With their series of European residencies fast approaching, the five members of Radiohead have given their first proper interview for years to the Sunday Times.
As you’d expect, it’s fascinating. For one thing, we found out that Ed O’Brien almost left the band in a dispute over whether they should include the song Let Down on seminal 1997 album OK Computer. For a long time, this was one of the lesser known tracks on the album, but it went viral over the summer and entered the Billboard chart for the first time.
That alone Thom Yorke found baffling. “I find that especially bizarre,” he said, "Because I fought tooth and nail for it not to be on the record, but Ed was, like, ‘If it’s not, I’m leaving.’”
For O’Brien, Let Down is “the emotional heart of the record," but admits that he too was "astonished” when it entered the US chart. “So I told my kids, who are 18 and 21," he recalls, "and they said, ‘What do you expect? Teenagers are depressed. It’s depressing music!’”
The band also talk about why they went on hiatus in 2018 and why it’s taken them so long to return. “I guess the wheels came off a bit, so we had to stop,” Yorke says. “There were a lot of elements. The shows felt great but it was, like, let’s halt now before we walk off this cliff.”
The singer was also grieving. His first wife and mother of his children, Rachel Owen, had just died of cancer. “I needed to stop anyway,” he says. “[My grief] was coming out in ways that made me think, I need to take this away.”
We also found out that Ed O’Brien was the most reluctant to return to the group after their long layoff. “I was nervous going into [the recent] rehearsals because I was effectively over Radiohead. It wasn’t great on the last round. I enjoyed the gigs but hated the rest. We felt disconnected, fucking spent. It happens. This has been our whole life - what else is there? Look, success has a funny effect on people - I just didn’t want to do it any more. And I told them that.”
“I went through a very long dark night of the soul,” the guitarist continued. “I had a deep depression. I hit the bottom in 2021. And one of the things that was lovely coming out of it was realising how much I love these guys. I met them when I was 17 and I have gone from thinking I can’t see myself doing it again to realising that, you know, we do have some stellar songs.”
And as for the big question of whether they will be playing any new material at the upcoming shows, or even if there'll ever be any new Radiohead songs again, the various band members wouldn't be drawn.
“I don’t know,” said Jonny Greenwood says. “We haven’t thought past the tour.” Thom Yorke, meanwhile, is "just stunned we got this far.”
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