Tom York

You know you're in trouble when people stop listening to sad music because they're turning themselves off.

So speaks this week's castaway, Tom York.

And if anyone would know, it's him.

Along with his bandmates in Radiohead, he has expanded ideas about what pop music can be and what it can do.

As a child, he learned to play the guitar and then built his own.

He wrote his first song at 11 about an atomic bomb.

and has been performing in a band since his school days.

Radiohead have endured for 34 years, been critically acclaimed the world over and sold over 30 million albums.

Beyond the band, Tom has continued to push boundaries as a solo artist and now as a composer.

He recently created his first classical piece, Don't Fear the Light, and scored the horror film Suspiria.

He says when an artist starts repeating themselves because they think that's what people want...

Tom York, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Thank you for having me.

So that idea of torching it then, does that mean that as music fans we're hearing a tiny proportion of your total creative output of your recordings?

No, I mean, I wish there was vaults full of other stuff, but no, it's more you need to feel an unsureness.

Is that a word?

About where it is you're going.

Oftentimes in the studio, someone's recording something and they come in and they go, was that good?

And the people in the control room are going, oh my God, that's sort of it.

The torching it is saying to yourself, I don't know what I'm doing.