When Radiohead walked offstage at Philadephia’s Wells Fargo Center after a triumphant, 25-song set on 1 August, 2018, it was pretty clear that the show would be the last we heard from the Oxford quintet for a while. At that point, they’d been touring their 2016 ninth album A Moon Shaped Pool on and off for two years, what amounted at the time to a flurry of Radiohead activity, and it was presumed Thom Yorke, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway and Jonny and Colin Greenwood would put the band on ice again for a couple of years, as had become precedent. But no-one thought it would be seven years, an extended hiatus that had fans questioning if we’d ever see Radiohead again and a pitstop that made the elongated break between 2012’s The King Of Limbs and A Moon Shaped Pool seem like a quick nip to the shops.
But now they are back, this week announcing a short European tour taking in five cities – Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen and Berlin – with four shows in each. They seem to be easing themselves back into action, with the dates expressly announced as a standalone batch with no accompanying new music and a hint that they might do some more in the future. But whilst Radiohead have been out of action for an extended stint, their members have hardly sat still, all five of them involved in various projects since the last time they stepped onstage as a five-piece. Here’s the lowdown on what they have each been up to…
Thom Yorke
As the band’s restlessly creative ringleader, it’s safe to assume Yorke already had his ducks lined up as Radiohead activity wound down in summer 2018. Just a few months later, he released his first soundtrack, for the 2018 horror remake Suspiria – amongst its eerie, uneasy score, check out Unmade and the title track, two beautifully haunting piano ballads. A year later came his bewitching third solo album Anima, all tightly-wound beats and compressed electronica and, in the same year, he contributed a track titled Daily Battles to the Ed Norton-directed film Motherless Brooklyn – incidentally, it featured Flea on trumpet. Covid and lockdown only seemed to up Yorke’s prolific work rate: during that time, he collaborated with electro dons Burial and Four Tet on a double A-side single and formed a new group with Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood and Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner called The Smile – they have released their records of groove-laden, minimalist rock, post-punk and jazz-tinged experimentation since. He also began a collaborative record with techno wizard Mark Pritchard during lockdown. Titled Tall Tales, the finished album saw the light of day earlier this year, by which point he’d already done another soundtrack (for the Italian film Confidenza), written and recorded two tracks for the final season of Peaky Blinders (5.17 and That’s How Horses Are), done the theme tune for the recent Apple TV show Smoke (a stark hymnal titled Dialing In) and embarked on a solo tour of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore playing a setlist that pulled from both his solo career and Radiohead. Somewhere in between all that, he also found the time to work on Hamlet Hail To The Thief, a recent RSC production of Hamlet that used reworked music from Radiohead’s sixth record for its live soundtrack (I went to see it in Stratford-upon-Avon, it was brilliant), so yeah… Thom Yorke has been busy.
Jonny Greenwood
Although all of the band’s members have spun various plates over the past few years, guitarist Jonny Greenwood is probably the only member who can match Yorke for his output. Part of that is down to the fact that they formed The Smile together (Greenwood’s virtuoso, inventive guitar playing is a key part of their sound) but also down to the huge inroads Greenwood has made as an Oscar-nominated film score composer as well as his work as a string arranger and classical composer as well as his forays into Middle Eastern music. In 2021, he released an experimental jazz soundtrack for Pablo Larrain’s film about Princess Diana, Spencer, also releasing a score for Jane Campion’s revisionist Western The Power Of The Dog the same year. His score for One Battle After Another, the Leonard DiCaprio-starring film from his most regular collaborator Anderson, arrives later this month. In 2023, his also released Jarak Qaribak, a collaboration with the Israeli musician Dudu Tassa that reworked traditional Middle Eastern tracks with a modern slant whilst he’s also been involved in three classical works since 2018: Three Miniatures from Water, Horror Vacui and X Years Of Reverb. Not forgetting, of course, that he also arranged the strings for a song from the 2023 Pretenders album Relentless.
Colin Greenwood
There’s no flies on the elder Greenwood sibling, either. In the immediate period of Radiohead downtime, Colin added his lithe bass-playing to Amir, the 2018 debut album by Belgian-Egyptian singer-songwriter Tamino (Colin also appeared on his 2022 follow-up Sahar) and also helped out bandmate Ed O’Brien by taking up four-string duties on a song on the guitarist’s 2020 solo album. But it was post-Covid where Colin really leapt into action, becoming an adopted member of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds in 2022 after their long-standing bassist Martyn P. Casey became ill. Since then, he’s joined them on various tours, also contributing bass to their 2024 record Wild God. A keen photographer, last year he released an excellent photobook of behind-the-scenes snaps from over the years with his main band titled How To Disappear: A Portrait Of Radiohead. It was during the press run for that book that he let slip Radiohead had been rehearsing, a get-together that has resulted in their live return.
Ed O'Brien
With the campaign to support A Moon Shaped Pool concluded, O’Brien threw himself into the completion of his debut solo album. Recorded with Depeche Mode and Smashing Pumpkins collaborator Flood and Boygenius producer Catherine Marks, Earth came out in early 2020 under the moniker of EOB. A very good record, its impact was dampened by Covid, lockdown forcing the curtailing of an accompanying tour. There have been no further solo releases since but having interviewed O’Brien at the time and heard how much he enjoyed the process, it’s not hard to imagine that he’s been secretly working on a follow-up in the time since.
Philip Selway
Drummer Philip Selway has also released an excellent solo album in the intervening period – 2023’s Strange Dance was his third and finest solo effort, even if saying that feels like cussing his drumming abilities because he stepped away from the kit and concentrated on his duties upfront, getting Italian Valentina Magaletti to play instead. The same year, he got his drummer fix elsewhere, playing on the fifth album by Newcastle indie-rockers Lanterns On The Lake and also joining the quartet for a tour.
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