Thom Yorke has opened up about the psychological toll of Radiohead's 2025 reunion tour, revealing that the experience triggered a «massive» crash in his self-confidence that took months to recover from. The singer discussed the aftermath of the band's first live shows in over seven years during a wide-ranging conversation with Harry Styles for Rolling Stone.
Radiohead announced their return to the stage in September of last year, marking their first performances together since 2018. The band went on to play 20 arena dates across Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen and Berlin in November and December. While Yorke described the shows themselves as «really fun» in the moment, he said his response afterward was far more difficult.
«After the Radiohead tour – even though in the middle of it, it was really fun – my response to it afterwards was to crash, like massively crash, in terms of self-confidence,» Yorke told Styles. «It took me months. It took me starting on my own record again two months later to go, ‘Oh, OK. I’m good now. I’m fine.’ I just have a really odd relationship with it. And I’ve just grown used to that.»
The conversation also touched on Yorke's discomfort with being honored for his past work. Styles presented him with the Academy Fellowship at the 2026 Ivor Novello Awards, an accolade Yorke admitted was «deeply confusing» for him. «I admire a lot of the people that they’ve given those awards to. Some of these people are my heroes,» he said. «But I have a very, very strange relationship to… God, this is really hard to explain. I have a very strange relationship to that element of my work.»
Yorke explained that he finds it easier to believe in moving forward creatively than in celebrating his legacy. «I find it hard to believe in it,» he continued. «The moving-forward thing, that’s what I believe in. That’s easy to believe in, because it’s new. I don’t have to explain it, so I’m happy.» He added that the Ivors ceremony felt different because of Styles' personal tribute, which he found honest and relatable, but that the broader «legacy feeling» around such events can feel like part of a business.
Despite the difficult aftermath, Yorke also recalled the emotional intensity of Radiohead's return. Discussing the opening night in Madrid, when the band walked through the crowd to reach the stage, he said: «All of us, the whole band, were like, ‘OK, keep it together. Keep it together.’ Because I wanted to burst into tears, and we hadn’t even played a note. I hadn’t been exposed to whatever that was for so long, and to walk through the middle of it… I mean, all of us, we were like, ‘Holy shit. Holy shit.’»
That sense of overwhelming emotion echoed comments Yorke made at the Ivors earlier this year, when he described the comeback tour as «overwhelming» but added: «I’m really, really glad we did it.» He also revealed at the time that he was working with producer Sam Petts-Davies on a new solo album, which he described as «pretty fucking different» for him.
Radiohead have not returned to the studio together, however. «We haven’t worked. We haven’t been in the studio together for a long time, so I don’t know how it would actually feel now,» Yorke said. The band will nevertheless continue their live reunion in 2027, having announced 21 shows across Australia and Japan.
The reunion tour was met with widespread critical acclaim, with a five-star review of one of the London gigs praising the band's «visceral energy» and «generosity of spirit.» For Yorke, though, the experience has left him with a complicated mix of emotions — gratitude for the shows themselves, unease about the spotlight on his past, and a renewed focus on what comes next.