With the newest Radiohead album in limbo, and its hesitant first steps possibly being scrapped altogether, the gents have found another outlet for their energy: Edward Norton prison dramas.
Norton told Variety recently that singer Thom Yorke and guitarist Johnny Greenwood lent previously unheard, atmospheric demos to Norton to help with the soundtrack of his new film, Stone. He said:
“I'm friends with the guys in Radiohead, and Johnny Greenwood, who did the incredible score for Paul Anderson's There Will Be Blood, met me in London a while back when John (Curran) and I were developing the script. So given the spiritual ties in this film, I started talking to him about this idea: 'What would you use to record this divine-like tuning sound?' And he and Thom (Yorke) had been playing a lot of weird ambient stuff at the time and so, amazingly, they just unloaded tons and tons of files to us of these sound experiments that they had been doing. We just listened to them in awe until John (Curran) eventually got John O'Brien to come in and see what he could make of it."
Stone, out October 8, is a correctional drama starring Norton, Robert De Niro, and Milla Jovovich.
The Stone soundtrack is another recent side foray from the In Rainbows gents. In August, drummer Philip Selway released his solo debut, Familial (Nonesuch), a keening folk-rock record capped with adept falsetto vocals from Selway and cameos from Wilco percussionist Glenn Kotche and singer/songwriter Lisa Germano.
But prison dramas and drummer discs are hardly the strangest offshoot projects to come in Radiohead’s 25 years together. In honor of Thom Yorke scoring the clink, here are the most inexplicable side forays of the Radiohead lads:
Colin Greenwood – soundtrack to Woodpecker
He’s credited with writing one of the best Radiohead rarities (“Talk Show Host,” off the soundtrack to 1996’s Romeo and Juliet), but bassist Greenwood crafted the pinnacle of esoteric soundtracks in 2008. Woodpecker, a small indie farce about bird-watching in the Arkansas bayou, was sleepily received in the film circuit (not least for its shocking third act) but was bolstered by the creeping, increasingly sinister Americana score Greenwood composed with Lee and Tyler Sargent of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Not since Hitchcock have birds seemed so insidious.
Thom Yorke – “I’ve Seen it All” with Björk, Dancer in the Dark
Impish singer Yorke has no shortage of quirky output with his famous friends, from the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack with members of Roxy Music and Suede to his new band, Atoms for Peace, with Flea and Nigel Godrich. Of his many side recordings, the strangest may be his most celebrated: “I’ve Seen it All,” his duet with Björk for the Dancer in the Dark soundtrack, Selmasongs. The track was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and directly culpable for Björk’s infamous swan dress at the awards ceremony, yet because Yorke’s part was performed by an actor in the movie and Björk sang it alone at the Oscars, his involvement is frequently forgotten. If only he’d worn an ostrich tuxedo on that red carpet, he’d get his due for a gorgeous song.
Jonny Greenwood: Ballroom scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (as member of the Weird Sisters)
Jarvis Cocker may have been in center stage, howling about “doing the Hippogriff” into the butterbeer-blotto faces of Hogwarts students, but Radiohead guitarist Greenwood was the real rock star in the fourth Harry Potter movie. As the magical rock band the Weird Sisters, Cocker, Greenwood, and a barely-visible Selway had a brief cameo in the school dance scene – and while Cocker strutted imperiously and Selway was obscured by a cymbal, Greenwood fully hammed it up in the background, thrashing his head like Henry Rollins and pursed his blackened lips with Zoolander-worthy fervor. The only word for his campy, overblown theatrics: magical.
