about people not standing up for their rights : Stop whispering and start shouting

There’s very much the British feeling of ’I’m not worthy, why am I here ?’.Certainly, there’s an implicit neurosis about how the press is going to treat you. . . . And when we signed with our record company there were a lot of weird political things going on. It’s learning to actually isolate yourself from relying on people around you. I’m kind of a kid about things like that. It stresses me out. I’d like to go back and play with my building blocks and just let my parents worry about the record.

Let’s talk about the new single, Stop Whispering. We singled that one out months ago in Creem, before the album was even released In the States. Ed: It’s a new version that they’re playing, you know. We re-recorded It. Hey, the Police did that with ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me.- Are you going to keep re-recording It, like an annual event? Ed: {laughing} We were just never happy with the version on the album. For us, It kind of lost the plot. So we rerecorded it In a day and a half. It’s more atmospheric now. Like a Joy Division from the late ’70s, early ’80s. Thom: It does sort of blow to do that sort of thing, but it was quite old when we went Into the studio and we didn’t have an angle on it. Later, on the album, we discovered what the angle was

« (we were persuaded to) dress up in diver’s clothes and dance around. It was all very embarrassing . »

Before we get too giddy about Radiohead’s 1995 renewal, let’s return that ugly scenario: why did Radiohead ever allow the ill-mixed ‘Stop Whispering’ to live? One fatal error and their chance to mine a long life from a strong album did a flaming Hindenburg. Our interview victims: Thom York, resident pugnacious blond vocalist and Jackie 0. look-a-like/guitar genius Jonny Greenwood. Drummer Phil Selway is back in Britain while bassist Colin Greenwood and guitarist Ed Brien are doing the soundcheck for this duo’s acoustic showcase: these two wish Ed and Colin would also perform.
The single’s destruction caused Thom pain. “It hurt.” There’s a brief use until he adds, “It hurt me anyway.” Jon quickly points-out, “I was for releasing ‘Blow Out.”‘
Thom isn’t sparing any venom. “It was bloody stupid.”
In a charitable moment Jonny begins a solid explanation. “Capitol came and said radio will play this…”
An appallingly arch American accent emerges from Thom’s mouth to kill Jonny’s attempt. “‘Radio will play this. It will be great.’ It wasn’t.”
The duo freely admits this occurred since they hadn’t learned the ability to scream NO. ‘Creep’s’ rapid success thrust Radiohead into a brutal marketing nightmare with dizzying consequences to the band’s confidence. Thom explains, “We hadn’t realized that the only way to create music is for the five of us to be sitting in a room creating music, rather then going, ‘what should we be doing now, sir? OK, suck Satan’s cock.’We hadn’t learned yet, and now we have,” he declares. “So things have changed. We were just bloody stupid.”
Jonny again takes the more regained tack. “I was upset, but they had been right about all those other things. You have to rely and trust them to extent. So I think it’s really foolish for bands to take the ‘we hate our record company’ line. It doesn’t make much sense. You just have to be intelligent about it.”
An epic sigh gusts from Thom’s small frame, followed by a testy, “Yeah, but the problem was we didn’t have the distance from it to work out what the hell was going on, to work out that the song didn’t sound any good, that the mix was shocking and we spent too much money on the video. Its the usual follow-up syndrome. We just wanted to move on, really. It was just like ‘oh fuck. ‘We had done so many versions of ‘Stop Whispering’ that you wouldn’t believe it. Now Radiohead have this rule: you never ever record a song more than once. Never, unless it’s live. One of the vital aspects of Radiohead is spontaneity, and that only happens once. And if we don’t give it the opportunity to happen, then that’s it. It’s because we’re been through it so extremely, with ‘Stop Whispering’ and the over-analysis of the first album, it’s great, because we know there’s certain perimeters you have to set to create. And we have set them, and it’s brilliant.”

AB: This is a video about a situation that a lot of people can relate to, when your stuck in the abandoned ruins of some kind of industrial cooling tower, you’ve got stuck between some big rusty bits of steel, theres a random guy around there struggling to put a vintage diving suit…which we’ll see later on…theres people with boom mics on cranes…there he is…the rest of you guys are…look at ed with his pirate shirt…do you remember making this and thinking ‘aw this is amazing look at the whole crew we’ve got, all the people with boom mics. Or where there mutterings of decent from the band?
JG: Yeah there certainly moments when ed was asked to play with lots of cushions and pins, stick pins into cushions, and he was doing this and feelings self conscious, and i remember one of the directors assistants leaning across to me and saying ‘Isn’t Jeffrey a genius?’ He was saying work with the pins and the cushions, just interact with them. And they filmed hours and hours of it, and we just felt, like now, a bit embarrassed.
AB: But having fun right thought aswell?
JG: Yeah, sure.
CG: There we go yeah, some one restlessly inferring ‘just have fun with it’
JG: Isn’t Jeffrey a genius?