état-civil	Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood est né le 5 novembre 1971 à Oxford.
instruments	Harmonica, violon (dans l'Orchestre des Jeunes de la Vallée de la Tamise), violon alto, piano, orgue, xylophone, métalophone, guitare... on n'a pas assez de place !
éducation	Abingdon school; Musique et Psychologie à l'Ecole Polytechnique d'Oxford.
autres emplois	A abandonné ses études de psycho pour entrer dans le groupe : pas de temps d'avoir fait autre chose.
mots clés	Drôle, érudit, impatient, atelle, frange.
influences	Jazz, Miles Davis, Elvis Costello...
il écoute	Mo'Wax, Can, Pink Floyd's Meddle, de la techno...
albums préférés de 2000 (Spin)	1. VARIOUS ARTISTS, OHM: THE EARLY GURUS OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1948 - 80: where electronic sound began. includes ondes martenot music by messiaen and paul lansky (who we sampled in our song "idioteque") 2. CLINIC, CLINIC: addictive listening 3. OLIVIER MESSIAEN: SAINT FRANCOIS D'ASSISE - KENT NAGANO/ HALLE ORCHESTRA WITH ARNOLD SCHOENBERG CHOIR, FEATURING JOSE VAN DAM AND DAWN UPSHAW: first ever recording of this, released this year. because his music has colour in it. 4. ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO, LES STANCES A SOPHIE: perfect blend of free jazz and soul funk 5. DELTRON 3030, DELTRON 3030: beacause they make music with music like no one else can.
il lit/regarde	Prick Up Your Ears, Going For Gold, Generation X, The Imperfect Art
il aime	acheter des disques, marcher, tourner, Lee Morgan.
il n'aime pas	acheter des CDs, conduire, enregistrer, Derek Nimmo.
influences	Frank Black, Jimmy Smith, Lee Morgan.
notes	Les autres l'ont laissé supplier un an avant de l'admettre dans le groupe (il avait juste le droit de s'asseoir sur le bord de la scène avec son harmonica inaudible). Porte une atelle au bras droit; Boit peu, se drogue autant; marié; appelé "le rêveur" à l'école; aime acheter des fringues; a écrit Life in a glass house, et The Tourist, dernier morceau d'OK Computer.

matériel | atelle
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your school in Abingdon?
It was a bit like Alcatraz. My housemaster would measure the bottom width of our trousers - we wore drainpipes back then - then he'd send us home to put on wider ones. It was that kind of place.

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.

I've never taken advantage of the opportunity of one-night stands. It's like treating sex like sneezing. Sex is a fairly disgusting sort of tufted, smelly-area kind of activity, which is too intimate to engage in with strangers. I'm all for erotic in terms of imagination, but the physical side is something different.

There's a lot of black and twisted humour. It's not 'the world is shitty' sort of attitude. It's darkly comic. It's funny in a way.

I listen to it like I'm IN the person watching the band. I kind of feel like when I saw Throwing Muses when I was 14, whatever, 13, thinking, 'No one else is really watching it like I'm watching it', which is very selfish, but I think everyone does it. It feels like you're in command.

My style is so tightly tied in with our songs that I don't think you could even ask me to quit Radiohead and play guitar for another band. I don't think I could do it. It would probably reveal me to be the bluffer that I believe I am. That's how it feels. I wouldn't have the confidence to do anything but this.

paradise?
A big empty room and a couple of radiohead songs that are half finished. It's at times like that that I enjoy being in the group the most: when we're in the studio and take place in front of our amplifiers for days. You can only hear the drums and the voice in that stage. And when finally someone dares to ask "What do you think of this?", then we start working together. That's the most beautiful moment.

We used to go into the IRC rooms and pretend to be us. But at the end of the session, we would say 'I confess, my name is Steve and I am from Ottawa, I'm just sitting here with all my Radiohead books'. Then someone would come in the room and pretend to be Colin, even though Colin was downstairs playing bass. It got very twisted.

I never listened to guitar playing in any band, ever, I still don't, really. Worshiping guitarists is all buying guitar magazines. Anybody can play guitar, but writing songs is a far harder challenge. I'd rather idolize someone like Elvis Costello than I would Steve Vai.

Select: How many new songs have you written since OK Computer?
Jonny: About eight or nine, maybe. Life in a Glass House is one of those. I don't know how to do it, though. It could end up sounding like a bad Cure song, or it could end up sounding brilliant. It's difficult to tell.

Select: That seems to be a general Radiohead thing - not having a clue how a song will turn out...
Jonny: Presented with a song like Exit Music, which Thom just sits down and plays to you, it's impossible to know what to add to it without making it worse. We're finding that again and again with these new songs. How can you play along with it when it's there already?

Select: With musicians who are cracked up to be adventurous, you tend to find that they secretly think "this is obvious - why doesn't everyone else sound like this?" Does that apply to you?
Jonny: It feels obvious, but personally I feel like I'm bluffing. I'm disappointed by almost everything I hear, but at the same time, I feel like I'm fluking. If I tried to do a Bernard Butler, I'd drown. If I tried to write and sing... We're holding each other up. There are no budding solo artists in this band.

Select: Does that mean you're amused when people use words like virtuoso about you?
Jonny: Yeah, I find that hilarious. Noel, bless him, is going up and down blues scales, and technically I'm doing anything faster of more impressive than that, really.

Select: Which songs do you enjoy playing most when you're on stage?
Jonny: Stuff where I don't know how or what I'm going to play. The end of Fake Plastic Trees or Paranoid Android - stuff where I can do anything, and no-one notices or cares. Have I ever fallen flat on my arse? Oh yeah, definitely. But as long as the hit-rate is over 70%, i'll keep playing like that.

Select: In those more splenetic moments on stage, do you recognize the person that you become? Is it a transcendent experience?
Jonny: It's hard to say anything about that without sounding smug, so no, it isn't (laughs). But, you know, eyes closed, head back - I find that just as offensive as plugging into a Marshall and chugging away. One time out of ten it's genuine, if that. You hope for moments like that and sometimes it happens. But I don't expect it.

Select: When you play the radio on stage during Climbing up the Walls, what are you doing?
Jonny: I'm tuning at random, I find two or three classical stations and two or three talking stations at the sound check and use them during the gig. I know what kind of music it is in advance - I don't want Size of a Cow to come out during the show (laughs).

Select: What albums have you liked this year?
Jonny: Blur. Best album they've done in a while. Anything with more of Graham's guitar playing, I'm bound to like.

Select: You're quite similar as guitar players...
Jonny: I watched him play in the Tibetan Freedom Festival, and he seemed to get lost in it all, and it was the most exciting thing I've seen. Yes please, I'd love to be compared to him.

groupephotos

Colin : I respect him as a person and a musician. I mean, Jonny's a great fucking guitarist which makes up for a lot of his unsavoury personal habits.

Colin : Unlike the Gallaghers we beat each other up in private and get on very well in public... It's really nice to be in a postition where you're with a member of your family and you get on very well.

Quand ils étaient petits, Colin intervertissait les crayons de couleurs de Jonny (qui est daltonien). Celui-ci faisait alors des dessins très bizarres. En fait, Colin a avoué qu'il voulait le faire interner.

Thom : Jonny a enregistré des tonnes de techno, à laquelle, même moi, je ne comprends pas grand chose... Ça le passionne, ça sonne incroyablement bien. (Rock&Folk juillet 2001)

Colin : Jonny doesn´t want to do tv interviews cause he thinks he comes across as an idiot. (MPIE)

Thom : Having three guitarists, theres a lot of competition about who's going to come up with the best line first. Jonny always wins.

Thom : He likes having as many instruments as possible in his corner.

Ed : He's an amazing musician. He's from a totally musical background, not what I've come from at all; I'm completely self-taught. It probably shows in Jonny, he knows all the theory. But what's great about him is he's got that feel. I've never been interested in lead guitarists. He must be the only lead guitarist I like. I don't get Clapton. I don't get any of that stuff. But he's got an amazing feel, an amazing musicality.

Que pensez-vous de l'écriture de Jonny ?
Thom : À chaque fois que je suis fatigué, il est là, sur le pied de guerre.

Phil : The best thing about Jonny is that he's extremely funny. Naturally funny. He's excellent enterainment value. He usually costs less than a video. The problem is you can't take him back when you're sick of him. The worst thing about him is that he's terribly impatient. He likes everything to be done quickly.