For the past few days, I've been working on an English translation of the "Radiohead: amor y luz" that was posted a little while ago. Here is the finished product. I'm sorry if there are a few errors.
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Article source: http://www.frente.com.mx/2012/04/12/radiohead-amor-y-luz/
Radiohead: Love and Light
Their third visit to Mexico is just around the corner. With this in mind, we have conducted this extensive interview with the guitarist of Radiohead, Ed O'Brien, where he talks about what the band does above and behind the scenes, in the studio, and of the unexpectedly happy period that his band currently thrives in.
The lobby of Chateau Marmont emanates as much affluence (or, at least for this journalist, intimidation) as it could muster. It's pure Hollywood, with its architecture hailing from the twenties, and features classic furniture, low light and elegant clientele. It has been the den of celebrities like Fitzgerald and Hunter S. Thompson, Tim Burton and Sophia Coppola, who have produced or devised some of their most memorable works under its roof or in its gardens. In this same lobby, Led Zeppelin rode on their motorcycles and the reverend Manson fell in love with a miss Evan Woods. The pool appears in Lana del Rey's most famous video and, in one of its bungalows, Anthony Kiedis recorded "By The Way". It was also here that the legendary John Belushi passed away. I am just getting used to the springy armchair when my contact approaches.
He drives me to the restaurant where Ed O'Brien, the guitarist of Radiohead, is sitting alone. He smiles. He vaguely remembers me from the 4 or 5 interviews I have given him (since the first time they arrived in Mexico, when they were still a one hit wonder) and invited me to go up to his room so there would be more privacy. He proudly shows me the Jaguar guitar model Johnny Marr (one of his heroes) finished and will send to Fender. He talks to me about Marr's virtues, of how the old guitarist of The Smiths notably improved it, and plays the guitar a little. On an armchair is a top hat and on a nightstand a mountain of marijuana the size of a baseball. Before starting up the tape recorder, we talk a little about music and who he's listening to. He goes to his computer and plays me Swiss Movement by Les McCann and Eddie Harris.
His band, possibly the most legitimate heir to the Beatles, is in the middle of a tour that will stop at Foro Sol in Mexico City on April 17th and 18th. This is an excuse to chat with O'Brien, a level-headed spokesperson and the best speaker of the group, about the business that the band fully realized and of the surprising moment that Radiohead discovered themselves.
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Since you're coming back to Mexico, how was it for you the first time you visited?
It was a pleasant surprise. We went there for the first time in 1994. We got to know each other better on this tour, don't you think? And to have returned to play at Foro Sol was incredible. The curious thing about it is that it was part of a South American tour that took us from Mexico to Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. What we discovered was that Mexico responds to us the best when we do a tour in the United States. Mexico City could be the height of our North American tours. The spirit of the people fascinated us, and we had a giant party after the second concert.
Your tour began on the first night of your visit to Mexico and I understand that you weren't very comfortable on stage. Does this always happen to you when you begin a tour?
The scale of it all was...you have to constantly get used to these things. It's very overwhelming to leave the stage and have 50,000 Mexican fans showing you their admiration, their support, cheering...it takes some time for you to become accustomed to it all. At the start of the tour there is a transition: becoming the father of a family, a husband...you get past being on stage in front of 50,000 people, since they are two very different worlds. The start of a tour can be complicated. Imagine any person in this situation. It could be a shock, despite whatever you have done before.
How do you feel the day before embarking on a tour? Are you content? Excited? Nervous?
Well, the beginning of this tour was in Miami -taking three weeks- and it was, above all, very concentrated. There is a lot of work involved. We could take some 55 songs, but then there are many things about them to remember. At this point I really don't feel nervous or excited. I only try to be focused and find myself in the best mental, emotional, and spiritual state possible, because doing shows is something incredible, but it demands a lot out of you. You have to hold off being a husband and father and change yourself into a musician. On the day before leaving on a tour, I try to relax and find myself in placidity and calmness.
After all these years, do all of your tours seem the same or does each one have its share of peculiarities?
They're different. Just before you arrived, I talked a bit with our manager: this tour doesn't seem like anything we have done before. On albums like The Bends, OK Computer, or Kid A, there is a lot of darkness. You hear a very profound melancholy, and the tours were just that, but Radiohead really isn't like that. Now we are love and light, and because of that, these concerts have been very, very different from all the ones before. These concerts are edifying, very much alive and full of love...it's like The Beatles, "All you need is love". It's true. We have found that and we have taken it to our concerts. In the past, we were on stage, seeming distant from the public and it really wasn't like that. Now there is an energy that spreads around, goes out and comes back, and any person in the audience comes back being as important as Thom or myself. We only facilitate love. It's very powerful. These past few weeks, we have offered the most different shows of our careers and, for me, the best we've ever done, because our spirit is different.
What brought the band to this point? What happened?
I talked a little to someone about this and I stated that...we have always moved ourselves. On OK Computer, we entered an incredibly dark place. It was like being in a tunnel, which we were in during OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief. It seemed that we had just found our way out, but that was not the case. On In Rainbows, part of the fight was trying to leave that tunnel. When we look at that album, we feel that we had already left that dark place. We didn't want to go back to that because we have spent too much time there. You could be very creative when you're there, but it kills you as a person. It's very tough. It drains you. It's not a good place to be. It also makes you feel bored musically because it only allows you to makes a certain type of music. Now we are in a very illuminated state and creatively different. It's flowing, but in order to get here, we had to overcome the darkness in order to appreciate that. The last two years are a new era of Radiohead.
But isn't the world a much darker place now?
Yes, you're right about that, but in times of darkness, people feel that the light can come. I don't read newspapers because the news puts you in a bad mood. For example, Mexico: 50,000 or so deaths in the past few years. It's terrible, but I don't want that to personally change me. It's not that I don't care, of course I care, but if you are reading the news all the time, it affects your behavior, like when you relate to others. I don't want to walk in fear while in Mexico City worried that some drug traffickers could attack me. When we went to Brazil, the people there told us that Rio was afraid, that they were going to rob us. Dammit, I want to coexist with people, to become infected by their happiness. Yes, there are shitty situations, but I don't want to be afraid every time I go near a Brazilian and think that he's going to con me in some way. And yes, the world is in a dark place, but I also know a lot of people that have been in similar situations and have then found light at the end of the tunnel.
At the point you say that you entered a dark period, there had been much optimism in the world, particularly in the United Kingdom. Tony Blair rose to power, having lived in Cool Britannia (or whatever it is). Now that the world has darkened, you've begun to light up. Is your state of mind a reaction to what happens in your environment?
Yes, though we weren't a part of Cool Britannia. Whatever Thom saw (and said in his lyrics) was that in spite of whatever people celebrated, there had been a lot of shit coming from the truth and people couldn't see it. They were blind to it. We have been playing "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy", a B-side. A dark song written more than 10 years ago that says (singing): "I want to see you smile again/ Like diamonds in the dust/ The amazing sound of the killing hordes/ The day the banks collapse on us". And having anticipated something, Thom wrote something that he had just noticed. There were already signs that the financial and baking system wasn't going to last. The banks effectively collapsed around us 2 or 3 years ago.
What Thom was doing was seeing beyond what people praised and pointed out the shit around them, and now that it has muddied us over, we need to bring ourselves above it. You have to move forward. Yes, you recognize the signs and the evil of it all, but you can't sit there thinking that it's all so difficult to conquer. You have to think about how you can make yourself a better person, how you can make the world a better place from a modest perspective. Every one of us, with our way of being, can do it. It seems like we can't change anything, but yes, being positive can be contagious to another person. It makes them happy.
So what it means is that there is no point in feeling miserable all the time. We couldn't continue living here if we did. You have to have hope for the future, hope that the world can get better. You also begin to see that things are, in fact, getting better. Yes, the world is in a bad place, but humanity and its potential are both incredible. We could do many things and this is a great time to do them. We are in a crisis, but with each crisis come solutions. If we want, we could make things better, but that depends on us.
I would like to think that you are hoping that something good comes soon.
I don't know about that. We're only musicians. What we put in our music is what we feel.
Going back to the topic of your tour, how do you decide on which songs to play, how the band is going to sound, how the stage is going to looks and all these different things?
The lighting on this tour is crazy. Andy, the one in charge of it, has worked with us since '94. In November he came to us so he could show us his plan. He wanted something that would be big, and he wanted to go back to using the light tubes that we used on our last tour, but he also built this incredible wall of light made of recycled plastic bottles at the back of the stage. Then we have these screens that move themselves around.
In the case of the songs: we play what we feel is best for this tour. We play The King of Limbs because it doesn't seem like it's perfect to us. Much of In Rainbows is very good. As for the older songs, it's been really interesting to see which ones work for us. For example, one song from OK Computer that really works in our favor is "Lucky", which comes out incredible every night. There's also "Paranoid Android" . We have on stage a second drummer alongside Phil, Clive Dreamer, and he gives the song such an incredible groove. We played "No Surprises" during our sound check and it sounded awful. It's very interesting to see which songs work and which ones don't.
We always play "The National Anthem" off of Kid A but it still doesn't feel right. We've already played it two times on this tour and it just doesn't work for us. On the other hand, "Kid A" sounds surprisingly good. Same with "Pyramid Song". Last night, we played "Packtd Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box" and it sounded good. A little half-baked, but it comes close to what we're looking for.
Our spiritual and emotional state is what determines which songs work for us. As an example, "No Surprises" doesn't work at the moment because it's such a sweet and pretty song and to find ourselves consumed by its melancholy, by the darkness that I told you about up until now, would bring about an interesting kind of tension. Now that we're content, full of love and happiness, when we play this song it's sickly sweet. It doesn't contrast with anything. It's just too sweet.
Does the rest of the band coincide with you on these kinds of feelings?
Yes. Myself, in particular. I can be very expressive about all kinds of things. I'm one who would come out to say, "Stop! There's such a pathetic amount of love here,". I'm just like that. It isn't something that's very English, but then again, I'm not someone who's very English. Like I told you before the interview, my grandmother was born in Mexico. But in general, we agree on a lot of things. We all know that we are living in a great moment, that this is another kind of tour for us.
And why have you included a lot of B-sides in your repertoire? Is it to surprise the fans?
Yes, it's to surprise the fans, but it's also the result of how good it is to go rediscover songs and see which ones seem best to play. We are a lucky band. We have a huge archive of songs. We don't have to play "Fake Plastic Trees". We don't have to play "Creep", "Paranoid Android", or "No Surprises". I think that people who like Radiohead understand -at this point they should have gotten the message- that we play what we feel is appropriate. We're not planning on deceiving them and we're not going to tell them that it's THE SHOW FROM THE HUGELY-SUCCESSFUL RADIOHEAD. When we go to Mexico City, that's what we're offering them. It's good, it's honest, and it's real.
I understand that when you do shows for 50,000 people, the majority of them understand what Radiohead is all about, but then there are those that will go home sad because they didn't hear "Creep".
We played it in Mexico. What we can't do is get up on stage thinking that we have to play this or that, because then it's not honest. When "Creep" works is when, all of the sudden, it occurs to us that we should play it. It's not something that we can force out.
So you are at the wrong concert if you hope to see and hear the band's greatest hits.
Yes, but it's an interesting thing to play in a place as big as Foro Sol. We know that there are 50,000 people who want to see a spectacle that spans across the different stages of our career, but they have to be songs that we think we can play well. It's not going to be like a U2 or Coldplay concert. The concert is close to where the band stands at the moment, and I think the audience understands that. We're lucky in that respect. I hope no one becomes disillusioned at home after a Radiohead concert because we didn't play "Creep".
There could be a percentage of people that know us superficially, that don't understand that we are becoming another kind of band. On stage, it's like a living organism in full transformation.
My impression of the people in Mexico -and correct me if I'm wrong- is that they notice it. They have big hearts and lots of feeling. Because of that, we're going to Mexico as something new. It's an outpouring of emotions, and that's something I like about Mexicans. I feel that there is a lot of honesty with the people of Mexico. It's incredibly powerful.
Going back to the songs at each concert, how do you decide on which ones to play?
It's very simple. We arrive at the show site at around two in the afternoon. We get there. We have lunch. At lunch, Thom, Phillip, and I put together the setlist. There are certain songs that we know work together. "Bloom" is a really good way to open the show, since it puts us in the right mood. We ask ourselves what we want to play, always looking to see how it flows, how it's all balanced out, and how it can take the audience on a journey. If we can do it between the five of us, there would be a lot of opinions. It works well this way so Colin and Jonny can make observations and suggestions after the concert.
And so you had to choose between 55 songs...
Yes. We tried out a lot songs we didn't know all that well, and then there were 4 days of preproduction in London.
A question that a pair of fans passed on to me to ask you: Is The King of Limbs a transition album?
It's an album of feelings, compared to In Rainbows, which was a very direct album of songs. Nigel [Godrich, their producer] was around the DJ circuit a lot, so he brought something to the world of the album...
Sorry to interrupt you, but is that why there is such a predominance of rhythms on the album?
Yes, I think so.
The first thing I felt after listening to it was that the rhythm took over everything else on the album.
Yes, you're right about that. The rhythm dictates the album. It's very important.
And this is reflected in the concert?
Yes. We joke about it and call it the Big Rave. The rhythm is king. Our manager, Chris, says, "It's like a rave with guitarists", and yes, it is. It's fun. We have Clive and Phil on drums and we're moving to another place. We are very fortunate to always find ways to take ourselves to new heights. It's exciting, and I know that I said this before, but it feels better than ever. Last night ,Thom said on stage, "Why do we keep doing this? In order to try new things". Our past is fantastic, but that's not what makes us move forward. We're playing new [unreleased] songs on this tour!
Three, from what I understand.
There's still one more to follow!
After you released the album, you had put out a couple of more songs ["The Daily Mail"] and now you are premiering songs you haven't even recorded yet. Why weren't they included on The King of Limbs?
We didn't record them. "The Daily Mail" came about because we went to work on a program called "In The Basement", which lasts 55 minutes, and The King of Limbs only lasts 38, so we needed more material. We put out "Staircase" when we recorded the album, but at that point, it didn't seem to come out right. "The Daily Mail" we had since 2005, but nothing about it seemed to work for the reasons that they are. And then, literally, in 10 minutes, we finished writing it for the program. I like how we can write a song and as soon as it's there, we put it out. We did it with "Lucky", you know?
Right, for the War Child album...
And it turned up on OK Computer that year. We were kids born in the sixties, and we were influenced by The Beatles and The Stones. They were in the studio recording "Paperback Writer" with "Rain" as a B-side and they put that single out. Two of the greatest songs ever in history were on one of their albums! The Beatles legitimized that so we can do everything else. And they're next to being gods.
Have you rejected the idea of the album?
No, I LOVE the album.
But does Radiohead work on thinking of albums, of EPs, of singles, of songs?
The thing with albums is that they demand to be in a certain mental state. You are going to record a collection of songs that ask for a level of compromise and concentration that's sufficient, but it isn't the easiest thing to do. When we made The King of Limbs we were just like that. The music that we put out in between albums is very different. It has a little of this and a little of that. "Supercollider" is very different from "The Daily Mail". We love the mentality of those B-sides. We have made ones that were very good and ones that were very important because you make them with a freedom that you don't have while recording an album, which can be incredibly tedious.
I imagine that in order to record a good album and make it worth something, you should have enough things to say on it...
You're right. From the point of view of the lyricist, you have to have something coherent to say. The B-sides don't ask you for anything. It could be a song from 10 years ago that works. Then, when we are recording an album, we are living in that moment, with more rigor than before. When we're not, we're only thinking about writing songs that we like.
I'm going to go back to the question about transition. I think that the two fans that wanted me to ask you their question felt that there will be an important change in Radiohead from The King of Limbs onward.
Totally. It's "Radiohead MKIII".
Which one was MKII? Was it back during Kid A?
Yes. MKI was from Pablo Honey to OK Computer. MKII from Kid A until the recording of In Rainbows, and MKIII are the last two years. This is an age of love, happiness, and light.
You talk about that a lot. Is it much easier to be Radiohead today than 10 years ago?
Definitely. It's a beautiful place where we are now. It's always been very natural, never forced. Ten years ago, it was much more difficult. It wasn't necessarily the band, but perhaps ourselves as individuals. We changed and evolved, but things grew dark. It was hard and not fun at all, but you endure it and you don't give up. Everything that's worth something in life can be difficult to maintain at times. There is always something to strongly hold on to, something to endure. What I have learned from life is that bad things don't always last. It's then that you show the strength of your character and things change. The darkness only lasts a moment. It passes and everything becomes easier. That's what life is about. It's in cycles, I believe.
That's how it has been with Radiohead. Now I'm glad that we are in a wonderful period of our career, that the shows flow, and that everything is different. It's another kind of feeling.
As for the people that surround you, your producer or for example Andy, your light technician, who have been with you for almost 20 years...do they perceive this state of mind and do they incorporate it into their work?
Andy talks about that with Thom, but above all, he's creative, a master with a lot of intuition. We know him well. We don't spend a lot of time together, but he understands what we feel and what we want, and adds beauty, color, and drama. As the tour moves forward and satisfyingly grows, he makes it better. All of the show grows, and every time we treat it, it gets better.
At the end of the tour, what is there: a worn-out band or the best show of the tour?
It's not set in stone. That doesn't depend on us. It depends on the public. They play a bigger role than all of us.
