Demo tape from Radiohead members’ teenage band goes on sale

Band met in secondary school and formed a group called On a Friday

A cassette demo featuring unheard songs from Radiohead’s early school band is to be put up for auction.

Radiohead members Thom Yorke, Jonny and Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway met while at school in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, where they formed a band originally called On a Friday.

The band produced a demo tape in cassette format that featured six tracks, three of which are previously unheard.

The new tracks are titled “Promise Me”, “Boy in a Box” and “These Chains”. They were recorded in 1988, between the band leaving school and signing to EMI Records in 1991.

The tape also features handwritten notes and a label design by Yorke.

Album art drawn by Yorke himself (PA)

The item is being sold by an old friend of the band who was given the tape by a member in the early 1990s.

“The tracks are raw but certainly suggest something of the fantastic potential that the band would realise in a few years’ time,” auctioneer Paul Fairweather said.

The cassette is part of an online punk and indie auction on 26 January at Omega Auctions and is expected to sell for £2,000.