Meanwhile, unbeknown to the band, a radio station in San Fransisco, “Live 105″ had just named Creep its favourite record of the year and quickly crossed over onto L.A.’s KROQ and other Westcoast stations. The single eventually peaked at a modest 34 in the US, but Pablo Honey went gold. Exactly a year after it’s original release, a reissued Creep finally hut the UK charts, peaking at number 7. Because the album kept on breaking around the world, the Pablo Honey Tour lumberd into its second year.
The tension lingered into the recording of the second album, produced by John Leckie. The edifice marked “follow-up to Creep” cast a long shadow over the sessions. “It was either going to be Sulk,The Bends, Nice Dream or Just,” Leckie remembers. “We had to give those absolute attention, make the amzing, instant smash hits number 1 in America. Everyone was pulling their hair and saying, ‘It’s not good eneough! We were trying too hard”
In the meantime, My Iron Lung was released in 1994. The 8-track EP showed the transistion between “Pablo Honey” and the upcoming album “The Bends”. My Iron Lung (taken from a live show recorded at London’s Astoria), was also released as a singl e, but peaked at a disappointing 23 in the charts.
The solution was a change of scenery. Radiohead quit the studio and toured Australasia and the Far East. “It made them re-evaluate what they were good at and enjoyed doing,” claimed Hufford. “Playing live again put the perspective back on what they’d lost in the studio.” Having worked the songs in on the road, they returned to Britain and completed the album in a fortnight.
“The Bends” was released in 1995. Radiohead were back and were no longer the one-hit-wonder band, but it wouldn’t be until the fifth single from the album, Street Spirit, 18 months later, that Radiohead would hit the top 10 again.
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