Stuart Clark talks to Radiohead

Have you ever felt like a doggie dirt on the pavement of life or a slug on the lettuce leaf of humanity? I can't say I'm exactly in the Ester Rantzen-league when it comes to caring for other people but something I've just said to Ed O'Brien hasn't so much pricked my conscience as stuck a dirty great big hole in it.
*Do you really think so*, he says voice quivering and eyes moistening. *We always thought it was the exact opposite but...well, maybe you're right*.
The cause of the guitarist's all too evident distress is my observation that Radiohead are perhaps the most derivative band I've heard since Manic Street Preachers condensed the entire history of punk rock into one album. The positive side to this is that it neatly paves the way for a gratuitous Suede slag.
*I hate all this retro stuff*, complains Ed, *harking back to a 'bygone' era which in reality wasn't that marvellous. Sure, Bowie and Bolan were brilliant but you'd be hard pressed to argue a case for Mud or The Rubettes beyond that of their kitsch value. I've listened to the Suede album and the songs are bloody good - the trouble is every riff and vocal mannerism has been pinched from somewhere else
*Radiohead have influences but I'd prefer to think they flavour rather than dominate what we do. EMI were quite disappointed when they heard our LP because there wasn't a specific theme they could hang their marketing campaign around. We're not part of any scene or movement and that's made it difficult for them to sell us to the music press who have a current obsession with 'attitude' and 'the message'*.
Do I detect just the faintest whiff of resentment here?
*No. Well, perhaps! It's a little galling when a band like Huggy Bear come along armed with a so-called 'manifesto' and a couple of cheap throwaway slogans and, before they even play a note, start getting NME and Melody Maker front covers. There's an enormous amount of inverse snobbery involved - a journalist at IPC towers told me that 'Creep' would have been a single of the week when it came out last year but because it was on EMI rather than a hip indie label, it got shoved into two column inches at the bottom of a page. That's complete bollocks and in different circumstances it'd piss me off. Fortunately, they only sell between 60,000 and 100,000 copies and there are a lot more people interested in music than that*.
But surely they're the main reason that Suede will never have to want for a tube of hair gel or a naff crimpolene shirt again?
*To an extent*, he concedes, *but in Suede's case they've obviously got talent and, whether or not the weeklies had fawned over them, they'd eventually have made it. The thing is, they'd be better off without this ridiculous hype. They must have had 15 or 16 front covers this year and there's no way any new band can sustain that level of coverage and the expectations that go with it. They're heading for a fall.
*There's a certain audience that'll buy records or go to gigs on a magazine's say so but, really, it's a tiny minority and we think on a larger scale. With the greatest respect, I don't want to be playing the Camden Falcon and getting to number 12 in the indie charts for the rest of my life*.
You may have surmised from my rather cynical opening salvo that I'm not overly enamoured of Oxford's finest and, to be honest, there was a time I I couldn't see past their Clash and U2 fixations. Now though, I'm able to appreciate their debut *Pablo Honey* album for what it is - a classic slice of spunky Britboy rock which is choc-full of melodies, hooks and those other little niceties that lesser mortals nowadays seem to think are surplus to requirements. Their trump card is Thom Moore, a graduate of the John Lydon School of Snotty Frontmen, who has the ability to take the most inane lines and turn them into pronouncements of great depth and incisiveness. John Major ought to hire him to front the Conservative's party political broadcasts.
*Yeah, Thom's a bit of a motormoth - he's always got plenty to say which is good because if you're going to do interviews, you might as well make them interesting. He's had the John Lydon comparisons before, mainly as a result of how he acts on stage, and I suppose he does possess the same sort of, er, abrasive charisma.
*It's a cliché*, he continues, *but our biggest buzz still comes from playing live and of the 110 shows we did last year, maybe three or four were duds. That's a pretty good strike rate and why I reckon we can do okay for ourselves in Europe and the States where you're mainly judged on gigs*.
The seeds have already been sown with Radiohead's last single, the anthemic *Anyone Can Play Guitar*, getting played off the air on American college radio and those awfully nice people at MTV taking a shine to the accompanying video.
*It received virtually zero airplay in the UK*, sneers the guitarist, *which is what we expected. Pop Will Eat Itself and The Frank ... Walters get straight on to BBC Radio One's 'A' list and we have to make do with a couple of nightime plays when everyone's pissed off to bed. At least we got a Top of the Pops appearance which kept our mums and dads happy*.
You'll have to forgive me for lapsing into investigative journalism but would I be right in assuming that with such a fine name as O'Brien, you're of Irish extraction?
*How perceptive of you! Yeah, I'm one of the County Tipperary O'Briens and although I've never lived in Ireland, we used to spend our family holidays there and still have millions of relatives dotted around the country. Actually, I must say 'hello' to my aunties and uncles and cousins who are reading this because I'm dreadful at keeping in touch and have lost contact with most of them*.
Forget the relatives - have you ever played football and, more to the point, what are you like in goal? Anyone requiring further confirmation of Radiohead's rabble rousing credentials is respectfully directed to their brand spanking new *Pop Is Dead* 45, two minutes of righteous indignation that says bugger all but does so with such flair and passion that you wouldn't mind if Thom was reciting The Angelus. I'm tempted to mention the words *Strummer* and *Jones* but that'd only set Ed off again!