The artwork were maps of cities that had some relationship with the war against terror. I wrote all the words down then cut them up and put them together in rough maps. “There were using this incredibly limited palette of black, white and five colours and they looked great. “They have these signs on people’s front lawns which say ‘Armed Response’ which is like way further than keep off the grass isn’t it? It’s like, what? If I go on your lawn you’ll call the…? Oh my god!” Donwood started to see the same bright colours over and over again. For ‘Hail’, Donwood was inspired by sitting as a passenger in cars – he can’t drive – and observing the words and colours of signs and writing them down. It is normal for the artist to work in the same building as the band with each band member bringing different ideas to the table though Yorke is the most involved in the group’s visual identity. Radiohead moved to LA with both Donwood and producer Nigel Godrich to record ‘Hail To The Thief’. So I wanted this little creature to be in tears.” And the minotaur? “It’s a horrible creature that I felt sorry for because it knew nothing but how to be a monster. I had this idea that there an empty house and you go up the dusty stairs without a carpet, go into the attic and there’s an old knackered chest of drawers, and inside there’s a box and inside there’s the book”. “I wanted it to be like something that was found. The limited edition of the album came with a hardback book. “’Kid A’ was for me a fucked up phone call whereas Amnesiac felt more like someone had left a really, really long answerphone message,” explains Donwood. It was about some sort of cataclysmic power existing in landscape. The overarching idea of the mountains was that they were these landscapes of power, the idea of tower blocks and pyramids. “I got these huge canvases for what became ‘Kid A’ and I went mental using knives and sticks to paint with and having those photographed and then doing things to the photographs in Photoshop. Following the sparse method of ‘OK Computer’, Donwood let rip on ‘Kid A’. Along with pressure to live up to ‘OK Computer’ and extreme fame, the band were also adjusting to different musical styles. “We did very well with Kid A considering what was going on,” says Donwood.
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