Here’s what you tend to see in the studio: Jonny and Colin Greenwood write heartbreaking poetry and talk about third-world debt all the time. Ed O’Brien is so obsessed by Nietzsche that he now only speaks German and wears what looks like a small Tim Burgess wig on his upper lip as a tribute to his unhappy philosopher hero.Phil Selway is in the process of tattooing the whole of the Koran all over his body as a statement about Islamophobia (in public he covers the tattoos with make-up so as not to offend Muslims). It’s a project that has already taken years and will take many more to complete and he is in constant pain, which is evident in his face when he’s drumming.
Thom just sits in a corner crying and ranting about climate change. He is undoubtedly the most intense in the band but he’s not averse to the occasional bit of clowning. Once, when he knew we were watching, he pretended to put a plastic water bottle in the non-recycling bin! We laughed and laughed then he started crying again so we stopped laughing and things went back to being very tense.
— Adam Buxton (via the-king-of-ponytails)