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“Where do we go from here?” sings Thom Yorke in the first line of “The Bends,” the title track on Radiohead’s second album. That was the question on everyone’s mind after the Oxfordshire indie five-piece suddenly rocketed to stardom thanks to the breakout success of 1993’s Pablo Honey and the lead single “Creep.”
Fresh from an exhausting North American tour (“Physically I'm completely fucked and mentally I've had enough,” said Yorke at the time), Radiohead found themselves under immense pressure from their record label, critics, and fans to deliver a sophomore album packed with hits. Even the title they chose reflects that feeling of pressure, referencing the painful decompression sickness divers experience when surfacing too quickly to adjust to the rapid pressure change.
That tension is palpable when you listen to The Bends, which took eight months and three studios to record amidst multiple tours, production drama, and a fight that almost ended the band. You can hear it in the strained vocals, the squealing feedback, the hard-hitting drums, and the distorted echoes that swirl around in the cracks. Although the songs are well-crafted, sophisticated, and produced with care, there’s a certain rawness behind it all that can’t be created in the studio.
But rather than rehash the band-under-pressure narrative, we’ll focus on the gem of an album that came out of it: the songs, the sounds, the people, and how it all came together.
Radiohead’s label had originally planned for an October 1994 release, giving the band nine weeks to make their next record. To help them get it done, they brought in producer John Leckie, known for his work with rock and post-punk bands like Magazine, XTC, and The Stone Roses. According to guitarist Jonny Greenwood, Leckie helped put the band at ease and demystify the recording process. “He didn't treat us like he had some kind of witchcraft that only he understands,” said Greenwood.
Producer John Leckie (top) and engineer Nigel Godrich. Godrich would later go on to produce all of Radiohead's future albums.
Basic tracking commenced in February 1994 at RAK Studios, a storied London studio that had hosted bands like The Cure and The Pogues. According to Leckie, “New songs were pouring out” of Yorke, who would often arrive early to work alone at the piano. “After all that touring on Pablo Honey, then the songs that Thom was writing were so much better,” said guitarist Ed O’Brien.
Most tracks started with full-band takes to capture the energy of Radiohead’s live shows. “When they performed in the studio, they would jump around as if they were onstage,” Leckie recalled in an interview with Musicradar. “When Jonny was doing an overdub, his hair would be hanging forward, and he’d be knocking chairs over. Thom would be the same. As soon as you pressed Record, they’d all start jumping up and down. It was really good fun.”
Manning the 24-track was Nigel Godrich, a tape operator and assistant engineer at RAK who would soon become close with the band and later go on to produce all of their future albums. That relationship started with “Black Star,” Godrich’s only production credit on the album. One evening, Godrich and Yorke stayed late to record vocals and quickly found their chemistry. “Nigel makes it possible for me to let go when I’m singing,” Yorke later commented. “I don’t feel like I have to protect myself.”
(Left to right) Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, bassist Colin Greenwood, guitarist Ed O’Brien, and drummer Philip Selway.
The Bends is widely considered to be the turning point where Radiohead really refined their sound, and much of that had to do with the three guitarists each settling into distinct roles. Leaning into their individual strengths, Yorke mostly held down the song structure with rhythm and acoustic parts while Jonny Greenwood focused on riffs and leads and Ed O’Brien contributed soundscape-y ambient effects.
Like Pink Floyd before them, Radiohead was sometimes accused of being overly reliant on effects and “studio trickery.” But compared to the pedalboards of today, their gear was relatively humble. Most of the guitar tones on The Bends come from Fender Guitars through Fender Amps and a handful of common ‘80s and ‘90s pedals like the Boss DS-1, Pro Co Turbo RAT, and Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus.
Greenwood achieved a surprisingly broad range of tones, mainly using his trusty Fender Telecaster Plus through a Marshall Bluesbreaker distortion pedal and a Fender Deluxe or Twin Reverb amp. “We tried lots of different amps and stuff during the album sessions,” recalls Leckie, “but basically his sound was his Telecaster, a Fender amp, and his best-sounding pedal, the Bluesbreaker.” Occasionally, he’d break out the DigiTech Whammy for pitch-shifting effects like the beginning of “My Iron Lung” and the solo on “Just.”
To create the ambient pads and swirling feedback on songs like “Bullet Proof… I Wish I Was,” “Sulk,” and “(Nice Dream),” O’Brien relied heavily on the Boss DD-5 digital delay, a fairly advanced pedal for its time with features like Hold and Reverse, as well as dual outputs for stereo panning. He often played his custom semi-hollowbody guitar (built by the band’s guitar tech) with an E-Bow sustainer.
Anchoring this triple-guitar madness, bassist Colin Greenwood ranges from bold riffs like the one that kicks off “Bones” to more complex melodic playing on songs like “Sulk.” His go-to bass during The Bends era was a Music Man Sterling No. 1, a simple but versatile instrument with an active three-band EQ and a single humbucker with series, parallel, and single-coil modes that provided a range of tones.
Drummer Phil Selway switched up his style to match the feel of each song, from steady kick/snare/hi-hat grooves to jazzy cymbal work. But his studio drums are only heard on nine tracks. The hard-hitting drums on “Planet Telex” were sampled from an earlier B-side and looped in Sound Tools, “High And Dry” was recorded at a different studio during the Pablo Honey sessions, and “My Iron Lung” is based on a live recording.
The control room at The Manor recording studio in 1990.
After the RAK sessions, which Colin Greenwood described as “eight weeks of hell and torture,” the October 1994 deadline was postponed, and Radiohead embarked on tours across three continents. In May, they played their famous concert at The London Astoria, which was recorded and released as the live album Live at the Astoria.
During a two-week break in July 1994, Radiohead reconvened at The Manor, a classic English manor house-turned-studio owned by Virgin Records founder Richard Branson (yes, that Richard Branson). Although their time at The Manor was short, the pastoral setting gave the band space to work on arrangements, experiment with sounds, and have another go at re-recording certain songs they hadn’t nailed at RAK.
“Fake Plastic Trees” underwent a major transformation during these sessions, after the band felt that early versions sounded too “pompous and bombastic.” As legend has it, a Jeff Buckley concert gave Yorke renewed confidence in his vocal delivery, inspiring him to try “Trees” with just his guitar and a click track. Reportedly breaking into tears after the third take, he initially felt too vulnerable about his performance, but his bandmates convinced him to go with it.
The band also attempted re-recording “My Iron Lung,” but realized after several tries that they simply couldn’t top the raw energy captured on Live at the Astoria. Ultimately, that recording formed the basis for the album track, although Yorke’s vocals were overdubbed, additional guitars were added, and other small fixes were made.
Following the Manor sessions, Radiohead resumed touring throughout the UK, Thailand, and Mexico. One night in Mexico, emotional exhaustion and pent-up anger reached a boiling point. “Years of tension and not saying anything to each other, and basically all the things that had built up since we'd met each other, all came out in one day,” Yorke recalled. But airing their grievances helped the band solidify their bond and move forward tighter than ever. After Mexico, “It completely changed, and we went back and did the album, and it all made sense,” Yorke said.
In November 1994, Radiohead hit the studio once again, this time at Abbey Road. With renewed confidence, they completed the final vocal and guitar overdubs and added strings on “Fake Plastic Trees” and “Black Star.” Recorded in Abbey Road’s famous Studio 2, the string parts were arranged by Jonny Greenwood for a small ensemble featuring cellist Caroline Lavelle, who had previously recorded with acts like Massive Attack and Siouxsie And The Banshees.
After the final sessions with the band, Leckie began mixing the album in Studio 3, a more rock-friendly room equipped with a top-of-the-line Neve VR Series desk. However, the label soon grew impatient with Leckie’s pace and surreptitiously recruited Pablo Honey producers Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie to work on their own mixes simultaneously.
Slade and Kolderie mixed their version on The Bends at Fort Apache in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the mythical Trident A-Range console (the 13th and last one built, in fact). These mixes were ultimately used for every song except “My Iron Lung” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out),” which are credited to Leckie. Leckie is also credited with additional mixing on “The Bends,” but it’s unclear what his contributions were.
At first, Leckie was understandably upset, calling the new mixes “brash” and too soaked in reverb. However, he later warmed up to them, saying, “Maybe they chose the best thing.” While you wouldn’t necessarily be able to pick out the differences on a blind listen, Leckie’s mixes have a slightly darker and denser quality compared to the more “open” sound of the others. Chris Blair mastered the record at Abbey Road, bringing the record together with a bit more cohesion.
The Bends will forever be remembered as the album where Radiohead came into their own and began developing the sound we know them for today: dynamic, complex, trippy, noisy, and sonically rich. But it also represented a transformation for the band itself—the members of Radiohead became better songwriters, faced their demons, learned to work together, and found a lifelong collaborator in Nigel Godrich. And as their discography proves, it only got better from there.
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