Philip Selway on Independent Venue Week: 'Sybil Bell has created this great community'

“We’d been going about five or six years before we’d been signed at the end of ’91 and in that time we’d actually only played about six or seven shows, so then to be able to go out and play everywhere from The Joiners down in Southampton or The Duchess of York in Leeds and The New Adelphi in Hull, it was down to this network of venues where we could go out and play,” he says.

“It’s very immediate, you build up that relationship with an audience and that consistency of playing as well, and you’re part of this very supportive group of people. The people who run the venues, the people who work in them, kind of without fail are all incredibly supportive so when you’re learning that stuff it’s a really nurturing place to be as a band, and I think we’ve taken that on with us throughout what we’ve done.

“I think you also recognise that they’re really good training grounds for the tech(nician)s and road crew of the future, so you start making those connections as well.”

Selway is full of praise for Sybil Bell, who founded the annual celebration of independent venues in 2014. The fact that there are now more than 300 venues involved nationwide is “testament to what Sybil and IVW have achieved”, he says, adding that “since they started ten years ago they’ve managed to drive a million-plus in ticket sales”.

“That’s an incredible figure in itself, but more than that, they really celebrate the venues and the people who run them,” he says. “Sybil has created this great community. I think 305 venues are now involved.

“(IVW) brings that focus in what would normally be a very difficult time of year for venues, it’s bringing people in, there’s an excitement about it, being part of this nationwide event and also a hope that if people are coming through the doors at this time of year they keep on coming back as well over the year.”

Selway’s first involvement with IVW happened four years ago, when he narrated the documentary film On The Road. “I went out for the whole Independent Venue Week with the documentary makers, so that was me going back to venues that we’d played in the early days of Radiohead and my solo stuff as well,” he recalls. “It was kind of reconnecting with what was valuable about those venues. From our point of view as a band, it was where we honed our craft and it’s the same case with so many artists. But it goes beyond that as well, they’re trainable cultural hubs. It’s passion projects, you don’t really go into those kind of venues for a big fat pay cheque.

“They’re kind of like record shops in a way – you can go there and meet up with people or be alone in the crowd, if that’s what you want, but you get thta sense of connection from them. That documentary reignited my love of the venues as well. It was definitely there beforehand, but going back and seeing behind the scenes, that commitment and tireless passion that goes into it, they’re incredible places to be. And also the relationship with IVW, Sybil Bell and everyone that works there, it’s been ongoing. For this tenth anniversary it felt like a real honour to be one of the ambassadors.”

A new venture for this year is Independent Venue Community which aims to encourage venue owners to open their doors during daytime hours and provide programming targeted at under-served audiences, including early years, young people, the deaf, disabled and neurodivergent, mental health and wellbeing, LGBTQIA+, and older years. “That’s looking access issues into venues,” Selway says. “I’m going to have Kris Halpin (the musician and disability rights activist) playing at one of my shows.

“It’s also coming back to that idea of venues as cultural hubs but actually nothing really happens there until 4pm. You have these amazing premises sat there redundant for most of the day. Part of what Independent Venue Community wants to do is to get other community projects in there using them during the day.

“Part of what IVW is doing is looking at different boosting streams for the venues – that’s a win-win situation, really. Great locations for all these other community groups but also it then provides another strand of income for venues as well.”

While Radiohead are pausing their activities this year, individual members are working on side projects. Selway’s new album, Strange Dance, is his third solo work, and he will be performing songs from during an IVW show at Hebden Bridge Trades Club next week.

“I’m working with Adrian Utley from Portishead and two other musicians, Quinta, a multi-instrumentalist, and another multi-instrumentalist called Chris Vatalaro,” he says. “It’s about half and half of material off the new record and older material as well. I’m so looking forward to playing the Trades, it’s a lovely venue and a brilliant town.”

Selway’s intention with the album was to create “a soundscape that was broad and tall while wrapping it around an intimate vocal”.

“It’s over a decade now since I started doing my solo work and in that time it’s brought me into all these different kinds of collaborations along the way, these incredible, strong musical voices, and I just thinking that with that scale all these voices could have their place in that,” he says. “Fortunately they blended really well.

“It’s been lovely because you build up these relationships as you’re going along and I guess that’s very important to me. I’m still in a band that I was in at school and you get that kind of richness out of those collaborations. These relationships have built up over a period of time and you get that kind of musical understanding but also that possibility if it’s kind of open, you leave that creative space to surprise each other and surprise yourself.

“It was a lovely process making the record. Everybody came in with very open minds, very generously bringing themselves into the studio, and it was wonderful.”

Early on in that process, Selway “sacked” himself from drumming on the record. Instead, at the suggestion of producer Marta Salogni, he brought in Valentina Magaletti. “I guess my head was elsewhere once I got into the studio in a kind of overview mode,” he says. “Also, because I’d been concentrating on getting all the songs prepared for the sessions I hadn’t really been drumming, and drumming is one of those things you can’t just step back into and be up to speed from the get-go.

“I had a good idea of the kind of textures that I wanted and talked about this with Marta, who produced the record, she’s worked with Valentina quite a lot and suggested her. Her drumming, her percussion, her composition is just incredible and when she came in it was like this force of nature coming into the material, making these wonderful beds for the rest of the music to be built on top of. I’ve been really lucky with all the drummers and percussionists I’ve worked with on my solo stuff because each one I sit there and marvel at them thinking ‘I might try that’.”

Lyrically the record addresses themes of middle age. “I’m 55 so the situations and issues around them, the challenges of life in that period, transitioning from a particular place to somewhere else, is going to be at the heart of it,” Selway explains. “I don’t think it’s something to run away from. If you embrace it, there’s a richness to it. (When you do the promotional) photos, each time around you go ‘oh, I thought I used to look younger than that’, but it’s a good mirror to yourself and it’s a very good way to adjust to how you feel. You develop throughout life as well, so I wouldn’t want to deprive myself of that experience.”

As far as Radiohead go, Selway says that plans for their tenth studio album have not gone beyond tentative discussions. “Everybody’s got their own projects that they’re doing – Ed (O’Brien) is doing a solo record, Thom (Yorke) and Jonny (Greenwood) are going to be doing another Smile record, and Colin (Greenwood) has got the coolest gig ever – he’s playing with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis at the moment. That’s going to be the focus for this year but we are getting together and talking about what we want to do together in the coming years, those conversations are happening.”

Independent Venue Week runs from January 30-February 5. Philip Selway plays at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on February 1. independentvenueweek.com.