Thom Yorke on COP15

At a COP15 panel around The Age of Stupid, Thom Yorke is asked to explain the In Rainbows release to a room that has come to talk about climate.

They asked people to pay what they thought it was worth, and made more from it than from the previous few records, because all of it came to them with nobody taking a cut. He calls it a spectacular success, largely because it worked as a stink bomb thrown at an industry that, he notes, still does not care for them much.

They had reached the end of a six-album contract with a label that was dying on its feet. They wanted out, and they wanted to leave in style.

He calls the week of the release the most exciting of his life, because nobody involved had any idea what would happen and the whole thing rested on people's goodwill. It ran on two lines posted on the band's website, with no lawyers, and videos delivered to television two months ahead of time.