Radiohead

Harry Borden takes a look back at two very different shoots with one of the world’s biggest bands, Radiohead

- David Clark

Radiohead has been established as a major ‘alternative rock’ band for more than 20 years and has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. However, when I first photographed the band, back in 1993, they were at the beginning of their career. Their first album, released a few months earlier, had received mixed reviews, though the single ‘Creep’ showed they had enormous potential.

I was asked to photograph them by the music magazine Select. The pictures would be published with a feature about ‘The secret life of Radiohead’. I was initially told I would photograph them in a studio, but we actually did the shoot in a garage in a down-at-heel part of Cowley in Oxford shire. It wasn’t the ideal location to shoot a portrait of five people.

It was the beginning of my career and I photographed them in black &white, in a sort of Anton Corbijn style. It was one of the first shoots they had done. I got on well with the band members; they were friendly and clearly very intelligent and interesting people. The following year, when their album The Bends was released, they kindly sent me a signed copy to thank me for the shoot. When I heard it, I realised they were an amazing band. I became a big fan and bought all their subsequent albums.