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Radiohead · S1 E3
Jonny Greenwood
Two years younger than the rest, the last to join, and already the most gifted musician any of them have ever met.
The youngest person in the room picks up somebody else's guitar and plays something none of them can do. He is fifteen, he wasn't invited, and he is about to become the reason Radiohead sounds like nobody else.
"Bodysnatchers", Radiohead, official music video (2008). One continuous take of the band performing at full intensity. Jonny's guitar is the engine: a distorted, slashing riff that sounds like it's trying to escape the song. This is what the quiet kid in the back of the rehearsal room becomes.
Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood
The Prodigy in the Back Row
Jonny joins On a Friday because his older brother Colin is already in the band, not because anyone asks him to. He takes the instruments nobody else wants: harmonica, keyboards, whatever fills a gap. What the others don't realise yet is that Jonny doesn't fill gaps. He hears the entire architecture of a song and rebuilds it from inside.
“Jonny walks in and you realise you've been playing a different instrument to the one you thought. He makes everyone around him rethink what they're doing.”
— Ed O'Brien, Mojo, 2003
Bodysnatchers
"Bodysnatchers" is the most aggressive thing on In Rainbows, and it belongs almost entirely to Jonny. The main riff is played through a pedal chain that makes the guitar sound like it's short-circuiting on purpose. Producer Nigel Godrich has said the track was recorded in very few takes because the energy couldn't be sustained. Listen for the moment halfway through where Jonny's guitar drops out and crashes back in at a different angle.
TAP TO REVEAL: What does Jonny Greenwood do to his guitar strap that no other rock guitarist does, and why?
Airbag
Airbag, Radiohead (OK Computer, 1997). The opening track of OK Computer, built on a revolutionary production technique. Phil Selway's live drumming was sampled and chopped into fragments using a method borrowed from DJ Shadow, then reassembled into a stuttering, mechanical pattern. Jonny's guitar, a Telecaster through a Marshall Shred Master pedal, rides on top.
Jonny Greenwood's guitar style is often compared to classic rock players, but his actual influences come from a very different genre. Which guitarist is his most cited influence?
Thom is the voice, Jonny is the sound. Next: Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, and Phil Selway, the rhythm section that keeps genius from flying apart.
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