“I never see anything in the same way”: the rock star encounter that changed Thom Yorke’s life
In order to make it to the highest level as a musician, you’ve got to be able to handle the increased possibility of meeting people you idolise, and when Radiohead proved ‘Creep’ was more than just a fluke with the release of their second album, The Bends, these opportunities came flooding towards the band.
The success of their debut single obviously saw the band presented with plenty of opportunities that would have been outside the reach of most acts who were just starting out, but not everyone was on board with the band at this time. Some people saw ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ as another decent indication of where the band could go in future, but for the most part, Pablo Honey was a disjointed debut album that lacked a certain individuality and creative spark that helped to differentiate the band from their peers.
As a consequence, ‘Creep’ was pretty much the only thing that people seemed to take notice of from Pablo Honey, and in order to be rescued from obscurity, Radiohead had to make sure that their second album delivered more than just a standout single.
They managed that with aplomb, suddenly being touted as the saviours and future of alternative rock when The Bends arrived in early 1995, and after the commercial and critical success of this follow-up, they managed to win over legions of fans in the shape of some of the genre’s most significant figures.
One notable example of this is REM’s Michael Stipe, who would make his love for the British band known by inviting them to be the support on the European leg of their own Monster tour in the summer of 1995. This was arguably one of the biggest opportunities that Radiohead had been presented with up until this point, and it was clear that they’d put in the necessary graft to prove their worth on a much more grand scale.
As a massive REM fan himself, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke couldn’t possibly turn this opportunity down, but given how he and his band hadn’t had a great deal of moments where they’d brushed shoulders with their idols up until this point, how exactly he would respond to being on tour with a songwriting hero of his would end up being a test of whether the band could hack being on the largest stages.
While on their string of dates with REM, Yorke wrote a tour diary for Mojo, and in it, he described the first encounter that the two had when they arrived to perform at their first show together in Milton Keynes, noting how his initial state of being starstruck was something that he never thought would wear thin. “Hi, I’m Michael. I’m really glad you could do this. I’m a very big fan,” Stipe supposedly said to Yorke upon their first meeting. Yorke, evidently overcome with emotions, goes on to describe the exact feelings that were racing through his mind after the encounter.
“Wonder how many times I will run this through my brain after today,” he continued. “I’ve never believed in hero worship and so on, but I have to admit to myself that I’m fighting for breath. I’ve had moments in the past two years when time has completely curved, and space has become a Hitchcock camera trick. At these moments, barriers seem to break in my head, and I never see anything in the same way again.”
It was obviously a nerve-wracking experience for the emergent star of alternative rock, but following the Monster tour, Yorke and Stipe ended up becoming close friends, with the two collaborating on several occasions from this point onwards. As reluctant as he may have been to indulge in hero worship, things arguably couldn’t have gone smoother.
