Thom Yorke on BBC Radio 4 Today

Thom Yorke tells Radio 4's Today programme, for which he was a Christmas guest editor, that the In Rainbows download was “one of those stories that was waiting to happen and we happened to be the band that kicked off the story”. The major labels have done nothing to help artists reach their fans directly. “Not only do they get in the way, but they take all the cash,” he says. Only the band know how many paid nothing, whatever web firms claim, and they have done really well out of it. The CD is coming because 80 per cent of people still buy physical records.

Eight of the songs, nearly nine, had been played live before the record came out. “Nude” goes back to 1997 but never had a place until now. His favourite song is “Videotape”, which he wanted to open the album until someone pointed out that listeners would switch straight off. It happened despite him, with the others stripping it right down, and he calls it his favourite thing the band have made. The tour will go to cities with public transport and keep flying to a minimum. Shipping the band in freight containers would be greener still, but the Queen Mary, so fast and so heavy, would be worse than flying.