't know, early
(36:43):
two thousands, and you're like content, what you know, content.
What do you mean music? Yes, okay, content maybe that yes, yeah,
just stuff could be music stuff, yeah, stuff could be
got snoring?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Have you got some stuff? You know?
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And you're like okay, And I think, really my problem
with it is it is like it's now like something
to fill up the hardware with, you know, the music
itself has become secondary to that, which is a weird
thing to me. It's like, and I think that will
change because there's only so many different permutations of the
same hardware you can make before people go, well, actually
I have an iPod now, so thanks. So I think
(37:20):
things will change, and I think the radio will change,
and sooner the better, because no matter what way you
look at it, the most pleasurable experiences you ever have
is like when something's played to you you don't know, well,
like going around to a friend's house and they'll stick
a tune on.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
You, Like what the hell is it? You know? Which
is what it's about?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
You know, that's why we're like going into a store
when I was a kid, like and the New Smith's
records come out, and like and I'm going up to
the guy. I think that's like he's really cool, Like
the indie store in town and just talking to him
about music for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You know, and you know you share now everywhere you go.
Music is everywhere.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
It's everywhere, but it's not nicely. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It's content.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Content is king that bullshit will change. And when it does,
then I think we'll have a resurgence. The underbelly will
come back overbelly and then well.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
If it's middle aged, it'll be overbelly. Well you have
ways to go there. I'm going to be taking some
slimming pills. Yeah, but no, we in the way that
you talked about this pebble and the waterfall and content
and music marketing. Now, so if that changes, certainly, which
it has, does your willingness to release your music into
that world change? I mean, like, for example, an obvious example,
(38:34):
maybe too obvious, is you don't want to play Creep anymore.
Now do you sit there and say, like, if the
Sultan of Brunei called you up and said I want
you to come to Brunei and we give you a
million pounds, just play Creep, I would play Creep and
you can go home.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I would say to the something of BRUNEI, why do
you have that house near me that you never use.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I can just meet you down the block.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I mean, come on, it's an empty house, man, it
must be worth whatever. That's what I'd say, trillion, and
I'd say no obvious.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
But am.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
The hell?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
When you retire a song that way? Why do you
do that? Well? I don't not necessarily retire it.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I mean I don't recognize it as me, which is
kind of quite interesting when I hearing just that voice,
I don't even recognize that.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It's kind of odd. Whatever you want, you're so fucking special.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
But then I remember hearing I remember hearing Lou read
Like on some radio station in Dublin years and years ago,
and they were asking inevitably about the underground and he said, yeah,
or sometimes it comes on. I'm like, oh, this is cool,
what's this?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
And then I realized it's an underground comments.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Wow, Yeah, I kind of know what he means to
sort of you get to the point where you're like,
what's that?
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like? Sounds pretty good? Blood. So you're forty three years old,
forty four, forty four years old, it's just our professional
courtesy that we shave a year off of all of
our already. Yeah, all of them. You're in the now
(40:29):
and you're in the here what have you? And I'm
not saying that glibly and you're know what I'm saying,
But you're not somebody who like Mick Jagger, for example,
Like I wonder if Mick Jagger is going to hit
a day, like does it happen in a day? Like
as Mick Jagger in bed one day and he picks
it the phone, He's like, you know, I just can't
do it anymore. I can't get out of this bed.
(40:49):
I can't do another fucking show again. And it's over.
Like do you think of other things? I think all
the time of the next thing I'm gonna do. Yeah,
next thing. You don't have to tell us what it is,
but you or no? I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
It would end if something happened to my voice.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Certain things could make it physically stop, and it will
stop at some point, something will happen. But for me, yeah,
I'm always hearing different things. There's always half finished things,
which you ask poor old Nigel he knows about that.
There's always a mountain of half stuff. I want to
get into stuff, I've started stuff I want to you know,
(41:34):
But I also think it's good to sort of take
breaks because I've gone straight from this radio tour last year,
which was a really heavy mother but really good fun,
straight into doing sort of atoms stuff and not really
had a break. And so breakers do a breakers do,
because what I've found with a breaker can be an
(41:54):
incredibly exciting thing with that thing of like you just
all the stuff you want to do, but you just
force yourself not just force yourself to wait and get
back into just time and space and yeah, not being
in music all the time, I think, because it's like anything,
you start to go in small circles, so you've got
(42:15):
to stop when that happens.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I've had to practice that now. I mean, I got
married again and my wife is pregnant and I'm going
to have a kid, and I really sat and thought
about that way that I want to have a more
ordinary and more normal handling of my emotions. I think
the best way to put it is what people in
my business say, which is would you rather live it
(42:38):
in real life or words you rather play it on screen?
And I'm thinking I want to walk away from it
because I'd rather live it in real life now than
play it on screen.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think it with what I do is slightly different
because what I do it actually unless you're literally spending,
unless you are just literally working too hard, it's a
regenerative thing. I find that I'm well, I mean, my family,
my friends know that I'm a nicer person if I'm
(43:06):
working and I'm into what I'm doing than if I stop,
and there is a period where I'm fairly unbearable if
I do stop too long, Yeah, for too long probably, Yeah,
there's a threshold. But like, if you want to shift
right with your work, if you want to shift, if
you're writing, if you're being creative at all, you kind
(43:28):
of have to stop to make that shift because if
you just I'm constantly creating, I've got this mounting of
brilliant ideas. You're making the basic mistake that you're assuming
all your ideas are brilliant, where in fact, the more
you do they're probably the more it kind of your
thing in reverse, because actually I need to go and
(43:50):
do normal shit.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I need to.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
I can't write unless I have a period where you're restored. Well, no,
it's not restored, just just reset. I'm like just normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Speaking of normal, do you have siblings. Yeah, do you
have a brother? What does he do? Russian politics and stuff?
He teaches? No, he's the mayor of all.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
What do you mean all sorts of ship investigations on people?
You studied Russian Oxford and then went into various.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Are your parents all there? What do your I always
let people in your business? Above all? What are your
parents and your brother make of you going from being
Tom York Tom to becoming Tom York.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Well, my brother was in a band of his own
for a while as well, so he has a slightly
like he can see what it is from another point
of view.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
What do my parents think? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
They like when I was a kid, they didn't approve.
Now that I'm happy, Why.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Do you go into advertising? Yes?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Well you know it was like fair enough. I was
pissed off of them at the time, but you know
it's kind of what that's what you do, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (45:06):
I mean, well to everybody's parents. Right when I left
a pre law program and I was destined to go
to law school and I went into the acting program,
my mother was She literally screamed at me over the past.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
My mom was very upset when I when I chose
to go to art college because she'd been to art
college and she said, it's a complete waste of time,
doesn't bother And.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
When it became successful with my business mother was like,
I'm so proud of him. Oh my god, this is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, it's kind of bonkers, like seeing them backstage at
a really big show that will come to a big
show and there's all sorts of shit came off with
my mates. They're doing whatever, you know, and there's my
mom and I going that was fun, cornie beer or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
When you do step away from it, what are their
art are you? Are you interested in art photography? Well,
my mate theater.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Film, my mate Stanley don Wood who I went to
art college with, who does all our art work with.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I mean I do it with him kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
We always have these lovely plans about we want to
go and live in Berlin for a month and just
paint and get in trouble and things like that. We
call ourselves the Sunday Painters and we go on bad
painting trips. We did one where people they're bad painting
trips because I'm involved there was one of my favorite
ones was we went on the moors down in Cornwall.
(46:26):
Do you know what I mean by the moors and
Dartmore basically, which is very very very bleak, but really beautiful.
We were in the Stone Circle, drove part of the way,
walked the rest away with these big canvases and paints.
But we only we discovered we only have purple and
blue and yellow, so we thought, well, okay, we'll use that,
and we painted landscape all afternoon, but they were purple
(46:49):
and blue and yellow. Some pool women I remember coming
like late afternoon, coming and ask us, asking us for directions.
We're both sitting there, you know, canvases up like this,
all huddled up with the hoods on, you know, just.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Doing this, and.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
This ball woman comes up, asks for asks for directions
or somewhere rather, and then looks at the paintings.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
That just wonders off like, good luck, have another career.
I hope you're not counting on it. Always like, didn't
think the purple is working for it. Was like me
being in Italy and this beautiful couple. They were like late,
they were older, and the man walked up to me
in the camera and he said, schools A schooser is
a photo and He's pointing to me and his wife
is triangularly and I go oh, and I put my
(47:35):
arm around his wife to take a photo. He goes, no, no,
you photo and you take the photo the mountain in
the background, and I was like, oh, god, bless. Yeah,
they don't know who I am. I should move here,
I should move here. You mentioned someone gave you that
push his mentorship in your career. Do people come to
(47:58):
you and do you give them a push a little bit?
I mean, you must have a lot of people in
the music world, young people who look up to you.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
One of the best buzzes really is that thing where
someone comes up who's new and they're really into you know,
I'm really into what they're doing. It's really fascinating and
it's really totally new to me. But yet the occasions
when the yeah and You're like.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
How could you?
Speaker 2 (48:25):
How could you feel off me? I don't see any
of my stuff, but they see it, and I'm like, Wow,
that's so cool, especially when it's like like it's in
hip hop, Like really you know people within hip hop
who are into Radiohead. I'm like, I find that so
fascinating because I mean, obviously I'm massively into hip hop,
and we we use hip hop as a reference point
(48:47):
in the way we build tracks and stuff. But but really, wow,
that's bonkers. Obviously that's one of the really good bits.
But it's not really mental ship. It's just people who
you admire good at their ship, you know.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
And when it happens, it happens. How does success make
you feel?
Speaker 2 (49:09):
How does it make me feel? Something which I think
is well, howes it make me feel? It's always been
a little bit far away from me And the only
time it sort of makes sense is when we play
(49:29):
in front of people, you know, and the rest of
the times like, well, it's it's just it's who I've
been for so long I can't tell you because it's
just that's what it is. And I think I've probably
been doing it more than I haven't in my life
in terms of years, in terms of time. So most
(49:49):
of the time I don't really notice and people come
up and I go, well, that's nice, you know, thanks
very much. And it's not like I'm not grateful. I'm
just I just don't notice. And then sometimes some will
whack you over the head and you go, BlimE me,
things like doing the first time we did Saturday in life,
for example, and you go, really, people give a ship
because sometimes you can't. You don't know, you don't know
(50:12):
you've got on the inside, you can't see it. And
also you spent so long running away from it, and
I don't feel like I run away from it now
because there's nowhere to run.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
To run.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
And also it is like, yeah, I'm really grateful for
I'm it's very incredibly lucky.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
There's a very good point, there's nowhere to run and
still do it.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, I mean, I just think I'm well Jammy. As
we say, it's just really jammy, especially in the US,
you know, like people really give a shit, and it's like, well,
that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I guess I have one more question, was what does
well Jammy mean? I don't know, really, you don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Jammy is like you're so Jammy, like you just I'm
dating myself.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
No, no, no, it's a total floke, man, it's not really.
You're just lucky.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
I mean, I'm British, right, so I assume I'm just lucky.
There's no skill involved. I'm Jammy.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Goes off. This is from Tom York's most recent album, Amok.
He'll be touring in support of the album later this year.
Find out more on our website. Here's the Thing dot org.
(51:38):
This is Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing. Comes from w
NYC Radio.
Hey, it's Alec Baldwin here. Before we launch our next
season of Here's the Thing at iHeartRadio in January, I
thought I'd play some of my favorite shows from the archives.
In nineteen ninety two, Radiohead released their stunning debut single
Creep When You'reful. It was quiet, yet explosive, even haunting,
(00:26):
and its refrain had a powerful hook. I wish our special,
so fucking special. Radioheads frontman and principal songwriter Tom York
is my guest, and if it was his wish to
be special, the world granted it. York's band has become
(00:48):
a commercial and critical success, selling over thirty million albums.
Radiohead's music actively resists definition. Each new album explores a
(01:09):
different sound, delighting their followers and scooping up more fans
along the way. The New York Times called Radiohead rock's
most experimental top ten band, and this spirit of experimentation
(01:31):
isn't limited to their music. In two thousand and seven,
York and his bandmates released In Rainbows on their website.
First fans were invited to pay what they wanted for
the album. Radiohead may not have been the first to
thummets nose the music industrial complex but they might be
the first to do so and sell out a major arena.
(01:53):
That said, Tom York hasn't necessarily been comfortable under the spotlight.
He complains about celebrity worship and I wasn't sure what
to expect.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Actually, I got you a health food snack, did you Yeah,
because someone told me you were like all vegetarian and that.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Tom Yorke has a new record out Amok. The band
calls themselves Adams for Peace. You don't do a lot
of pros. Were you doing? I was an an as
needed a basis, yeah, on a need to know basis, Yeah, yeah,
(02:32):
kind of.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I kind of need to explain what I'm doing a
bit with the Adams for Peace thing, just a little
bit because it's something different and some vague effort to
explain myself occasionally I think is morally acceptable.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Tell us about the Adams for Peace. Well, it's just
it was.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I did a record on my own called The Eraser
a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Was that your first solo record? Yes, first time.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I sort of worked on my own with Nigel who
Normal who produces Radiohead, and it came out it was okay.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
People liked it a bit.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
A couple of years after, I suddenly thought I really
want to actually because it was all done, it was
all programmed, it was all computers and stuff, and I thought, actually,
I really I'm curious to know what it would be
like to actually get a band together to play this.
And it was an excuse to go on a jolly
to LA and hang out. And I emailed friends of
mine who I knew like the record. One was Flee
(03:27):
from the Chili Peppers. One was my friend Joey, who's
drummed with everybody who's genius drummer from LA And anyway,
we got it together and it turned into this thing
became really exciting, and we ended up calling the band
Atoms for Peace and making a record out of the
excitement of that. And it was all brand new to
(03:49):
me because I've been in the same band since I
was seventeen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And when you do that, when you go into another
room with people, it's not so much assuming and you
can help me that you want to not play with
those guys anymore. You just want to play with different
people for a change. It was a good.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, it was a totally different process. I mean, it's
always fun if you know what you're aiming at. If
you know what the tunes are, you're not trying to
write them, you're just emulating what's already been written. That
makes it fun straight away, because it's a different sort
of creative process.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You're not struggling around in the dark for a way
into a piece of music. You're figuring out how to
strip it down to its all essentials, especially if it's
something's been written on a computer, and then you have
to humanly learn how to play it. It brings in
this quite interesting thing with the feel of what you're playing. Anyway,
it's loads of different things, but it's a lot more
(04:44):
fun and a lot more relaxed if you're not trying
to write, you know, which is what also all the time,
what we're trying to do with Radiohead.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
What's the first time or the first experience you had
with using computers to create music? That was.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I think after we did Okay Computer I finally in
the late late nineties you could like go on tour
with the laptop and it was powerful enough that you
could record, edit, use synthesizers built into it and it
wouldn't crash and it.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Was fairly stable.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So I first started getting into it then. And what
I thought was really interesting is when we were working
on Okay computer, I started using learning the software that
we were using the studio to edit. We were still
mostly working on tape old school, but I suddenly thought, well,
hang on a minute, if I can learn how all
this equipment works, I'll have a completely different way of
(05:38):
thinking about how to write. So I forced myself to
learn all this equipment and learn to use the laptop
because a lot of music I was into was being
made electronically anyway, and I kind of thought it would
be interesting to do it within the band, because you
know a band. Normally musicians don't fall into doing the
(06:00):
production side of it or building the tracks. They're like,
stay this side of the studio of fence with the
mics and let someone tell you. So I definitely was
much more into blurring that up.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Did not produce both your solo albums, Yeah he does.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
He does the lot all of the radio Head album,
Yeah he does.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well. When you attribute that to having that kind of faith.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
In someone, for me, it's sort of you find someone
you trust. I mean not all the time, and we
do argue a lot, but to have someone who's like
a sounding board all the time. It makes everything so
much more fun because if you're if you're knocking out ideas,
you can't edit them and knock them out at the
(06:45):
same time. Like if you're on stage and you're trying
to get through your part or whatever, you have to
have someone out front saying, okay, that's not working. I
mean I do on my own a lot. I do work.
You know, you generate ideas, but all I then have
is a mountain ideas that gradually I then have to
sit through and it just takes so long. It's so
much more fun sharing it with someone.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
What did he think about your forays into computerized music? Oh,
he was into it.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I did wonder when I first started doing it, but
he was into it because he watched me doing it
in such a different way to him. I mean, I
was like a kid being given a hammer. I was
just hammering away and stuff. I didn't really know what
I was doing, but he was kind of fascinated by that,
you know, and he'd come and literally tidy up the
mess down on the computer.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
What were other people who were other people that were
working in that in that area that you listened to
who are making well? Then it was.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I was obsessed with AFX twin then and O Tekra.
There was a lot of really interesting things happening Britain.
Then on this label called Warp and it was it was.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
A fun spell warp w arp, like the floor is warped, yeah,
after the fun Yeah. And then I say, with your accent,
that could have been anyone of four wards. When on
this label called War Warm, Wall w Wop, Yeah, saying
(08:14):
like we saying here in the United States War it's
war country and Western record like bitch your bottom down there, boy?
So you were you is? You were? You were obsessed
with the music that was on Woop Records.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Because it didn't have any guitars and I was having
a troubled relationship with my guitar at the time.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Is that true? Well not really.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It's just like I ended up being in a band
signing this to this big record label, and it's a
band with big letters, so certain things go with that.
But yet when I was at college, I was listening
to a lot of other things, and after a while
it was like, oh, this is is really annoying that
I felt like we couldn't break out of that. So
(08:56):
I just started forcing us to break out of that
because it didn't make sense to me. You've been with
those guys for how long Now we started when we're
sixteen Radiohead, which is now I'm forty four, so that's
quite a while.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And some bands that have had tremendous longevity, obviously the
Rolling Stones are the premier example. They've changed partners over
theres like they were the New York Yankees. You know,
there's somebody else playing third base every four or five years. Yeah,
but you guys, it's the same cast of people all
of a sudden. What do you attribute that to persistence?
My great diplomatic skills not but there must be time
(09:33):
to when they've I mean, I'll never forget McCartney said
to me, even the Beatles got tired of being The
Beatles were the times you guys sat there and look
at each other and said, I think we're done.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I do that frequently, frequently, I mean, at least the
others two not as much. They just wait for me
to do it.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
But it changes. It's like, yeah, it's like to stick around.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I'm feeling it's coming up. I mean, you know, something
to do with the fact we haven't done any useful
for three weeks. It goes through these phases. You know,
we've grown up together. It's weird. I mean, So, we
just did a tour last year, right, and it was probably,
in theory, the scariest one we've ever done, because it
was lots of big gigs, which I normally am spending
(10:15):
my time trying to shy away from.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Why because you can't achieve technically in a large space
where you normally want.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
To exactly that you can't get across to people the
right way, I felt. So we did spend a lot
of time and effort coming up with like a stage
design which used screens in a certain way which made
it intimate, even though you know, some nights was like
thirty or forty thousand people trying to create some sort
of intimacy with that, and when it worked, it was insane.
(10:42):
It was because the upside of playing to that many
people is you have this really crazy collective energy that
you can tap into like a crowd, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Thing.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
There's one show we did in Phoenix that sticks in
my mind where there was something about maybe that it
was in Phoenix and people don't get the opportunity. Those
sort of people don't get the opportunity to get together
that often or something. There was some sort of excitement
within the crowd that was so great to play with.
When we hit it musically, it felt like the whole room,
(11:15):
the whole of the building was moving. Honestly, we both
came off, you know, yeah, and it's bombed.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I understand that not from my own experience, but from
seeing artists perform.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You know, I often ask myself, why the hell would
you put yourself through this? Because it's very stressful. It's
a lot of pressure, and for me mentally, I just
build myself up to it in my head gradually and
it sounds really precious, but it messes with my head.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I want to get to that, but I want to
come around it and say, your music has such a
spiritual quality to it. There's a spiritual element to it,
and not a stated one. It just emanates a vibe.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
To me, it comes to me that yeah, but to me,
that comes off the audience. That's what I find. It's
something that's developed. It's not like we're not going into
this intending to do any of that. It just sort
of happens when when the waves go right, you know,
when the waves fall into place, then you'll get to
the end of the song and you can feel, Okay,
(12:17):
we've done whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That was it. What's your preparation before you do a
(12:45):
live show before you go because in the studio it's
obviously a whole different animal.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Correct, Yeah, there's no preparation for the studio. Do you
know it's bull in a china shop most of the time,
which is how it should be, I think, and performing live, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
What's give it to me. A couple of hours before
you go out there and you've got to blow this
thing out for all these people. Just stone cold silence,
basically almost meditative. Well, yeah, I do. I do that
and focused.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I stand on my head for a bit and I
basically I'm completely on my own until five minutes before
we go on, and then we're all in the room together,
pacing up and down like wild animals, and then then
we're on. But when we first started doing big shows,
it was with my from Michael Stipe, and he does
the total opposite. He literally he'll be talking to you
(13:34):
and then someone taps in the shoulder and then they're on.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And I was like, how the hell do you do that?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Man?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And I tried to do it like that, couldn't it,
And so I ended up going, did you get any
indication why Stipe could do that? There's a lot of
nice spiritual tones inside of R. E. M's music too.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, No, I don't know. I think what he used
to do was you'd stand there for the first two
tunes move. He was a sort of lightning conductor, and
he was just waiting for it to hit, and then
when it hit, he was off, but he would wait,
and if it wasn't going to hit, he was still
there three or four tunes later, and waiting He kind
(14:13):
of warmed up in front of everybody, gauging it all.
Whereas I can't do that because I have to sort
of be clear of everything before, you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I need to be completely empty. We're taking a break.
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I started playing guitar when I was seven. I sat
down and said I was going to be Brian May
and I was not a bad thing to be. Yeah,
And then I tried to do I read like when
I was ten or something. I read that he'd built
his first guitar himself, which is the one he still plays.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
So I tried to do that, but my efforts was
and then said she were not Brian May no handcrafting
of the guitar.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
And I had to cheat with the neck on the
guitar I found in old someone a neighbor gave me
a neck of an electric guitar.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Was that great?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Okay, that's good, But you know I was ten or eleven,
so I was trying to like bolt it to get
to this other piece of wood that I'd cut out,
and it was just a disaster. But it kind of worked,
but it was ugly.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Was your family musical? Not really? No.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
The only one that sticks out is apparently my great grandmother.
She'd get really hammered and then stay up playing her
pump organ thing downstairs all night and keep.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The family up. You were around, did you witness that?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I met her once and she was kind of she
wore black and was quite scary when I was really tiny.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
But nowither of your parents were artists musicians? No, no, no, no.
When the guitar came into your life when you or seven,
Brian May or no, was it music itself? And were
you moved by music itself? Or was it like many
people when they're very young? Was it rock stardom? Was
never then it was it was you weren't running around
(16:15):
your bedroom imitating Jagger and you thought like you.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
My whole thing was we didn't have any sound system
in the house. We had nothing, no high fi nothing
except for in my dad's car and had a tight
player in it. So I went and would sit for hours.
I would sit for hours, and you know, it was
the sound of Brian May's guitar. Actually, it was one
(16:40):
of those funny things where you know, when you turned
something up and you're in a very controlled, loud environment,
just that sound was just you know, nothing else was that.
When you're that small and you've never I've never really
heard music particularly at all up until that point. You know,
(17:01):
it's funny. It's got a weird thing. But I mean,
lots of kids at that age, you know, their parents
didn't really have high fires or anything as such. The
only guy I did know who had a high fight
down the road only played abbat, which I thought was
worse than not having one.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
But that was me somehow. Those and then and then
the guitar, and you're trying to fashion your own guitar
by the time you were eleven, and then when you
take another step toward deepening your commitment. How old are
you when you form the band sixteen? I did have
a band when I was eleven, But what's an eleven
year old band sound like?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
No, it were not very good at all, but it was.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It was very exciting, like going around to a friend's
house is setting up and jamming, and all our mates
would come and hang out and girls, which I thought,
this is interesting. Yes, as puberty hit, but that sort
of fell to bits because I kept fighting with the drummer.
And then when I was six, I was thinking, well, okay,
(18:02):
I need to get this together really and just went
around the school sort of choosing people.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So you went around picking people. I got it because
he was.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Dressed like Morrissey and he had some cool socks, and
I saw he'd had a guitar. I had no idea
whether he could play or not. I didn't really care.
I got Colin because I knew Colin could play very
well and I needed.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
A bass player.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
He could play very well, but he had never played
bass before and his brother Johnny was this mythical musical prodigy,
so wroped him in and then Phil was the only
drummer IN knew anyway, so and and he had a
house down the road that we could rehearse him.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And you're all and you lived where you grew up
were well.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
This was at Abingdon School in near Oxford.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And then when you form Radiohead when you're sixteen.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Basically yeah, we started sort of writing, doing demos and
messing about and it was, you know, it was quite
interesting straight away that it was quite I think because
Field had quite a lot of experience. He was a
bit older, and he'd had his own band, so he
knew how to put things together a bit. And in
fact we used to go and do demos in his
(19:12):
sister's bedroom, like right from the beginning, which which was great.
I mean, there's nothing better than like just starting off
by just trying to write demos from scratch, even though
you can't really play, even though you don't know each other.
That's where you start, you know. It's kind of a
nice way to figure out where you're about.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
What do you think you do best? You lead a band,
you well, you play guitar, you write music, you produce music,
you do and you sing. What do you think your
greatest strength is? If you had to pick one, I
don't know what I'm doing right. I like the fact
that I still don't know what I'm doing. I think, well,
not honestly, I can't go I'll go through whole phrases
(19:52):
of months where i'n't got a clue. I regularly lose
complete confidence in what I'm doing. Why do you think
that is? Umm, because I have the same condition.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Why partly because I think I don't quite understand how
it happens after the fact, When.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
When what happens when the appreciation comes to.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You know, when you're piecing something together right, things will
fall into place how you make it. Yeah, I mean,
in some ways, the nicest bit about the creative thing,
of nicest bit about recording and writing is this sort
of weird limbo where you in between scratching away scratching away,
nothing really happening, nothing really happening, and then something wants
(20:40):
to be built and starts to get built. You just
have to let it happen, and then it gets to
the end and you and you look at it a
few months later and go, huh damn. It's sort of
weird amnesia that goes with it. Something will happen, one
little sound goes off, and you go well, that's really
nice for me. When I was at school, I didn't
(21:02):
get on with the school system at all. I see it,
and my son the same, that sort of the mechanics
of how a school operates and how you're supposed to
blend in or whatever. So I hid in the music
stroke art department and had a great time there and
discovered that actually that's what I wanted to do. Straight away,
(21:23):
the heads of both schools just saw what I was
up there.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
This is this the teacher that you often credit with
here or yeah, what was the teacher's.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Name, Terry James, But it was him and my art
teacher as well. Actually it was like someone sort of
takes you under their wing and say, well, you know what,
you're actually quite good at that.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Mentoring is a very critical thing in this business.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, because it's it's enough at that age, it's enough
to just get a little push and then okay.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Or does someone push you in a different direction, yeah,
well yeah that would be bad. Yeah, how about you
go to the other I think you need to.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I think my father used to think I used to
get to advertising, which is like really brilliant.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, I'd really be good at that. Other people well,
one thing you're good at is avoiding. My original question,
which was what do you think you're best at? And
let's try to choose if you can, if you maybe
you don't mind confine yourself to the list, I provide,
what do you think you're best at? Okay? This is
multiple choice guitar band, kind of paternal figure, songwriting, producing, singing.
(22:31):
I guess singing. Okay, I'm glad you chose that one.
I was driving. I think when I popped the words
singing the way I did, I was trying to do
or singing. What was singing to you? How did your
singing evolve where you arrived at where you are now
where most people say you have one of the most
(22:52):
evocative singing voices in all of music today, melancholy to
the point of well, people who loved, who love radio Head,
they crave their music, and they crave particularly you were singing.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Well, basically I went to music. I went to a
few singing lessons, but that was basically just so I
could literally breathe.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
You know, one of my favorite singers, like Byork. When
I watched b York sing, I've been lucky enough to
sort of sing with her and watch you do it.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And I was gonna say, you'ree of the few people
going to use that phrase when I watched B. York
saying yeah, most of us say, well, when I listened
to B. York and it's.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
In here, it's right here, they say, you know, with
with with in yoga and stuff that whatever it is,
I can't remember that that spot at the top of
the forehead that you really most singers like Neil Young
is the same. He sings into this spot in his
head and what he's singing he's already heard, you know
(23:58):
what I mean, He's hearing it come out. The same
with Buork when she's singing, she's singing what she's hearing,
so there's no force. It's a force in itself. It
took me a while to get that, you know, even
(24:19):
when we were on tour with ira Em back when
we're doing the Benz in ninety six or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It was.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Still I was still trying to figure it out. Then
watching Michael and wanting to sound like Michael, but I couldn't,
you know, because my voice is in a different tone
completely and so on. But what I did learn, what
you know, watching him, was again that thing of like
watching someone who their voices in sort of command of
(24:47):
them rather than the other way around. Yeah, but it's
very natural, but it takes a long time for that
to become natural. I think, like any singer, it takes
a long time to find that thing and it keeps
changing to me how I sing now or to me
(25:08):
it feels different to a few years ago.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Why it just does it just because to do it?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well, yeah, there's probably some physical element to it, but
also just where you're at, you know, because singing is
nothing but like probably like acting, singing is nothing but
being in a moment.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
That's it and where you're at. Yeah, when you do like.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
When I used to be like you know, when when
you're trying to singing or whatever, channle I remember sort
of okay, computer, I still had this thing like, well
I need to be a little bit half cut when
i'm you know, I need to do something or other beforehand.
So I thought I'm in the right space, man, Where
it's all bollocks because basically you just got to learn
to be there with it. When you do it, you're
(25:52):
not trying to prove anything. You're not trying to get anywhere,
You're not trying to achieve anything. You're not trying to
get this emotion across. You're not in this space trying
to get this space across. You're not trying to get
this mindset across or anything. You're just letting it happen.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
When you do this now, when you live inside your
life now, whether you're performing live or you're producing and
recording music, do you feel different now that you're older?
I mean, the chasm between when you're sixteen when you're
forty three is extraordinary, isn't it? Just it's just mind bending? Yeah.
Do you feel like you're sick of it and you
(26:54):
want to be done with it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
You do sometimes, but not, it's never really. The music
is everything else, you know, primarily what we'll just stresses
of life whatever. You know, something's good.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So your life is not like I mean a lot
of people think they think that successful artists, whether it
is walk across this bed of rose petals all day,
the greatest torment of our life is do we go
to Paris on spring break or Anguilla? My god, I
can't I can't answer that. It is a problem. It
is a problem, but it's not we're supposed to say
(27:31):
that But what I'm saying is is that they think that, like,
do you ever sit there? You're very active socially. Yes,
I guess you care. You've made some comments about world affairs.
I don't care about the world. Yeah, you care about
what's going If I said to you that, I snapped
my fingers and you go back to having a very
normal life and you're not you at all with everything
that goes with it, and the rest of the world
(27:52):
is elevated and the rest of the world gets better.
Things you care about? Think of an issue you care.
Can I say to you Tom yorke Tom, your Tom,
you go back and the world gets better, would you
make that change to find better? It's a tricky question,
but you do. It's not an either or. But you
(28:13):
do care about other things. Is there an issue that
you're embracing now? Is there something you're involved in that
or where I'm going?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I well, in my slack asked fashion, I was helping
Greenpeace do this thing which was trying to stop drilling
in the Arctic. But it sounds like it's kind of
working because the company seemed to be pulling out because
they can't.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I don't think that's entirely down to us, but I
think it definitely helped that We're making their life extremely
difficult everywhere they turned. But challenge now is to turn
the Arctic into a reserve so it can't happen, because
what that was going to do is create this gold rush,
you know, or rush up there, which was just going
to be insane. And this at the same time where
(28:55):
the ice is melting. Basically they only started considering it
was a possibility because the was melting. They thought, Okay, great,
maybe got a better chance for drilling, which is like
a global global you.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Mean less oil to them, it means more Well.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, So I was kind of stuck in that for
a while because, yeah, the to me, the irony of
it was too much. I don't know where I'll go next.
I don't I find it very stressful. I did get involved.
A few years ago. We did this thing in Britain,
the first Climate Change Act, which meant the government is
committed to reducing CO two emissions twenty fifty by ninety percent,
(29:33):
and now lots of countries have got it. It was
the first one and the government didn't want to do it.
Blair didn't want to do it, but we found this
interesting loophole and got thousands of people to send letters
in and said at the bottom of the letter to
the at the MP police, can you pass this on
to Blair? Right? And apparently they were obliged to pass
on these letters. So Blair was literally getting thousands and
(29:55):
thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of letters, which
doesn't normally happen. And he did pass the law after
much arguing and me refusing to meet him because it
was during the Iraq War and all sorts of critical
of Yeah, well, any normal human being would be anyway.
I was very glad I did it, and the people
(30:15):
I was working for at the time it was with
Friends of the Earth, and it was really inspiring and
I became really good friends with the guy who's running
Friends of the Earth at the time, Tony Juniper, who
now works with Prince Charles. And it was a great period.
But I just burnt me out getting that close to politics.
The most fascinating figure that we work with was the
(30:38):
lobbyist that we had our one lobbyist, So like we
went into this Port Colors house in Britain, you probably
have the equivalent here. I don't know what it's called,
but Port Cullis House was built for the lobbyists. It
was built for special interests to go and sit with
a cup of coffee, round table about this size and
wait for MPs to go past colin of them, sit
(31:01):
them down and lobby them in.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Big Congress the Capitol building.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Anyway, I found it completely fascinating, you know, because it's
there's hundreds of these people walking around, and I'm like,
none of them are lobbying for us, except when you
maybe possibly could argue that our one mate, Friends of
the Earth was like technically, you know, maybe speaking for
the people a little bit, but basically they were all
special interest and they had the ear of government.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
And I just thought, hang on, hang on a minute,
how did this happen? Anyway? Where where were we a
minute ago? I know where I want to go? Okay,
go on and go there. Then your children, Oh no, no,
that's too much for a jump. Hang on where we
Let's finish with this first? Then your children. I'm lost.
Now do your children know who you are and what
you do?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, they're used to it. They're used to people coming
up and saying hello. But most of the time it's
very friendly and that's normal. That's their normal, that's what
they've grown up.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
And how old are they? Twelve and seven? So one
seven the age that you decided you wanted to be
Brian May the twelve and by then he's he he
would already have made his guitar with that neck. That
was eleven. I think you said to the other kids,
where are they at?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Basically, my son is a great drummer, but I don't
know if you want to do that forever or not.
He's like not bothered really, which is cool. You know,
he just and he comes and hangs out with me
when I'm working in my studio.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
We just hang out. You know, we're friends.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But I don't think you know that there's no burning
ambition to be a musicians or anything. Really, even though
he's really good, he's for pleasure. I mean at that
age that's good, right.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
His fatherhood affected your work, yes, but not really that
you have the obvious things.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Were you you go out on the road more if
you didn't have children, Yep, absolutely, But that's not necessarily
a bad thing at all. You know, being on their
road is it's a it's not a great war. It's
it's you don't want to do it all your life.
You get a little bit on it gets a little
(33:14):
unhealthy quite quickly mentally, if not physically.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Has been difficult for you, mentally.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Uh, it can be different. It means it's it's wicked
fun a bit too much. It's either wicked fun or
really awful, like when you're sick. Then it gets really
it's a roll bumber man.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Have to get out there.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, try to sing your way through the notes that
you can't find because you're so sick or whatever. That's
really super stressful. But you know, it is a massive
buzz and there's no denying it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
It's great. But Tom Yorke is the first to admit
that it takes work to keep it fun in the
studio and on tour.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It's very difficult to play with people you don't if
there's problems between you, for example, if the issues come up.
I mean, I'm very much I'm a librin and I
need to sort it out. I can't have stuff hanging around.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
You know, because it gets in a way more in
a minute with Tom Yorke, this is Alec Baldwin and
you're listening to here's the thing given the level of
success that Radiohead has reached. I did have certain expectations
(34:37):
of Tom's lifestyle. I mean, I'm assuming you're in a
world where that your phone must have rang it maybe
it stopped because you kept saying no, but maybe everybody's like,
you know, Bono wants to pick you up tomorrow and
fly you to Saint Bart's. Yeah, that never appealed.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I don't hang out with people because they are who
they are, necessarily unless I'm a big admirer of them,
Like I mean, I stalked at Norton for ages until
eventually he gave it because I'm a big admirer of him.
I think it's brilliant. So I hang out with him
a bit occasionally.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
And Flea.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I've always really admired Flea anyway, so even before it
became an issue of sort of playing with him.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Tangentially related to that, As you've gotten older and you
look around the musical landscape, what you see does it
appeal to you? Meaning of the music that's popular music,
I mean, what's selling now the most successfully. Have you
moved into a different place with that or do you
admire a lot of what's being done.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
In the mainstream. In the mainstream, there's nothing in the mainstream.
The mainstream is just avoid you know. To me, I mean,
what's weird about putting a record out?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Now? Really?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
And this is not like sour grapes at all. It's
just the fact the volume, literally the sheer volume stuff
that gets put out. It's like this huge fucking waterfall
and you're just thrown your pebble in and it carries
on down the waterfall.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
That right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Next, basically, you know, like in this country, the radio
is tied up and people don't really listen to radio
in the same way. It's it's music's going through a
weird time because on the one hand, as ever, there's
always really exciting music being made. It's never not being made.
It's a question of whether you're going to get to
(36:23):
hear it or not. And I mean I kind of
I kind of knew the game was up a few
years ago when one of our sort of team of
people came in saying Nokia wanted to offer you millions
of pounds because they want content for their phones. And
this is like in two thousand, I don't know, early
(36:43):
two thousands, and you're like content, what you know, content.
What do you mean music? Yes, okay, content maybe that yes, yeah,
just stuff could be music stuff, yeah, stuff could be
got snoring?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Have you got some stuff? You know?
Speaker 2 (36:59):
And you're like okay, And I think, really my problem
with it is it is like it's now like something
to fill up the hardware with, you know, the music
itself has become secondary to that, which is a weird
thing to me. It's like, and I think that will
change because there's only so many different permutations of the
same hardware you can make before people go, well, actually
I have an iPod now, so thanks. So I think
(37:20):
things will change, and I think the radio will change,
and sooner the better, because no matter what way you
look at it, the most pleasurable experiences you ever have
is like when something's played to you you don't know, well,
like going around to a friend's house and they'll stick
a tune on.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
You, Like what the hell is it? You know? Which
is what it's about?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
You know, that's why we're like going into a store
when I was a kid, like and the New Smith's
records come out, and like and I'm going up to
the guy. I think that's like he's really cool, Like
the indie store in town and just talking to him
about music for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You know, and you know you share now everywhere you go.
Music is everywhere.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
It's everywhere, but it's not nicely. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It's content.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Content is king that bullshit will change. And when it does,
then I think we'll have a resurgence. The underbelly will
come back overbelly and then well.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
If it's middle aged, it'll be overbelly. Well you have
ways to go there. I'm going to be taking some
slimming pills. Yeah, but no, we in the way that
you talked about this pebble and the waterfall and content
and music marketing. Now, so if that changes, certainly, which
it has, does your willingness to release your music into
that world change? I mean, like, for example, an obvious example,
(38:34):
maybe too obvious, is you don't want to play Creep anymore.
Now do you sit there and say, like, if the
Sultan of Brunei called you up and said I want
you to come to Brunei and we give you a
million pounds, just play Creep, I would play Creep and
you can go home.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I would say to the something of BRUNEI, why do
you have that house near me that you never use.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I can just meet you down the block.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I mean, come on, it's an empty house, man, it
must be worth whatever. That's what I'd say, trillion, and
I'd say no obvious.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
But am.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
The hell?
Speaker 1 (39:21):
When you retire a song that way? Why do you
do that? Well? I don't not necessarily retire it.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I mean I don't recognize it as me, which is
kind of quite interesting when I hearing just that voice,
I don't even recognize that.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It's kind of odd. Whatever you want, you're so fucking special.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
But then I remember hearing I remember hearing Lou read
Like on some radio station in Dublin years and years ago,
and they were asking inevitably about the underground and he said, yeah,
or sometimes it comes on. I'm like, oh, this is cool,
what's this?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
And then I realized it's an underground comments.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Wow, Yeah, I kind of know what he means to
sort of you get to the point where you're like,
what's that?
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like? Sounds pretty good? Blood. So you're forty three years old,
forty four, forty four years old, it's just our professional
courtesy that we shave a year off of all of
our already. Yeah, all of them. You're in the now
(40:29):
and you're in the here what have you? And I'm
not saying that glibly and you're know what I'm saying,
But you're not somebody who like Mick Jagger, for example,
Like I wonder if Mick Jagger is going to hit
a day, like does it happen in a day? Like
as Mick Jagger in bed one day and he picks
it the phone, He's like, you know, I just can't
do it anymore. I can't get out of this bed.
(40:49):
I can't do another fucking show again. And it's over.
Like do you think of other things? I think all
the time of the next thing I'm gonna do. Yeah,
next thing. You don't have to tell us what it is,
but you or no? I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
It would end if something happened to my voice.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Certain things could make it physically stop, and it will
stop at some point, something will happen. But for me, yeah,
I'm always hearing different things. There's always half finished things,
which you ask poor old Nigel he knows about that.
There's always a mountain of half stuff. I want to
get into stuff, I've started stuff I want to you know,
(41:34):
But I also think it's good to sort of take
breaks because I've gone straight from this radio tour last year,
which was a really heavy mother but really good fun,
straight into doing sort of atoms stuff and not really
had a break. And so breakers do a breakers do,
because what I've found with a breaker can be an
(41:54):
incredibly exciting thing with that thing of like you just
all the stuff you want to do, but you just
force yourself not just force yourself to wait and get
back into just time and space and yeah, not being
in music all the time, I think, because it's like anything,
you start to go in small circles, so you've got
(42:15):
to stop when that happens.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I've had to practice that now. I mean, I got
married again and my wife is pregnant and I'm going
to have a kid, and I really sat and thought
about that way that I want to have a more
ordinary and more normal handling of my emotions. I think
the best way to put it is what people in
my business say, which is would you rather live it
(42:38):
in real life or words you rather play it on screen?
And I'm thinking I want to walk away from it
because I'd rather live it in real life now than
play it on screen.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think it with what I do is slightly different
because what I do it actually unless you're literally spending,
unless you are just literally working too hard, it's a
regenerative thing. I find that I'm well, I mean, my family,
my friends know that I'm a nicer person if I'm
(43:06):
working and I'm into what I'm doing than if I stop,
and there is a period where I'm fairly unbearable if
I do stop too long, Yeah, for too long probably, Yeah,
there's a threshold. But like, if you want to shift
right with your work, if you want to shift, if
you're writing, if you're being creative at all, you kind
(43:28):
of have to stop to make that shift because if
you just I'm constantly creating, I've got this mounting of
brilliant ideas. You're making the basic mistake that you're assuming
all your ideas are brilliant, where in fact, the more
you do they're probably the more it kind of your
thing in reverse, because actually I need to go and
(43:50):
do normal shit.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I need to.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
I can't write unless I have a period where you're restored. Well, no,
it's not restored, just just reset. I'm like just normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Speaking of normal, do you have siblings. Yeah, do you
have a brother? What does he do? Russian politics and stuff?
He teaches? No, he's the mayor of all.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
What do you mean all sorts of ship investigations on people?
You studied Russian Oxford and then went into various.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Are your parents all there? What do your I always
let people in your business? Above all? What are your
parents and your brother make of you going from being
Tom York Tom to becoming Tom York.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Well, my brother was in a band of his own
for a while as well, so he has a slightly
like he can see what it is from another point
of view.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
What do my parents think? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
They like when I was a kid, they didn't approve.
Now that I'm happy, Why.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Do you go into advertising? Yes?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Well you know it was like fair enough. I was
pissed off of them at the time, but you know
it's kind of what that's what you do, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (45:06):
I mean, well to everybody's parents. Right when I left
a pre law program and I was destined to go
to law school and I went into the acting program,
my mother was She literally screamed at me over the past.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
My mom was very upset when I when I chose
to go to art college because she'd been to art
college and she said, it's a complete waste of time,
doesn't bother And.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
When it became successful with my business mother was like,
I'm so proud of him. Oh my god, this is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, it's kind of bonkers, like seeing them backstage at
a really big show that will come to a big
show and there's all sorts of shit came off with
my mates. They're doing whatever, you know, and there's my
mom and I going that was fun, cornie beer or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
When you do step away from it, what are their
art are you? Are you interested in art photography? Well,
my mate theater.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Film, my mate Stanley don Wood who I went to
art college with, who does all our art work with.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I mean I do it with him kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
We always have these lovely plans about we want to
go and live in Berlin for a month and just
paint and get in trouble and things like that. We
call ourselves the Sunday Painters and we go on bad
painting trips. We did one where people they're bad painting
trips because I'm involved there was one of my favorite
ones was we went on the moors down in Cornwall.
(46:26):
Do you know what I mean by the moors and
Dartmore basically, which is very very very bleak, but really beautiful.
We were in the Stone Circle, drove part of the way,
walked the rest away with these big canvases and paints.
But we only we discovered we only have purple and
blue and yellow, so we thought, well, okay, we'll use that,
and we painted landscape all afternoon, but they were purple
(46:49):
and blue and yellow. Some pool women I remember coming
like late afternoon, coming and ask us, asking us for directions.
We're both sitting there, you know, canvases up like this,
all huddled up with the hoods on, you know, just.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Doing this, and.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
This ball woman comes up, asks for asks for directions
or somewhere rather, and then looks at the paintings.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
That just wonders off like, good luck, have another career.
I hope you're not counting on it. Always like, didn't
think the purple is working for it. Was like me
being in Italy and this beautiful couple. They were like late,
they were older, and the man walked up to me
in the camera and he said, schools A schooser is
a photo and He's pointing to me and his wife
is triangularly and I go oh, and I put my
(47:35):
arm around his wife to take a photo. He goes, no, no,
you photo and you take the photo the mountain in
the background, and I was like, oh, god, bless. Yeah,
they don't know who I am. I should move here,
I should move here. You mentioned someone gave you that
push his mentorship in your career. Do people come to
(47:58):
you and do you give them a push a little bit?
I mean, you must have a lot of people in
the music world, young people who look up to you.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
One of the best buzzes really is that thing where
someone comes up who's new and they're really into you know,
I'm really into what they're doing. It's really fascinating and
it's really totally new to me. But yet the occasions
when the yeah and You're like.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
How could you?
Speaker 2 (48:25):
How could you feel off me? I don't see any
of my stuff, but they see it, and I'm like, Wow,
that's so cool, especially when it's like like it's in
hip hop, Like really you know people within hip hop
who are into Radiohead. I'm like, I find that so
fascinating because I mean, obviously I'm massively into hip hop,
and we we use hip hop as a reference point
(48:47):
in the way we build tracks and stuff. But but really, wow,
that's bonkers. Obviously that's one of the really good bits.
But it's not really mental ship. It's just people who
you admire good at their ship, you know.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
And when it happens, it happens. How does success make
you feel?
Speaker 2 (49:09):
How does it make me feel? Something which I think
is well, howes it make me feel? It's always been
a little bit far away from me And the only
time it sort of makes sense is when we play
(49:29):
in front of people, you know, and the rest of
the times like, well, it's it's just it's who I've
been for so long I can't tell you because it's
just that's what it is. And I think I've probably
been doing it more than I haven't in my life
in terms of years, in terms of time. So most
(49:49):
of the time I don't really notice and people come
up and I go, well, that's nice, you know, thanks
very much. And it's not like I'm not grateful. I'm
just I just don't notice. And then sometimes some will
whack you over the head and you go, BlimE me,
things like doing the first time we did Saturday in life,
for example, and you go, really, people give a ship
because sometimes you can't. You don't know, you don't know
(50:12):
you've got on the inside, you can't see it. And
also you spent so long running away from it, and
I don't feel like I run away from it now
because there's nowhere to run.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
To run.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
And also it is like, yeah, I'm really grateful for
I'm it's very incredibly lucky.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
There's a very good point, there's nowhere to run and
still do it.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah, I mean, I just think I'm well Jammy. As
we say, it's just really jammy, especially in the US,
you know, like people really give a shit, and it's like, well,
that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
I guess I have one more question, was what does
well Jammy mean? I don't know, really, you don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Jammy is like you're so Jammy, like you just I'm
dating myself.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
No, no, no, it's a total floke, man, it's not really.
You're just lucky.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
I mean, I'm British, right, so I assume I'm just lucky.
There's no skill involved. I'm Jammy.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Goes off. This is from Tom York's most recent album, Amok.
He'll be touring in support of the album later this year.
Find out more on our website. Here's the Thing dot org.
(51:38):
This is Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing. Comes from w
NYC Radio.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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