John Leckie on Andrew Talks To Awesome People

John Leckie tells Andrew Scheps that The Bends began with a phone call Radiohead hated. He was finishing a record with Ride, the other Oxford band and at that point the bigger one, who overran, so he had to push Radiohead back a fortnight. They hated the delay, and hated the reason more.

What the label wanted was a follow-up to “Creep”. Before Leckie had even met the band he was sent the demos and asked which should be the next single, and his honest assessment was that none of them were, at least not in the sense being asked for.

The first proper meeting was in a rehearsal room in Oxford holding the band, both managers, the British A&R man, and the American one flown over with his assistant, and the band were asked to play what they had. They played 35 or 36 songs.

They then took nine weeks at RAK, with the label proposing to come down every night to hear progress, and “My Iron Lung” became the single. Nigel Godrich, he mentions, had been the tape operator on the Ride sessions and came to Radiohead knowing none of them.