Thom Yorke

Thom Yorke is a musician, composer and the singer and principal songwriter of the alternative and highly influential rock band Radiohead - who have achieved critical acclaim and sales of over 30 million albums.

What happens a lot with songwriting is that a melody or rhythm or something stays with you like catching a cold. And during that time what happens is that I can then fit things on to it, it all fits and glues together. Sometimes it's crazy cos it can almost be anything. But if you catch the cold then the nonsense makes sense. It's like you're getting beamed it, like with a ouija board and something's pushing your hand. It's not a pleasant experience necessarily.

I think the most important thing about music is the sense of escape.

Yorke has recorded three Studio Albums: The Eraser (2006), Tomorrow's Modern Boxes (2014), Anima (2019).

The whole point of creating music for me is to give voice to things that aren't normally given voice to. It's a fine line between writing something with genuine emotional impact and turning into little idiots feeling sorry for ourselves and playing stadium rock.

A multi-instrumentalist, Yorke plays guitar, piano, keyboards, synthesisers, sequencers and is a skilled audio technology programmer. He is known for his falsetto vocals, in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the 66th greatest singer of all time.

We weren't listening to guitar bands, we were thoroughly ashamed of being a guitar band. So we bought loads of keyboards and learned how to use them, and when we got bored we went back to guitars.

I can be very drunk in a club in Oxford on a Monday night and some guy comes up to you and buys you a drink and says that the last record you made changed his life. That means something.

Radiohead is overrated. Thom Yorke's solo output, however, is brilliant.

Yorke is an activist on behalf of human rights, animal rights, environmental and anti-war causes, and his lyrics incorporate political themes. He has been critical of the music industry, particularly of major labels and streaming services such as Spotify. With Radiohead and his solo work he has pioneered alternative music release platforms such as pay-what-you-want and BitTorrent.

Sonic the hedgehog is a beautiful statement on capitalism. You spend your whole life collecting yellow rings and then hit one spike and lose them all. And there is a fat man who wants to kill you.

I'm terrible at jigsaw puzzles. Other people solve the puzzle but I just keep trying to make the pieces that don't fit fit. I guess that's what makes me special, I try to assemble jigsaw puzzles incorrectly.

Along with the other members of Radiohead, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

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