Phil Selway on Q104.3

Philip Selway confirms to Jonathan Clark on New York's Q104.3 that he is in a Harry Potter film. “I'm big in the Wizarding World,” he says. At the time, Radiohead never registered with his children, but Goblet of Fire did. Between Radiohead records he drummed for Neil Finn's Seven Worlds Collide, and for the first, in 2001, he came off a 24-hour flight and walked straight into rehearsal, facing Finn's endless catalogue of songs. He is in town with his second solo album, Weatherhouse, on his way to Coachella, which Radiohead played in 2004 and 2012, the first time following the Pixies' comeback set; following them, he says, was slightly intimidating. He plays the album's opening track, “Coming Up for Air”, on acoustic guitar in the form it was written in.

The family story of his first instrument is a drum from his godmother, put in his Christmas stocking at about his third Christmas and played at 3 in the morning. Radiohead had always wanted to finish a record and put it straight out instead of waiting five or six months, he says, and In Rainbows was an experiment in what value people would put on music. “We're given a huge amount of rope by people.” The band were together last month and will be again for the summer.

He stands in for Guy Garvey on his radio show, choosing every record himself and then talking into nothing. “Around Again”, from Weatherhouse, is a drummer's dream, with two kits on it.