Thom Yorke on BBC 6 Music

Thom Yorke and Ed O'Brien drop in on Steve Lamacq's 6 Music show on the day Radiohead play two sets at the BBC Radio Theatre. Yorke has already told Pitchfork that they will record later in the year, and O'Brien says he warned him to be careful with Pitchfork.

In the studio, Yorke says, “the trick is to stop me tearing something up before it's finished.” Nigel Godrich reckons everyone knows how a day has gone by about 6.30, before supper, and if Yorke wants to kick the place down by then, it has gone well. They learned what Godrich does when they tried working without him and could not finish anything. The band's habit of questioning everything, Yorke's above all, can harden into “a permanent cloud of doubt”, and Godrich kicks through it. Yorke has just been listening to the new MGMT album. “There ain't no doubt going on there.”

Today's sets are their first since the free show at 93 Feet East in January, which moved venue on police advice and was watched online by 40,000 people. For the tour they have cut a list of 80 songs to 55, and O'Brien says Yorke will add five more to any blackboard with a list on it. Yorke finds it funny watching Jonny Greenwood and O'Brien work out where their pedals are supposed to plug in. “I just don't remember the words.”

Yorke has been playing Portishead's new album for two weeks, thinks it their best record, and his favourite on it is “The Rip”. He was handed the new R.E.M. record last week and has played it twice sitting in traffic; three or four songs on it rank with his top 20 R.E.M. tunes, and Peter Buck has his guitar sound back. Liars, Bat for Lashes and Grizzly Bear open the American dates. After Japan they may record in twos and threes, because Jonny's wife has just had a baby and he doesn't want to lose the whole year.

They would love to be in America if Barack Obama gets the Democratic nomination. On the 2003 and 2006 tours they felt how hostile their audiences there were to the Bush government, and they would like to see a bit of hope.