1995-07 | Select

Just like The Beatles!

Yes, it was Hard Day's Night type band-household domesticity for the 'Head...

After completing their respective college courses in 1991, schoolboy pals Colin Greenwood (bass) and Ed O'Brien (guitar) returned to Oxford and rented a semi-detached house near the centre of town. The house's blue plaque credentials were confirmed when they were joined by fellow Radioheaders Thom Yorke (vocals) and Colin's brother Jonny (guitar).

[ pic of semi-deatched house with caption "Oxford: their Beatles-style communal home rapidly became 'a fucking hole'" ]

Thom: "At first it was quite a nice house but we turned it into a complete fucking hole. We'd just begun taking the band seriously so there were musical instruments everywhere. We ripped half the wallpaper off taking the Hammond organ in and out. There was always fag ash everywhere. Plus, the carpet would roll down the stairs every time you went up them.

We all lived there in the course of the year but people would drift in and out. Techinically-speaking, Phil had a room there but most of the time he couldn't bear to come round. I felt sorry for the landloard because he could never work out who was living there. We'd get angry phone calls saying, The rent is overdue! And we'd say, Sorry, call Phil...Also, the record collection was huge. I was sleeping in the living room so I moved all the albums in there. We'd have evening of just sitting around listeneing to records which was really nice.

Colin and I got into cooking. But all the things we cooked had to have pesto in. Colin always referred to it as the 'pesto slop'. It would taste great, though. You know, idiot food. But a month after I moved out I ate some pesto and started feeling really sick. I haven't eaten it since.

I'd do it again if we had to. I mean that's what we're doing at hte moment really, living toegher on the tour bus. Except the good thing is, you don't have to clean out the toilet - not that we did anyway.

Colin: It was only really me and Thom who stuck it out all the way through. But it was a bit eerie because the woman who'd lived there before had died. I think she died in the house. And Ed and I kept finding things which had obviously belonged to her. Combs, half-empty fag packets, stuff like that. One day we found this half-eaten pork pie down the back of the soda. It must've been there for months but you could still see the teeth marks. Of course, being morbid people we managed to convince ourselves that she'd choked on it.

Thom had got into dance music at college and kept on playing theses awful house records. God only knows what they were. I was working at Our Price and in the evenings all I wanted to do was sit round and listen to the Pale Saints. But Thme would stick on this horrendous techno music. He got pretty short shrift from the rest of us.

I don't remember us socialising much. I think we spent most of the time trying to avoid each other as much as possible. We didn't really argue though. Jonny never did the washing up, he'll admit that, but he'd only just left school. I don't think he'd quite got his head round this living together business. The only other thing was that one day Phil came back and I'd eaten all his honey. I mean, the guy hadn't been there in weeks but still got really angry about it. He still brings it up to this day!

I don't know if I'd do it again. Maybe if it was a house in Trinidad. But it would have to large enough so we never saw each other.