Great news for Radiohead fans. All five members of the band just incorporated a new legal entity named RHEUK25 LLP on 10 March. What, no party poppers? What do you mean ‘so what’? Ahem. Allow us to explain.
Sure, forming a new limited company is hardly the sexiest thing that rockstars can get up to these days, but with the business side of things so tightly sewn up and with whatever money is generated immediately under scrutiny from all kind of interested parties, smart bands (aka Radiohead) tend to get the legal side in place before they strike a chord.
Calmer Police…
The process is all part of Radiohead’s desire to exist as a free-wheeling independent musical entity, which places them both beyond the harmful shackles of a big name label but firmly within the legal grasp of rules and regulations that ensure that they conduct a legal and suitably taxed business.
Thus, while remaining as creatively free as a bird, they can let some other entity worry about paying the bills, their HR policy and generally keeping everyone out of prison.
So the establishment of a new liability partnership from a dormant music business leviathan as big as The ‘Head can, with some confidence, be seen as an indicator that this sleeping art and cash-conjuring multi-headed culture giant could be about to once more stir into life.
‘Cos when Radiohead get 'official' there’s always something afoot.
The band (and their associated business advisers and concerns) formed a company named Xurbia Xendless Ltd in 2007, before releasing their WTF all-digital pay-what-you-like experiment In Rainbows.
Three years later they formed Ticker Tape Ltd prior to the release of The King of Limbs.
Spin With a Grin was formed six months before the announcement of re-release double-header Kid A Mnesia in 2021.
And Dawn Chorus LLP appeared prior to the release of A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016.
Even The Smile - the Radiohead-adjacent side-project which Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood formed with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner – deployed a legal entity named Self Help Tapes LLP (with Yorke and Greenwood as staff members) prior to the announcement of the trio’s album in 2022.
Thus, you can’t blame math-rock fans for putting two and two together and jumping to thoroughly logical conclusions.
With legal stuff always previously being the tip of a Radiohead iceberg, the vast weighty bulk of a new project, currently looming darkly out of sight, seems highly likely to follow.
Or maybe they're just messing with us. Watch this space.
In the meantime, check out this unearthed video of Thom Yorke performing at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto back in 1995, which Radiohead have seemingly shared to mark the 30th anniversary of their second studio album, The Bends. He looks so young, etc.
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