Thom Yorke tells the Boston Phoenix how Radiohead bury his melodies

Thom Yorke is interviewed by Matt Ashare in the Boston Phoenix for the week of 21 to 27 May. They met at Capitol Records' offices in New York, on Yorke's second day of promoting Pablo Honey in America. At an MTV interview, the band had sat through questions Yorke thought pointless, until he asked one of his own.

You get paid to do this, don't you?

Thom Yorke¹

After that the MTV crew gave up on him. Ashare finds him a little uneasy with the whole business, and Yorke says that sitting there he feels very English.

It took the five of them six years to learn to play, Yorke says, and gigs to five people and the soundman taught them to strip a song right down, then scream and build it back up.

I come to rehearsals with all these gorgeous little polite melodies, and then we spend hours trying to fuck them up. Everything gets buried in chaos for a few weeks, and then we just sort of dig a song out from that.

Thom Yorke¹

Ashare's shorthand for the three guitarists is Ed O'Brien “polite”, Jonny Greenwood “abusive” and Yorke “inaudible”, and in the singing he hears Morrissey, Robert Smith and Peter Perrett of The Only Ones.

Yorke admits the album has lots of faults, and says there will be more albums. He has no faith in rock and roll. A band grows by touring and hard work, he says, and stays on the margins until the mainstream comes to it.