Radiohead is made up of five schoolmates from Oxford, England: Thom Yorke (b. 7 October 1968), Ed O'Brien (b. 15 April 1968), Johnny Greenwood (b. 7 November 1972), Colin Greenwood (b. 26 June 1967) and Phil Selway (b. 23 May 1967).
The band was originaly called "On A Friday" because they did their rehearsals on Fridays. It is at Jericho's Tavern where they made their debut in 1987. A few years later, in 1991, they recorded their first demo tape. The demo gave them the opportunity to record another tape, and the Manic Hedgehog Demo got the ball rolling for the band.
Parlophone A and R representative Keith Wozencroft heard it, and after seeing the band live at Jericho's, "On A Friday" signed for EMI. They also changed their name to Radiohead after a Talking Head's track "Radio Head".
A year later in 1992, Radiohead released 'Drill' EP. When it was released, it did badly on the charts, and Radiohead toured as a support band.
After releasing 'Creep' EP in the same year the big break come the song entered the Billboard Modern Rock Track Chart, reaching #2.
Even with the single's success, the album 'Pablo Honey' never took off, and the fuss around the band faded in spite of them releasing 'My Iron Lung' EP which received positive reviews.
Radiohead's second album, 'The Bends', was released in March 1995. This album got a better reception than 'Pablo Honey', and the band got a slowly growing horde of loyal fans. However, they had to release five singles from the album before they got a top 10 hit with the beautiful 'Street Spirit [Fade Out]'.
One month after the release of the six-minute-long single 'Paranoid Android', Radiohead released 'OK Computer' in June 1997.
The album skyrocketed to the top of the charts and spent 71 consecutive weeks on the UK Chart, harvesting amazing reviews.
MTV played the 'Paranoid Android' single regularly, and Radiohead became superstars, winning several awards.
'OK Computer' sold to platinum, and it has gained reputation as one of the 90s most significant albums.
Then, things went quiet around Radiohead. They released 'Airbag/How Am I Driving?' EP and 'Meeting People Is Easy', a weird little movie about the band made by Grant Gee, who also directed the 'No Surprises' video. However, the band ran into some problems making the follow-up album to 'OK Computer'. The recording sessions were long and in many ways, the band members had to re-define their roles in the band.
Radiohead's music was also kind of re-defined when their fourth album, 'Kid A', was released in October 2000.
The album went straight to number one in spite of the fact that no ordinary promotion scheme was used, and no singles were released from the album.
'Kid A' was totally different from 'OK Computer'. Radiohead had found inspiration from a lot of other sources, turning their heads to more experimental music. Still, 'Kid A' was a success.
In June 2001, eight months after 'Kid A', Radiohead released the second part of their long recording session. The album 'Amnesiac'. It contained tracks that were made at the same time as 'Kid A', and while the album held songs with guitar riffs, the 'Kid A' experimental sound was also present at 'Amnesiac'.
Their 2003 album, Hail to the Thief, was a fusion of the earlier progressive rock and later electronic sounds. It yielded their best reviews since OK Computer, as well as continuing their best selling sales streak.