“I love photography books that are beautiful objects,” Colin Greenwood says. “You’re holding something in your hands and it’s an experience that is not just for the eyes but is also tactile. I’ve collected a few over the years, and I wanted something that was going to be not only a beautiful piece of art but also something that, if you didn’t have an interest in Radiohead, you could still pick up and enjoy reading and looking at.”
Greenwood is in a reflective mood. It’s a sunny Sunday morning in the south of England, and his house is relatively calm. The Radiohead bass player has a day off from rehearsals as a sometime member of Nick Cave’s band, The Bad Seeds – “They’re going really well, so Nick said we weren’t needed today” – and, now that the dogs have been taken out for their walk, he’s ready to sit down to talk not just about his artfully produced new photography book, How to Disappear: A Portrait of Radiohead, but also about the group he has been a member of for almost four decades.
“It probably marks me down for my age, but I listen to music mostly on CDs and some vinyl,” says Greenwood, who, as befits a member of contemporary indie-rock royalty, is extremely amiable. We are talking about the tangible value of physical artefacts. He makes a face and shrugs. “I subscribe to three streaming services, and I don’t know if I admit that with embarrassment or discomfort, but it’s really useful for work, as all the services have different things to offer.
“That said, I love that an object, a piece of art, you’re holding in your hands has been considered by the artist or the designer and that you then buy it and bring it to your house or your living space to be appreciated. That’s better than something plucked out of the ether and digitally streamed into your house. What I love about music is not just the music itself but how it’s been crafted and almost gifted to you.”
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Greenwood’s book comes in two versions; the limited edition is one of those beautifully produced works of publishing art that cost the best part of a week’s shopping. What you get, however, is what you pay your £66 (€79) for: a 10,000-word essay by Greenwood plus almost 100 behind-the-scenes photographs of Radiohead, most of them previously unseen, printed on heavy paper and enclosed in a cloth-covered slipcase, along with a booklet of extra photographs. (The also-impressive standard edition, which lacks the slipcover and the booklet, costs £26.)
The photographs span the period from 2003, during the recording of the band’s album Hail to the Thief, to 2016, when they made A Moon Shaped Pool. Greenwood is rightly proud of the work that went into making them jump off the pages. “Most of the photographs in the book are all film, black-and-white or colour, from cameras I’ve used over the years. I think there are only two images in the book that are digital. Everything else goes back to CD and vinyl – analogue objects in a digital world.”
Greenwood has been taking photographs of Radiohead for well over 20 years; he whittled the 97 in the book down from an original choice of more than 300. Initially, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted it to be a fine-art photography book or something just for Radiohead fans. In the end, he says, “I aspired to a result that was like a Radiohead album, something as handmade as possible, as personal as possible, that people could look at and enjoy.”
They’re candid images of Thom Yorke, Greenwood’s younger brother Jonny, Ed O’Brien – whose family is from Ballyporeen, in Co Tipperary – and Philip Selway, showing long-time friends who aren’t trying to stand a certain way or strike a particular pose.
“I tried taking portraits of them, something formal like sitting on chairs or looking at them directly with a real camera,” he says. “But they’re not the right photographs for this kind of book, which presents something much more familiar and informal. This is more about capturing unseen moments of creation, rehearsal and excitement than anything else.”
It’s more than eight years since the band released A Moon Shaped Pool. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood have been focusing recently on The Smile, their band with Tom Skinner, the former Sons of Kemet drummer. (Radiohead have always been very respectful of each other’s projects, according to Greenwood.)
Is new Radiohead music taking shape? “We’re waiting on each other’s commitments,” he says. “We spent a couple of days in the summer, around June and July, running through some songs, just checking in with each other at a studio in London. It was really fun and positive. We had a good time. I would love to get together and do something in the future if we can all find space for it to happen.”
When Radiohead started with a handshake at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford, it was about four schoolfriends who each wanted one thing: to be in a band and to make music together. With all of them now in their 50s – Radiohead celebrate their 40th anniversary next year – Greenwood says that charting a course for the band’s future is “about working out how to bring people back together again, or just support people with other dreams they might have”.
As he puts it in his essay, “The simple choices that once bound you all together have been changed by the complicated branches and tributaries of our lives apart.”
Their bonds of friendship have remained steady over the decades. But the band is also about more than that, according to Greenwood. “I’ve been having a lot of conversations with Nick Cave, and one of the things that is very important to him is the responsibility that musicians have to their audience,” he says.
“I’m sure as a band – and I’m talking about Radiohead here – we all love playing, playing together as friends and playing to our audiences. That’s the thing that I hold very close to my heart. I agree 100 per cent with Nick about there being a duty to serve your fans, to play shows, to deliver something you enjoy and cherish as a band and also to share that with an audience.”
[ Split seconds: The craft and chaos of rock photographyOpens in new window ]
How to Disappear: A Portrait of Radiohead is published by John Murray. Colin Greenwood plays with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at 3Arena, Dublin, on Tuesday, November 12th, and Wednesday, November 13th
