When you drum for one of the world’s biggest rock bands, recording your debut solo album is already a gigantic step outside the box. But when you’re touring that record, playing those songs in front of plenty of people and interacting with them in front of a microphone, it can become a little bit surreal, if not uncomfortable.
Radiohead drummer Phil Selway says things definitely felt “weird” when he first started performing songs from his Familial debut solo album live. Of course, with Radiohead, it’s Thom Yorke’s show at the mic, and Selway spends his time behind his kit while on stage. So when it came time for him to play tunes from Familial on stage this summer, he says he had to start “learning on the job” again.
“Musically, when I’m playing the songs, that feels very much within my comfort zone,” Selway says on the phone from Amsterdam. “It’s the bit between the songs — those are the points where you feel quite vulnerable, stepping up to do that, but the only way to learn to do that is to actually get out and play live.”
“In some ways, it’s an uncomfortable place to be, but along with that I think it feels very kind of vital in a way,” he finishes.
The folky, acoustic Familial is a huge leap away from Radiohead’s experimental rock. While Selway says performing those types of songs didn’t feel strange to him on the road, not having people know any of the material was definitely weird at first.
“It’s been an extremely steep learning curve for me, but it’s been good,” he says. “It’s been interesting and going out and doing some shows now that the record’s actually been released because there’s a slight chance that some people in the audience might know some of the songs because up to the release of the record, nobody’s known any of the material.
“So you’re going out and playing 45 minutes worth of unknown material to people, which has been interesting — it’s been great. That in itself has been a huge learning experience for me.”
As for Radiohead’s new album, Selway says the band aren’t quite sure where they stand in the process right now. They’d recorded a few tunes earlier in the year, and took the summer off to break away and work on their own projects. They reconvened at the end of September, but it’s not known how those sessions wet.
“We might be close or we might not be,” Selway says.
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