paul q kolderie

Paul Q. Kolderie, who produced Pablo Honey with Sean Slade, explains how the bassline of “Creep” took shape. He told Colin Greenwood the song was Al Green meeting the Pixies, the verses one and the chorus the other, and walked him through a line built on that idea. He does not overstate his part, saying only that nobody objected and everyone thought it sounded right.

Two stories about the song had merged over the years, he says. The label did want the vocal redone in a cleaner form. Separately, Kolderie had told Thom Yorke that one couplet in the verse was weaker than he was capable of. Yorke insisted the song was old and finished, stormed out, and came back half an hour later with the words that are on the record, which Kolderie says were plainly better, and Yorke knew it.

There was no falling out over the second album. The band were intellectually curious and wanted to move on, and given the chance to work with John Leckie, Kolderie would have chosen the same. They came back to him to help mix it anyway.