Thom Yorke tells Zane Lowe that making The Eraser alone was dull

The Eraser earned Thom Yorke a Mercury Music Prize nomination last year, but he tells Zane Lowe, in an interview on Radio 1 tonight, that making it on his own was no fun. It was kind of dull. It was deeply unsatisfying because you weren't sharing much of the process¹, he says.

The band did little promotion when In Rainbows went out as a download in October, and Yorke calls the experience eye-opening, liberating and extremely strange. The day people were downloading it I sat at home and did nothing.¹

Ed O'Brien says the release was no template for anyone else. Someone suggested putting the album on the web, he says, the band said yes, and anyone offered the chance would have done the same. This isn't an anti-retail thing. All that we're doing is doing something different.¹

On touring next year, O'Brien says Yorke needed more persuading. Yet it is Yorke who speaks up for the festival crowd, thousands of people in a field wanting the same thing, going to the same place, with the same mindset¹.