Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood (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 a
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.
Greenwood was ranked #59 on
Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list
and #27 on
Gigwise's list of the "50 Greatest Guitarists Ever".
Citing his work with Radiohead,
Channel 4 described Greenwood as a "significant creative force within the music industry."
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.
[7] 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
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.
Upon winning the award Greenwood received £10,000 from the PRS Foundation towards a commission for a new orchestral work.
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."
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.
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".
Although highly original, Greenwood's film score appears to have been heavily inspired by the soundtrack to 1970s BBC dramatisation of an
M. R. James ghost story called 'A Warning To The Curious' which has been shown several times on BBC4 as part of their 'Ghost Story At Christmas' seasons. As with
There Will Be Blood, the dramatisation opens with a man digging for buried treasure.
In late 2008, Greenwood collaborated with Israeli rock musician
Dudu Tasa on Tasa's Hebrew-language single "What a Day".
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 19march2010.
Musical influences
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".
Greenwood has also stated that
John McGeoch is one of his favourite guitarists. He said : "no guitarist inspired me more that John McGeoch".
Equipment
Electric Guitars
- 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.
- Fender Telecaster Standard converted into a Plus which also has a custom cut-off switch and Lace Sensor pickups
- A Gretsch G6119-1962HT Tennessee Rose HT.
Greenwood currently uses Dean Markley Signature Series 10-46 strings.
Acoustic Guitars
- Taylor Big Baby (played by both Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke in pictures from Dead Air Space)
Amplifiers
- 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.
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.
- DOD 440 Envelope Filter (modified to include an LED)
- BOSS SD-1 Super Overdrive
- BOSS RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay (Recently removed from his board. Replaced with BOSS RE-20)
- Roland Space Echo RE-201 (activated via Vox egg footswitch)
- BOSS LS-2 Line Selector (A/B mode)
- 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)
- 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
- Analogue Systems French Connection
- Hammond XB2 Digital Organ
- Rhodes Suitcase Piano Mark I 73
- BOSS RV-3 Digital Reverb/Delay
- 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
- 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")
- Harmonica (for the song "I Am A Wicked Child" and on the Pavement songs "Platform Blues" and "Billie" from their final album Terror Twilight)
- 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.
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