Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Lead singer of Radiohead, a band that expanded ideas about what pop music can be; also a solo artist and composer.
On the island
Eight records
Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)Favourite
Talking Heads did something with a studio that had never been done before.
Something happens in this track. It's like I'm having a seizure.
This particular song… still now blows my mind the words to this song.
What I hear in it is this incredible woman with this incredible voice…
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:50Does that idea of torching it mean that as music fans we're hearing a tiny proportion of your total creative output?
No, I mean I wish there was vaults full of other stuff, but no, it's more you need to feel an unsuredness is that a real word? About where it is you're going.
Presenter asks
2:31What's it like when you reach that moment [the search for a hit]?
Suddenly something happens and you get this elation. It can feed your soul for like months or even years… if it's really powerful, it's almost visual for me. I see things.
Presenter asks
3:22How long's that [synesthesia] been going on?
I guess since I started making music I've always had that. But then of course the Eureka moments didn't really happen when I was twelve.
Presenter asks
6:34The book
Shunryu Suzuki
I'd like a Suzuki book. It's about Zen meditation, Zen mind, beginner's mind, because I'm going to be spending a lot of time with my own thoughts and I will need to come to terms with them in a certain way.
The luxury
just simply because being a musician, I'm going to be wandering around this island and ideas are going to be coming up in my mind. If I can't put them somewhere, I will go mad.
What about being a lead vocalist for all those years? Do you have to take care of your voice when you're not on stage or recording?
I used to have… a lot of problems with my voice because I'd not really ever done it before and because I was drinking myself senseless… I'd sort of had a wake-up call I had to give up smoking… there was a time when I was working with Björk… I kind of got really trashed and then the next morning I woke up to the sound of her warming up.
Presenter asks
13:38You had eye surgery when you were really young. Tell me about that.
When I was born, the left eye was shut, there was no muscles that would open it… they take a bit of muscle from elsewhere, in my case my ass, and they graft it on to make it work… I went for like three or four operations after that… the last operation went wrong and it's kind of blind… I decided I liked the fact that it … wasn't the same. And I've liked it ever since. … I think we're all born with something wrong with us, and that was mine.
Presenter asks
38:04From your side, what are the responsibilities that come with campaigning [on climate change], do you think?
I think the thing I've always struggled somewhat with is that, you know, if I'm campaigning on climate change, I'm someone who has to fly for my work. So, boom, I'm a hypocrite. … But fighting that battle all the time, I think at some point it can become like detrimental to the people who are doing all this hard work. … the truth of the matter is, we're all part of a system, systemic thing that has to change. … The real stuff, it has to happen in Parliament, it has to happen at the UN, and it has to happen now. … that's why people are on the streets. That's why people are gluing themselves to buildings. Because mainstream politics is too terrified to turn round and tell people things are going to have to change and you're not going to like it.
“The torching it is saying to yourself, I don't know what I'm doing. Good music comes because you are there ready to receive it.”
“I'm absolutely convinced that if both those kind men if they had not done that, I wouldn't be here today doing this.”
“I'm also an extremely angry person and I got more control freakery, I became more unbearable … I put my hands on the steering wheel and I white knuckled and I didn't care who got hurt … until the end of OK Computer. Years later I sat down with the guys and I apologised.”
“if I'm still able to make some music that expresses all that and is still important to people, if I'm still taking risks and affecting people, then wow, I mean it's more than I can ask for. That's way more than I need.”