Jonny Greenwood: Background noise

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood (left) provided the soundtrack for Norwegian Wood. Photos / Supplied

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood continues his solo foray into movie soundtracks. He talks to James Mottram.

Jonny Greenwood shuffles into view, grey Converse trainers squeaking against the floor. A rock star, in the traditional hell-raising sense, he is not. Rather, as a member of one of the most cultured British bands of the past two decades, who turns 40 at the end of the year, he is shy, softly spoken and mildly ill at ease.

According to one of the myriad Radiohead fan sites, he doesn't enjoy interviews "because he feels he comes across as an idiot". He doesn't, by the way. But his body language on stage - head down, fringe furiously flapping as he grinds into his guitar - does suggest he prefers to leave the showmanship to lead singer Thom Yorke.

As close as he may ever come to being a frontman, he's readying himself to talk about his new score for the film Norwegian Wood, an adaptation of the Haruki Murakami novel by the Vietnamese director Anh Hung Tran.

It's his second feature film composition, following his superlative work on Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 oil baron drama There Will Be Blood, which earned him Bafta and Grammy nominations.

Whereas that was thunderous and unsettling, an "atonal drone masterpiece", according to one critic, Norwegian Wood is delicate, melodic and playful, chiming perfectly with this late-1960s-set love triangle about a trio of Tokyo students. It's performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Emperor Quartet.

Though the two didn't meet until 2008, Tran and Greenwood's paths have crossed before: the director previously used Radiohead's breakthrough track Creep in his 1995 film Cyclo (the same year Greenwood married Israeli-born visual artist Sharona Katan, with whom he now has three children). "He had quite strange instructions and descriptions of how to write the music," says Greenwood of his director. "We'd watch the film together, and he'd pause the film at a certain point and say 'Look at [that character's] face here. Write some music about that expression."'

Greenwood even turned soundtrack supervisor, suggesting Tran use German group Can (one of the earliest "Krautrock" bands, whose "slightly aggressive, slightly dark and youthful" sound remains one of Radiohead's major influences). Then there was the question of The Beatles' song referenced in the title (and beloved of one of the film's characters). "I recorded a version of it on the guitar," says Greenwood. "There was talk that they might not get the permission, so they'd need a version of Norwegian Wood." In the end, it wasn't needed, much to his relief. "It's not very good," he whispers.

Greenwood has signed on to score Lynne Ramsay's new film, the adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel We Need to Talk About Kevin. But he is quick to contrast his approach - "long, long days, with no interruptions" - with what he calls "real soundtrack writers [who] have a deadline".

"And that's not as much fun as having lots of time and writing too much music and there not being a panic. I'm happy to write 10 times too much music," he says, noting that both Anderson and Tran used about a quarter of what he produced.

What he refuses to do is label a soundtrack as his attempt at a "solo album", "because it's so wrapped up in the film, which is where I'm happy to be". He looks down for a second. "Which is why I'm happy with Radiohead and then this. It's not exactly hiding behind something ... but it is, a little bit."

LOWDOWN

Who: Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead guitarist and soundtrack composer
What: Norwegian Wood, the movie adaptation of the Haruki Murakami novel by Vietnamese director Anh Hung Tran
When: Opens at cinemas on Thursday

- TimeOut / Independent