darrell thorp on Puremix

Darrell Thorp, who has engineered for Radiohead since Kid A, talks shop with Andrew Scheps, another engineer, in the first of two long conversations. Scheps begins at the beginning on principle, since he thinks why somebody chose this work is as interesting as what they did afterwards.

Thorp was born in Illinois and had moved through Arizona, Los Angeles and San Diego before he was nine. He describes a Christian conservative household where there was music, though not the kind he would want to claim, and the oddity that his father was a serious Beatles fan whose records he does not remember hearing at home. He started on guitar, served four years in the navy, and then went to the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Arizona.

He reached a point where he had learned what one room could teach him and knew he would stop developing if he stayed. He got an introduction to Conway, then spent months checking back in before they were ready to hire anyone. What he took from that period was less technique than the number of very good engineers he assisted. Radiohead come up about two hours in.