The Bends - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

At the start of 1994, Radiohead began working on song arrangements for The Bends. They were encouraged by both the material and their producer of choice, John Leckie, who had agreed to work with them on the album. Sessions were due to begin at London's RAK Studio in January; however, fellow Oxford band Ride asked Leckie to perform some last-minute emergency work on their forthcoming album Carnival of Light. Radiohead agreed to postpone the start of the album's sessions to 24 February to accommodate Leckie. The band used the extra time to practice their songs, but this later proved unsatisfactory to them – Yorke said, "We had all of these songs and we really liked them, but we knew them almost too well . . . so we had to sort of learn to like them again before we could record them, which is odd."

The band found the first two months of work on the album difficult. While they were pleased with Leckie and engineer Nigel Godrich, they felt pressured to follow up the success of Pablo Honey. The band's record label, EMI, had set an October 1994 release date for the record, which later proved unrealistic. EMI also suggested Radiohead should record the album's lead single first. No one could agree on what the lead single should be, so the band worked on four tracks they considered candidates: "Sulk", "The Bends", "Just", and "Nice Dream". The approach proved counter-productive; Leckie recalled, "Everyone was pulling their hair out saying, 'It's not good enough!' We were trying too hard". The recording process slowed down further as guitarist Jonny Greenwood experimented with several rented guitars and amplifiers in order to discover "a really special sound" for his instrument, despite Leckie's belief that Greenwood already had one. According to Leckie, whenever a record company representative or the group's management came to check on the album's progress, all the band would have to show them was "a drum sound or something".

In an attempt to defuse tensions between Yorke and the rest of the band, which had begun over whether or not they should take a break from the sessions that April, Leckie suggested to Yorke that he record some songs by himself on guitar. The group had a tour lined up for May until mid-June, which meant that the album would not be completed by October as planned. By the end of the sessions at RAK, Radiohead had recorded several songs that would appear on the album, as well as most of the tracks that would appear on My Iron Lung extended play (EP). They resumed recording on 16 June at businessman Richard Branson's rural studio complex the Manor. Unlike the sessions at RAK, the group recorded material quickly; Leckie felt the break for the tour gave the group "confidence" in the songs again. The band completed recording the album at Abbey Road Studios in London, where Leckie also mixed some of the songs.

Due to the poor commercial performance of the My Iron Lung EP, EMI decided Pablo Honey producers Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie would remix the album tracks in the United States. Leckie did not realise what was happening until EMI asked him for copies of the multi-track tapes. Leckie said EMI "had been going on about trying to get an American sound for the record from the minute I got involved". Kolderie insisted he and Slade did not lobby to remix the album, but EMI made the decision and the band supported it after hearing Pablo Honey play over a sound system during an in-store appearance. Leckie did not always like what Slade and Kolderie produced, but he has since stated that it was a sound decision to have others approach the music with a fresh approach.