Jonny Greenwood says the leak of Hail to the Thief felt liberating

Jonny Greenwood expects to get into trouble for saying it, but watching the unfinished Hail to the Thief pass from one email inbox to another felt quite liberating, he tells Matt Galloway of Vue Weekly by phone from Boston. The label, for its part, was terrified, and told the band nobody would buy the record.

These were recordings that we didn't even have, and they were really early.

Jonny Greenwood¹

He still cannot say how they were taken, though Nigel Godrich thinks he has narrowed down the day. The leak came at an intense time for a band already paranoid, and Greenwood was amazed at how quickly the files spread. The version online, Vue Weekly says, was unmastered but largely unchanged from the finished album, and it was out more than three months before the release date.

The call for a second OK Computer, in his view, comes mostly from people who have stopped buying records and stick to one kind of music, which he calls fair enough. The band still buy records, and others have made albums that sound like OK Computer or The Bends; that music is no longer enough for them.

Learning to play Kid A live meant learning new instruments and new ways of making music, and on the new record they played each other's instruments.

In these sessions, we let go of the idea of having a defined role. The only role you have is being a member of the band Radiohead.

Jonny Greenwood¹