Thom E Yorke

Fact: thom is when people mosh on him or when the press is wanky or when jonny breaks into his guitars and rewires them to sound like wailing pigs. he likes macintosh to some dismay but without macintosh we would not have the lovely sounds of OKC which was recorded entirely using little sound effects and .wav's of ed talking in his sleep [ed. note: that is really ed in Fitter Happier. of course he doesn't rembmer]. every so often, thom gets very excited and starts thinking he is Nirvana. he has smashed many guitars this way, as well as ruining phil's precious drum kit. but then he realized and apologized profusely and took Phil and his family out to tea. and bought phil some new drums to play with. Phil has made him promise not to do it again. Shame, i heard Kristi Nevivaselic was looking for a vocalist...

It took Radiohead three weeks to record their first album, three month and three days to finish their second " The Bends". The work with "OK Computer" has been in progress for about 365 days, in three different recording studios. Thom Edward Yorke, guitarist and singer hates to record albums. Under the recording on "The Bends" Thom spend is three month crawling on the floor in the recording studio.
The studio was vibrated by irritation instead of distortion. Tears flow. Blood flow. John Leckie should produce, but had to substitute as a junior level teacher to a paralysed rockband. All the song were written. The record company had given Radiohead full freedom. The idea to make the computerised "Planet Telex" to introductory song was already occurred. Thom had already mumbled the lyrics to the others.
But nothing worked. Just because of one big hit song.
"Creep", the hit song. "Creep", that made millions of listeners cry, break up and write love letters. "Creep", that was recorded in the rehearse room. It shouldn't even been recorded, it was just the end of a successful rehearsing. "Creep", with its famous words, which is Thom E Yorke's least mediate upon lyrics that he has written ever. And so that hard guitar beat just before the chorus. In fact it's just the youngest in Radiohead, Johnny Greenwood's, frustration over that he can't play the accord that he should play there.
A year after the worse "Creep"-hysteria has gone their were nervously and achievement agony still there as a mountain on Radiohead, a small band from Oxford who took only three weeks to record their first record and thought that the famous would last as long.
But "The Bends" got gradually finished. The struggle against creativity documented musically and was stucked in the soundtracks. A frightened, honest agreement. Agony, headache an tears. Acoustic guitar for the calm before the storm, electric for the disaster and so, a third howling electric guitar for the seconds there everything gets worse though it should be impossible.
Of course Radiohead was a band. But "The Bends" was Thom's album. His production, his possessions, his lyrics, his blurred childhood and his ringing ears.

- I went to Cambridge together with 48 EU-broilers in the Autumn of 1994.
I was accommodate in a small room with a family in a small terrace with a tiny stairs. The daughter was possessed by Michael Jackson, the son by wrestling and the father by that he descended from the Vikings. The mother was mostly sullen. Together with her family she had a hidden hatred - the first against towns thousands of students, the second against the posh families. She explains for who will listen, and several times a day to the like-minded neighbours.

Thom E Yorke smiles where he sits in his big sofa. Yes, he can remember thinks like that from Oxford were he was born and raised.

- And I of course was a member of a real posh family. A fine family. It didn't help to be rich when little kids several years younger cycled past so near that I fall into the sidewalk.

Thom E. York was born for 28 years ago with one eye closed. Sce then he has operated the eyelid five times. It's still paralysed and that's why it hangs halfway open. It never blinks and never looks up. It doesn't follow the bodies movements. Thom thinks that he teased when he was a child, but can't really remember. That's something he says a lot during the interview: "I can't remember". Almost as mush he says: "fucking horrific".

He tells me that he is not a very negative person. But his body is against him.

- I get migraine by everything that's got something to do with rock music. I'm not kidding. To mush stress, to little to do. To mush food, to little food. Meat, to little vitamins. Drugs, flashing lights. I'm the typical, depressed hypochondriac, but my migraine is not a joke. It's for real.

- I get a headache here. Thom point almost bore his finger into the temple. It hurts there. It's more then a feeling. It takes over my body. Then I don't remember anything.

- But I'm a creative individual. I can't keep quiet when I got something to say, must dance when I hear music, or drink when I see a beer. Maybe it's this business that has changed my physical character. Maybe I don't have the guts to say "I got migraine" and then go of stage, because I feel the pressure from the fans , the record company and the band. Maybe my creativity is stronger then my handicap. I don't know which, but I don't react like others. I don't hide, turn of the light and goes to bed to relax. In stead I pursue exorcism. I sing and jumps and screams and wails. I create till I vomit. Afterwards I can't remember a thing not even the pain.

- If I should remember the pain I'm convinced that I would never enter a scene again.

Right after that Radiohead had toured with REM in USA got the headache and a ear that had crashed to many times during the tour to mush for Thom. He collapsed, practically on the stage. At that time Radiohead had been a tour machine for a year. Thom had lost control several times then he could remember. Radiohead had turned themselves to a stadium rockband.
Fans over the whole world identified themselves with Radiohead. The Arenas got bigger and bigger. Thom Yorke had stopped caring along time ago. He hardly saw the audience. On stage he was a little dizzy energyball. Outside he was worse.

- I hate playing in a big band like this. Fucking horrific.
- Lucky me who met Michael Stipe. He taught me so much. Gave me a meaning to the word integrity. Showed me how to don't care even if a half a million fans stands screaming. I have by the way never cared, just done what my body told me to. I used to have a bad conscience for what I felt and didn't feel.
- REM is like are big brothers. We owe them so much. Besides they still are a great band.

After the collapse it was completely silence in his head.
- Everything that had whined in my head has muted. I got so much of my mind trough "The Bends". I had vomit my whole childhood, my unsuccessful love affairs and my personal problems. Everything didn't remember in my life, that I never can tell you now, was collected on that record. But then everything was gone, empty and clean.

After the silence something started to move again. But not in the same way. Thom E. Yorke, the British popworlds ugly duckling, that most introvert who has stand on a scene since Mazzy Stars Hope Sandoval, started to hear, see and feel the world.

- Of course it wouldn't always be quiet. The world crawled closer. It was empty inside of me, and I started to fill again with impressions that gave me ideas to new songs. Completely new kind of songs.

When Thom talks about his song writing, he sounds almost religious. His hanging eye keeps him from get something religious in his eyes, what ever he does he still looks like a rowdy boy, who doesn't know where he has his body. But he sounds like a black gospel singer who just met Jesus, a politician or a mother who declaims that she gave birth to the most beautiful baby in the world. He says that he is filled, refilled.
On the new album "OK Computer" there is a song called "Electioneering", it's about voting. The company that runs Radiohead, and takes care of the members is called Waste since Thom can't stop thinking what a huge part of the string bag is filled with food which is just wasted.

The recording on "OK Computer" started last spring in a metal box outside Oxford, continued in a house owned by Jane Seymour and was finished in a valley, near Bath where nothing but the wind and Radiohead's new song were heard.
If "The Bends" was the struggle against Thom's soul, so are "OK Computer" theirs struggle against bad sounded, monotone, insensitive computers. The feeling against cold, the chance against the absolute logic. Thom E. Yorke sings about the worldsalt with the same feeling as he used to sing about his sexuality. On "The Bends" was "Bulletproof...I wish I was" about who Thom wanted to be bulletproof. On "OK Computer" he comments the police power in "Karma Police".

-I have no idea how we made those different songs. I drank and smoked till we was bossed and high and then we just played, how it happened, I don't know. We plugged in the speakers and the computers by ourselves and I don't know what. Played as our last moment had come.
-crawled up every morning with different socks and tousled hair. In the studio I met the others and the look the same. We put on the tapes and listened to what we had recorded the day before. I swear I don't remember more then a couple of hours of time we were recording. On the other hand I got good memorise from the parties.

-Did the computer manage?

-Yes, it strange but they are heal.

Radiohead's new single is six minutes and twenty seconds long and it's about a sampling of Stephen Hawking, space veteran who with his ideas about black holes an time perspective written are whole astronomic science. It's called "Paranoid Android".

-Do you feel that you are a "Paranoid Android"?

Laughing

-I was serious?

-What? Laughing! I don't know. The song is about me.

When Thom was a teenager and had just found out how fun it was to go out, his parents moved to a big house. Suddenly he was several miles away from Oxford, the pub and his friends. So Thom got him self a driving license and a car. After a wild night and without sleep he drove his girlfriend home and crashed the car. He manage all right, but his girlfriend got a serious whiplash injure.
On "OK Computer" is a song, "Airbag" from the beginning was called "Last night an airbag saved my life". The latest of Radiohead song about driving.
Thom E. Yorke haven't yet got away from his demons.
In the middle of my interview he stands up and walks away. I know he has done thinks to make this promotion day as short as possible. I also know that he has told journalists to go to hell when they come to interview him. I have heard that he at on his heels and under an interview went to sleep and had fallen forward. I guess that Thom has got enough.
But it shows that it isn't that bad, he only went out to get me some water. Because he thinks it's hot and my voice sounds raucous.

After the recording of "OK Computer", Thom felt more empty as ever. He sat several nights watching TV and drank wine. In the video was "Robin", The Swedish Magnus Carlsson's cartoon about the little Robin who loves hip hop, his cap and to drink alcohol. Under his nights adventures with his coloured friend they explores strange people, different vagrants and fat neighbours.

-Robin is great. He is so mush more then that kid who shower with the cap on. In him I see the totally innocents. Defiance his bad habits and the tuff, big city he lives in, he is soft and gentle. And what ever happens he never lose his temper. Nothing affects him. He get bossed and makes stupid things.. People convince him to swallow things and dance naked. Next morning he wakes up anyway and feels rather okay an has forgotten last night.
-I wish I could be like that. Just forget. Never really bother. It never works in the real world. When we record can I live like that. Just get drunk till I forget. And when I get to the real world, there is nuclear weapon, unhappy love, people who don't recycle their cans. Everything that can't leave me alone, and things that always are going to disturb me.

Magnus Carlsson have made cartoons for along time now.
When "OK Computer" was ready he got a tape copy. He sat down by his desk and listened with a view towards Lindingöbron. Soon he's ready with the video till "Paranoid Android" where Robin goes to a bar, meets Radiohead and a women who is not human and attack him more or less.

-I can understand that Thom identifies him self with Robin. He is rather international figure. Me and Thom understand each other. We have never met, the connection is mostly by fax. Anyway I created the plastic Hollywood-world for Robin as Thom wanted the figure for "Paranoid Android" to move in.

Maybe is the Jamie Traves-produced video to Radiohead's "Just" who is the best rock video that's ever been made. Radiohead stands playing in a flat room somewhere near Liverpool Street Station. A cleaned man passes. Suddenly he just lays down. Why? Textstripes with the questions from people who passes floats through the screen. Why do you lie here? What do you want? You got to move! The man don't want to answer but in the end he'll give up. Do you really want me to tell you? Do you? Is it sure? So he whispers in a ear, but no textstripe is coming up and Radiohead is playing "Just" so high that it's impossible to hear what he is whispering.
"The Bends" is dedicated to Bill Hicks, the American comedian who, except Elvis Priestly, are alone to have become thrown out of the TV-company CBS Ed Sullivan Theatre. Bill Hicks was faithful, recurrent guest at David Letterman, but one time it went to far and Letterman got so mad that throw him out.
Bill Hick started to write comedy in Boston when he was 13 years old, went to Los Angeles and got a rumour for his sarcasm, his habit to teas non smoking people with his smoking habits and they with power with his totally unrespectable. He was only 33 years old when he past away the 26th of February 1994. A year later sat Thom E. York relieved after the recording of "The Bends". He was angry, shabby and sick. Bill Hick become his friend exactly like Robin did a couple of years later.
The American Bill Hicks never really made a career in America. The Englishmen understood him better. He was rather often in Europe. With the age he got more and more British. The Englishmen Radiohead have never made it home in England. "Creep" strokes by Radio Ones "no depressing songs"-policy which is: just happy music on the days.
Me myself have never been so depressed as I was on my summer work, I had to listen to the happy soundtrack to the lion king every day for 3 month.
It was because that policy, which aren't on American college radio, where Radiohead succeed in the USA way before they got famous in England.
"Paranoid Android" is 6 minutes and 20 seconds long. It will probably excommunicates by the big radio stations in England.

Thom E. York says he has stopped listen to rock music, but he likes Captain Beefheart. And music to cartoons. It feels like it was a long time ago he officially declare pop music on Radiohead's fourth single. And more far away is it when he went to private school just for boys in Abindon and started a band called On a Friday. He has said "I don't remember" so many times now so I can't count. Now he just whines a bit.
I can't stop thinking on Bob Hund's first album. There is a song called "Allt på ett kort (Everything on a card)" which actually was named "Ett fotografi (A photo)" in the beginning. I would love to tell him about it, but it's no use. The song must be heard to be appreciated. But one of the verses goes like this:

-I don't remember , says Thom again.
I can just blame myself for asking about his childhood. He just cant remember it.

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thom yorke has not yet met Nigel Mansell. He sings in Radiohead, although that is not his main job. He had to have his appendix removed while recording 'Bones', but his tonsils still remain intact. Most of the time he likes to have a laugh, and is known as a bit of a practical joker in the band, although he manages to find the funny side of a bag of flour over the door for much longer than anyone else. It was through an accident of this nature that the B-sides for 'Anyone Can Play Guitar' were recorded.

Thom gets up at about 8.10am on weekdays and spends 29 minutes washing himself and using the lavatory. Unless he is in a hurry, he will dress before breakfast and come downstairs at 8.42am. Now you will be able to see him through either the east facing window or the side window looking in from the kitchen (windows #A23 and #A27 on page 13 of the guidebook). Curiously, he had Puffed Wheats last Wednesday just like Ed, yet no phone calls were made in the two weeks prior that attempting to synchronise the event. Normally he has a fried breakfast. Be sure to keep behind the rhodendron bush (#G3 or #G4) if it is Autumn or Winter. In Summer, it is crucial that you use the apple tree and keep breathing in, or you will be detected and fed to the pirhanas (page 12).

Thom found 'Trouble in the Message Centre' the hardest song to record, mainly because he didn't write it or release it. Thom is actually Welsh, but has never actually denied it. He waxes his legs. Thom has a black spider tattoo after the line "i'm a creep... i'm a widow" in his favourite song 'Creep'.

Thom can usually be found in the evenings sharing a drink with Stephen Hawking.

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