<\/p>\n
Radiohead<\/a> frontman Thom Yorke<\/a> has opened up about the band\u2019s extended break from touring, revealing that personal loss and emotional burnout contributed to the group\u2019s seven-year absence from the stage.<\/p>\n In a new interview with The Times<\/a><\/em>, Yorke reflected on the final days of the band\u2019s A Moon Shaped Pool tour in 2018, which ended with a show in Philadelphia in August that year.<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI guess the wheels came off a bit, so we had to stop,\u201d Yorke said. \u201cThe shows felt great but it was, like, let\u2019s halt now before we walk off this cliff.\u201d<\/p>\n The band recently announced their return to live performance with a limited run of 20 shows across five European cities \u2014 Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen and Berlin \u2014 kicking off Nov. 4. All dates sold out shortly after going on sale.<\/p>\n Yorke also addressed his personal grief following the death of his first wife, Dr. Rachel Owen, in late 2016. \u201cI needed to stop anyway, because I hadn\u2019t really given myself time to grieve,\u201d he said. \u201cMy grief was coming out in ways that made me think, I need to take this away.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that while music was a source of healing, it also became a painful reminder. \u201cThere have been points in my life where I\u2019ve looked for solace in music and played the piano, but it literally hurts. Physically. The music hurts, because you\u2019re going through trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n Guitarist Ed O\u2019Brien also spoke candidly about the toll the band\u2019s last tour took on him, admitting that by the end of it, \u201cI was effectively over Radiohead.\u201d He continued, \u201cI enjoyed the gigs but hated the rest. We felt disconnected, f\u2014ing spent.\u201d<\/p>\n That distance eventually gave way to reflection and reconnection. \u201cI hit the bottom in 2021. And one of the things that was lovely coming out of it was realising how much I love these guys. I met them when I was 17 and I\u2019ve gone from thinking I can\u2019t see myself doing it again to realising that, you know, we do have some stellar songs.\u201d<\/p>\n While the band is preparing for its return to the spotlight, past controversies continue to follow them. In the interview, members addressed criticism over their 2017 performance in Tel Aviv, Yorke\u2019s confrontation with a protester during a 2024 solo show in Melbourne, and Jonny Greenwood\u2019s collaboration with Israeli artist Dudu Tassa.<\/p>\n Yorke said the \u201clow-level Arthur Miller witch-hunt\u201d surrounding their stance on Israel and Palestine \u201cwakes me up at night,\u201d though Greenwood said he \u201cpolitely disagreed\u201d with boycotts of Israeli artists.<\/p>\n Radiohead\u2019s upcoming European tour will be their first run of shows since 2018. Their return begins Nov. 4 in Madrid, with additional stops in London, Berlin, Bologna and Copenhagen through December.<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has opened up about the band\u2019s extended break from touring, revealing that personal loss and emotional burnout contributed to the group\u2019s seven-year absence from the stage. In a new interview with The Times, Yorke reflected on the final days of the band\u2019s A Moon Shaped Pool tour in 2018, which ended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2116368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[29110,356288,305286,344939],"class_list":["post-2116367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-billboard","tag-european-tour","tag-radiohead","tag-thom-yorke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Thom-Yorke-Reveals-Why-Radiohead-Havent-Toured-Since-2018.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2116367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2116369,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116367\/revisions\/2116369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2116368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2116367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2116367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2116367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}