Atoms for Peace (band)

Lore & Background

Atoms for Peace formed in 2009 after Thom Yorke performed at Latitude Festival in Suffolk and realized he could perform songs from his 2006 solo album The Eraser on acoustic instruments. He contacted producer Nigel Godrich with the idea of a band that would reproduce the electronic beats with Latin percussion. The lineup was completed by Flea, Joey Waronker, and Mauro Refosco. After three weeks of rehearsals, they played their first shows in October 2009 at Echoplex and the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles, initially billed as 'Thom Yorke' or '??????'. In February 2010, they announced the name Atoms for Peace, taken from a song title on The Eraser that references Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1953 speech.

In early 2010, the band toured the US supported by Flying Lotus, including a performance at Coachella. Their setlist included songs from The Eraser, Radiohead songs 'Paperbag Writer' and 'Follow Me Around', and Yorke's 1998 collaboration with Unkle, 'Rabbit in Your Headlights'. After the tour, the band spent three days jamming and recording in Los Angeles. Yorke and Godrich spent two years editing and arranging the recordings, combining them with Yorke's electronic music to create their debut album, Amok, released on February 25, 2013. It received mainly positive reviews, with critics likening it to Yorke's solo work.

Amok was followed by a tour of Europe, the US, and Japan. The band partnered with Soundhalo to sell recordings of performances. In July 2013, Yorke and Godrich removed Atoms for Peace and Yorke's solo music from Spotify, with Yorke calling the service 'the last gasp of the old industry'. The music was readded in December 2017. Later activity included a 2015 performance by Yorke and Flea on French television and at the UN Climate Change Conference, and a 2018 reunion without Refosco at a Yorke show in Los Angeles. Members continued to collaborate on each other's projects into the 2020s.

Reader's Guide

Atoms for Peace occupies a unique place in the early 2010s rock landscape as a supergroup that bridged electronic and organic instrumentation. Their significance lies in how they translated Thom Yorke's largely electronic solo work into a live band setting, using Latin percussion to replace sequencers. The band's only studio album, Amok, was a product of extended jamming edited over two years, and received mainly positive reviews for its fusion of Yorke's electronic sensibilities with live musicianship. Their legacy is also marked by Yorke and Godrich's high-profile removal of their music from Spotify in 2013, a protest against streaming economics that presaged later industry debates. Though the band never released a second album, their intermittent collaborations—such as Flea playing trumpet on Yorke's 2019 song 'Daily Battles' and Waronker drumming on Yorke's 2019 album Anima—kept the connection alive. The band's name, taken from Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' speech, added a layer of Cold War-era political reference to their artistic identity.

Did You Know?

• The band name Atoms for Peace comes from a song title on Thom Yorke's album The Eraser, which references Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1953 speech.
• Atoms for Peace's debut album Amok was created from three days of jamming, then edited and arranged by Yorke and Godrich over two years.
• In July 2013, Yorke and Godrich removed Atoms for Peace and Yorke's solo music from Spotify, calling it 'the last gasp of the old industry'.
• Flea played trumpet on Yorke's song 'Daily Battles' for the 2019 film Motherless Brooklyn.