Jonny Greenwood

Jonny Greenwood
Background information
Born	5 November 1971 (1971-11-05) (age 39) Oxford, England
Genres	Alternative rock Electronic music Ambient music
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, score composer
Instruments	Guitar Ondes Martenot Keyboards Analog Synthesizer Piano Organ Xylophone Glockenspiel Recorder Harmonica Drums Toms Viola Banjo
Years active	1985-present
Labels	XL, TBD, Sanctuary
Associated acts	Radiohead, The Weird Sisters
Website	Official website
Notable instruments
Fender Telecaster Plus Fender Starcaster Ondes Martenot

Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood^[1] (born 5 November 1971) is a BAFTA and Grammy-nominated musician and composer, best known as a member of English alternative rock group Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, xylophone, glockenspiel, ondes martenot, banjo, harmonica and drums. He also does work on the electronic side of Radiohead, working on computer-generated sounds and sampling. He wrote the soundtracks of the films Bodysong and There Will Be Blood, as well as serving as "composer-in-residence" for the BBC. He is the younger brother of fellow Radiohead member, Colin Greenwood.

Noted for his aggressive playing style,^[2] Greenwood is consistently named as one of the greatest guitarists of all time.^[3][4][5][6] Citing his work with Radiohead, Channel 4 described Greenwood as a "significant creative force within the music industry."^[7]

Career

Radiohead

Greenwood had begun studying at Oxford Brookes University when Radiohead predecessor On A Friday signed a recording contract with EMI in 1991. He left university shortly after. While Greenwood is the only member of Radiohead to have been classically trained on any instrument (he took viola lessons as a child), he is also the only band member without a university degree.

Greenwood's influence on Radiohead's recording and writing can be heard in many songs, as he usually takes the traditional lead-guitarist role. For a while, Greenwood wore an arm brace due to a repetitive strain injury attributed to his "aggressive" way of playing the instrument, often billed as "abusive guitar". He often still wears the brace. He has said that "It's like taping up your fingers before a boxing match."^[8]

Greenwood is often credited as the second major influence on songwriting in Radiohead, next to Thom Yorke. He wrote the music for the closing tracks of OK Computer ("The Tourist") and Hail to the Thief ("A Wolf at the Door"). He also wrote the intro, chorus and outro sections of the song "Subterranean Homesick Alien" from the OK Computer album. According to Yorke the track "Just" from The Bends was "a competition by me and Jonny to get as many chords as possible into a song". An example of Greenwood's versatility is his use of the Ondes Martenot, which is featured on songs such as "The National Anthem" and "How to Disappear Completely" from the album Kid A, and "Pyramid Song" from the album Amnesiac. The song "Where I End and You Begin" from Hail to the Thief, which also features the instrument, was dedicated to the memory of Jeanne Loriod, a pioneer of the Ondes. It is also featured in the middle eight of "Bodysnatchers" on In Rainbows.

Greenwood and Yorke also collaborated on the song "Arpeggi" which is a piece in a classical style centered around arpeggios for voice, Ondes, and orchestra. It was performed with the London Sinfonietta and Arab Orchestra of Nazareth at the Ether Festival in March 2005;^[9] the song would later be adapted for the full band to play in 2006, rearranged for guitar. A studio version (closer to the full band version than the orchestral version) appeared on the album In Rainbows as "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi".

Solo work and current projects

In 2003, Greenwood released his first solo album, Bodysong (2003), the soundtrack for the movie of the same title by filmmaker Simon Pummell. Bodysong also features contributions from his brother Colin on bass.

Jonny Greenwood was hired by the BBC as its composer in residence in May 2004, a job which gave him the opportunity to compose several pieces for symphony orchestra, piano and/or Ondes Martenot: smear, Piano for Children and Popcorn Superhet Receiver. smear premiered in 2004, and on 23 April 2005 Greenwood premiered his new work commissioned by BBC Radio 3, with music performed live by the BBC Concert Orchestra in London.^[10] The printed music for smear and Popcorn Superhet Receiver are available from Faber Music Ltd in London. smear has also been recorded by the London Sinfonietta conducted by Martyn Brabbins and is Greenwood's recorded debut in the genre.

Greenwood won the Radio 3 Listeners' Award at the 2006 BBC British Composer Awards^[11] for his piece, "Popcorn Superhet Receiver". The piece was inspired by radio static and the extended, dissonant chords of Polish composer Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima", it can be streamed from a BBC website.^[12] Upon winning the award Greenwood received £10,000 from the PRS Foundation towards a commission for a new orchestral work.^[13]

A fan of dub reggae,^[14] Greenwood released a compilation in collaboration with Trojan Records, entitled Jonny Greenwood Is The Controller in March 2007. This is the latest in Trojan’s Artist Choice Jukebox series, to which DJ Spooky and Don Letts have already contributed.^[15] Trojan Records provided Greenwood with its extensive catalog of songs, of which he chose 17.^[16] The title is a play on the first track on the collection, entitled "Dread Are The Controller", by Linval Thompson. The album contains tracks by artists such as Derrick Harriott, Gregory Isaacs, The Heptones and many more.

Greenwood composed the score for the 2007 film, There Will Be Blood, from director Paul Thomas Anderson. The soundtrack contains excerpts from "Popcorn Superhet Receiver". His work as the composer for this film was highly acclaimed by reviewers and earned him an award at the Critics' Choice Awards. On January 21, 2008, however, the score was declared ineligible for an Academy Award nomination under a rule that prohibited "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music."^[17][18] On 4 February 2008 it was announced that Greenwood had won the trophy for Best Film Score in the Evening Standard British Film Awards for 2007.^[19] In its 2009 end-of-decade round-up Rolling Stone magazine named the film the best of the decade and cited Greenwood's score as a major element in its success, "Redefining what is possible in film scores".

In late 2008, Greenwood collaborated with Israeli rock musician Dudu Tasa on Tasa's Hebrew-language single "What a Day".^[20]

In February 2010, Greenwood debuted a composition entitled "Doghouse" at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios. In an interview following the performance, Greenwood and conductor Robert Ziegler revealed that the composition would be extrapolated into a score for the upcoming film Norwegian Wood directed by Anh Hung Tran, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Haruki Murakami. Greenwood described the writing of the piece to the BBC, "I wrote this piece mostly in hotels and dressing rooms while touring with Radiohead. This was more practical than glamorous — lots of time sitting around indoors, lots of instruments about — and aside from picking up a few geographical working titles, I can’t think that it had any effect where, on tour, it was written." The premiere of the entire score is to be on 19 March 2010.^[21]

Musical influences

Greenwood is greatly influenced by jazz and classical music; his favourites include Lee Morgan and Miles Davis. He is a major fan of the Mo' Wax label (onetime home of Blackalicious, DJ Krush, DJ Shadow and Dr. Octagon). Along with other Radiohead band members, he loves Krautrock band Can and Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Greenwood has stated that his all time favourite piece of music is Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, a gigantic piece for orchestra and Ondes Martenot, which he discovered as a teenager.^[22] According to one of his entries on Radiohead's blog Dead Air Space, Greenwood has become a dub reggae aficionado, listening as of late 2005 to little else.

On the last date of Radiohead's summer 2008 tour with Grizzly Bear in support, Greenwood spoke of his love for them on stage, saying they are his "favourite band in the world".^[23] Greenwood has also stated that John McGeoch is one of his favourite guitarists. He said : "no guitarist inspired me more that John McGeoch".^[24]

Equipment

Electric Guitars

Greenwood playing a Fender Starcaster.

• Fender Telecaster Plus, with a custom cut-off switch and special rewirings made by Greenwood and Plank (Radiohead's Guitar Technician). This guitar is equipped with Lace Sensor pickups.^[25]
• Fender Telecaster Standard converted into a Plus which also has a custom cut-off switch and Lace Sensor pickups
• 1975 Fender Starcaster, with Fender Wide Range pickups, can be heard predominantly on Kid A and Amnesiac, it is used for most Kid A and Amnesiac he plays guitar on live, and a few songs from OK Computer.^[26]
• A Gretsch G6119-1962HT Tennessee Rose HT.^[27]
• Gibson Les Paul HD.6X-Pro Digital.^[27]
• Gibson ES-335 (used on the acoustic Tour 2003) ^[28]

Greenwood currently uses Dean Markley Signature Series 10-46 strings.^[29]

Acoustic Guitars

• Martin D-35 ^[29]
• Taylor Big Baby (played by both Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke in pictures from Dead Air Space) ^[30]

Amplifiers

• Vox AC30, used for clean tones.^[31]
• Fender Eighty-Five , solid state amp, used for distorted tones.

Early on in Greenwood's career, he used a Fender Twin Reverb for clean tones.^[32] He recently replaced the Deluxe 85 with an Eighty-Five.

Current Effects Pedals

Jonny orders his pedals on his boards not in order of his signal chain, which confuses many people. He has changed pedals around and added new ones over the years which adds to the confusion. Here is however, a very close order of his current pedals from guitar to amps.^[27][33]

• Electro-Harmonix Small Stone
• Electro-Harmonix Poly Chorus (Recently removed from his board.)
• Demeter 'The Tremulator' (older version of the Demeter TRM-1 Tremulator)
• DOD 440 Envelope Filter (modified to include a LED)
• Digitech WH-1 Whammy
• BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive (Used as a clean boost. Can be heard on "Nude" and "15 Step".) (Also used as a warm overdrive.)
• BOSS RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay (Recently removed from his board. Replaced with BOSS RE-20)
• BOSS RE-20 Space Echo
• Roland Space Echo RE-201 (activated via Vox egg footswitch)
• Akai Headrush E1 or E2
• BOSS LS-2 Line Selector (A/B mode)
• Marshall ShredMaster (leads to Fender 85)
• ProCo Rat Distortion (used during The Bends era)
• BOSS FV-500H Volume Pedal (previously BOSS FV-300H)
• BOSS TU-12H Chromatic Tuner (from 'tuner out' on FV-500H)
• Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler (Used for Everything in it's Right Place and added on 2007 Tour)
• Roland FC-200 midi controller
• Mutronics Mutator (used in the studio)
• Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 (one on each board)
• There are two more BOSS LS2's in his signal. One for bringing in the Kaoss pad into his setup and one for running his guitar through his Mac.

Keyboards

• Analogue Systems RS8000 Integrator ^[34]
• Analogue Systems RS8500X ^[34]
• Analogue Systems French Connection ^[35]
• Ondes Martenot ^[34][36]
• Sequential Circuits Prophet-5
• Korg Prophecy ^[32]
• Hammond XB2 Digital Organ
• Moog Rogue ^[34]
• Mellotron M400 ^[29]
• Rhodes Suitcase Piano Mark I 73 ^[32]
• Fatar Keys CMS-161 ^[29]
• Upright Piano
• Celeste ^[29]

Keyboard Effects^[29]

• BOSS RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay
• Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Phase Shifter
• BOSS FV300L/H
• BOSS LS-2 Line Selector
• Akai Headrush E1 or E2
• Demeter Tremulator
• Roland Space Echo RE-201
• 3 Laptops, manned by Jonny and band technician Russ Russell, running Kontakt 3, are used to trigger samples and keyboard sounds, played in realtime by Jonny and Colin. One laptop is placed by Jonny's other gear, the others being side of stage with Russ.

Other

• Coin (Used to slide across the frets. Can be heard on "High and Dry", "House of Cards", "Exit Music", and "Morning Bell".

• Greenwood uses an ondes martenot, specifically during the songs "Climbing Up the Walls" and "The National Anthem"

• Laptop Computer running Max/MSP (Used to process his guitar sound, such as in the guitar solo at the end of "Go to Sleep". Also used to control electronic parts in live versions of songs such as "The Gloaming" and "15 Step")

• Korg Kaoss Pad (for sampling, such as Thom Yorke's voice in the song "Everything in Its Right Place")

• Harmonica (for the song "I Am A Wicked Child" and on the Pavement songs "Platform Blues" and "Billie" from their final album Terror Twilight)

• Glockenspiel (for "No Surprises", "Morning Bell/Amnesiac", "Sit Down. Stand Up" and "All I Need")

• FM Radio (for the songs "The National Anthem" and "Climbing Up The Walls". Used in combination with his effects pedals, mainly delay and echo, to create ambient vocal loops. Originally used a videotape with a VCR combi to similar effect)

• Toms (he uses a pair of identical toms with two drum sticks for each hand. These are featured in "There There", where most members of the band play percussion)

• He has recently been spotted with a banjo. The band played a sound check on their recent tour where Greenwood played the banjo on Radiohead song "I Am A Wicked Child". Other members of the band have said that banjos are "banned", and despite Greenwood's constant attempts to include them in songs, they will not be featured.

• Voodoo Labs Pedal Power units power all pedals.

Collaborations

Velvet Goldmine

Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood got together with Bernard Butler (Suede), Andy Mckey, and Paul Kimble to form the band, The Venus in Furs, named after the Velvet Underground song. They recorded five songs (Roxy Music, Brian Eno and Steve Harley covers) for the Todd Haynes film Velvet Goldmine, which was produced by Michael Stipe. The tracks are:

• "2HB" (vocals: Thom Yorke)
• "Ladytron" (vocals: Thom Yorke)
• "Baby's on Fire"
• "Bitter-Sweet" (vocals: Thom Yorke)
• "Tumbling Down"

Pavement

Greenwood played harmonica on Pavement's final LP, Terror Twilight (1999). He played on the songs "Platform Blues" and "Billie". The album was produced by long-time Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.

Bryan Ferry

Jonny appears on the track 'Hiroshima' from the Frantic album.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Greenwood played lead guitar in The Weird Sisters along with fellow Radiohead member Phil Selway, former Pulp members Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey, electronica artist Jason Buckle and Add N to (X) member Steve Claydon. They performed three tracks, composed by Cocker:

• "Do the Hippogriff"
• "This Is the Night"
• "Magic Works"

References

External links

• Radiohead.com: Official band website
• trojan.sanctuaryrecords.com: Link to Jonny Greenwood Is the Controller page
• Jonny Greenwood's (Radiohead) guitar rig: Information on the guitar gear used by Jonny Greenwood.
• StringsReunited.com : A tour blog by Plank, the guitar technician for Radiohead.

Radiohead Thom Yorke • Jonny Greenwood • Ed O'Brien • Colin Greenwood • Phil Selway Studio albums Pablo Honey • The Bends • OK Computer • Kid A • Amnesiac • Hail to the Thief • In Rainbows EPs Drill • Itch • My Iron Lung • No Surprises/Running from Demons • Airbag / How Am I Driving? • 8 Outtakes From Amnesiac • COM LAG (2plus2isfive) Live album I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings Compilations Radiohead Box Set • Radiohead: The Best Of Singles "Creep" • "Anyone Can Play Guitar" • "Pop Is Dead" • "Stop Whispering" • "High and Dry"/"Planet Telex" • "Fake Plastic Trees" • "Just" • "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" • "Paranoid Android" • "Karma Police" • "No Surprises" • "Pyramid Song" • "I Might Be Wrong" • "Knives Out" • "There There" • "Go to Sleep" • "2 + 2 = 5" • "Jigsaw Falling into Place" • "Nude" • "Reckoner" • "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" • "These Are My Twisted Words" Other songs "Exit Music (For a Film)" • "Everything in Its Right Place" • "The National Anthem" • "Optimistic" • "Idioteque" • "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" • "House of Cards" • "Bodysnatchers" DVDs Live at the Astoria • 7 Television Commercials • Meeting People Is Easy • The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time • Radiohead: The Best Of • In Rainbows – From the Basement • Live in Praha Related articles Discography • Live performances • Awards and nominations • List of Radiohead songs • Nigel Godrich • Stanley Donwood • The Help Album • The Eraser • Jonny Greenwood Is the Controller • There Will Be Blood • Bodysong • Jaydiohead • Familial • Atoms for Peace • "Scott Tenorman Must Die" • Dead Children Playing Book:Radiohead • Category:Radiohead • Portal:Alternative music