Top 50 Jonny Greenwood Quotes

It’s like that scene from The Player when they talk about merging Star Wars and Kramer vs. Kramer, or whatever. You could do that with music and it would just be awful.

I suppose, counting back, if the Beatles had been influenced by music in the same length of time ago – you’d have to put that into better English for me, thank you – they would have been like a banjo orchestra. They would have been doing show tunes.

I think guitarists are really over-admired and over-revered.

There’s the soundtrack to The French Connection II’I think It’s my favorite soundtrack. It hasn’t been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music.

If I think about music in the future, I imagine it often as not involving electricity, in some dystopian, post-apocalyptic future. And that’s what I get from Penderecki: people making music by taking these instruments out of boxes and playing them. That’s a very bizarre and modern thing.

I’m pampered like you wouldn’t believe.

The rest of the band were basically friends, So it was me following them around and begging them to let me be in their band for two or three years. And they finally let me in on the harmonica, actually, and then the keyboards, and finally the guitar.

Right now my mind is on the people who stole our instruments, and, specifically, the person with my guitar, which will no doubt end its days having Green Day songs worked out on it. A better fate was deserved – and while the reverence given to guitars annoys me, I shall miss it.

I can remember soundtracks that you just can’t separate from the film – It’s just so intertwined, so important. Like the Hitchcock ones where they kind of inform each other and become this larger thing as a result.

I’m quite into listening to music and not doing anything else.

There’s the soundtrack to The French Connection II’I think It’s my favorite soundtrack. It hasn’t been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music.

I think it should be ambitious and good music does deal with life and art and all these wonderful things.

I remember when I was in my late teens just getting rid of lots of records, realizing I only ever listened to them when I was reading, or watching TV, or doing something else.

Everything I do feels like It’s going to end up being in Radiohead.

It’s no longer unusual for real avant-garde composers to have been in a band, and for bands to be interested in a wide range of music. Look at how artists like Aphex Twin are influenced by Nancarrow and Stockhausen.

I suppose all of us – we have the old Protestant work ethic of feeling guilty when you’re not working, and getting a buzz from feeling like you’re really busy. That’s the reason to sort of carry on.

I can remember soundtracks that you just can’t separate from the film – It’s just so intertwined, so important. Like the Hitchcock ones where they kind of inform each other and become this larger thing as a result.

I was happy using cassettes when I was fifteen, but I’m sure they were sneered at in their day by audiophiles.

I was just very conscious that I could either bore people by having the music be similar for too long, or I could just wear them out and bore them in a different way by having it changing too much every minute or two minutes. So, there was that kind of balance to get right.

But I was in the Radiohead studio today and Phil was there drumming and Thom was there playing. We feel like we’ve only just stopped and already people are wanting us to carry on.

I suppose subconsciously I was thinking in terms of having the scale of it matching the scale of the images. Hence the sort of string quartet, jazz band and electronic stuff.

I remember when I was in my late teens just getting rid of lots of records, realizing I only ever listened to them when I was reading, or watching TV, or doing something else.

I think It’s a bit of a disappointment that a lot of people’s Golden Age of music is still the ’60s.

Presented with a song like Exit Music, It’s impossible to know what to add without actually making it worse. How can you play along when It’s already there?

Jamaican reggae is the style of music I always reach for when ranting to friends about how you could listen to one style of music exclusively for the rest of your life – and it would all be great and varied and worth hearing.

I don’t mind when people are telling me about their 1971 Firebird, but it’s the same thing as people telling me about their car or something. It’s fine if you have an interest. By talking with me, though, you could be interviewing a novelist about guitars. It’s the same thing, except I don’t write that well either.

But over a period of time It’s the melodic things that are in my head all day.

Presented with a song like Exit Music, It’s impossible to know what to add without actually making it worse. How can you play along when It’s already there?

I was just very conscious that I could either bore people by having the music be similar for too long, or I could just wear them out and bore them in a different way by having it changing too much every minute or two minutes. So, there was that kind of balance to get right.

No, I am not interested in women or sex or anything.

I think guitarists are really over-admired and over-revered.

I worry about being a fogy and just writing for orchestras. Like, really, I should be doing more electronic stuff, I feel. Laptops as part of the orchestra, and installation sound, and speakers.

I’m quite into listening to music and not doing anything else.

It’s what the Pixies always said about music – they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it.

But I was in the Radiohead studio today and Phil was there drumming and Thom was there playing. We feel like we’ve only just stopped and already people are wanting us to carry on.

It’s funny, but to me, when you go to a concert hall and hear electronic pieces from the ’60s, I think they sound really dated. But when an orchestra plays a piece from that period, and it’s going to sound different every time, it feels more modern to me.

When I saw the Penderecki concert in London, in ’92 or ’93, I thought there were speakers in the room. It was just strings. But I could hear these kind of buzzings and rumblings, and I was like, ‘Where is this all coming from?’ And that was just better, to my ears. Odder, stranger, more magical.

When it comes to orchestral music, whenever I see a concert with orchestra and strings, and I arrive and there are speakers up, my heart always sinks a little bit, and I think, ‘It’s going to be down to some sound guy’s ideas.’ Contact microphones on the violins. I’m a purist, I suppose.

Obviously there will be a backlash. If you believe the hype you have to believe a backlash too. Any criticism we get, is always stuff we’ve already criticised ourselves.

It’s like that scene from The Player when they talk about merging Star Wars and Kramer vs. Kramer, or whatever. You could do that with music and it would just be awful.

Obviously there will be a backlash. If you believe the hype you have to believe a backlash too. Any criticism we get, is always stuff we’ve already criticised ourselves.

No, I am not interested in women or sex or anything.

When I saw the Penderecki concert in London, in ’92 or ’93, I thought there were speakers in the room. It was just strings. But I could hear these kind of buzzings and rumblings, and I was like, ‘Where is this all coming from?’ And that was just better, to my ears. Odder, stranger, more magical.

Right now my mind is on the people who stole our instruments, and, specifically, the person with my guitar, which will no doubt end its days having Green Day songs worked out on it. A better fate was deserved – and while the reverence given to guitars annoys me, I shall miss it.

Jamaican reggae is the style of music I always reach for when ranting to friends about how you could listen to one style of music exclusively for the rest of your life – and it would all be great and varied and worth hearing.

I don’t mind when people are telling me about their 1971 Firebird, but it’s the same thing as people telling me about their car or something. It’s fine if you have an interest. By talking with me, though, you could be interviewing a novelist about guitars. It’s the same thing, except I don’t write that well either.

I’m happy to write 10 times too much music.

I’m happy to write 10 times too much music.

If I think about music in the future, I imagine it often as not involving electricity, in some dystopian, post-apocalyptic future. And that’s what I get from Penderecki: people making music by taking these instruments out of boxes and playing them. That’s a very bizarre and modern thing.

What I really enjoy about writing for orchestras is realizing that – and it’s kind of self-evident – but the fact that they are 48 individuals. It’s not, you know, a preset on a keyboard. It’s all these people who have opinions and who are making decisions about how to play.