Radiohead's Philip Selway Brings 'Warmth' on Solo Debut

While Radiohead fans have certainly had their hands full scouring for any new information regarding the progress of the band's 8th studio album, the first offering from drummer Philip Selway is about to hit shelves. Surprisingly, it's not a percussion-based record -- dubbed 'Familial',' Selway's solo debut sees the soft-spoken lad exploring his own voice in a singer-songwriter vein. As he tells Spinner, he drew inspiration from records by the likes of the Cocteau Twins and Will Oldham, albums that he describes as "pillow-talk records."

"I always really loved records that wrap you up in a way and you can almost live in them, records that you can just be in the middle of it and you feel better for being in the middle of it," Selway tells Spinner. "That's the kind of record I aspire to."

Tackling lyrics and finding a unique voice -- two hallmarks of a good singer-songwriter -- are relatively new endeavors for Selway, something he's just starting to feel comfortable about presenting. 'Familial' isn't necessarily autobiographical in a storytelling way -- as Selway reveals, it's more about true-life sentiments.

"It was when I was approaching 40, so it was bound up in all those life changes," he explains. "You're looking backwards and looking ahead. There are all those senses of these very significant relationships around you that you know, your immediate family or colleagues you've worked with for a very long time. All these relationships, you know with great complexity and richness to them and the way they shape you and I suppose the impact you have on them as well. For me, it was taking the emotional response to that out of them and trying to put that into songs and, without sounding overly sentimental, taking the warm fact of that."

Indeed, Selway's gunning for a new sound that his bandmates Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood haven't explored in their non-Radiohead projects. "That's really wanted to kind of underpin the record was that -- the warmth."

'Familial' is out Aug. 31 on Nonesuch Records.