EPISODE 3

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Savannah Wright: [00:00:00] This is Fake Plastic Podcast, a podcast that unlocks the alchemy of Radiohead — one song music, video, or live performance at a time. My name is Savannah Wright. Barney Hoskyns' experience with Radiohead follows a conventional narrative. It starts, as most stories do, with "Creep".
[00:00:20] Barney Hoskyns: [00:00:20] I remember seeing them unloading their gear outside of the Clapham Grand here, I guess, around [00:00:30] '93, '94. And I guess at that point, you know, a lot of us just thought, well, you know, this is just another sort of loud kind of post grunge, angst ridden british rock band. I mean, there were a few of them around at that time.
[00:00:47] Savannah Wright: [00:00:47] His opinion began to change when he heard The Bends.
[00:00:50] Barney Hoskyns: [00:00:50] I remember being on staff at Mojo Magazine, and somebody saying this album is really different. This album is either already doing something [00:01:00] different. And then somebody putting on The Bends and the first few tracks just sort of hitting me. And I was, Oh my God, this is really powerful. Really, really powerful.
[00:01:11] And I'm kind of, I'm intrigued. Now I'm interested. They've really kind of gone far beyond what they were doing before and, you know, left, you know, "Creep" and things behind. This is, this is really different. It's, it's big music, but it's not like. It's not like U2, or. There's something that's really their [00:01:30] own.
[00:01:31] Savannah Wright: [00:01:31] But it wasn't until OK Computer that he was completely sold.
[00:01:34] Barney Hoskyns: [00:01:34] I remember getting OK Computer the day that it came out and as a cassette sort of cassette somewhere, driving back up to Woodstock, New York, where I was living, listening to this cassette in the car and just, you know, having my tiny mind blown really. I mean, it's as simple as that. I just thought this is extraordinary. This is so ambitious. This is so [00:02:00] powerful, intense and beautiful. And it really is the best, you know, quote unquote rock record I've heard in a while. And so that was it. You know, I was on board.
[00:02:11] Savannah Wright: [00:02:11] Barney's experience is not unique; rather, it epitomizes Radiohead's climb to critical success. From their inconspicuous beginning to their startling, sophomore release to what many deem to be their masterpiece. And it's a story he chronicles in greater detail through his new book, Present tense: A Radiohead [00:02:30] Compendium.
[00:02:31] Today's episode isn't about a specific song, but it does serve as a belated preface to the theme of our first season: Radiohead and the press. This season I'm interviewing journalists authors and musicologists. People on the outside, looking in.
[00:02:46] And Present Tense encapsulates this theme. It's the story of Radiohead from the critic's perspective: an anthology of profiles, reviews, and other journalistic pieces about Radiohead, their work and their various solo projects. [00:03:00] The book starts with reviews of their early performances in Oxford, tracing their efforts through each album cycle until the present day. Barney, who co-founded an online music journalism archive called Rock's Backpages, compiled this book.
[00:03:13] Barney Hoskyns: [00:03:13] So, you know, we've started doing these, these books, these anthologies and we had done Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan. And I thought, well, it would be good to do something that was British and something that was a little bit younger, um, although Radiohead are no longer a young band, obviously, but they're certainly younger than [00:03:30] Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell.
[00:03:32] And so that was really the story behind this book. I mean, I still, yeah, there hasn't been a huge amount in print about Radiohead. There certainly hasn't been a definitive book, I don't think. And we had a really I think interesting mixture of pieces, selections, pieces on Rock's Backpages, but there were, there were also things that were not on Rock's Backpages by writers that we hadn't signed up.
[00:03:57] And so. So, you know, this is, this [00:04:00] is, uh, this is a band probably more than a lot of bands the last 20 years or so, who, you know, very literate group, you know, educated group, literate group. So I think that interesting and, you know, I think there's been some interesting writing about Radiohead by intelligent and articulate writers. So this would seem a, kind of a no brainer, but it would seem like a very natural fit. So that's what we did.
[00:04:28] Savannah Wright: [00:04:28] So let's start at the beginning. [00:04:30] Before Radiohead, there was On A Friday, a group of Oxford teenagers who worked on songs every Friday in the music room of their high school. The band went through several iterations in the beginning. At one point, it even featured a saxophone section.
[00:04:44] But once Colin Greenwood's younger brother Jonny joined the team, the lineup was complete. And this lineup of five with Thom Yorke on vocals, Colin Greenwood on bass, Jonny Greenwood on lead guitar, Ed O'Brien on guitar, and Phil Selway on drums has continued [00:05:00] ever since. If you're curious what proto-Radiohead sounded like, here's a clip from their 1986 demo.
[00:05:06] A song called "Everybody Knows"
[00:05:19] ("Everybody Knows" plays)
[00:05:19] Present tense begins with reviews of On A Friday's demo tape and live shows.
[00:05:24] Barney Hoskyns: [00:05:24] I really wanted a selection of pieces that would sort of tell a story that would [00:05:30] map the various twists and turns in the Radiohead story. I thought it was really important to start with the earliest things ever written about them before they were even Radiohead.
[00:05:39] So that was important. I mean, there's some strange things said in those pieces, the references to Theatre of Hate and Kirk Brandon in Ronan Monroe's review...
[00:05:52] Savannah Wright: [00:05:52] In case you don't know, Kirk Brandon is the leader of the post-punk eighties band Theatre of Hate. This is what he sounds like.
[00:06:09] (sample from Theatre of Hate)
[00:06:09] [00:06:00] Barney Hoskyns: [00:06:09] I don't think anyone would compare Thom Yorke's voice to Kirk Brandon's now. But nonetheless, it's interesting to see how he as a local writer was trying to place and contextualize the group. At that point, he makes big claims for them and they were in due course vindicated.
[00:06:27] John Harris has become a very [00:06:30] respected political writer here uh, also reviewed them as On A Friday, a few months later, also in Oxford. So, uh, you know, he said it's a terrible name, but he, um, he says "promising is an understatement." So, you know, he also can see, I think, where, where this bank could, could go.
[00:06:49] Savannah Wright: [00:06:49] Although the band had hardly begun their career, there's this strange sense of inevitability running through these early reflections. Several critics write that On A Friday was different from other local [00:07:00] bands, that their performances attracted the attention of the A&R teams at multiple labels. The group seemed destined for fame. Barney, however, didn't see it that way.
[00:07:12] Barney Hoskyns: [00:07:12] Well, I never saw On A Friday. Um, and as I say, you know, I didn't, I didn't see Radiohead at the very beginning. I just know that from, I wouldn't have said, I mean, you listen back to Pablo Honey now, and you can. I think this is one, when a band does really grow very fast [00:07:30] and evolve into something really impressive, it's easy to, you know, to then go back to the beginning and sort of hear the seeds of that.
[00:07:37] And I think when I played Pablo Honey the other day. Prior to this book coming over, I revisited it, having not really listened to it for a long time, um, I could sort of hear what was latent there. What we know  as kind of, as what's great about Radiohead. But at the time when I heard the record, I certainly didn't think it was, this band is going to be enormous or important.
[00:08:00] [00:08:00] Um, the British rock at that time, I found it a bit lumpy and uninspiring, you know, so I remember listening to Pablo Honey or first thing probably was the, Anyone Can Play Guitar EP. I remember being sent that, playing that, and I'm not saying in one ear out the other, but it, but it wasn't.
[00:08:19] But I didn't see them play. As I said, it's sort of unloading their gear. For some reason I still remember Thom Yorke carrying stuff out of the back of this van. And, but I wasn't [00:08:30] seeing the gig. I was just walking past and I remember thinking, well, that's Radiohead.
[00:08:34] And they're just like so many bands of that period, Savannah. They just, I just thought, well, you know, yeah, they're going to come and they're going to go. Um, I was severely underestimated and that's the truth.
[00:08:48] Savannah Wright: [00:08:48] Yeah. That's interesting that you mentioned you didn't really think they would go that far, but that's maybe because you didn't see them live, whereas all these other ones. Whereas all these other articles are talking about the live...Yeah.
[00:08:56] Barney Hoskyns: [00:08:56] I'm sure that's right. You know, I didn't see them live. [00:09:00] Um, I don't think I saw them live until OK Computer.
[00:09:04] Savannah Wright: [00:09:04] Yeah. Hmm. There must be some magic there in their live performance.
[00:09:10] On a Friday, changed their name to Radiohead in 1991 after signing to EMI. Apparently their name was confusing concert goers, who thought the phrase referred to when the show would happen not who was performing. Early on, critics compared the band to Suede, another English rock band from the late eighties and early nineties.
[00:09:29] Barney Hoskyns: [00:09:29] I [00:09:30] guess again, you know, Suede were not the, not the anti Oasis, but they were much sort of artier and more kind of androgynous and glam influenced and Bowie influenced. You know, um, I wouldn't say those things about Radiohead, but I think that people loosely.
[00:09:50] I mean, of course the famous sort of sparring was really between Blur and Oasis. But there certainly was, there was in the kind of rock critic discourse in [00:10:00] the UK music press, there was a sort of loosely people fell in different camps along, you know, like kind of geographical and cost lines to some extent, as well as just musical lines.
[00:10:11] But I think there were people who really preferred Suede and Radiohead to kind of Oasis and the Manchester bands. So sort of Northern Brit pop bands who perhaps weren't as subtle, you know. Um, Radiohead and Suede were more kind of Southern, maybe slightly more [00:10:30] educated, maybe slightly more middle class. I don't know. I mean, that's not any. Uh, particular reason why, you know, uh, uh, music should be better or worse.
[00:10:41] Savannah Wright: [00:10:41] It's odd to hear Radiohead likened to other bands, when so many groups now are being compared to them. But of course, no one knew then that Radiohead would go on to become one of the greatest bands of the century.
[00:10:53] Barney Hoskyns: [00:10:53] I mean, I don't think Radiohead ever sort of thought about Britpop or anything like that. They were [00:11:00] not part of that scene. They were very much  to themselves. So in a way there was nothing to break free from, they were on their own path. They weren't identified with any particular scene. Even if there were bands around the Oxford area, I don't think. I don't think Radiohead fit into any pigeon holes or any scenes really.
[00:11:24] I think The Bends just didn't sound like anything other than really kind of [00:11:30] majestic, you know, sort of almost kind of classically majestic rock music. Although it had interesting textures and Jonny Greenwood was obviously doing things on the guitar that very few other bands were.
[00:11:46] Having said that, I mean, there were, there were two or three guitarists at that time who were, who were really interesting, who weren't just bashing out riffs. But I think that the real answer to your question is that just they were, [00:12:00] Radiohead were  on their own path. And once they got to work on OK Computer with Nigel Godrich, they were prepared to take the giant risk in a sense of being pilloried for being so ambitious and almost proggy, as we know.
[00:12:14] You know when "Paranoid Android" came out, maybe it was almost tongue in cheek, but as far as like fans of bands like Oasis would have gone, "Paranoid Android" was treated as a sort of slight, uh, almost comical kind of, um, an [00:12:30] overambitious and dare one say slightly pretentious piece of music because it was so long and all the time signature changes. But it was a real statement that they were, they were prepared to kind of risk being pilloried as pretentious.
[00:12:44] Savannah Wright: [00:12:44] Yeah. That's interesting. I guess that kind of teaches me that even though they were compared to Suede, it was just for lack of a better comparison. Cause they were just their own kind of band.
[00:12:51] Barney Hoskyns: [00:12:51] I think so. I mean, cause Suede would never have done. I mean, well having said that Suede did go in, in, uh, an artier, an almost more [00:13:00] proggy direction with Dog Man Star.
[00:13:02] Um, so I, I think there are parallels there, there are parallels, but I don't think Suede would ever have done or would have ever, ever been capable of doing anything like "Paranoid Android."
[00:13:14] Savannah Wright: [00:13:14] Radiohead defied categorization in another way: by rejecting the decadent rock star lifestyle of classic British rock bands. You know, the sex, drugs and rock and roll practically invented by the Rolling Stones?
[00:13:26] That way of life was resurfacing with Britpop bands like Oasis and Blur [00:13:30] but Radiohead had none of it. In his profile of the band for Q, Tom Doyle described them as quote Evian sipping abstainers content to play a hand of bridge on their tour bus.
[00:13:41] They were intellectuals who didn't esteem fame. And Barney said that the press held the band in higher esteem because of this.
[00:13:48] Barney Hoskyns: [00:13:48] To me, it's a very commendable aspect ofRadiohead, that they've never, I mean never but, but they've very rarely fallen foul of the [00:14:00] trappings of the rock lifestyle. You know, they've made a really concerted effort not to behave like cliched rock stars. Um, I think that at times.
[00:14:11] You know, the only thing one could say is that Thom, you know, came under enormous pressure. Um, there was a lot of attention on him, particularly, and at times during the Radiohead story. You know, up to and including, and probably after, OK Computer, where that [00:14:30] pressure got to him. And like anyone at that age, I think would have found it hard to handle.
[00:14:36] You know, he can be quite snappy in interviews and quite self-important and, and, and neurotic and sort of angsty and petulant. You know, um, as I say, I think, I think it was a really difficult position to be in. Some of the interviews really do focus on that and how the members of the band were saying "we were worried about Thom." I mean, you know, he almost had a nervous [00:15:00] breakdown and, you know, I mean, they were being hailed as the saviors of rock 'n' roll and the most important band in the world. And, you know, that I think was an enormous pressure for, for Thom to carry.
[00:15:11] But I think he came through that. He found a place of kind of sanity he managed to kind of grow up and find a way of handling that. And a big part of it has been to, in a sense, kind of really step back from the business and from overexposure and concentrate on, you know, his private [00:15:30] life and his family.
[00:15:32] And just, they've never kind of done the obvious things that rock stars do that tend to drag them down. They didn't move to LA. They stayed put, and I think they're very, very careful about not falling into those traps. And I think there is, to answer the parts of your question. I think there is for people who admire them, part of the admiration is to do with [00:16:00] the fact that they've, you know, they've essentially behaved quite well.
[00:16:03] And politically, you know, they're on the right side of the battle. You know, their hearts and minds are in the right place. So they are the sort of thinking persons' band in some ways. You know, um, You know, they're, they're important in, in what they stand for.
[00:16:19] Savannah Wright: [00:16:19] That's not to say Radiohead didn't receive any criticism, British critics harped on their middle-class background and university degrees, calling them overeducated.
[00:16:28] It's a critique particular [00:16:30] to the UK class system.
[00:16:31] Barney Hoskyns: [00:16:31] Obviously the way the English class system plays out has less currency or relevance in America, in that I don't think that a lot of American critics or fans wouldn't necessarily have even known, let alone cared about, just sort of class differences between say Radiohead and Oasis.
[00:16:53] I guess that would be the point. Um, but then you would still have to, if you compared [00:17:00] an Oasis song like "Roll With It' with "Paranoid Android," you know.  Even an American who was not familiar at all with the English class system would sort of be able to distinguish between these two pieces of music.
[00:17:14] So, but I, but I accept that. There are people in the UK who would feel differently about Radiohead and it tends to be middle class overeducated middle class people who are sort of embarrassed and ashamed by that who, who criticize Radiohead [00:17:30] because, because it actually makes them uncomfortable.
[00:17:34] Like my partner, Mark Pringle. My Rock's Backpages partner in our podcast, can't sort of abide by what Thom stands for, as Mark very much probably falls into that camp. He sees something in Thom and he calls it, you know, "Thom's pain" you know, I'm not interested in Thom's pain. And maybe, you know, maybe. So we had a little bit of a joke about, well, whose [00:18:00] pain are you interested in? He said, and he's very partial. "I'm only interested in working class pain."
[00:18:05] Now that's a kind of inverted snobbery in a way, isn't it? But the idea, I mean, it cuts to the heart of the, of the sort of argument, you know: what right do privileged middle-class people have to make music about kind of emotional torment?
[00:18:21] And of course now we're in, we're in a kind of world now where, where a lot of British bands are middle class because, as Mark makes a point in [00:18:30] our podcast, you know, they're the only ones who can afford the, the penury of the, of the first few years of getting a band off the ground.
[00:18:38] Savannah Wright: [00:18:38] So just to clarify, before Radiohead was, were a lot of the bands that were popular or I guess, respected in in the UK, were they from the working class? Was that kind of the trend?
[00:18:47] Barney Hoskyns: [00:18:47] Well, I, I you you would have to say Savannah that the whole kind of dream of liberating yourself from a poor background absolutely started in like the late fifties, [00:19:00] early sixties, when, um, young, talented, creative, people from poor backgrounds could get a break because they could go to art school. Um, and so many of the great bands in the sixties essentially came out of the art schools. I mean, that's, that's a really important part of the story of British pop. Um, So, you know, the Beatles were essentially working class The Who were essentially working class. You know, I mean there's gradations of class, you know, you [00:19:30] know, there's always their argument with sort of who was, who was working class: Lennon or McCartney?
[00:19:35] Everybody, everybody comes from slightly different levels of, of privilege or lack thereof, but the fact is that British pop, the whole story of the sixties, you know, as initiated by The Beatles would not have happened and couldn't happen now. Uh, because, because there was, there was a kind of leg up for these, these young musicians, which there just isn't anymore. Um, [00:20:00] and that went on right through, into, certainly into the eighties.
[00:20:05] Savannah Wright: [00:20:05] Another focus of present tense is lead singer, Thom Yorke, and his role in the band. In his profile for Esquire, Adam Sweeting contends that the other members of Radiohead depend on Yorke. John Leckie, who worked with the band on The Bends, also said that he believes the music comes from Thom. In time, Thom became known as somewhat of a benevolent dictator. Barney, however, disagrees.
[00:20:28] Barney Hoskyns: [00:20:28] It's very difficult to say [00:20:30] from the outside of the creative process. I mean, it's not how I would see it I mean, he is the focal point. He is the singer. You know, is he the chief melodist? Is he the chief architect of the songs? My, my sense is it's,  it is much more collaborative.
[00:20:47] And certainly I wouldn't have imagined that Jonny Greenwood, who is clearly a musical genius, is someone who just does Thom's bidding. You know, so I would think that much of the greatest music comes [00:21:00] out of these five guys, really like banging heads together. And, you know, it's kind of created in that crucible.
[00:21:08] But, you know, I mean, I don't know enough about the actual process of how, how their music comes together, how their songs are written, but I doubt, and I have no evidence that it's about sort of Thom writing all the songs, bringing the songs in and then teaching them to, to the other guys. I mean, it clearly doesn't work like that.
[00:21:29] Savannah Wright: [00:21:29] Yeah, no. [00:21:30] I mean, especially because like Phil Selway and as you've mentioned, Jonny Greenwood, have had their own solo careers as well. And so they must have input. I mean, I'm sure. So a question about compiling this book, what did it teach you about Radiohead's relationship with the press?
[00:21:47] Barney Hoskyns: [00:21:47] Um, I think, you know, as with so many great bands, there is a very uneasy relationship.
[00:21:53] There. There's a real suspicion. There's a slight hostility. I mean certainly from Thom I mean, [00:22:00] Thom just seems at times like a paranoid android, you know. He, he's very quick to blow off the handle. He's very thin skinned. I mean, I'm sure much less so now, but I think Jonny came across just more,I mean his temperament was just a little less abrasive and hostile than the others. I think again, I think so, you know, Ed and Colin and Phil all seem pretty genial. Thom just seems to be the one who, [00:22:30] you know, he's the kind of, yeah. He's the fly in the ointment, you know?
[00:22:35] Um, yeah, I mean, there clearly is a residual suspicion towards the press there and there's a real unwillingness to overexpose themselves in the media. I mean, they don't need to, they. What do they need to prove anymore? They don't need to do interviews. So, you know, they've, they've chosen a very unorthodox way of marketing the [00:23:00] music and presenting themselves and selling themselves in the world. You know, I mean they've just done it their own way. I think that's just really commendable.
[00:23:12] Savannah Wright: [00:23:12] Yeah. I also wanted to ask, I guess, going back to the question about the relationship with the press, and you mentioned that the others seem pretty genial, but then Thom is kind of standoffish. Do you, do you feel like he's putting on a persona? Because that was something that was mentioned in the Tom Doyle interview in Q.
[00:23:30] [00:23:30] Barney Hoskyns: [00:23:30] I don't really. I mean, uh, I think, he was an unusual frontman, and I think he felt like a fish out of water. He didn't feel. It didn't feel like natural to him. He had problems with his, with his eye and that was, I think that made him probably desperately self-conscious as a, as a kid and as a teenager. And I think that sort of fed into his sort of torment and his sort of sense of. You know, just the [00:24:00] sense you had that he wasn't really entirely at peace with himself.
[00:24:03] Um, I don't know if he is now or, what. Is it a persona? I don't know that it's persona. I think there's a sort of genuine, something that just doesn't, it's just not at peace in the guy.
[00:24:17] Savannah Wright: [00:24:17] Yeah. No, I think that's fair. It could be a little bit of both.
[00:24:20] Barney Hoskyns: [00:24:20] It's part of, it's part of the itch that makes Radiohead so great. You know, I think. I mean, he's not, you know, he's never going to be [00:24:30] like a Bono, thank God. He's sorta like the anti-Bono, anti you know, he's the guy who really has a problem with being the front man who wants everyone to love him. At some level, he does want everyone to love him.
[00:24:45] But on the other hand, he knows that that kind of narcissism and exhibitionism is so tiresome. So he kind of fights against that. Even as he, even as it's unavoidable when you're the front man. [00:25:00] It's the narcissism and sort of self-aggrandizement are unavoidable, but he's too intelligent to just be that kind of "look at me" frontman.
[00:25:14] Savannah Wright: [00:25:14] That makes a lot of sense with how Radiohead talks about themselves. So.
[00:25:19] Barney Hoskyns: [00:25:19] Exactly. He knows it's absurd, you know, at some level he knows that that kind of pomposity and showing off and exhibitionism is kind of absurd [00:25:30] and he knows that he can't do it, in a kind of self-conscious way. So. You know, he does, he sort of subverts the whole thing.
[00:25:39] Savannah Wright: [00:25:39] Yeah. Yeah, that is, that might be one of the reasons why a lot of these profiles really focus on Thom in at least some capacity. They're always trying to kind of unravel that mystery.
[00:25:49] Barney Hoskyns: [00:25:49] He's kind of like, he's like an anti star. Cobain  to some degree was an anti star. Michael Stipe to some extent was an anti star. And I think Thom you [00:26:00] know, fits into that mold. He's he's, he's not, he's not comfortable with the role of the star, the rock star. He's a kind of anti star really.
[00:26:12] Savannah Wright: [00:26:12] The band's disaffection with the press surfaces in numerous songs. One example is "Electioneering."
[00:26:19] (clip from "Electioneering")
[00:26:19] In a [00:26:30] 1997, interview, Tom explained: "I had this phase I went through on an American tour where we just seemed to be shaking hands all the time, and I was getting a bit sick of it and upset by it. So I came up with this running joke with myself, where I used to shake people's hands and say, 'I trust I can rely on your vote.' They go ha ha. And look at me like I was a nutcase, but the phrase sort of carried on. It was like a mantra."
[00:26:57] The band even produced a documentary during the OK Computer [00:27:00] period called Meeting People Is Easy, which portrays their exhaustion with the music industry and press over the course of that tour.
[00:27:06] But despite this troubled relationship, Barney hopes that his anthology will ultimately increase readers' appreciation for the band.
[00:27:13] Barney Hoskyns: [00:27:13] I guess, you know, I just hope there is some appreciation of the fact they are taken seriously, um, that their achievement is, you know, they are not just another rock band. You know, they're a group of musicians who really have [00:27:30] invented what rock can do. And great artists, you know, they really are significant artists in the culture.
[00:27:42] Savannah Wright: [00:27:42] Although through disparate points of view, Present Tense constructs a unified narrative of how one band redefined rock, and then abandoned that definition to create a genre entirely their own. For that reason, this book is for all music fans, fans who want to understand why alternative music sounds the way it does [00:28:00] today. Because Radiohead was, and still is, a key player.
[00:28:10] (musical interlude)
[00:28:10] You've been listening to Fake Plastic Podcast. Fake Plastic Podcast is an Alternate Thursdays production with new episodes every other Wednesday. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. And if you really liked this episode, please leave a review and share your thoughts on [00:28:30] Instagram or Twitter @fakeplasticpod.
[00:28:32] If you're in the UK and would like to read Present Tense, you can find it at your neighborhood bookstore. If you're outside of the UK, you can find a copy online. I'm Savannah Wright. Thanks for listening.