Thom Yorke and Harry Styles come together for a remarkably open, humorous, and deep-diving conversation about artistic reinvention, the burden of mega-stardom, and the unexpected power of taking a walk in Rolling Stone’s latest feature for its annual "Musicians on Musicians" series.
The unlikely alliance began with a chance, unbelievable encounter on a cobblestone side street in Rome. Styles, who was walking alone while listening to Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, spotted Yorke wearing a hat that read “Acid.”
"You, to me, had always been that person that I was scared of meeting," Styles confessed, according to the Rolling Stones.
Yorke was equally stunned, admitting his first thought upon seeing one of the biggest stars on Earth wandering Europe completely unaccompanied was: "Where's his security? What the f are you doing standing in the street?"*
That chance meeting sparked a surprisingly vulnerable dialogue about how both artists escaped the claustrophobic bubble of extreme fame. Styles revealed that during his One Direction days, leaving a hotel room felt terrifying until a former girlfriend pushed him to explore London on foot without a security detail.
Yorke echoed the sentiment, recalling how R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe gave him life-changing advice back in 1995: "If you don't care, they don't care. If you're not looking, they're not looking."
The duo also traded low-tech songwriting secrets, with Styles admitting he writes hits on a dead laptop's iPhone voice notes, while Yorke revealed he wrote Radiohead's "A Wolf at the Door" in two days purely while people-watching on foot.
