MTV News' Kurt Loder: "Kid A" seems to be an album made by people who are totally oblivious to what's going on in popular music right now. It sounds like the band lost interest in the whole pop-song format.

Radiohead's Thom Yorke: Well, I guess we did lose interest in it, really. I think, basically, you do something for a while and then suddenly it just doesn't float your boat anymore. It just didn't excite me. At the same time I find it quite weird that people say ["Kid A"] is not melodic. To me, the melodies are still there. It's still the same thing for me. The melodies are just going to a different place, but it's still a melody. If it ain't melody, then it's noise, and it's not noise.

Loder: Do you feel that people should sit down and just listen to "Kid A" all at once? Is that why there are no official singles planned, so you can just take the album as an entity and experience it as a whole?

Yorke: To be honest, I don't quite know why we don't have singles. I was definitely at the meeting. I was definitely there, I remember, but I probably went to the loo or had a cup of coffee or went off somewhere. There is good reason for that, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

Loder: Drifting back, what was the state of the band at the end of the "OK Computer" tour? Did you feel you were on the verge of having to do something new?

Yorke: To be honest, it just sort of went wrong.

Loder: In what way?

Yorke: It just went wrong. I'm not quite sure exactly. Personally speaking, I felt like [that] cliché you have in '70s films. I can't remember one in particular, but [it was when] you would have a character and they walk into a room full of mirrors, about a hundred mirrors, but they're all reflecting in on each other, so you get about five thousand of you. [Then there's another] guy standing there with a gun, waiting for the real one, trying to work out which is the real one. [RealVideo]

Loder: I think that's "The Lady From Shanghai."

Yorke: OK. That's what was going on for me personally, so there was just a lot of sorting out to do, really.

Loder: Was everybody in the band getting along well?

Yorke: Yeah. I think we worked together for so long that we needed to go away and rebuild something else. It was like being in the army. Go take some time off.

Loder: Why have you decided not to mount a full-scale tour to support "Kid A?" Or are you thinking of touring?

Yorke: I think what we want to do is break the cycle of [where] a band goes on tour for nine months, turns into monsters, then has to sort themselves out and piece together the bits in order to make another [album]. Or the thing about making records in order to go on tour and all that sort of stuff.

Even though I enjoy playing live, I actually enjoy writing and recording more, 'cause that’s the stuff that will end up lasting, you know. That's kind of the real reason. The only way that I can personally deal with touring is to think of it as, well, you have a set amount of time and you go off and you give it your all. Then, before you get wasted and tired and can't cope anymore, you stop. [RealVideo]