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Thom Yorke says Radiohead won't go back to guitar rock
Alternative rock needs bludgeoning to death on a big stick and left on a bridge to warn passers-by.
Thom Yorke's verdict is one of the first answers on spinwithagrin.co.uk, a site Radiohead have set up for journalists to put questions to the band, and NME carried it on 1 November.
The guitar sound of the early records is not coming back, Yorke says, and after Kid A he feels confident about going into the studio again. Having to learn to play music made in the studio by editing, sampling and sequencing has changed how he plays. Can and electronica are now where the band look for structure, and Talking Heads' Remain In Light was their big reference while Kid A was being made.
Yorke's page on the band's website now carries a piece by Naomi Klein backing Ralph Nader, the Green Party's presidential candidate. On Saturday Night Live Yorke held up a banner calling for Nader to be let into the debates.
He has no sympathy for the record companies. Paid-for shelf space in the big stores has made choice an illusion, he says, much as in a supermarket. Napster, which the labels first condemned and which announced a deal with BMG on 31 October, is in his view the majors' karma for ten years of failed formats and overpriced CD reissues.