Credit: Gabriel GreenRadiohead's sophomore album, The Bends, was released 20 years ago today. In honor of the milestone, Thom Green of Alt-J, whose music sports a clear Radiohead influence, penned an essay for Rolling Stone reflecting on the album's impact.
"Radiohead could record [The Bends] tracks today and the sound would still be timeless," Green writes. "It doesn't sound like it was recorded 20 years ago. My favorite Bends track is 'Street Spirit,' it reminds me of the later stuff Radiohead were doing. What makes it a brilliant song is how the strings surround you and the long drawn-out synths."
Green says that Radiohead drummer Philip Selway was a great influence on his own drumming style.
"When Alt-J got first together, I had a minimal setup and the way Joe [Newman] plays guitar, he plays very rhythmically, doesn't play a lot of chords, so I had to pick up on that and, subconsciously," Green says. "I think Selway's drumming played into that, the off-beats and the odd time signatures. He just fits so well with the instrumental, and I just started playing like that."
Green has never seen Radiohead live, but he did run into them once at the Glastonbury festival.
"Alt-J played Glastonbury and we were watching the Rolling Stones when Thom Yorke and [Radiohead guitarist] Ed O'Brien walked past me -- they weren't playing that year, they just walked past -- and I just went into shock," Green remembers. "I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. When you're obsessed with a band that much, they become like a myth, like they're not even real people."
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