Thom Yorke talks to NME for the first time in five years

Thom Yorke has given NME his first interview in five years, to Sylvia Patterson, in the issue on sale in London today and nationwide tomorrow. The paper once called early Radiohead lily-livered and miserable, and captioned a photo of them “ugly ugly ugly”. Yorke says he got sick of holding grudges, and that if he stays away the press just make things up. The way Kid A was received annoyed him, and he wanted to set the record straight a little.

They talked for about an hour in the sun, in the courtyard of his management's office in Oxfordshire, because Yorke found the room upstairs too dark. Halfway through, just as Patterson asks what the records are actually saying, the tape runs out. Yorke is delighted, goes inside for a long drink of water and comes back with “Next”.

When he does answer, he says making music, art or writing is a way of dealing with things, death among them, and he finds it alarming that the culture runs from anything vaguely depressing.

If you're accused of being morbid or bleak then you're onto a good thing, I'd say.

Thom Yorke²

Kid A and Amnesiac, he says, carry an unhealthy obsession with death and also the absolute opposite of hopelessness, and they say far more than OK Computer did. The 18 months of sessions nearly split the band, with crisis meetings and six people, producer Nigel Godrich included, pulling different ways. Yorke admits he is not particularly tough, and that it got unpleasant and personal. Asked whether the Amnesiac songs really took 373 days, he says probably. Versions that seemed too straight made the band lose their nerve, and they went the long way round before accepting them.

It took 373 days to be arse-about-face enough to realise it was alright the way it was.

Thom Yorke²

He rejects the reading of “Knives Out”, played at last year's tent shows, as a goodbye to the music industry. The song is partly about a businessman walking out on his wife and children, and partly about the stare of someone close who is going to die. Ed O'Brien played it to Johnny Marr, who approved.

The album's opener, “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”, is, he says, about the road-rage psycho from hell.

Talking about the May Day and Reclaim The Streets protests, Yorke describes police photographers in bulletproof jackets filing pictures of protesters, and says he is not on file himself.

I know some stuff about MI5 that would shit your... brain. Mmm. But I can't tell you. 'Cos they'll do it to me, too.

Thom Yorke²

The links page on radiohead.com carries a hidden message from him, seen only by highlighting the page, asking Tony Blair whether he now deserves an MI5 file. A spokeswoman for MI5 at the Home Office told NME the service does not comment on individuals.

Yorke became a father this year, to a son, Noah, and lives in Dorset. Fatherhood, he says, means he takes things less seriously, himself included.

I'm not throwing my toys out of the cot any more, he's doing it for me.

Thom Yorke²