Thom: "I've got sick of planes and what they do to my body. I'm sure it shrinks your brain (laughs)."
Q: "But the bus is survivable?"
Thom: "Yes. Although, every time it judders it reminds me you're asleep in a sort of coffin. Last night I was having visions of how you could be asleep and drive off a cliff and not even wake up."
Q: "Is 'Airbag' off OK Computer about that kind of feeling?"
Thom: "Mmm, 'Airbag' is more about the idea that whenever you go out on the road you could be killed. Every age has its crazy idiosyncracies, crazy double-think. To me, for our era it's cars. I always get told off for being obsessed about it, but every time I get in my car I have to say to myself that I might never get out again. Or I might get out but I won't be able to walk."
Q: "That's a very, uh, acute awareness."
Thom: "I suppose it just comes from being a worrier. But Airbag is also about how, the way I've been brought up and most of us are brought up, we are never given time to think about our own death.
In fact everything you do stems from trying to offset that fear with the idea of immortality. Especially doing what I do. If you're a pop star, all you're trying to do is search for immortality. Or that's the cliche at least. Yet you're constantly a knife -edge away from being killed in a car accident. (Smiles) It's great!"
Q Magazine, October 1997 (day off between Atlanta and Washington)
