Back in May — it seems so long ago, doesn’t it? — Thom Yorke and his pals in Radiohead released their newest album, A Moon Shaped Pool, which went on to become a bestseller in the UK, reaching the top of the charts in the first week with more than 50,000 in sales. This was a rapturous reception, to be sure, but it wasn’t one that was expected — at least by Yorke. According to a new interview in Q magazine, Yorke was, frankly, surprised anyone cared at all.
“I cherish the band, but I don’t expect anyone else to,” Yorke told the magazine (via NME ). “We expected the opposite reaction.” This is humble, but weird, given the fact that the entire internet constantly tracks the band’s every move, including forming new companies and erasing their internet presence. (Not to mention now, post-release, the continued obsession with the band’s Instagram presence, which consists mostly of short vignettes of little consequence — though, some of them are pretty nifty.)
Pitchfork also reports that, in the same Q story, the band reveals just how they decided to give in to fan demand and include “Creep” in their set lists. If you’re interested at all in how those decisions are made (turns out, kind of lightly?) read that below:
Yorke says that the idea to play “Creep” came up two nights ago in Amsterdam when someone in the crowd spent the majority of the gig shouting for it. “I kind of wound him up by starting to play it, which was a bad idea as it was like lighting a fire.” The band decided they would perform it during the encore only for their crew to veto it because they weren’t prepared. But the idea had been planted -“Creep” was back on the rota. “We just said, ‘Let’s see what the reaction is, just to see how it feels.’” Yorke continues: “Like we played ‘No Surprises’ just to see if it feels alright. Songs go into phases where they don’t feel right and then they come back. ‘No Surprises’ was out for ages. We didn’t play it once on the whole of The King Of Limbs tour. … If you play it right, it is fucking dark. But it’s like acting. It’s on the edge of totally hamming it up but you’re not. it’s just the words are so dark. When we play it, we have to play it so slow. It only sounds good if it’s really fragile.”
Radiohead are currently on tour, and are coming to the US in late July.