Jonny Greenwood on Triple J

Triple J reaches Jonny Greenwood in Japan, just after a very exciting Japanese breakfast, a week before Radiohead's first Australian shows in six years. The difference since then, he says, is that they are having more fun. “I think we appreciate what we're getting the chance to do now,” and concerts feel like the middle of everything they do. At 16 he was driving round their home town with Thom Yorke, playing the Pixies over and over and thinking this is how they should sound, so sharing the Coachella bill with them is a thrill.

The presenters push whoopee cushions and a Radiohead rap album, and Greenwood says people sometimes miss how much of what the band do is meant to be funny. Being a fan of Radiohead comes easily, he says, because with four other people involved and Yorke writing amazing songs he can get excited about it at one remove, rather than worrying whether his own part is any good.

The guitar plugging in at the start of “2 + 2 = 5” is him, on the first song they recorded for the album, the first time they played it. An Australian fan would most likely find him in a record shop, if Sydney has one. At a band dinner party Colin would do the cooking, and Jonny would take the coats and go to bed early, like an 11-year-old. Japanese audiences listen very closely, he says, and fans rarely get the lyrics wrong now that they can look them up online. It has gone the other way in rehearsal, when Yorke forgot his own words, went to fan sites and found they had them wrong.