the interview desk
Thom Yorke on Bubblepop
Sapporo and Fukuoka are among the Japanese cities Radiohead have never played that they will visit when they return in June.
April 1995 · Bubblepop · Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are back in Japan for the second time, answering a presenter's questions through an interpreter on the programme Bubblepop. They talk about promotion in America. Asked why The Bends is darker and drearier than their first album, they say they find it more uplifting, a record about sharing experiences and finding happiness through that. The pressure of a second album came mostly from themselves, because they knew the songs were good and were nervous about recording them well enough.
Thom, pressed on why he is so quiet, says Jonny is doing very well, so he doesn't need to talk. The sleeve was made on an Apple Mac, one of them explains, by morphing a resuscitation dummy with Thom's face. As for the supermarket video for “Fake Plastic Trees”, “we could have stood around looking cool, but we thought it would be more fun to just be wheeled around in the shopping cart.” Their tips for the presenter are Supergrass, Strangelove and Elastica. They are back in June, and this time they will play cities they never have before, Sapporo and Fukuoka among them.
where it comes up
- 0:49 Promotion in America
- 1:51 Why The Bends sounds darker
- 2:10 Where the title The Bends comes from
- 3:03 The pressure of a second album
- 3:57 Why Thom is so quiet
- 6:08 The sleeve and the resuscitation dummy
- 7:26 Shopping trolleys in the “Fake Plastic Trees” video
- 8:24 Supergrass, Strangelove and Elastica
- 9:04 Coming back to Japan in June
sources · 1
- “(1995/04/xx) Bubblepop, Thom & Jonny”, Radiohead's interviews' archive, 20 February 2012