Jonny Greenwood defends his music with Dudu Tassa to El País

Jonny Greenwood has defended his work with Dudu Tassa in an interview with David Saavedra of El País, a year after their UK shows were cancelled following a boycott campaign led by BDS and reports of threats. Asked about the campaign's argument that boycotting South African artists helped end apartheid, he was silent for a long time. Then he said he is a fan of many Israeli films, writers and musicians, and that the songs he plays with Tassa are older than most of the countries now fighting each other. Bookshops in Madrid sell Amos Oz's novels openly, he pointed out. To me, cancelling music is the same as taking books off shelves.¹

When Saavedra asked about Palestine and Lebanon, Greenwood said he did not see how that connected to making a record with Indian musicians in Oxford, and a BMG representative asked that the interview stick to music. Two questions Saavedra had ready, on the Palestine Action protesters and on whether Radiohead had talked about it among themselves, went unasked.

The record in question is Ranjha, made with Shye Ben Tzur and The Rajasthan Express 11 years after Junun. Greenwood calls it unusual for being sincerely devotional, where Western bands sing about alienation, fast cars, girls and drinking. Ben Tzur says Greenwood refused to make Junun again, swapping guitar for synthesiser and changing the rhythms. Touring it is expensive, because it means bringing eight or nine Indian musicians to Europe.

Of Radiohead's tour in November, the band's first in seven years, Greenwood says standing and listening to Thom Yorke sing felt amazing, and the Madrid shows were particularly fun. A tour has to be settled a year and a half before it starts, as he told The Times in February. Another is being talked about, but nothing will happen for ages, and he has no idea when there might be a new album, with Yorke recording on his own.