Radiohead on MuchMusic

“Creep” had made the band famous in a way they had not chosen, and in this Spotlight piece from 1996 Thom Yorke rejects the whole apparatus. Nobody should find being in a band or being a rock star impressive any more, he says. It is a dated and rather sad idea, and the answer to the groups still living out a 1970s script is to ignore them and use whatever is ordinary about themselves.

In Britain, Radio 1 played “Creep”, decided after the third play that it was too down for the public, and stopped. The press ignored the band. At the end of the following year everyone decided they liked it after all, and Yorke relishes the sum, roughly four plays on radio against something like 20,000 copies sold.

Being famous for that one song leaves him bleak. It was almost a joke when he wrote it, he says, and it brought letters from people who had seen no joke in it at all.

He sees The Bends as a full stop on that period and something close to a challenge to the audience, and describes writing songs of consolation alone in a room while everything changed overnight.