Phil Selway

Philip Selway talks over video to a presenter in Paraguay who says he is the first in the country to interview a member of Radiohead. Selway calls it long overdue. Strange Dance, his third solo album, is on the way, and OK Computer is 25.

At school he was a bit of a non-event, academically and at sport, and a band was something he could do well enough for people to say so. He took drumming seriously at about 18, when the band began, and his interest has always been in how drums serve a song. Asked whether he was good at maths, given his playing from Kid A on, he says no. If he starts analysing the music it comes unstuck, and his best ideas come by ear. Because the five of them learned their instruments in each other's company, each has his own voice. Told the title track recalls Peter Gabriel's music for The Last Temptation of Christ, he wonders whether he has just done a complete rip-off and promises to go and listen.

Going back through the session tapes for OKNOTOK turned up “Lift”, “Man of War” and “I Promise”, songs that had not seemed to fit at the time. In Rainbows on the website was no master plan, only the band trying ways to get their music out. He ends on the pandemic, and on musicians guarding their own wellbeing if they want to last.