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" When it comes to orchestral music, whenever I see a concert with orchestra and strings, and I arrive and there are speakers up, my heart always sinks a little bit, and I think, 'It's going to be down to some sound guy's ideas.' Contact microphones on the violins. I'm a purist, I suppose. "

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" Obviously there will be a backlash. If you believe the hype you have to believe a backlash too. Any criticism we get, is always stuff we've already criticised ourselves. "

Jonny Greenwood

Will

Always

Believe

" People will have MP3s of every Miles Davis' record but never think of hearing any of them twice in a row - there's just too much to get through. "

" It's like that scene from The Player when they talk about merging Star Wars and Kramer vs. Kramer, or whatever. You could do that with music and it would just be awful. "

" It feels like Radiohead are famous, but that no one knows who we are. Which is brilliant, really. "

Jonny Greenwood

Famous

Brilliant

" What I really enjoy about writing for orchestras is realizing that - and it's kind of self-evident - but the fact that they are 48 individuals. It's not, you know, a preset on a keyboard. It's all these people who have opinions and who are making decisions about how to play. "

" I was happy using cassettes when I was fifteen, but I'm sure they were sneered at in their day by audiophiles. "

" But I was in the Radiohead studio today and Phil was there drumming and Thom was there playing. We feel like we've only just stopped and already people are wanting us to carry on. "

Jonny Greenwood

Today

People

" I suppose, counting back, if the Beatles had been influenced by music in the same length of time ago - you'd have to put that into better English for me, thank you - they would have been like a banjo orchestra. They would have been doing show tunes. "

" I suppose all of us - we have the old Protestant work ethic of feeling guilty when you're not working, and getting a buzz from feeling like you're really busy. That's the reason to sort of carry on. "

" Jamaican reggae is the style of music I always reach for when ranting to friends about how you could listen to one style of music exclusively for the rest of your life - and it would all be great and varied and worth hearing. "

" I'm happy to write 10 times too much music. "

" I can remember soundtracks that you just can't separate from the film - It's just so intertwined, so important. Like the Hitchcock ones where they kind of inform each other and become this larger thing as a result. "

" I fell in love with electronics, which for me was the terra incognita, because I had never heard such sounds. If you'd asked me 50 years ago, I would have said the future of music is only electronic, but I would have been wrong. I learnt how to produce everything I needed with live instrumentalists, so I don't need electronics. "

" It's kind of not about the quality of the art, as much as this is what I love doing and I'd have a worse time doing anything else. That's kind of as far as I think in terms of philosophy. "

" I was just very conscious that I could either bore people by having the music be similar for too long, or I could just wear them out and bore them in a different way by having it changing too much every minute or two minutes. So, there was that kind of balance to get right. "

" But over a period of time It's the melodic things that are in my head all day. "

" I've seen 13, 14-year-olds opening CDs as though they're records from the 1920s, going 'Look at this - there's a little book!'... That makes me think the format has probably had its day. "

" It's no longer unusual for real avant-garde composers to have been in a band, and for bands to be interested in a wide range of music. Look at how artists like Aphex Twin are influenced by Nancarrow and Stockhausen. "

Jonny Greenwood

Look

Music

" When I saw the Penderecki concert in London, in '92 or '93, I thought there were speakers in the room. It was just strings. But I could hear these kind of buzzings and rumblings, and I was like, 'Where is this all coming from?' And that was just better, to my ears. Odder, stranger, more magical. "

" It's what the Pixies always said about music - they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it. "

" I don't mind when people are telling me about their 1971 Firebird, but it's the same thing as people telling me about their car or something. It's fine if you have an interest. By talking with me, though, you could be interviewing a novelist about guitars. It's the same thing, except I don't write that well either. "

Jonny Greenwood

Car

You

" If I'm on a train, with headphones, MP3s are great. At home, I prefer CD or vinyl, partly because they sound a little better in a quiet room and partly because they're finite in length and separate things, unlike the endless days and days of music stored on my laptop. "

" I suppose subconsciously I was thinking in terms of having the scale of it matching the scale of the images. Hence the sort of string quartet, jazz band and electronic stuff. "

" It's funny, but to me, when you go to a concert hall and hear electronic pieces from the '60s, I think they sound really dated. But when an orchestra plays a piece from that period, and it's going to sound different every time, it feels more modern to me. "

" I think guitarists are really over-admired and over-revered. "

" I worry about being a fogy and just writing for orchestras. Like, really, I should be doing more electronic stuff, I feel. Laptops as part of the orchestra, and installation sound, and speakers. "

" There's the soundtrack to The French Connection II'I think It's my favorite soundtrack. It hasn't been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music. "

Jonny Greenwood

Connection

Film

" Nothing's more exciting than a day in a studio with a string section - or more ruinously expensive. So it's good to feed that habit away from the band, especially if it means more experience for the next Radiohead string day. "

Jonny Greenwood

Band

Experience

" Everything I do feels like It's going to end up being in Radiohead. "

" I remember when I was in my late teens just getting rid of lots of records, realizing I only ever listened to them when I was reading, or watching TV, or doing something else. "