Jonny Greenwood has admitted that back in the early days of Radiohead he was “clumsy” and “lazy” as a guitarist.
This somewhat surprising confession came in an interview in the i. Greenwood – who is the youngest member of the band and was the last to join – told the paper that he plays the guitar every day now: something he never used to do.
“It’s funny. It’s something I kind of never wanted to do,” he said. “I used to distrust any sort of fluidity and think that was somehow part of that thing of technical playing. But now I just feel different about it. And it feels lucky that my fingers do these things. I’ve got a certain facility with it, so I’ve decided to accept it, and have realised that I really love playing the guitar.”
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He admitted: “In the early days of Radiohead, I always felt like a clumsy guitar player and was always lazy, but now, just through repetition, I’ve got hooked. I’ve just got addicted and want to play all the time.”
Of course, Greenwood has come a long way. These days he’s as well known for his film soundtrack work and his various side projects as he is for being the floppy-haired Radiohead guitarist, though he evidently remains humble.
“I don’t feel I’ve learnt enough” he continued. “I’m always sort of torn between wanting to greedily consume all this stuff and understand it. But also knowing that it’s a mistake to just have a kind of jack-of-all-trades approach to it all, because it just means you don’t really get a deep understanding of any of it. I just permanently feel like I’m in a kind of panic between the two things.”
Greenwood was being interviewed ahead of a gig he’s participating in this weekend. Steve Reich at 90 celebrates the esteemed minimalist composer and features Greenwood and the London Sinfonietta at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
As for Radiohead, they have another series of residencies lined up for next May and June in Australia and Japan. The Australian tickets are now all sold out, but you can still register for the five Japanese dates at Saitama by heading over to radiohead.com.
