Inside the Radiohead secret room
“Radiohead are a church with holidays, precepts, rites, sins and heretics“. The new book of the journalist and writer Fernando Rennis “Pop Is Dead – The History of Radiohead”released for the Cada Editrice Nottetempo, leads the reader into that magical temple, entering the secrets of the secrets of Thom Yorke’s band. Forty years after the first attempts in the music halls of the Abingdon school, the band is now surrounded by a mythological aura and ranks of followers, but does not cease to be “a disturbance, an anomaly that risks enchanting”. Aspects of history and the “Radiohead”, stereotypes to be dismantled, contradictions to be deepened, indications to be proven: as Fernando Rennis, who for years has been on the trail of the five of Oxford has remained little known. And he spoke with their teachers and schoolmates, interviewed musicians, directors, journalists and collaborators who have crossed their events. Through rigorous research and a passionate gaze, this book guides us on a documented and engaging journey in the restless heart of contemporary music. Thanks to the Night Publishing House, below, it is possible to read an extract that sheds light on the modus operandi of the training, always far from the spotlight. An atmosphere of mystery that has always enveloped the formation, ready to sail the stages of Europe again in this 2025.
In the second part of March, for a couple of weeks the Radioheads are at the Mayfair studio, London, where Nigel Godrich is engaged in the temporary missages of the new songs – many of these will become definitive -, to understand where the work is. The secrecy is at the highest levels: the group brought a safe where to keep tapes and hard disks; From the top of his almost two meters, and O’Brien monitors that the staff of the study does not make copies of the traces, then remaining until late at night to put everything underneath. On the last day, during the final greetings, Yorke reiterates the concept: “Don’t tell anyone what we are doing”. Radiohead work for almost twelve hours a day, they record with soft lights, in the breaks play scrabble.
Stanley Donwood is holed up in one of the registration cabins and hangs the canvases on the walls, as they are concluded. The arches are taken up at Rak, on the other side of primrose Hill, with the millennia ensemble directed by Everton Nelson. At the Mayfair, the group, which estimates to have 80% of the new album in his pocket, receives the visit of Edge and Hufford. The two have reiterated several times to the band who do not want to speak with any record label before the disc is closed, Also because, if it is one of their “Art House Projects” a low profile with an independent reality could be the best choice, perhaps opting for an exclusively digital version on the internet.
Manager and group sit in a circle in a meeting behind closed doors. Having ascertained that the new music is not difficult, Edge and Hufford share an idea carefully caressed for the first time around 2004, while they were smoking a spinel sitting on the sofa. They had resumed a chat on the concept of “value in the digital era” with their longtime friend Millree Hughes, an artist of Welsh origin who moved to New York. The three had met at the bar of the Tribeca Grand hotel, and Edge and Hufford had explained to the friend that the Radioheads could do anything now that their contract with EMI was finished. “We were talking about a website where the songs and artwork of an album with a sort of subscription could be downloaded,” recalls Hughes. “A platform to register for to receive new material, as it was produced” the only thing that had annoyed Yorke in The Eraser operation had been the usual leak that appeared on the net before the release.
For the singer this is the point. The system bug lurks by force of things in the transition from the mastering of the album to series production in printing systems. Jonny Greenwood hates those three months of stall between the closure of the disc and his release. And O’Brien is annoyed by the blindness of the musical industry, now less and less attentive to the artistic “spirit” and constantly interested in capitalizing, making on the back catalogs. Selway is annoyed by that frenetic process in which you are focusing on the first week of release of a disc to exploit the push towards first place. For Colin Greenwood “it is becoming everything terribly predictable”, there is no more enthusiasm in music.
In short, among the Radiohead a general dissatisfaction is shredded. The group is tired of a print in crisis that copies and paste the first reviews of a disc or reports, evil, excerpts of interviews, but is also tried by the long gestation of the album. Two years earlier he had been faced with a great truth: “You have to be honest if it does not work. You have to have passion for what you do”, she had felt saying from the management who, seeing an adrift band and without a defined artistic direction, had suggested to consider the possibility of the dissolution seriously. It took a shock, something “brave and extravagant”.
EMI is no longer that of the early nineties, and since 2000 he had been looking for a merger with Warner. The two record companies made mutual purchase offers, but in January there had been the fifth nothing done. If the historic record company did not hide the fears for “an unprecedented decline of the market”, not even the music industry is that of the past. The Entertainment Weekly magazine Punctually publishes articles in which she suggests songs to download from the internet, some via purchase, others for free. Why, then, don’t let out a record directly digitally, putting physical support behind you? John Harris wrote it since 1999 and the records, the Radiohead, if they already record them comfortably in their study. Can they also take the next step?
In April, Godrich moves with the group at the Hospital of Covent Garden for further missages, in May EMI accepts the proposal of private Equity Earth signature, founded by entrepreneur Guy Hands. His 2.4 billion pounds allow Major to “get cash immediately, without regulatory uncertainties”. It is bad news. This is people who have no experience in Musicbiz and know nothing about it. He would have thought only of gathering the accounts. It would have been a “bloodbath”. Bryce Edge and Chris Huttord had been clear with Wadsworth, Wozencroft and Hands: Radiohead preferred to contract one disc at a time. They did not want to make their music available on iTunes, who aimed to sell individual songs, while the concept of album was still important for them. But the crucial points are digital rights and the ownership of the catalog. Guy Hands refuses to yield on both issues and is optimistic.
Meanwhile, Thom Yorke and Richard Russell, musician and producer, often feel. In February 1992, while the Radioheads were recording at the Courtyard ‘Pablo Honey’, the head of the XL was in seventh place in the British ranking with The Bouncer, a single of the duo of which he was part, the Kicks likes in Mule. The very low profile of the independent label for the exit of his solo debut was liked to the Radiohead singer. The Theiraser.net site was ready months before the publication of the album, Yorke had signed a contract for a single album, in full harmony with Russell, convinced that the relationship with the artists is more important than anything else. For this he had begun to collaborate with Martin Mills, founder and director of Beggars, distributor-umbrella of independent labels including XL, delegating negotiations, accounting and business management. Yorke then was fascinated by the fact that Russell would set himself as the only strategy that of “getting out of good records”. There are those who are there to think about copyright, piracy: all this to the authors does not matter, and not even the XL: “We certainly do not offer solutions for the music industry,” says Russell. But then, could not be replicated for the Radiohead what has been done with The Eraser? Of course, with some more problems to be solved: the group wants to release the disc by itself, therefore, once the album is closed, it must provide for the technical and bureaucratic part.
Her magical circle has brought together around the table of the band of the band. And in place a discussion on the proposal of Edge and Hufford to which the group said yes, while advancing the idea of not completely abandoning the physical format. In the course of the comparison Jonny Greenwood shares his experience in the course of the comparison: in fact, he spends hours and hours on the forums of the Cycling ’74 software development company, where users exchange patches, advice and offer to check and repair codes asking for a free offer in exchange. Someone comes to mind that in 1994 the electronic duo Kopyright Liberation Front had burned 1 million pounds on the Scottish island of Jura. It has never been understood if they were true, but the gesture was eloquent. Now, if the counter does not blow it up, all that remains is to put the cards in the hands of those who are on the other side of the table. What if people were free to establish the value of an album?
