Jonny Greenwood on album order, long titles and Nigel Godrich

Jonny Greenwood sat down with Tim Cashmere of Undercover after the show at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on Monday 26 April. It was Radiohead's first Australian tour since 1998, and it was cut short when Thom Yorke's throat gave out, so this turned out to be the last night. Freed from pre-show caution, Jonny joked that he could now say any old rubbish.

On Hail to the Thief, he said every album is only the songs of the period in which they were written and recorded. The band do not set out to make an album. They record a pile of songs, and once those are put in order a record suddenly exists, which hides how different the songs really are. Any message or thread running through it is something the band try to find afterwards, as listeners do.

I think Thom is just very keen on having long titles and he felt like inflicting that on everybody.

Jonny Greenwood¹

That was his account of the album's alternative song titles, which he said also show another side of each song, or what it is really about.

On Nigel Godrich, he stressed that Godrich is the band's age and grew up with them. Between recording sessions they reminisce about their 1980s home computers and play computer games together, and he is one of them rather than an older producer overseeing the work.

The band now play whatever instrument a song needs, he said, laptops and pianos included, and they had gone as far as building their own drum machines from first principles, on the idea that a snare drum is roughly white noise given a shape. That project had grown into one of the wire-filled boxes on stage. His mother calls him a jack of all trades and master of none, and he agreed, since he plays his many instruments in one style.

On Bodysong, he said he watched the footage over and over, usually 20 minutes of it with a note that it would end up five, and with no dialogue to leave room for. The jazz on it was played by others.

The plan to make a video for every song on OK Computer ran out of money and time, since only a few of the first ones were being shown; with Kid A they made short films instead.

He admitted three visits to Australia in 10 years was hard to justify, with Korea and South America still unvisited, but called the four or five days in Sydney the best time they had had on tour for years. He still remembers the band's first Melbourne show, at the Esplanade Hotel, for its sticky floor and smoke.

The stage and lights are the work of Andi Watson, who has been with them for 10 years; they had spent the previous evening talking about lights at the St Kilda Sea Baths. Being colour-blind, Jonny leaves the colours to Watson and Thom.

The songs Thom brings in, he said, already sound amazing when he plays them alone.

The pressure is to not fuck up this great song rather than the pressure being to write this great song.

Jonny Greenwood¹