Colin Greenwood on why Radiohead stopped rehearsing early

Radiohead had two more days of rehearsal booked this summer and called them off because it was going well, Colin Greenwood tells Brian Hiatt on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. The five played for a day, maybe two, running through songs from The Bends and Kid A among much else, and Jonny Greenwood reckoned another week or so would have them ready to tour. They are not going to, Colin adds. We know we can do that. That's fun. We enjoy being with each other. So let's leave on a high.¹

He calls it a check-in, because they had not played together for so long, fitted in while all five were around and before Thom Yorke and Jonny went off with The Smile. He first mentioned it in September, and in October he told NME the room was The Church in Crouch End, where Radiohead finished OK Computer; he had last been there in 1996, recording the bass for “Airbag”. It was a bit like taking the old car out for a run before putting it back in the garage², he told The New Cue earlier this month, so the wheels would not fall off next time.

He would love to play shows in 2025, he said then. I mean, it's a collective decision…. I can't speak for other people because that's not fair on them.¹ At signings for his photo book, How to Disappear: A Portrait of Radiohead, around Britain and Europe, young fans keep asking when Radiohead will play again, and he says playing for the people who love the music is a good reason to, an idea Nick Cave talks about a lot. In Paris some of them asked him to draw something they could have tattooed; he said no, because he cannot draw, and found the devotion humbling.

He has just finished touring with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Bob Dylan, who saw the last night at the Accor Arena in Paris on 17 November, wrote about it on X afterwards. He's seen me make a mistake in one song. That's all I can think about.¹