Thom Yorke believes he was haunted during recording sessions for iconic Radiohead album OK Computer, he’s revealed.
The landmark release reaches its 20th anniversary this year, with a remastered, extended version called OKNOTOK, to be launched this month.
The album was recorded in tenth-century English mansion St Catherine’s Court, which was then owned by actress Jane Seymour, and had its own traditional haunting stories.
Yorke tells Rolling Stone: “Ghosts would talk to me while I was asleep. There was one point when I got up in the morning after a night of hearing voices, and decided I had to cut my hair.”
He went at himself with the scissor blade of a multi-tool. “I cut myself a few times,” he recalls. “It got messy. I came downstairs and everyone was like, ‘Uh, are you alright?’ I was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ Phil Selway very gently took me downstairs and shaved it all off.”
Yorke reflects that it’s been “really, really mental going back into where my head was at” as he looked through old notebooks to gather material for the re-release.
Asked what message he’d send to his younger self, he laughs: “Lighten the fuck up.”
OKNOTOK is available for pre-order now. Full tracklist below.
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Radiohead OKNOTOK tracklist
- Airbag
- Paranoid Android
- Subterranean Homesick Alien
- Exit Music (For A Film)
- Let Down
- Karma Police
- Fitter Happier
- Electioneering
- Climbing Up The Walls
- No Surprises
- Lucky
- The Tourist
- I Promise
- Man Of War
- Lift
- Lull
- Meeting In The Aisle
- Melatonin
- A Reminder
- Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)
- Pearly
- Palo Alto
- How I Made My Millions
