Thom Yorke is one of many famous rock, pop and jazz vocalists who have been interviewed for Jason Thomas Gordon’s new book, The Singers Talk. Rolling Stone has an excerpt of his interview for the book, a wide ranging conversation that includes everything from his vocal warm-up and warm-down routine, how he first tried to record his vocals for OK Computer while drunk, and how he came to be a singer. “I was really into Queen, but I never saw myself as Freddie Mercury,” he told Gordon. “I was always Brian May in my head, surprisingly. And it sort of changed because I couldn’t really find anyone else to do it.”
Gordon also asked Yorke who he’d most like to duet with, living or dead. “John Lennon. It would sound awful though, awful, UGH. It wouldn’t mix well at all,” Yorke said. He was then asked to name his other all-time favorite singers, who he said were Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Scott Walker, Michael Stipe and Tom Waits:
I’m obsessed with Ella Fitzgerald at the moment. There’s a performance you can find of Ella Fitzgerald playing with Duke Ellington. They’re on this famous TV show in the Sixties, a black-and-white show. She does two jazz standards, and her technical singing is fucking insane. In. Sane. She’s belting the crap out of it. She’s so loud, and she doesn’t miss one note. She does one super, super fast, jazz scat thing, which is just … I mean, it’s physically impossible. I’ve not seen anyone do anything like that. And then, obviously, there’s Nina Simone. And then there’s Scott Walker, and then there’s Michael Stipe. That’s four, right?
Yeah, you got one more.
Goddamn, that’s really hard. I wanna say Billie Holiday. Oh! Tom Waits! “Tom Traubert’s Blues.” That and “Simple Twist of Fate” by Bob Dylan are the two songs that are guaranteed to reduce me to tears every time I hear them. Guaranteed. I can’t get through either song without falling to pieces.
Read the whole excerpt over at Rolling Stone.
The Singers Talk also includes interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Roger Daltrey, Chrissie Hynde, Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Smith, Geddy Lee, Michael Stipe, Thom Yorke, Rod Stewart, Steve Perry, and more. It’s out in paperback now.