Copyright pitchfork
All five members of Radiohead spoke with Jonathan Dean for a new wide-ranging interview in The Sunday Times. At one point, Thom Yorke reflected on the band’s decision to perform in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2017, and the backlash that ensued. “I was in the hotel,” Yorke recalled, “when some guy, clearly connected high up, approaches me to thank me. It horrified me, truly, that the gig was being hijacked. So I get it—sort of. At the time I thought the gig made sense, but as soon as I got there and that guy came up? Get me the f*** out.” Dean followed up by asking Yorke if he would perform again in Israel, noting that the interview took place before the latest cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. “Absolutely not,” Yorke said. “I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime but Jonny has roots there. So I get it.” (Yorke is a longtime critic of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his government.) Jonny Greenwood, who is married to the Israeli artist Sharona Katan and has collaborated with the Israeli musician Dudu Tassa, disagreed with his bandmate. “I would also politely disagree with Thom,” Greenwood said. “I would argue that the government is more likely to use a boycott and say, ‘Everyone hates us—we should do exactly what we want.’ Which is far more dangerous.” Elsewhere, Yorke spoke about the pressure that he’s felt from pro-Palestinian supporters—including the the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement—who suggest that Radiohead are complicit in Israel’s assault against the Gazan people. “This wakes me up at night,” he said. “They’re telling me what it is that I’ve done with my life, and what I should do next, and that what I think is meaningless. People want to take what I’ve done that means so much to millions of people and wipe me out. But this is not theirs to take from me—and I don’t consider I’m a bad person.” Yorke, who was heckled onstage last year by a pro-Palestinian protestor, added, “A few times recently I’ve had ‘Free Palestine!’ shouted at me on the street. I talked to a guy. His shtick was, ‘You have a platform, a duty and must distance yourself from Jonny.’ But I said, ‘You and me, standing on the street in London, shouting at each other? Well, the true criminals, who should be in front of the ICC [International Criminal Court], are laughing at us squabbling among ourselves in the public realm and on social media—while they just carry on with impunity, murdering people.’ It’s an expression of impotency. It’s a purity test, low-level Arthur Miller witch-hunt. I utterly respect the dismay but it’s very odd to be on the receiving end.” Greenwood, who’s faced particular scrutiny for performing in Tel Aviv at the height of the war in 2024, said, “It’s the embodiment of the left.” He continued, “The left look for traitors, the right for converts and it’s depressing that we are the closest they can get.” Greenwood added that he’s working on a new album with Israeli and Middle Eastern musicians (something seemingly in the vein of 2023’s Jarak Qaribak) and that he feels “frightened to admit that.” But, he said, “that feels progressive to me—booing at a concert does not strike me as brave or progressive.” Yorke, who was with Greenwood at the time of the interview, responded with a deadpan remark: “But you are whitewashing genocide, mate. And so am I, apparently, by sitting next to you on this sofa.” Greenwood also spoke about protesting the Israeli government and many citizens’ despisal of the country’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. “Look, I have been to antigovernment protests in Israel and you cannot move for all the ‘F*** Ben-Gvir’ stickers,’” he said. “I spend a lot of time there with family and cannot just say, ‘I’m not making music with you f***ers because of the government.’ It makes no sense to me. I have no loyalty—or respect, obviously—to their government, but I have both for the artists born there.” Philip Selway and Ed O’Brien also spoke with The Sunday Times about Israel and Palestine. O’Brien said, regarding the band’s 2017 Tel Aviv concert, “We should have played Ramallah in the West Bank as well.” And Selway remarked, “What BDS are asking of us is impossible. They want us to distance ourselves from Jonny, but that would mean the end of the band and Jonny is coming from a very principled place. But it’s odd to be ostracised by artists we generally felt quite aligned to.” Jonny Greenwood’s brother and bandmate, Colin Greenwood, did not address the Middle East, but he recalled a show that Radiohead played in Berlin on the night of September 11, 2001. According to the article, some Americans in the crowd shouted at Yorke to “say something,” and the singer eventually asked, “What do you want me to say?” Radiohead’s interview with Jonathan Dean for The Sunday Times comes ahead of the band’s first tour since 2018. The tour is scheduled to begin next week, on November 4, in Madrid.
