Colin Greenwood says “Planet Telex” opens on Ultravox's “Vienna” piano

Colin Greenwood has told Willamette Week's Tim Casebeer that the sound at the start of “Planet Telex” is a delay on the same piano Ultravox played on “Vienna”, recorded at about three in the morning while the band were drinking. The whooshing over it is the engineer turning the EQ knobs.

He was speaking by phone from London ahead of Radiohead's show with David Gray on Monday 25 March at La Luna in Portland, where they first played the city). An earlier chance to play Portland went to a video shoot that then fell through, which annoyed them, because they had wanted to visit the Church of Elvis again.

Pablo Honey, Colin says, took about two and a half weeks. The Bends took a month and a half, across RAK, the Manor and Abbey Road. “High and Dry” is an old demo remixed. He thinks the album still hangs together. At Abbey Road they worked in Studio Two, where Jonny Greenwood played the Hammond organ John Lennon had played, and where, the story goes, the Beatles' grass can still be smelled in a cupboard. For Colin the right place to record has heaters and carpet, and the aim is to get what they do in rehearsal onto tape.

The opening of “Just” was never meant as a nod to Nirvana. Jonny wanted to drop it because it sounded like them, but they never got round to it.

Thom Yorke, Colin says, is professionally trained, and drinks a special tea to coat his throat.

He has to take great care with his voice. He won't sing before 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Colin Greenwood¹

Once, in Germany, Yorke lost his voice and they had to stop a show about two songs in.

The theft of the band's gear in Denver) last October cost him his best bass, a sparkly green Music Man that a friend had sold him cheaply on condition that he sell it back if he ever sold it.

Asked why Radiohead are still a one-hit band in America, Colin says word of mouth takes longer in a country this big. Radio and MTV count for most, and the press lags behind.

At soundcheck they play no Budgie covers, and no “Wichita Lineman” either.

We do have a rather fine cover of “Nobody Does It Better” by Carly Simon. If a gig goes really well we sometimes whip it out.

Colin Greenwood¹