Phil Selway on Dave Fanning on 2FM

Phil Selway is on Dave Fanning's 2FM show to talk about On the Road, the documentary he fronts for Independent Venue Week, filmed over two years in British independent venues. Asked whether Radiohead were a pub band before they signed, he says they were not even that. They had barely played, mostly at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford, where bands whose records they owned had stood on the same stage. The demo that got them signed became the first EP, with “Prove Yourself” on it. In the summer of 1991 they decided to throw everything behind the band, and within a couple of months the record companies were turning up.

The Zodiac, where the “Creep” video was filmed in 1992, was the next rung. A small room is scary, he says, because a band can read every face in it, and that scrutiny is how they learned. Going back to the New Adelphi in Hull, still run by Paul Jackson, brought the old excitement straight back.

Asked about Radiohead, he says there is a project coming, but it is not a record and not new music. Fanning asks whether they are opening a zoo. Selway would rather be back on stage; the last shows, in Dublin, felt like an outpouring of joy, which he admits is not what people always expect of a Radiohead show.