Jonny Greenwood on End of the Road

Jonny Greenwood talks backstage at End of the Road after playing music from his film scores with an ensemble. Choosing the set at the last minute felt like being in a band, and three or four minutes a piece spares everyone the classical concert where you can't wait for something to end. His record label will carry on only if the first two releases get some money to the players, because he knows how middle-aged musicians end up with vanity projects. Old instruments are still modern technology to him. Most of the electronic music the classical world made in the 1960s sounds dated to him, and the quartets don't. Radiohead's TikTok, he says, belongs to Chieftain Mews, a character from the band's old webcasts whom he calls a friend; Mews is trying to get back to his 90s heyday, goes from angry to enthusiastic and doesn't understand social media. Ed O'Brien, he thinks, will make another record, Greenwood's own record with Thom Yorke and the drummer Tom Skinner is coming soonish, and Radiohead only like touring when they have new songs to play, which needs all five of them in a room.