Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood (born November 5, 1971) is a BAFTA- and Grammy-nominated musician and composer-in-residence for the BBC, best known as a member of English band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist and also serves as the band's lead guitarist. He is the younger brother of fellow Radiohead member Colin Greenwood. In addition to guitar he plays viola, organ, piano, xylophone, glockenspiel, ondes Martenot, banjo, harmonica and drums. He also does work on the electronic side of Radiohead, working on computer-generated sounds and sampling. He was ranked number 59 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Greenwood had recently started university when Radiohead predecessor On A Friday signed a recording contract with EMI in 1991. He left university shortly after. While Greenwood is the only member of Radiohead to have been classically trained on any instrument (he took viola lessons as a child), he is also the only band member without a university degree.
Greenwood's influence on Radiohead's recording and writing can be heard in many songs, as he usually takes the traditional lead-guitarist role. For a while, Greenwood wore an arm brace due to a repetitive strain injury attributed to his "aggressive" way of playing the instrument. He often still wears the brace. He has said that "It's like taping up your fingers before a boxing match."
Greenwood is often credited as the second major influence on songwriting in Radiohead, next to Thom Yorke. He wrote the music for the closing tracks of OK Computer and Hail to the Thief, the slow, jazzy rock song "The Tourist" and "A Wolf at the Door", respectively. He also wrote the intro, chorus and outro sections of the song "Subterranean Homesick Alien" from the OK Computer album. According to Yorke the track "Just" from The Bends was "a competition by me and Jonny to get as many chords as possible into a song". An example of Greenwood's versatility is his use of the Ondes Martenot, which is featured on songs such as "The National Anthem" and "How to Disappear Completely" from the album Kid A, and "Pyramid Song" and "Dollars and Cents" from the album Amnesiac. The song "Where I End and You Begin" from Hail to the Thief, which also features the instrument, was dedicated to the memory of Jeanne Loriod, a pioneer of the Ondes.
Greenwood and Yorke also collaborated on the song "Arpeggi" which is a piece in a classical style centered around arpeggios for voice, Ondes, and orchestra. It was performed with the London Sinfonietta and Arab Orchestra of Nazareth at the Ether Festival in March 2005; the song would later be adapted for the full band to play in 2006, rearranged for guitar. A studio version (closer to the full band version than the orchestral version) appeared on the album In Rainbows as "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi".
In 2003, Greenwood released his first solo album, Bodysong (2003), the soundtrack for the movie of the same title by filmmaker Simon Pummell. Bodysong also features contributions from his brother Colin on bass.
Jonny Greenwood was hired by the BBC as its composer in residence in May 2004, a job which gave him the opportunity to compose several pieces for symphony orchestra, piano and/or Ondes Martenot: smear, Piano for Children and Popcorn Superhet Receiver. smear premiered in 2004, and on 23 April 2005 Greenwood premiered his new work commissioned by BBC Radio 3, with music performed live by the BBC Concert Orchestra in London. The printed music for smear and Popcorn Superhet Receiver are available from Faber Music Ltd in London. smear has also been recorded by the London Sinfonietta conducted by Martyn Brabbins and is Greenwood's recorded debut in the genre.
Greenwood won the Radio 3 Listeners' Award at the 2006 BBC British Composer Awards for his piece, "Popcorn Superhet Receiver". The piece was inspired by radio static and the extended, dissonant chords of Polish composer Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima", it can be streamed from a BBC website. Upon winning the award Greenwood received £10,000 from the PRS Foundation towards a commission for a new orchestral work.
A fan of dub reggae, Greenwood released a compilation in collaboration with Trojan Records, entitled Jonny Greenwood Is The Controller in March 2007. This is the latest in Trojan’s Artist Choice Jukebox series, to which DJ Spooky and Don Letts have already contributed. Trojan Records provided Greenwood with its extensive catalog of songs, of which he chose 17. The title is a play on the first track on the collection, entitled Dread Are The Controller, by Linval Thompson. The album contains tracks by artists such as Derrick Harriott, Gregory Isaacs, The Heptones and many more.
Greenwood composed the score for the 2007 film, There Will Be Blood, from director Paul Thomas Anderson. The soundtrack contains excerpts from "Popcorn Superhet Receiver". His work as the composer for this film earned him an award at the Critics' Choice Awards. On January 21, 2008, however, the score was declared ineligible for an Academy Award nomination under a rule that prohibited "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music." On 4 February 2008 it was announced that Greenwood had won the trophy for Best Film Score in the Evening Standard British Film Awards for 2007.
Greenwood is greatly influenced by jazz and hip hop; his favourites include Lee Morgan and Miles Davis. He is a major fan of the Mo'Wax label (onetime home of Blackalicious, DJ Krush, DJ Shadow and Dr. Octagon). Along with other Radiohead band members, he loves Krautrock band Can and Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Although Greenwood says he dislikes later Pink Floyd, one of his favourite albums is Meddle (1971). Greenwood's all time favourite piece of music is Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, a gigantic piece for orchestra and Ondes Martenot, which he discovered as a teenager. According to one of his entries on Radiohead's blog Dead Air Space, Greenwood has recently become a dub reggae aficionado, listening as of late 2005 to little else. In February 2007, Trojan Records released "Jonny Greenwood is the Controller" - he was given access to the archives of the legendary Trojan Records and hand picked tracks by the likes of Linval Thompson, John Holt, Lee Perry and The Heptones ranging from classic Ska and Rocksteady cuts to some vintage Dub and Roots. This compilation was recently nominated by Mojo Magazine as the compilation of the year. He confessed in a blog entry that he had never heard The Stooges' Fun House, although he was aware of its legendary reputation.
Jonny is married to Sharona Greenwood. Together, they have a son, Tamir, who was born in 2002 and to whom Radiohead album Hail to the Thief was dedicated. They also have a daughter named Omri, born in 2005. He became a father for the third time in February 2008.
As well as his iconic arm brace, Greenwood has a hairstyle that sets him apart from other band members. His hair is black, straight, and worn long, cut at an angle and often hanging over his face.
However, while Greenwood is sometimes seen as the most flamboyant and stylish member of the band, he also professes shyness. He is apparently somewhat uncomfortable with the sound of his voice, and did fewer interviews than other band members until recently. A longstanding joke among fans calls for Greenwood to sing, something he claims he will never do.
Greenwood is red-green colourblind.
Greenwood playing a Fender Starcaster.
Jonny currently uses Dean Markley Signature Series 10-46 strings.
In the earlier years he used a Fender Twin Reverb for clean tones. He recently replaced the Deluxe 85 with an Eighty-Five.
Keyboard Effects
Velvet Goldmine
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood got together with Bernard Butler (Suede), Andy Mckey, and Paul Kimble to form the band, The Venus in Furs, named after the Velvet Underground song. They recorded five songs (Roxy Music, Brian Eno and Steve Harley covers) for the Todd Haynes film Velvet Goldmine, which was produced by Michael Stipe. The tracks are:
Pavement
Greenwood played harmonica on Pavement's final LP, Terror Twilight (1999). He played on the songs "Platform Blues" and "Billie". The album was produced by long-time Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.
Bryan Ferry
Jonny appears on the track 'Hiroshima' from the Frantic album.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Greenwood played lead guitar in The Weird Sisters along with fellow Radiohead member Phil Selway, former Pulp members Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey, electronica artist Jason Buckle and Add N to (X) member Steve Claydon. They performed three tracks, composed by Cocker:
