(L-R) Singer/guitarist Ed O’Brien, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, lead singer Thom Yorke, bassist Colin Greenwood and drummer Phil Selway of the British rock group Radiohead, pose for a group portrait circa March, 1993 in New York, New York. Photo by Bob Berg/Getty Images)
Radiohead had their first big hit with the 1992 single “Creep,” but if guitarist Jonny Greenwood would have had his way, fans never would have heard the tune.
In an interview with Mojo, Greenwood says he wasn’t initially keen on the song because he thought it sounded “wimpy.”
“I suppose the nauseating adolescent in me found it a bit wimpy and wanted to make it the opposite,” he tells the mag. “Can’t be having ballads! A distortion pedal and a loud guitar is an enormously exciting thing.”
“Creep” appeared on the band’s 1993 debut album, Pablo Honey, and Greenwood says the album’s co-producer, Sean Slade, would often say it was a “shame no one will get to hear this, because it’s really good,” with Greenwood explaining it was “because it was the first album from a band who had no real prospects.”
“But through a huge amount of luck, it was discovered. And even when it was, we were all desperate to say, Yeah, but that’s not what we mean!” he says, noting they felt their sophomore album, The Bends, was “a much better record because it felt like us getting back to what we’d been like five years earlier when we were still a school band.”
“Creep” would go on to become a top-10 single in the U.K. and a top-40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It also peaked at #2 on the Alternative Airplay chart and at #6 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
