Thom Yorke tells Select he wants nothing more than to be a star

Thom Yorke, 24, gets a feature of his own in Select's May issue, and when Andrew Collins asks whether he is in this to be a star, the answer is yes.

I want nothing more in the whole world than to be a star. Nothing more. That's it. Period.

Thom Yorke¹

The band had said as much last month. Each act on the free EMI/Q compilation CD was asked for a note on its track, and the others sent sleeve notes; Radiohead's note for “Thinking About You” was four words, “A star is born”.

Yorke traces the wish back to a guitar lesson at eight, when the plan was to be Brian May. He was writing songs by 13, and went on to study art and English at college in Exeter, where he left with an upper second. For his degree show he scanned the Sistine Chapel ceiling into a computer, changed all the colours and gave it away as photocopies. (Select has him born in Oxford in 1969; it was Wellingborough, in October 1968.)

The attention that comes with the plan is harder. Yorke hates Wednesdays, when the music papers come out, and says “Anyone Can Play Guitar” was taken as a serious look at pop stardom when it was nothing of the kind. Gloom, he says, is no basis for a career.

Collins sees a band on the way up. At the last of 34 dates, at the Camden Underworld in March, Clive James was trying to get on the guest list.