Thom Yorke Talks About Radiohead’s Early Years
Thom Yorke recently went on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, where he talked about politics in the U.K., along with his musical influences, artistic approach and Radiohead’s early years.
During the hour-long podcast, Yorke described his writing process as a personal imperative that he can’t avoid.
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“If you’re writing something and you mean it, you can’t repeat yourself. To me, I go through my life, come what may, doing stuff because I can’t not. It’s like, my instinct is to go here, and that’s it. I can’t do anything about it. that’s just how it is,” he said. “You can’t write . . . stuff to please people. You have to write it because that’s what you’ve got. “
Later, Yorke described signing to EMI while Radiohead were still relatively new to the game.
“We haven’t got a clue what we’re doing, we just left college. Give us some money for a van, and maybe a little bit of money so we don’t have to sleep in the van, and leave us alone for like a year and a half so we can figure this shit out,'” Yorke said. “Unfortunately, about a year into that, we get this meeting with our manager who says, ‘Um, “Creep” is a massive hit,” in Israel first, then in KROC here [in Los Angeles] and then New York. So you’ve got to go. And I’m still trying to figure this shit out.”
Yorke is currently wrapping a series of shows with Atoms For Peace in London before the band begins its U.S. tour in September.