Ed O'Brien on JOHN ROBB

Ed O'Brien talks to John Robb on stage at the Ritz in Manchester, after a talk by the city's mayor, Andy Burnham. He was a student there from 1987 to 1990 and came for the Smiths and Factory. On his first night at the Hacienda MARRS' “Pump Up the Volume” was number one and the DJ followed it with Public Enemy, and he spent the degree booking bands at his hall of residence and fronting a club night nobody came to. He took a pair of maracas home to Oxford, where people asked who the loony in the corner was. What he really took home was a plan. Radiohead aimed for the cover of Curfew, the free Oxford music paper, and a following big enough that the record companies had to come to Oxford, which took three months.

The longest stretch is about streaming money. He has done fine, he says, and is the exception, and he points to Tom Gray's Broken Record campaign and to deals that keep hidden where the money goes. He also talks about the depression he hid at Radiohead's height. Formed in a school playground, the band ran on saving face, and he prided himself on being the rock.

Paul McCartney, whose album he had remixed alongside the likes of Beck and Queens of the Stone Age, phoned him on a Saturday evening to say thank you rather than writing, and they talked about bluebells in spring. Ringo Starr, asked which drummer he would most like to be interviewed by, chose Phil Selway, who was flown to New York for it. Asked from the floor about In Rainbows, O'Brien says paying what you want was liberating after a hard record, and that U2's manager Paul McGuinness called it irresponsible. The fact that it “got up big bands' noses” he found brilliant.