Radiohead Working On New Album And Hope To Tour In 2016

Radiohead fans rejoice; a new album will hopefully be coming out soon, but exactly when is anyone’s guess. According to Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the band spent most of September recording material for a new album, which will be their ninth. According to Spin, the last time Radiohead released a new album was 2011’s The King of Limbs.

Since July 2014, the band has been rumored to be working on a new album, but until September of this year, there hasn’t been much progress reported. However, in an interview with Russia’s Silver Radio (via Reddit) this week, Greenwood said the band has recorded a lot of material for a new album.

While the quote below about the recording being finished was attributed to Greenwood, he was quick to point out he didn’t mean the album was finished. There’s still a lot of behind-the-scenes work ahead of them to be done, including production work.

“We have finished recording of the new album but we keep reevaluating the work we’ve done. We hope we’ll get it right soon, and after that we’ll start planning the next year’s tour.”

Reports after Greenwood’s interview initially said the new album was already finished and claimed the band was definitely going on tour next year in 2016, but Greenwood quickly took to Twitter to clarify his comments, separating what he actually said and what was lost in translation. Entertainment Weekly reports the interview was translated from English to Russian and back to English.

@coslive nice mistranslation going on….what I actually said: lots has been recorded, and we’re about to go through it all…. — Jonny Greenwood (@JnnyG) October 15, 2015

@coslive…to see if it’s any good. And we HOPE to tour next year: no plans confirmed yet. Sorry for the over enthusiastic translator….:/ — Jonny Greenwood (@JnnyG) October 15, 2015

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke chimed in on Twitter with a tweet to Consequence of Sound.

@coslive no IT ain’t finished take responsibility for your writing and check your facts occasionally.. alright Jonny??@JnnyG — Thom Yorke (@thomyorke) October 15, 2015

While the band has recorded material for a new album, they may end up not being satisfied with it and record more. No plans for a tour have been confirmed, which isn’t surprising given that the new album isn’t finished nor does it have a release date. Basically, the material Radiohead has recorded can be likened to the first draft of a novel. It’s a rough draft, and what they’ve come up with so far may not be what they end up releasing on a new album.

Very little is known about the new album Radiohead is working on. According to Consequence of Sound, Greenwood hinted there could be outside collaboration included on the new album, which the band has never done before. Greenwood is also said to have hinted that a Radiohead song from 1996, “Lift,” could be on the new album.

NME reports that last month photos of Radiohead in the studio were posted by composer Robert Ziegler to his social media accounts. Ziegler previously worked with the band on their 2011 album, The King of Limbs. Ziegler’s photos showed band members Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, and producer Nigel Godrich having a conversation in a studio, and there was a setup for an orchestra visible in the image.

Back in September, NME also reported Radiohead drummer Phillip Selway said the new album might be finished this autumn, although he had said earlier that the album likely wouldn’t be released in 2015.

“We’ve got quite a busy autumn coming up. We want to finish a record and that’s where we’re at. We’re just launching ourselves into it,” Selway said. “Being asked about Radiohead never becomes a tiresome question; the fact that people are still interested, that can only be a wonderful thing.”

It sounds like Radiohead fans will have to wait a while longer for a new album and a tour.

[Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images]