Thom Yorke was honored at Thursday night's Ivor Novello Awards, taking the podium after an introduction by surprise presenter Harry Styles, who called Radiohead his favorite band and announced he lost his virginity to "Talk Show Host." In interviews surrounding the ceremony, he talked about what he's been up to, which includes finishing up the solo album mentioned by Radiohead bandmate Ed O'Brien (whose own solo album Blue Morpho is out today). It sounds like he worked on it with Sam Petts-Davies, the producer and engineer who has helmed Yorke's recent albums with the Smile.
"I'm trying to finish some stuff," Yorke told NME of the new album. "It’s a solo thing. I’m trying to figure out what it is, I’m trying to mix it. I did it with Sam Petts-Davies. It’s been a really fun process and it’s pretty fucking different for me." OK, it's different, but is it good? "I'm too close to it to know for certain," Yorke says. "I get moments of going, 'This is good, I like this.' That’s enough for me. What else can I say about it? There’s a song called 'Arse-Kissers'."
Speaking of arse-kissers, Yorke's Ivors speech made time for arse-holes. A choice excerpt:
Those heads of our industry are not asking what happens to the future generation when the musical well dries up. Which it will, guys. Instead, a lot of lip service is paid to new music with self-serving playlists, and to the idea of a vital music scene. But there is a refusal to offer even a semblance of a sustainable revenue source for the majority of musicians. And they continue the nasty, fucking opaque accounting tricks that major labels were doing in the old days. So I guess I'd like to provide a quick reminder to the top of the industry and streaming services: Pull your finger out. Where you gonna get your next juicy back catalogs from, eh? This industry will die, and arseholes with it, if all you do is endlessly devalue the next generation of artists from their fans. Just remember, without us, you ain't shit.
Yorke also spoke to BBC6 about Radiohead's comeback tour in Europe last fall:
It was overwhelming. To be honest, it was overwhelming. And, like, I'm really, really glad we did it. But if you'd asked me beforehand, I wouldn't have known. Like, I didn't know. And, uh, I gotta get in shape, dude [laughs]. This shit's killing me. It's hard work. Yeah, there was a few moments that really stuck in my mind, that we felt as much part of it as the audience. Honestly, honestly, honestly, honestly. Like the first night in Madrid, walking through the crowd was just extraordinary. And first night we did in Berlin, it was a Monday night, right? Monday nights, kamikaze for everybody. 20,000 Berlin hipsters. It was like, "I will never forget this moment." It was so cool, man!
He quickly added a joking, "Yeah, terrible, it was awful. I'll never do it again," to which the interviewer responded, "But might do it again." Yorke replied, "Yeah, maybe." He was perhaps nodding to O'Brien's recent mention of loose plans for Radiohead to keep playing about 20 shows per year on a different continent each year. We'll see if that actually plays out.
