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Jonny Greenwood talks to Filter about Bodysong and listening
first posted on Treefingers by Miro · rewritten for the archive
Jonny Greenwood has talked to Gregg LaGambina of Filter about his score for Bodysong. Asked whether a film that tries to take in the whole of human life led him to think the same way about music, he says he probably matched the scale of the music to the images without thinking about it, hence the string quartet, the jazz band and the electronics. The balance was the hard part. The same sound for too long would bore people, and too much change would wear them out. He cites the Pixies, who said they were just trying not to be boring.
On mixing genres, he hopes it is never too deliberate. Deciding to combine two things just because he likes both would be awful, he says, like the scene in The Player where Hollywood types pitch Star Wars crossed with Kramer vs. Kramer. In Radiohead, though, someone will often suggest a track should have the texture of an Alice Coltrane record, and they try it.
Asked to choose between melody and rhythm, he will not give up either. Rhythm rewards more quickly, but over time it is the melodies that stay in his head all day.
He listens with his eyes shut. In his late teens he got rid of a lot of records once he realised he only played them while reading or watching television.
I'm quite into listening to music and not doing anything else.
Jonny Greenwood1
His favourite soundtrack is The French Connection II, which has never been released, so he recorded it off the film himself. His favourite films are mostly Woody Allen's, whom he thinks still underrated, and the Coen brothers'.
He is disappointed that so many people's golden age of music is still the 1960s. If the Beatles had looked back as far as that, he says, they would have been a banjo orchestra playing show tunes. Then again, the string quartets on Bodysong are old technology too.
He hardly makes music outside the band, because everything he does feels as if it will end up in Radiohead. Asked about the next record, he says he was in the Radiohead studio that day with Phil Selway drumming and Thom Yorke playing, and was due to meet the others two hours after the interview to plan the summer and what comes next.
We feel like we've only just stopped and already people are wanting us to carry on.
Jonny Greenwood1