Radiohead have said their failure to make the shortlist for the Barclaycard Mercury Prize “isn’t a huge disappointment”.
The band’s recent album ‘The King Of Limbs’ was their first since 2000 LP ‘Kid A’ not to receive a nomination. They have never won the prize.
“It would sound churlish to say we don’t care,” drummer Philip Selway admitted. “But when we were putting out ‘The King Of Limbs’ we knew it probably wasn’t our most immediate record.”
“It was important for us to make that record in that way but it wasn’t put out with a view to getting Mercury nomination. So not being nominated isn’t a huge disappointment really.”
The sticksman also responded to recent comments made by Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis after he said it “may only have three years left”.
“That would be an enormous shame,” Selway added. “It gets better year on year. I know there’s a fallow year next year and one planned for the year after but I’d be surprised if that was it.”
“Maybe it’s like when they said they’d take Heinz salad cream off the market and then didn’t, just to get people’s interest up, or [BBC] 6 Music.”
He denied that the band had any plans to play the festival in 2013 despite the fact they recently posted they couldn’t “wait to play it again soon” on their official website Radiohead.com/deadairspace.
Selway has set the release date for his new EP ‘Running Blind’, as this coming Monday (July 25).
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