Radiohead talked about their upcoming European tour and opened up about why they needed to take a nearly decade-long break in the band’s first interview together in years.
“I guess the wheels came off a bit, so we had to stop,” Thom Yorke told The Times UK about the band’s vibes by the end of their tour in support of 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. “There were a lot of elements. The shows felt great but it was, like, let’s halt now before we walk off this cliff.”
“And I needed to stop anyway,” Yorke added. “Because I hadn’t really given myself time to grieve,” referring to the death of Rachel Owen, his former partner and mother of his children who died from cancer in 2016. “[My grief] was coming out in ways that made me think, I need to take this away.”
“Music can be a way to find meaning in things and the idea of having to stop it, even when it makes sense to, because you’re not well? Even at my lowest point? I can’t,” Yorke said of touring at the time. “I need something that I can hold on to. But there have been points in my life where I have looked for solace in music and played the piano, but it literally hurts. Physically. The music hurts, because you’re going through trauma.”
Guitarist Ed O’Brien added that by the end of the A Moon Shaped Pool tour, he was “effectively over Radiohead.” “It wasn’t great on the last round. I enjoyed the gigs but hated the rest. We felt disconnected, fucking spent. It happens. This has been our whole life — what else is there? Look, success has a funny effect on people — I just didn’t want to do it any more. And I told them that,” O’Brien said.
“I went through a very long dark night of the soul. I had a deep depression. I hit the bottom in 2021. And one of the things that was lovely coming out of it was realizing how much I love these guys. I met them when I was 17 and I have gone from thinking I can’t see myself doing it again to realizing that, you know, we do have some stellar songs.”
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For the band’s upcoming tour, Yorke sent the list of 65 potential setlist songs to his band mates. “Which we’re all frantically learning,” guitarist Jonny Greenwood said. “Then Thom will turn up and say, let’s not do half.” Unlike some other recent reunion tours with rigid setlists, the band’s shows will differ from night to night. “We have too many songs,” Yorke added.
The band also talked at length about the Israel-Hamas conflict and their perceived “whitewashing genocide” in Palestine; Jonny Greenwood is married to an Israeli artist and spends a lot of time in the region.
“A few times recently I’ve had ‘Free Palestine!’ shouted at me on the street. I talked to a guy. His shtick was, ‘You have a platform, a duty and must distance yourself from Jonny,’” Yorke told the Times UK. “But I said, ‘You and me, standing on the street in London, shouting at each other? Well, the true criminals, who should be in front of the ICC [International Criminal Court], are laughing at us squabbling among ourselves in the public realm and on social media — while they just carry on with impunity, murdering people.’ It’s an expression of impotency. It’s a purity test, low-level Arthur Miller witch-hunt. I utterly respect the dismay but it’s very odd to be on the receiving end.”
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While some members of the band, notably O’Brien, have voiced their support for a “Free Palestine” on social media, drummer Philip Selway added, “What [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] are asking of us is impossible. They want us to distance ourselves from Jonny, but that would mean the end of the band and Jonny is coming from a very principled place. But it’s odd to be ostracized by artists we generally felt quite aligned to.”
Radiohead was also asked what the future of the band is after these European shows, and whether they’ll perform new music on the trek. “I don’t know,” Jonny Greenwood said. “We haven’t thought past the tour.” Yorke added, “I’m just stunned we got this far.”
