Ed O'Brien on FM 94/9

Ed O'Brien phones FM 94/9 in San Diego from London and is allowed to say that Radiohead will be in town near the end of August. Most of the talk is how In Rainbows got made. After about a year of producing themselves, feeling insecure and getting nowhere, they did what they always do when things don't feel good and went on tour. By the end they had played the songs about 60 times and were bored of them, and the plan to record them live with Nigel Godrich fell apart, because back in the studio “they just weren't good enough”. The bulk of the record was made in 2007, and the download idea came in April, when it was about 80 per cent done. It was the management's, and at first they wanted a pure download and a box set with no CD at all, until the band said a CD mattered.

“Nude” goes back to the OK Computer sessions and was played on that tour in a different arrangement. “Songs have their times, they have their moments,” O'Brien says, and some only make sense at five in the morning, or at seven in the evening before going out. On Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief there were tracks he was not so fond of. This time, as with The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A, they fought over the songs and agreed on all ten. “Bodysnatchers”, three guitars and a driving rhythm section, still gives him a thrill, and “Arpeggi” is proving hard to rehearse, because so much of the record rests on getting a groove at exactly the right tempo.

Thom Yorke brings in the sketches, O'Brien explains, and the band make the painting together. The band's own webcasts have had New Order's “Ceremony” and the Smiths' “The Headmaster Ritual”, they have also played Neil Young's “Cinnamon Girl”, and they are rehearsing Siouxsie and the Banshees' “Happy House”. Jonny Greenwood, about four years younger than the rest, is fed up with all the 1980s songs. The others asked whether he would rather do MC Hammer and “Ice Ice Baby”, and nipped that in the bud.