https://www.nme.com/news/music/jonny-greenwood-pretended-play-keyboards-radiohead-3156953

“Thom [Yorke]’s band had a keyboard player — [whom] I think they didn’t get on with because he played his keyboard so loud,” he told NPR’s Terry Gross. “And so when I got the chance to play with them, the first thing I did was make sure my keyboard was turned off … I must have done months of rehearsals with them with this keyboard, and they didn’t know that I’d already turned it off.”

“They made quite a racket, quite a noise. It was all guitars and distortion — and so I would pretend to play for weeks on end and Thom would say, ‘I can’t quite hear what you’re doing, but I think you’re adding a really interesting texture because I can tell when you’re not playing,'” he said. “And I’m thinking, ‘No, you can’t, because I’m really not playing.’ And I’d go home in the evening and work out how to actually play chords and cautiously over the next few months, I would start turning this keyboard up. And that’s how I started in with Radiohead.”

lol damn i sure hope he wasn't just trolling, which is a real possibility too

    • ElGosso [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      We wouldn't be able to be personal references, but as far as being listed as employer references and saying "X person provided Y services between this time and that time" we could probably do, if we had a crafty lawyer write up a good enough EULA that made everyone into some sort of contractor so we didn't have to provide benefits or stuff.

      This would need a lot of lawyering but I think it's doable.

      • Bloobish [comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        I think that there could be a division between immediate references and resume padding, i.e. a way to create a couple references to fill in those BS must have 5 years experience in field but this is a newbie position through multiple different companies or contracting periods.