Jonny Greenwood | |
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_(52112497131)_(cropped).jpg) Greenwood in 2022 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood (1971-11-05)5 November 1971 (age 54) Oxford, England |
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| Years active | 1985–present |
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Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood (born 5 November 1971) is an English musician who is thelead guitarist andkeyboardist of the rock bandRadiohead. He has also composed numerousfilm scores. He has been named one of the greatest guitarists by numerous publications, includingRolling Stone.
Along with his elder brother,Colin, Greenwood attendedAbingdon School inAbingdon nearOxford, where he formed Radiohead. Their debut single, "Creep" (1992), was distinguished by Greenwood's aggressive guitar work. Radiohead have achieved acclaim and sold more than 30 million albums. He was inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead in 2019.
Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist and a prominent player of theondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument. He uses electronic techniques such asprogramming,sampling andlooping, and writes music software. He described his role in Radiohead as anarranger, helping transformThom Yorke's demos into finished songs. The onlyclassically trained member of Radiohead, Greenwood has composed for orchestras including theLondon Contemporary Orchestra and theBBC Concert Orchestra, and his arrangements feature on Radiohead records.
Greenwood released his first solo work,the soundtrack for the filmBodysong, in 2003. In 2007, he scoredThere Will Be Blood, the first of several collaborations with the directorPaul Thomas Anderson. In 2018, he was nominated for anAcademy Award forhis score for Anderson'sPhantom Thread. He was nominated again forhis score forThe Power of the Dog (2021), directed byJane Campion. Greenwood also scored theLynne Ramsay filmsWe Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) andYou Were Never Really Here (2017). He has collaborated with Middle Eastern musicians including the Israeli songwritersShye Ben Tzur andDudu Tassa. In 2021, Greenwood debuted a new band,the Smile, with Yorke and the drummerTom Skinner.
Jonny Greenwood was born on 5 November 1971 inOxford, England.[1] His brother, the Radiohead bassistColin Greenwood, is two years older. Their father served in theBritish Army as abomb disposal expert.[2][3] The Greenwood family has historical ties to theCommunist Party of Great Britain and the socialistFabian Society.[4][5]
When he was a child, Greenwood's family would listen to a small number of cassettes in their car, includingMozart's horn concertos, the musicalsFlower Drum Song andMy Fair Lady, and cover versions ofSimon & Garfunkel songs. When the cassettes were not playing, Greenwood would listen to the noise of the engine and try to recall every detail of the music.[6] He credited his older siblings with exposing him to rock bands such asthe Beat andNew Order.[7] The first gig Greenwood attended was theFall on their 1988Frenz Experiment tour, which he found "overwhelming".[7]
The Greenwood brothers attended theprivate boys' schoolAbingdon. The Abingdon director of music, Michael Stinton, recalled Jonny as a "charming student" and "committed musician" who would spend as much time in the music department as possible.[8] Greenwood's first instrument was arecorder given to him at age four or five. He playedbaroque music in recorder groups as a teenager,[7] and continued to play into adulthood.[9] He played the viola in the Thames Valeyouth orchestra, which he described as a formative experience: "I'd been in school orchestras and never seen the point. But in Thames Vale I was suddenly with all these 18-year-olds who could actually play in tune. I remember thinking: 'Ah, that's what an orchestra is supposed to sound like!'"[10] Greenwood also spent time programming, experimenting withBASIC and simplemachine code to make computer games.[11] According to Greenwood, "The closer I got to the bare bones of the computer, the more exciting I found it."[12]
At Abingdon, the Greenwood brothers formed a band, On a Friday, with the singerThom Yorke, the guitaristEd O'Brien and the drummerPhilip Selway.[13] Jonny, the youngest, was three school years below Yorke and Colin and the last to join.[14] He was previously in another band, Illiterate Hands, with Matt Hawksworth, Simon Newton, Ben Kendrick,Nigel Powell and Yorke's brother,Andy.[15][16]
Greenwood initially played harmonica and keyboards for On a Friday.[17] As they had fired their previous keyboardist for playing too loudly, Greenwood spent his first months playing with his keyboard turned off. No one in the band realised, and Yorke told him he added an "interesting texture".[18] According to Greenwood, "I'd go home in the evening and work out how to actually play chords, and cautiously, over the next few months, I would start turning this keyboard up."[18] According to Selway, at On a Friday's first gig, in Oxford’sJericho Tavern, Greenwood sat on the stage with a harmonica, "waiting for his big moment to arrive".[17] He eventually became thelead guitarist.[17]
Although the other members of On a Friday had left Abingdon by 1987 to attend university, they continued to rehearse on weekends and holidays.[2] Greenwood studied music atA Level, includingchorale harmonisation.[10]
In 1991, the members of On a Friday regrouped in Oxford, sharing a house on the corner of Magdalen Road and Ridgefield Road.[19] Greenwood played harmonica on the 1992Blind Mr. Jones single "Crazy Jazz".[20] He enrolled atOxford Brookes University to study psychology and music, but left after his first term after On a Friday signed a record contract deal withEMI.[21] Greenwood said he had been "headed for the back of the viola section at some minor orchestra".[22]
The band changed their name to Radiohead and released their first album,Pablo Honey, in 1993.[23] Radiohead found early success with their debut single, "Creep", released in 1992.[23] According toRolling Stone, "It was Greenwood's gnashing noise blasts that marked Radiohead as more than just another mopey band ... An early indicator of his crucial role in pushing his band forward."[5] TheIndependent wrote that it was "the kind of transformative moment that has become his signature contribution to the Radiohead style".[22]
Radiohead's second album,The Bends (1995), brought them significant critical attention.[24] Greenwood said it had been a "turning point" for Radiohead: "It started appearing in people's [best of] polls for the end of the year. That's when it started to feel like we made the right choice about being a band."[25] On tour, Greenwood damaged his hearing and wore protective ear shields for some performances.[26]
Radiohead's third album,OK Computer (1997), achieved acclaim,[27][28] showcasing Greenwood's lead guitar work on songs such as "Paranoid Android".[29] For "Climbing up the Walls", Greenwood wrote a part for 16 stringed instruments playingquarter tones apart, inspired by the Polish composerKrzysztof Penderecki.[30]
For the soundtrack of the 1998 filmVelvet Goldmine, Greenwood, Yorke,Andy Mackay ofRoxy Music andBernard Butler ofSuede formed a band, the Venus in Furs, and covered three Roxy Music songs.[31] Greenwood played harmonica on "Platform Blues" and "Billie" onPavement's final album,Terror Twilight (1999).[32]
Radiohead's albumsKid A (2000) andAmnesiac (2001) marked a dramatic change in sound, incorporating influences fromelectronica,classical music,jazz andkrautrock.[33] Greenwood employed amodular synthesiser to build the drum machine rhythm of "Idioteque",[34][35] and playedondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument similar to atheremin, on several tracks.[36]
For "How to Disappear Completely", Greenwood composed a string section bymultitracking his ondes Martenot playing.[34] According to Radiohead's producer,Nigel Godrich, when the string players saw Greenwood's score "they all just sort of burst into giggles, because they couldn't do what he'd written, because it was impossible—or impossible for them, anyway".[37] The orchestra leader,John Lubbock, encouraged the musicians to experiment and work with Greenwood's "naive" ideas.[38] Greenwood also arranged strings for theAmnesiac songs "Pyramid Song" and "Dollars and Cents".[39][40]
Greenwood played guitar onBryan Ferry's 2002 albumFrantic.[41] For Radiohead's sixth album,Hail to the Thief (2003), Greenwood began using the music programming languageMax tosample and manipulate the band's playing.[42] After having usedeffects pedals heavily on previous albums, he challenged himself to create interesting guitar parts without effects.[43]
In 2003, Greenwood released his first solo work,the soundtrack for the documentary filmBodysong. It incorporates guitar, jazz, and classical music.[37] Greenwood played instruments such as the ondes Martenot, banjo,glass harmonica andvocoder, and employed theGerard Presencer jazz quartet.[22] In 2004, Greenwood and Yorke contributed to theBand Aid 20 single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", produced by Godrich.[44]
Greenwood's first work for orchestra,Smear, was premiered by theLondon Sinfonietta in March 2004.[citation needed] In 2005, Greenwood curated a concert as part of the Ether festival in London at with the London Sinfonietta. It featured a new version ofSmear, the new workPiano for Children, and performances of pieces by classical modernist composers.[45] With the orchestra, Greenwood also performed two Radiohead songs with Yorke: "Where Bluebirds Fly" and "Weird Fishes / Arpeggi".[46][47]
In May 2004, Greenwood was appointed composer-in-residence to theBBC Concert Orchestra.[48] Radiohead's co-manager, Bryce Edge, said Greenwood would use the residency to learn how orchestras work.[48] For the BBC, Greenwood wrote "Popcorn Superhet Receiver" (2005), inspired by radio static and the elaborate, dissonanttone clusters of Penderecki'sThrenody to the Victims of Hiroshima(1960). He wrote the piece by recording individual tones on viola, then manipulating and overdubbing them inPro Tools.[37] For "Popcorn Supherhet Receiver", Greenwood was named Composer of the Year byBBC Radio 3.[49]
For the 2005 filmHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Greenwood and the Radiohead drummer,Philip Selway, appeared as the wizard rock bandWeird Sisters alongsideJarvis Cocker,Steve Mackey,Steven Claydon andJason Buckle. They recorded three songs forthe soundtrack and appeared in the film.[50] Greenwood contributed piano to "The Eraser" from Yorke's debut solo album,The Eraser (2006).[51]
Greenwood composedthe score for the 2007 filmThere Will Be Blood, directed byPaul Thomas Anderson. The soundtrack won an award at theCritics' Choice Awards and the Best Film Score award in theEvening Standard British Film Awards for 2007.[52] As it contains excerpts from "Popcorn Superhet Receiver", it was ineligible for anAcademy Award.[53][54]Rolling Stone namedThere Will Be Blood the best film of the decade and described the score as "a sonic explosion that reinvented what film music could be".[55] In 2016, the film composerHans Zimmer said the score was "recklessly, crazily beautiful".[56]
In March 2007,Trojan Records releasedJonny Greenwood Is the Controller, a compilation album ofreggae tracks curated by Greenwood.[57] It features mostly 70sroots anddub tracks from artists includingLee "Scratch" Perry,Joe Gibbs andLinval Thompson. The title references Thompson's track "Dread Are the Controller".[58]
Radiohead released their seventh album,In Rainbows, in October 2007, in a landmark use of thepay-what-you-want model for music sales. Greenwood said Radiohead were responding to the culture of downloading free music, which he likened to thelegend of King Canute: "You can't pretend the flood isn't happening."[59] Greenwood wrote the title music forAdam Buxton's 2008 sketch showMeebox,[60] and contributed to the 2009 albumBasof Mitraglim Le'Hakol by the Israeli rock musicianDudu Tasaa.[61] Greenwood cowrote Yorke's 2009 single "Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses".[62]
In February 2010, Greenwood debuted a new composition, "Doghouse", at the BBC'sMaida Vale Studios, written in hotels and dressing rooms while on tour with Radiohead.[63] He expanded "Doghouse" into the score for the Japanese filmNorwegian Wood, released later that year.[63] Greenwood and Yorke performed a surprise set atGlastonbury Festival 2010, performing Radiohead andEraser songs.[64] Greenwood also played guitar onBryan Ferry's 2010 albumOlympia.[65]
Radiohead's recorded their eighth album,The King of Limbs (2011), using sampler software written by Greenwood.[11][66] By 2011, Radiohead had sold more than 30 million albums.[67] That year, Greenwood scoredWe Need to Talk About Kevin, directed byLynne Ramsay,[68] using instruments including a wire-strung harp.[47] With Yorke, he also collaborated with the rapperMF Doom on the track "Retarded Fren".[69]
In 2012, Greenwood composedthe score for Anderson's filmThe Master.[70] That March, Greenwood and the Polish composerKrzysztof Penderecki, one of Greenwood's greatest influences, released an album comprising Penderecki's 1960s compositionsPolymorphiaandThrenody for the Victims of Hiroshima, Greenwood's "Popcorn Superhet Receiver", and a new work by Greenwood, "48 Responses toPolymorphia".[71]
In the same year, Greenwood accepted a three-month residency with theAustralian Chamber Orchestra in Sydney and composed a new piece, "Water".[72] Greenwood, Yorke, and other artists contributed music toThe UK Gold, a 2013 documentary abouttax avoidance in the UK. The soundtrack was released free in February 2015 through the online audio platformSoundCloud.[73]
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Greenwood composedthe soundtrack for the Anderson filmInherent Vice (2014). It features a new version of an unreleased Radiohead song, "Spooks", performed by Greenwood and two members ofSupergrass.[74]
In 2014, Greenwood performed with theLondon Contemporary Orchestra, performing selections from his soundtracks alongside new compositions.[75] In the same year, Greenwood performed with the Israeli composerShye Ben Tzur and his band. Greenwood described Ben Tzur's music as "quite celebratory, more likegospel music than anything—except that it's all done to a backing of Indianharmoniums and percussion". He said he would play a "supportive" rather than "solistic" role.[76]
In 2015, Greenwood, Ben Tzur and Godrich recorded an album,Junun, with Indian musicians atMehrangarh Fort inRajasthan, India.[77] Greenwood insisted they hire only musicians fromRajasthan and only use string instruments native to the region.[78] Ben Tzur wrote the songs, with Greenwood contributing guitar, bass, keyboards,ondes Martenot andprogramming.[78] Whereas western music is based on harmonies andchord progressions, Greenwood used North Indianragas.[78] Greenwood and Godrich said they wanted to avoid the "obsession" withhigh fidelity in recordingworld music, and instead hoped to capture the "dirt" and "roughness" of music in India.[78] The recording is the subject of a 2015 documentary,Junun, by Paul Thomas Anderson.[79]
Greenwood contributed string orchestration toFrank Ocean's 2016 albumsEndless[80] andBlonde.[81] Radiohead's ninth album,A Moon Shaped Pool, was released in May 2016,[82] featuring strings andchoral vocals arranged by Greenwood and performed by theLondon Contemporary Orchestra.[83] With Ben Tzur and the Indian ensemble, Greenwood supported Radiohead's 2018Moon Shaped Pool tour under the name Junun.[84]
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Greenwood wrotethe score for Anderson's 2017 filmPhantom Thread. It was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Score[85] and earned Greenwood his sixthIvor Novello award.[86] Greenwood reunited with Ramsay to score her filmYou Were Never Really Here, also released in 2017.[87] That August, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed a benefit concert in theMarche, Italy, to help restoration efforts following theAugust 2016 Central Italy earthquake.[88] At the 2019BBC Proms in London, Greenwood debuted his composition "Horror Vacui" for solo violin and 68 string instruments.[89]
Greenwood was inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead in March 2019.[90] Greenwood did not attend the event, and toldRolling Stone: "I don't care. Maybe it's a cultural thing that I really don't understand ... It's quite a self-regarding profession anyway. And anything that heightens that just makes me feel even more uncomfortable."[91] In September, Greenwood launched a record label, Octatonic Records, to release contemporary classical music by soloists and small groups he had met as a film composer.[92] In 2021, he expressed uncertainty about releasing further Octatonic records, as the two Octatonic records "seemed to not really connect with anybody".[93] In 2024, Greenwood said he planned to revive Octatonic with a release from the cellist Oliver Coates.[94]
Forthe soundtrack forThe Power of the Dog (2021), Greenwood played the cello in the style of a banjo and recorded a piece forplayer piano controlled with the softwareMax.[95] The soundtrack earned Greenwood his second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Score.[96] Forhis soundtrack toSpencer (2021), Greenwood combinedBaroque and jazz music, juxtaposing their "rigid" and "colourful" styles.[95] He also contributed cues to Anderson's 2021 filmLicorice Pizza.[97]
In 2021, Greenwood debuted a new band,the Smile, with Yorke and the jazz drummerTom Skinner.[98] Greenwood said the project was a way for him and Yorke to work together during theCOVID-19 lockdowns.[93]Pitchfork attributed the Smile to Greenwood's frustration with Radiohead's slow working pace and his desire to release records that are "90 percent as good [that] come out twice as often".[99] The Smile made their surprise debut in a performance streamed byGlastonbury Festival on 22 May, with Greenwood playing guitar and bass.[100]
TheGuardian criticAlexis Petridis said the Smile "sound like a simultaneously more skeletal and knottier version of Radiohead", exploring moreprogressive rock influences with unusualtime signatures, complex riffs and "hard-driving"motorik psychedelia.[101] In May 2022, the Smile released their debut album,A Light for Attracting Attention, and began an international tour.[102] Greenwood and Yorke contributed music to the sixth series of the television dramaPeaky Blinders, broadcast that year.[103]
Greenwood composed and conducted strings for thePretenders song "I Think About You Daily", released in June 2023.[104] On 9 June, Greenwood and the Israeli musicianDudu Tassa releasedJarak Qaribak, comprising reworkings of Middle Eastern love songs.[105] It was produced by Greenwood and Tassa and mixed by Godrich, and features several Middle Eastern musicians. Greenwood said he and Tassa had "tried to imagine whatKraftwerk would have done if they'd been in Cairo in the 1970s". He denied any intent to make a political point with the album, and said: "I do understand that as soon as you do anything in that part of the world it becomes political ... possibly especially if it's artistic."[106] A European tour forJarak Qaribak was canceled following the outbreak of theGaza war in 2023.[107]
In January 2024, the Smile released their second album,Wall of Eyes. They began a European tour in March.[108] In May, adrone-based composition by Greenwood forchurch organ, "X Years of Reverb" — where X is substituted for the age of the building in which it is performed – premiered at theNorfolk and Norwich Festival. The composition is eight hours long and was performed by the organistsJames McVinnie and Eliza McCarthy playing in shifts using stopwatches. Greenwood composed it after becoming involved in charities to repair churches damaged by an earthquake near his home inMarche, Italy.[94][109]
On 25 May, Greenwood joined protests in Israel calling for the removal of Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu, elections for new leadership, and the release ofhostages held by Hamas in Gaza.[110] The next day, he and Tassa performed songs fromJarak Qaribak in Tel Aviv. The performance was criticised bypro-Palestine activists; thePalestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel called for "peaceful, creative pressure on his band Radiohead to convincingly distance itself from this blatant complicity in the crime of crimes, or face grassroots measures".[110][111] On 4 June, Greenwood responded in a statement that Israeli artists should not be silenced.[112] He described the project as a group of Middle Eastern musicians "working together across borders" and made no mention of Israel'swar on Gaza.[113]
In July, the Smile canceled their upcoming European tour after Greenwood was temporarily hospitalised with a serious infection. In a statement, the Smile said Greenwood had been receiving emergency treatment in anintensive care unit, but was now safe.[114] In October, Greenwood said he was mostly recovered and was focusing on film soundtracks until he was fully well.[115] The Smile's third album,Cutouts, recorded simultaneously withWall of Eyes, was released that month.[116] Greenwood scored his sixth film for Paul Thomas Anderson,One Battle After Another, released in September 2025.[117]
In May 2025, Greenwood and Tassa's performances in Bristol and London supportingJarak Qaribak were canceled following threats to the venues and staff.[118] They released a statement criticising the cancellations as censorship, emphasised the mixed heritage of the performers, and compared the cancellations to the controversy surrounding the hip-hop groupKneecap following theirCoachella 2025 performance.[118] In an interview later that year, Yorke said he would not perform in Israel again, while Greenwood disagreed, saying boycotts of Israel empower the government to act as they please. He said he was "ashamed of dragging [his Radiohead bandmates] into this mess", but was not ashamed of working with Arab and Jewish musicians.[119] In November, Radiohead began aEuropean tour, their first tour in seven years.[120]
Greenwood is Radiohead'slead guitarist.[121] He is known for his aggressive playing style.[17]Guitar.com wrote that Greenwood's playing on Radiohead's debut album,Pablo Honey, was an "exhilarating melange of tremolo-picked soundscapes, chunky octaves, screaming high-register runs and killswitch antics".[122] In the 1990s, Greenwood developedrepetitive stress injury, necessitating a brace on his right arm, which he likened to "taping up your fingers before a boxing match".[17]
Greenwood said he dislikes the reputation of guitars as something to be "admired or worshipped", and instead sees them as a tool like a typewriter or a vacuum cleaner.[47][123] He said he disliked guitar solos: "There's nothing worse than hearing someone cautiously going up and down the scales of their guitar. You can hear them thinking about what the next note should be, and then out it comes. It's more interesting to write something that doesn't outstay its welcome."[124]
Greenwood's main amplifiers are aVox AC30 and aFender 85.[125] He has long used aFender Telecaster Plus, a model ofTelecaster withLace Sensor pickups.[125] He uses a killswitch to create a stuttering effect on songs such as "Airbag", "Paranoid Android" and "Electioneering".[125] On softer tracks, such as "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and "Pyramid Song", Greenwood plays aFender Starcaster, which he sometimesplays with a cello bow.[125] For solo performances and his work with the Smile, he plays aGibson Les Paul; for bass, he plays aFender Precision Bass, using an aggressive picking style.[126]
For distorted tones on many 1990s Radiohead songs, Greenwood uses theMarshall ShredMaster.[125][127] For the "My Iron Lung" riff, he uses aDigiTech Whammy pedal topitch-shift his guitar by one octave, creating a "glitchy, lo-fi" sound.[128] He has used aRoland RE-201 Space Echo unit on several albums.[125] On "Identikit" and several Smile songs, Greenwood uses adelay effect to create "angular" synchronised repeats.[126] Greenwood said that "treating the delay as [the guitar's] equal opened up lots of directions".[115]
In 2008,Guitar World named Greenwood's guitar solo in "Paranoid Android" the 34th-greatest of all time.[29] In 2010,NME named Greenwood one of the greatest living guitarists,[129] and he was voted the seventh-greatest guitarist of all time in a poll of more than 30,000BBC 6 Music listeners.[130] That year, theRolling Stone journalistDavid Fricke named Greenwood the 60th-greatest guitarist.[131] In 2011, a panel of musicians andRolling Stone writers voted him the 48th-greatest guitarist,[5] and in 2012Spin ranked him the 29th.[132] In its updated 2023 list of the greatest guitarists,Rolling Stone ranked Greenwood and O'Brien joint 43rd, writing: "Even as he blossomed into a noted neo-classical composer, Greenwood always made sure to throw in at least one brain-scrambling banger of a guitar part per album."[133]
Greenwood is a prominent player of theondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument played by moving a ring along a wire, creating sounds similar to atheremin.[36] Greenwood said it was "the most expressive electronic instrument that's ever been invented".[22] He first used it on Radiohead's 2000 albumKid A, and it appears in Radiohead songs including "The National Anthem", "How to Disappear Completely" and "Where I End and You Begin".[134]
Greenwood became interested in the ondes Martenot at the age of 15 after hearingOlivier Messiaen'sTurangalîla Symphony.[2] He said he was partly attracted to the instrument as he cannot sing: "I've always wanted to be able to play an instrument that was like singing, and there's nothing closer."[135] As production of the ondes Martenot ceased in 1988, Greenwood had a replica created to take on tour with Radiohead in 2001 for fear of damaging his original model.[36]
Greenwood plays instruments including piano, viola, cello, glockenspiel, harmonica, recorder, organ, banjo and harp.[95][123][126] He said he enjoyed "struggling with instruments I can't really play", and that he enjoyed playing glockenspiel with Radiohead as much as he did guitar.[47]
Greenwood created the rhythm for "Idioteque" (fromKid A) with amodular synthesiser[35] andsampled the song's four-chord synthesiser phrase from "mild und leise", acomputer music piece byPaul Lansky.[136][34] He uses aKaoss Pad to manipulate Yorke's vocals during performances of theKid A song "Everything in Its Right Place".[137] In 2014, Greenwood wrote of his fascination with Indian instruments, particularly thetanpura, which he felt created uniquely complex "walls" of sounds.[76]
Greenwood uses a "home-made sound machine" comprising small hammers striking objects including yoghurt cartons, tubs, bells, and tambourines.[138] He has usedfound sounds, using a television and atransistor radio on "Climbing Up the Walls" (fromOK Computer) and "The National Anthem" (fromKid A).[123]
At the suggestion of Radiohead's producer,Nigel Godrich, Greenwood began using the music programming languageMax.[139] He found it liberating to abandon existing notions of audio effects and create his own from scratch, thinking "in terms of sound and maths".[12] Examples of Greenwood's use of Max include the processed piano on theMoon Shaped Pool track "Glass Eyes"[9] and his signature "stutter" guitar effect used on tracks such as the 2003 single "Go to Sleep".[42][140] He used Max to write sampling software used to create Radiohead's eighth album,The King of Limbs.[11]
"People from my background are made to feel that it's wrong to have opinions about classical music ... So I found it quite healthy, particularly at school, to think about classical composers and rock bands in the same way. The reason I loved Messiaen, for instance, was that he was still alive and writing. To me that was as exciting as a great old rock band still being around. Same with Penderecki. His strange orchestral music was quite dark, but it felt similar to the strange electronic music coming out of Manchester."
Greenwood is the onlyclassically trained member of Radiohead.[141] TheNew York Times described him as "the guy who can take an abstract Thom Yorke notion and master the tools required to execute it in the real world".[37] In 2016, Greenwood described his role in Radiohead as anarranger, and said: "It's not really about can I do my guitar part now, it's more ... What will serve this song best? How do we not mess up this really good song? ... How do we make it better than [Thom] just playing it by himself, which is already usually quite great?"[9] He said he was the most impatient member of Radiohead: "I'd much rather the records were 90 per cent as good, but come out twice as often ... I've always felt that, the closer to the finish, the smaller the changes are that anyone would notice."[93]
Greenwood's major writing contributions to Radiohead include "Just" (which Yorke described as "a competition by me and Jonny to get as many chords as possible into a song"); "My Iron Lung", co-written with Yorke,[30] fromThe Bends (1995); "The Tourist" and the "rain down" bridge of "Paranoid Android" fromOK Computer (1997);[17] the vocal melody of "Kid A" fromKid A (2000);[33] and the guitar melody of "A Wolf at the Door" fromHail to the Thief (2003).[142]
For his film soundtracks, Greenwood attempts to keep the instrumentation contemporary to the period of the story. For example, he recorded theNorwegian Wood soundtrack using a 1960s Japanesenylon-strung guitar with home recording equipment from the period, attempting to create a recording that one of the characters might have made.[47] Many of Greenwood's compositions aremicrotonal.[47] He often usesmodes of limited transposition, particularly theoctatonic scale, saying: "I like to know what Ican't do and then work inside that."[95] Greenwood has used unusualnotation for his scores to convey complexities such as microtonality or improvisation. His piece "X Years of Reverb" requires organists to play to stopwatches. For "48 Responses toPolymorphia", he placed an oak leaf on astave and wrote a part using the veins.[71]
Greenwood admires the alternative rock bandsPavement, thePixies andSonic Youth.[137] He said the guitarist that had most influenced him wasJohn McGeoch ofMagazine, whose songwriting "informs so much of what [Radiohead] do".[143] He declined an offer to fill in for McGeoch, who died in 2004, during Magazine's 2009 reunion tour. According to the Radiohead collaboratorAdam Buxton, Jonny was "overwhelmed" and too shy to accept the role.[144]
Greenwood first heardOlivier Messiaen'sTurangalîla Symphony at the age of 15 and became "round-the-bend-obsessed with it".[2] Messiaen was Greenwood's "first connection" to classical music, and remains an influence; he said: "He was still alive when I was 15, and for whatever reason I felt I could equate him with my other favourite bands—there was no big posthumous reputation to put me off. So I'm still very fond of writing things in the same modes of limitedtransposition that he used."[47]
Greenwood is an admirer of the Polish composerKrzysztof Penderecki, and cited a concert of Penderecki's music in the early 90s as a "conversion experience".[37][145] He is also a fan of the composersGyörgy Ligeti,Henri Dutilleux andSteve Reich.[45][146] He has performed Reich's 1987 guitar compositionElectric Counterpoint and recorded a version for Reich's 2014 albumRadio Rewrite.[146] He cited Reich as an influence on the phasing guitars of the Radiohead songs "Let Down" and "Weird Fishes / Arpeggi".[147] Greenwood cited the jazz musicianAlice Coltrane as an influence.[137]
Greenwood was exposed toMiddle Eastern music through his wife's family. He said he particularly admired the textures and complexity of the rhythms in songs such as those byAbdel Halim Hafez, which he tried to emulate. He also said he enjoyed their rhythmic ambiguity, when it is difficult to tell where the first beat in a bar is.[148]
Greenwood is married to the Israeli visual artist Sharona Katan, whom he met in 1993 when Radiohead performed in Israel.[149] Her work, credited as Shin Katan, appears on the covers ofJunun and several of Greenwood's soundtracks.[150] Katan said she considers their family Jewish: "Our kids are raised as Jews, we have amezuzah in our house, we sometimes haveShabbos dinners, we celebrate Jewish holidays. The kids don't eat pork. It's important to me to keep this stuff."[149] Greenwood's nephew served in theIsrael Defence Forces and was killed in the ongoingGaza war.[111]
Greenwood and his family live in Oxford andMarche, Italy.[94] In April 2023, he began selling olive oil produced on his farm in Italy from Radiohead's online shop.[151]
| Title | Details | Charts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK Sales [152] | UK Indie [153] | SCO [154] | US Curr. [155] | US Heat [156] | US World [157] | ||
| Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima / Popcorn Superhet Receiver / Polymorphia / 48 Responses To Polymorphia(performed by Aukso Orchestra; conducted byKrzysztof Penderecki andMarek Moś [pl]) |
| – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Junun(withShye Ben Tzur and the Rajasthan Express) |
| – | – | – | – | 6 | 3 |
| Jarak Qaribak(withDudu Tassa) |
| 34 | 13 | 70 | 68 | – | – |
| Title | Details | Charts | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US OST [158] | US Heat [156] | US Vinyl [159] | ||
| Bodysong |
| — | — | — |
| There Will Be Blood |
| 20 | — | 21 |
| Norwegian Wood |
| — | — | — |
| The Master |
| 21 | 28 | — |
| Inherent Vice |
| — | — | — |
| Phantom Thread | — | — | — | |
| You Were Never Really Here | — | — | — | |
| Spencer |
| — | — | — |
| The Power of the Dog | — | — | — | |
| One Battle After Another |
| — | — | — |
| Title | Charts |
|---|---|
| US Reggae [162] | |
| Jonny Greenwood Is the Controller(with Various Artists) | 5 |
| Title | Charts |
|---|---|
| US Classical [163] | |
Octatonic Volume 2: Industry Water(withMichael Gordon)
| 10 |
