“They managed to have artistic integrity at the level they were operating at and were decent people”: Radiohead drummer Philip Selway on what the band learned from R.E.M.

Radiohead and R.E.M.

Radiohead were right at the point of becoming one of the most important groups of their generation when they went out on tour to support of R.E.M. in 1995. The timing couldn’t have been better. Michael Stipe & co. were seasoned pros by then, a band who were rooted in arty alternative-rock but had found a way to continue doing that as a big mainstream proposition, exactly the scenario that Radiohead would soon be juggling. Speaking to this writer a couple of years ago, Radiohead drummer Philip Selway said it was a valuable, instructive period for the Oxford five-piece.

Asked if they was anyone who had given him great advice across his career, Selway said, “It’s not so much what people have told you, it’s watching other people and seeing how they operate. When we went out and toured with R.E.M., which was around The Bends, it was seeing how they managed to have that artistic integrity at the level they were operating at, seeing how they were just decent people, basically. You learn by example rather than somebody being quite didactic about it.”