Thom Yorke on Triple J

Asked what Radiohead had been doing since Christmas, in the long gap after Hail to the Thief, Thom Yorke corrects the premise. They are not working on new material but on the part before that: noises, bits of equipment, endless tinkering with nothing to show for it, and perhaps something usable every fifth day.

The reason is practical. A band finishes a record and tours it for a long time, and things pile up that they want to get at, which, he notes, their partners had remarked on.

This time everyone is moving at their own pace and deliberately not sharing anything for a while, except Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, who still sit down together with two guitars and a cup of coffee, because that is the normal bit.

He does not know whether there will be a studio this year, because they have never properly stopped before. He ends by admitting that the best things that have happened to him, much as it annoys him, all involved the other four.