OK Thom Yorke
By: Javier Blánquez
The charismatic Thom Yorke takes a break from working with Radiohead to focus on Atoms for Peace, his new futuristic pop project.
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"Are you really going to record the interview with this?". On the breakfast table in the Barcelona Arts Hotel where Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich eat from a platter of strawberries, purée, juice, and cups of cappuccino, there is a Blackberry...mine, in fact, and defenseless against their arrogant-looking iPhones. They both look upon it as if it were a dog's fecal matter and erupt into noisy bursts of laughter. "I would never have the courage to do anything with a Blackberry. I commend you," adds Nigel.
It may seem humiliating, but there couldn't be a better way of beginning my talk with the frontman and producer of Radiohead. This reaction, one that's along the lines of amusing and harmless fair play, defines them in a single moment like refined connoisseurs of technology. This is especially in the case of Thom Yorke, who, at 44 years old, takes time to live almost on the other side of rock, feeling more comfortable with a computer between his hands than playing a guitar. In fact, when he doesn't have to stay in charge of Radiohead, a band with a balance of power more complicated than that of the protagonists of Game of Thrones, Yorke dedicates himself to being a leisurely tourist in a spacious field of experimentation.
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When did you have this epiphany, or rather, the moment when you came to understand how to use technology as a vehicle for creating music?
THOM YORKE: I first became aware of it around OK Computer (1997).
NIGEL GODRICH: That's why it's called OK Computer (laughs).
TY: Nigel mixed the album for us on a computer using programs like Pro Tools. I then became tremendously curious about it. I'd never learned how to work a mixing desk that had multiple tracks, but a computer program...shit. It was able to learn on its own. I also began to buy Aphex Twin's albums at the time. I suppose all of that was part of the epiphany: understanding that we could change the way we work and make the entire recording process into something more surprising and fun.
Do you consider yourself addicted to technology at this point?
TY: I don't know. I still enjoy sitting at the piano in order to write a song. But when I'm milling around pieces of junk that are hard for me to understand how they work, I need to solve those puzzles and end up sleeping on it. I almost never figure it out, but that in itself is good. From luck and error come great ideas.
When you first released OK Computer, that album conveyed a sense of uncertainty. It wasn't exactly clear if it was criticizing a capitalist world reinforced by computers or if the title of the album implicated blind faith in technological progress.
TY: The change that we noticed then encouraged us greatly. We saw it as an incredible opportunity to gain creative independence and harvest better communication. On occasion, we would go on fansites with chatrooms and introduce ourselves: "Hi, we're Radiohead, and we're in the studio recording an album". No one believed us. That was when demanded to EMI that we set up our own web page like Massive Attack. We learned how to program html and all that.
It seems like everything you do is a continuous learning experience where you adapt without halting to a world that's always changing. Is that easy for you, or has it gotten more difficult with age?
TY: It's a daily struggle. It's a lot harder to learn how the Internet works now. Social networking sites...shit, each day brings a new problem. When you've adapted to Twitter, it suddenly becomes Instagram and so on. You never know what kind of real impact they have, nor do you know how to reach the public through them. On top of that, you feel helpless. They're mounted tools for someone who is getting rich by channelling private matters to people. I may be showing my age, but all of this has become problematic to me.
A few weeks ago, you participated in a sentimental advice session for the website Rookie, which is geared towards adolescent girls. Did you do it to try to connect with today's youth or to understand it better?
NG: It piqued our curiosity. It's one of those methods of unexpected promotion that comes your way and normally you would say no to that, but this was something so peculiar that we had to say yes. We had heard about it from Tavi, a 16-year-old blogger who runs the page.
It seems that the generation gaps are much stronger than before. Now there's hardly a difference between each year and there seems to be little in common between those in their 40s and the "millennials".
TY: Do you have kids? I'm sure that if you were to have kids, it would be a lot easier to understand. What are the millennials, by the way?
It's the generation of kids who were born at the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s. They reached their adolescence at the turn of the century. It's the generation that's portrayed in shows like Girls.
TY: Oh, I get it. I take back what I said. My kids are a lot younger than that.
NG: I don't have children of my own, but I have friends who have them at that age. It's true that it's hard to connect with them on a cultural level, but I also feel that we still have that youthful spirit at our age. Our work still allows us to keep in contact with a younger audience.
Now you're even working on a DJ side project.
NG: Thom was a DJ even when he was still going to university. He took a shot at it at parties on Friday nights.
TY: Yes, but now it's something entirely different. I want to create a kind of live hybrid that could result in throwing in unexpected things at the drop of a hat. I'm fascinated by the kinds of shows that artists like Flying Lotus and Modeselektor put on. Everything is under their control, but at the same time, it sounds spontaneous. With Atoms for Peace, we're attaining this effect a lot of the time. People come to the shows and dance while we give them an incredibly abstract experience.
AMOK is like a continuation of The Eraser, yet the album sounds stronger and more complete. Thom's first solo album was precisely that: a single person making a lot of noise. What kind of effect have you been looking for now?
TY: I had to be something more distinct. It's been seven years.
NG: At the time, Thom was going through a strange period in his life. It was very disoriented because he was learning new ways of making music without the help of his bandmates from Radiohead. But neither Thom nor I like to work alone, so we brought a lot of people to play in the studio. We then filled the studio with more sounds and ideas so that the process would seem more dynamic. We didn't plan anything. Their strengths came about naturally.
Why the name "Atoms for Peace"? Putting together the words "atoms" and "peace" makes it sounds like a criticism on ecology or something along those lines.
TY: The truth is that there wasn't any sort of intention like that. We picked "Atoms" because it seemed like a good idea. It describes particles of sound that create energy.
But AMOK isn't a peaceful album. It's dynamic and overwhelming.
TY: Yeah, you have a point. I don't know. But it's an album made of atoms! But here the band worked to share their own ideas. It's much more distinct than working with Radiohead, where Colin and Jonny Greenwood would also have a say in the matter and their own perspectives on things. How can those clashes be mediated when it comes time for them to record the material?
NG: I don't know how it's done, but I have to do it. Jonny and Thom are the two most prominent composers in the band. They bring in their ideas and finally, I have to piece together the puzzle. With Atoms, we only had to recruit the people that we needed. Radiohead is something more complicated. There isn't much room for improvisation. You have to plan so a lot of people are satisfied with the results.
Of course, we're not talking too much about a certain anniversary, since this year marks two decades since the release of Pablo Honey.
TY: Ugh!! (Thom fakes some coughing and choking sounds)
I'm sorry, I know that you don't think too fondly of that album. But that was how you got your start even though you're a different musician now. What's one thing you could have never imagined to become reality 20 years later?
TY: It's precisely that, that there was such a thing as a future. At first, we didn't know what was going on or what was happening. All we knew was that something wasn't going right. We hoped that we would be signed to EMI and that they would help us all the same, just like they did with Pink Floyd or The Beatles. But we soon discovered that those big corporations have a very sinister side to them. They only wanted money. We knew that something had to happen so we wouldn't be eaten up by that awful system. Then we wrote "Creep" (1992) and since that moment, the managers came, shook our hands, thanked us, and said, "Boys, from now on, you do what you want". And you think, "That's fucking great!". But that was a stroke of luck. Without that stroke of luck, I wouldn't be here.
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Source:
http://www.metropoli.com/musica/2013/04/26/517a455a6843410f43000003.html
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