Ed O'Brien on 93.1 XRT

Ed O'Brien talks to 93.1 XRT backstage at Lollapalooza in Chicago, hours before Radiohead headline to a sold-out 75,000 on the first date of the second American leg, after three weeks off. For the first time in a while, he says, crowds want the In Rainbows songs more than “Karma Police”, “Idioteque” or “Paranoid Android”. On the 2006 tour the band took the new songs straight from the road onto tape, and it didn't work. “Our audience are brilliant but they're not the best critics of our material,” he says. “Bodysnatchers”, “House of Cards” and “15 Step” survived much as they were played; “Arpeggi” changed.

Sequencing the album was like picking a football team, he says, braced for the others to crucify him for the analogy. It isn't the best 11 songs that go on a record but the ones that fit together, which left “Bangers + Mash” and “Down Is the New Up” for the limited edition box. In Rainbows made money, though less than a £20 million advance from a major would have brought, and that kind of deal, he thinks, kills a band creatively. He sat on the plan to put In Rainbows out online, for whatever people wanted to pay, for about three months last summer and told only his wife. A core group of about nine people planned the release, and then Jonny Greenwood posted a little message on the band's message board on a Monday morning and it spread like wildfire.

He still credits “Creep”, for all that they got fed up with it. It meant their first record recouped, so nobody at the label was breathing down their necks while they made The Bends.