The first of these, revealed in an interview with the Washington Post, has to do with banjos. "There's a ban on [them]," bassist Colin Greenwood explains. His brother, Jonny, is banjo-mad, keen to integrate the folk instrument into Radiohead's contemporary art-rock. "What's interesting to me is how old technologies like orchestras and pianos and meet modern recording techniques," Jonny Greenwood said. This philosophy is writ large in the acclaimed, string-heavy soundtrack to There Will Be Blood, which he composed.
Radiohead remain relatively tolerant of such practices; they like strings, pianos and antique ondes Martenots. But they draw the line at banjos. Whenever he raises the possibility, Jonny complains, "[I get] level looks."
There's also trouble from that oldest of rock band woes: the fact that rock'n'roll is really, really loud. Even In Rainbows, perhaps the quietest of Radiohead's releases, was a noisy recording process that took its toll on Colin Greenwood's hearing.
In an interview with Word magazine he confessed that improper headphones led to some serious hearing trouble. "It came back, mostly," he explains with relief. "It doesn't feel like I'm talking to people underwater anymore."
"For a few months afterwards I'd be watching the telly and suddenly hear these high-pitched whistling noises as more and more high frequencies came back." Well at least it made watching television exciting.
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