I love being in Radiohead and contributing stuff like that, but if I'm really really honest, for me, there was something that's just missing Evening everyone.
I hope wherever you're listening to this, you are staying safe and staying sane. Tonight's episode of the podcast was recorded in the second week of January, which, with everything going on I'm sure you'll agree now feels like a lifetime ago, given that we're now into April and a huge chunk of the world's population is living in lockdown. Ed O'Brien from Radiohead is my guest this evening, and in recent weeks Ed has been unwell with what he
suspects was coronavirus. He had the symptoms. I was very pleased and relieved to watch a video that he posted on social media at the end of March saying that he'd recovered and was feeling much better. So sending my best wish to Ed and everyone else in fact who's been affected by what's going on right now. Like I said, this midnight chat was done before most of us had even heard of social distancing. Recorded early in this new decade, the very beginning of twenty twenty, Ed has made a
solo album under the name Eob. It's called Earth and comes out on the seventeenth of April. We talk a bit about why he's chosen, now thirty odd years into the career of Radiohead to share this debut and so much more. Thank you to Ed for being so immediately warm and open, especially talking about his experiences with depression and self confidence. I'm sure lots of big Radiohead fans will be tuning into this, and Ed was forthcoming talking about the band, but also I hope you'll get something
out of this, even if you're not. Ed Sheeran, Glastonbury, male rock star cliches, and the age of authenticity. There are his thoughts on lots of other topics during our chat. If you're a first time listener to Midnight Chats, please do subscribe wherever you're listening to this to get all of the new conversations we put out. It's great when
people share links and review the podcast. Normally i'd stick a plug in here for Loud and Quiet, the music magazine, a website we make alongside this, But right now, like so many of us small businesses, we are spending a bit of time just figuring out what the hell we're going to do so. In the meantime, there is now a donate button on the website Loud and Quiet dot com if you do want to support what we do. But on with tonight's podcast. This is episode ninety one
of Midnight Chats with Ed O'Brien. Ed, Welcome to Midnight Chats. It's a pleasure to have you on.
Thank you.
How has twenty twenty started for you? Has it started in relaxed fashion or has it been busy from the outset?
Started off? It was a good Christmas. I if I'm honest, I struggled as we entered this new decade. I went through one of my kind of quite rare patches of being sort of feeling quite despondent about it all. I mean, and now I feel much better, And I don't know, maybe that's also you know, when you feel crap, that
can also be you've eaten too much at Christmas. But I definitely felt you know, usually when you enter a new decade, there's a big fanfare, isn't There's a lot of the years ahead, but there's nothing of this, and I think, you know, I'm definitely feeling what a lot of people feel apprehensive, nervous, unsure. It's been a balance.
Come on, talking about the album that you're releasing, it's actually full of quite a lot of optimism generally speaking. But when you're going through a period like that, do you have any kind of rituals to just get yourself to sort of think more optimistically, kind of get yourself out of that FuG that kind of negative thought cycle.
Well, I mean, I do a lot of things. I've been doing a lot of things for quite a long time that really really helped me. So for instance, a big thing for me that I started seventeen eighteen years ago as meditation, So that's kind of I have things like that, and I ran and do exercise, and I
tried to eat while I've tried to eliminate sugars. There are all these things that you know, twenty years ago, for a long time, I suffered from depression, and I realized that it wasn't like a chronic depression, but it was like this low level depression. And I took out a lot of stuff and that's when I gave up drinking about seventeen eighteen years ago. That was the first thing you got, Oh god, I feel so much better already and then suddenly like, ah, certain foods and taking
out sugars was a massive thing for me. I had this thing called Candida, which some of your listers might know about or not have, and it's it's pretty that's big links to depression there as well. So it's kind of rare that it hits. So when it hits, and it was, it was like going back, it's just And so I think I've got to the stage now where I think it's important, you know, to be a human
being on this planet. I think if I was to go around going, oh, well, you know, it's all okay, it's all going to be okay, it's like you're not really feeling it, you know, and it is hard, and it doesn't matter. Listen, and I keep on saying this, you know, my life and the life that I lived, I've won the lottery, you know, But I do say this, if I'm feeling it, Christ knows what other people who don't have the good fortune that I have and the life that I've lived and the you know. And also
it goes back to the other thing. We are all connected in this. It doesn't matter how you know, how comfortable your life is, well, we're all connected to what's going on, and there's no doubt that what's going on is.
A huge change.
There's a massive This period in history will be looked at as a pivotal point in the history of humanity, no doubt about it. And so you need to feel And for me, it was just like, okay, I need to feel like, I need to feel this. I am genuinely and generally an optimistic person. I do have incredible
faith in humanity human beings. However, there are times when it just seems overwhelmingly shit and sorry to get so heavy, I have to be honest about this, and it's kind of it, but I think it's important because it's important to feel that. I think only through that can you be empathetic and have compassion for people genuinely if you feel that. So when you get this periods, that for me is the moment to try and go for walks, just simplify, you know, sit by a fire, read a book, bok.
I read an amazing book. I was very lucky I've been. It's a book called The Over Story by Richard Powers, which is the best book I've read for years, and it's so prescient it's so now. And that was again the timing of that was absolutely perfect. And I've sort of finished the book, and as I finished the book, my sort of the darkness left. When you say what
are the things? There are many things, and there are many things that I do to stay optimistic, to stay just to stay hopeful, because I think again being hopeful at this time is a really really important thing. Hope is what we need because hope inspires you, It motivates you, doesn't it.
I think it's interesting what you're saying about how you have to engage, because not engaging and kind of pretending it's not happening is to not be part of the solution or move things forward. So what do you do in those periods? Do you kind of do you find you do have to back away from watching the evening news or going on Twitter for a couple of days, or just to sort of have this momentary quiet and then jump back into it.
Yeah, I think you have to be good, as they say, good gatekeeper. I mean I avoid Twitter anyway. I mean I've got a starting a presence, but I first, for instance, if it's social media, it would be Instagram. It just seems to be the energy that it seems to be nicer. So Twitter is a bit of a shit fest, and I just I avoid it and the evening news and the papers. So read the papers, I don't read it, don't read them during the week. I might hear the news on the radio. Again, you have to be careful.
And I went through a period when I realized this sort of twenty odd years ago that I had this depression that had been and it got quite a cute around the time of after you know, the touring of Okay Computer and it was as much as well, it was a crisis in the way I was living my
life and all that stuff. And these things can be I look at them as opportunities as well, Like when you hit a crisis, well, it usually means that there's a reason you got You've got to change what's doing so and I learned then to be a good gatekeeper. I mean, for five six years in the sort of the early noughties, I didn't read a paper, I didn't
see any news because it all became too much. And i'd been sort of, you know, not a heavy activist, but mild activism based to have gone the may daw rallies and I think it was the two thousand and three Iraq war that was sort of the It was around that time that that was the sort of a watershed moment for me, because there's a time when I gave
up drinking. It was a time when I had to and I realized, you know, we'd had the whole nine to eleven thing, and I realized how upset and disappointed I was with our young government at the time and
the politicians and our political and business elites. That everybody at that time, two million of us all and plus those who didn't march, all knew what was going on about that Iraq invasion, the potential invasion, and the Prime minister at the time, Blair and his inner cabal decided that they'd already aligned with George Bush and we all know,
we know the story, despite his protestations, they declared. And for me, and I'm a student as well, I studied politics and economics at university, so I had a great interest in politics and stuff like that. And after that, I was just like, this is shit, this is absolutely bollocked.
So I stopped.
So again, I digressed slightly. I had a great trainer about ten years ago and he said, Listen, you don't help the world by going down your if your energy is crap and you think you don't help the world, So you have to do You have to pull yourself out and do those things that make you more buoyant, make you a human being that can help this planet and where we are.
What kind of hopeful things are you concentrating on? Then? Is that things like looking at the young people around me and you've got a young family, Like looking at school children protesting against climate change and hitting the streets of London in the autumn last year, you kind of do do you zone in one of those things and think, no, I'm going to positive, My positive energy is going to join their positive edgy.
That's how I'm feeling, totally, boy, and lots of things. Black lives matter me too. I mean, for all the crap that's happening, and this is the thing that I and this and it's not and this is the thing, it's not holding onto it. What seems to be what I think, But what seems to be happening is we're going through this huge moment of change and this system that we're all part of, you know, this current economic structure and I'm not going to stay capitalism because that
immediately puts in the anti capitalism. You know, it's not socialism, not this economic structure which socialism has been a part of as well as well as capitalism. It doesn't work. This is the thing that people realize. It's it doesn't serve ninety nine percent of humanity, and it certainly doesn't serve the planet. So I think what's happening is this is the moment that it's breaking up. So that's why you've got all this change and all this chaos and stuff.
But there are amazing things like the Me Too movement, like Black Lives Matter, like Greta Turnberg, like the schools, these things, and this is powerful stuff, and it's got a different energy from say when I was a student. When I was a student, you know, in the eighties, it was on the back of things like the minor strike eighty four. I went to the university in Manchester eighty seven. It was quite a politicized environment, but it was all about the energy. It was really interesting and
it was what I grew up. It was all about a fight. It's all about the struggle. And you know, I used to go on these demos and anti war marches, and you know, I remember great Clause twenty eight march in Manchester, which was the government was going to stop teaching or I can't even remember, but I knew, well, I knew it was anti it was anti gay. So it's I got to stand up for you know, our brothers and sisters, that community. And I think the difference
is now that the energy is different. I mean it's different times, but it was always a fight. And I think when you meet force with force, I've learnt this in life. If you go into a situation and you say, fuck you, I'm going to fight you, all you do is you cause more you meet that other force and it just gets bigger and bigger, and it then becomes all about it's about how how much force have you gotten? You know, if you've got the if you're the government
or your paws me, you've got more force. So that's how it always ends. So after the march on Iraq, I sort of I didn't. In fact, this year with extinction Rebellum was the first time. So however many years, what sixteen years, the first time i'd sort of gone out and gone out on the streets because again I was like, antie this thing, and what did that achieve? What did that march achieve? Absolutely nothing? Absolutely nothing, a
moment of solidarity with a lot of people. I read this quote and it was from Mother Teresa and she said, and it's a very subtle thing, and she said, I won't go on any anti war march, but I'll go on every pro peace march. And I was like, Oh, what's the difference. No, there's actually a big difference, because one is by antis meeting forces force That's where I'd
come from. The pro piece thing is no, this is the vision, this is the thing that I want, This is the and that's the energy that I'm going to direct. Does that make sense? And then I'm like, oh, and I think that's what the new. So when I I went last year, I was like extinction of bell and I this is it, this is and the way they're doing it was beautiful and brilliant and it was I went to see some of them in their offices that were offices, you know, their rooms.
It was really interesting.
The energy was so different and very lots and lots of kind of if I can say, female energy, which a lot of the old activism seemed to be very male and it was stuck in that kind of again struggle fight, and it's different these I think what's really interesting now is the is the activism is taking a far more enlightened form. And you know, and I think the emergence of again fam to what I'm trying to find,
but that feminine energy, it's like it's more enlightened. The guys tend to result to, you know, that kind of you know, again, you look at all the crap that's going on in the world. You know, it's a very basic thing. If you do statistics, it's all young men. It's fucking all men, you know, I mean, you know, I know it's a really obvious thing to say, but you know, after years of studying politics and you look at it, it's usually men. You know that what's going on?
That general who was just blitz by an American cruise missile or whatever or drone, he was a warmongering Iran engin, Who's the presents a man. I don't want to get too much into it, but I am hopeful because I think, actually, again another bigger pictures, the world needs more females. It needs more, you know, it needs more you know, and it has been a patriarchy for thousands of years, there's no doubt about it. But for me, it feels like it's changing and people are waking up to that.
These are causes. Some of the causes that have kind of almost come into that have developed into bigger conversations, say the last couple of years, we're talking about climate change, for example, music declares emergency, extinction, rebellion. These are topics. These are areas that you've kind of been banging the drum for for quite a long time, like in terms of your own activism and radio head as well in terms of the charities and people that you've chosen to
work with over the years. So in that sense, you just please to see some of this rise to the surface and just see some encouraging signs on that front because you were out there on your own, perhaps doing it for a while.
You know, I don't think we were out there on our own. I think it was just bloody obvious. It's just like you just have to have an like make trade fair and all this stuff and green peace, and it's just it's not rocket science. I mean, we didn't discover this stuff. We were just reading about it, and we you know, and you notice what's going on in the world, and you go, this needs to be changed. This seems incredibly unfair, This seems unbalanced, This doesn't seem right.
So I don't think we were particularly No, I just think it's I know, I just feel like, I don't know whether I'm happy. I'm just I think it's inspiring to see so many young people. And I think that is the big thing this generation, the millennials, even in the Generation z's as they call them, and then the kids to follow. They're different and they're you know, and you hear all these cliches about people like saying, oh the kids are they're in But I think there's so much truth in that.
I really do.
They're different and maybe you know, we grew up so I was born in sixty eight. Britain in the seventies was a pretty you know, even I grew up in middle class Oxford, it was there was a lot of darkness.
You know.
You might you know, you might have you had material company, like there was food on your plane and stuff like that, but you didn't have I think emotionally, as a society we've developed a lot more kids weren't your emotional needs weren't met. I came from a split family. Nowadays, if you had split family, there would be concern about the kids, and the kids might even have someone to talk to. Back in seventy eight, when my parents split up, I had one uncle who gave me twenty quid.
And said, I feel you feel for you, Eddie. So I think it was.
But I think the kids nowadays, you know, obviously there are a lot of kids who have a lot of shit, and particularly in the cities and particularly on you know, the ones living below the poverty. But in terms the middle classes, I think their emotional needs are a lot better met. Parents give kids a lot more attention now is, and I think that means that they grow up having a sense of self and knowing and feels feelings secure
in themselves, which we never did. And they don't spend the first thirty years of their lives going around like headless chickens like we are, like fuck, I'm fuck, I'm gonna drink'm gonna drugs, you know what, to fill a kind of an emotional hole, whereas kids now like go, yeah, I don't need I feel good, I'm pretty, you know, and that's great, and that's really good. So I think there's a I think that's a big change. And it
was interesting when when the occupy stuff happened. My wife and I used to we had little kids, so we couldn't you know, but you know, got to know someone and said how can we help? Well, we took down some calor gas gas canisters for their cooking down to
where they were down in Saint Paul's. And what was really interesting like the woman that I got to know, she's like twenty seven twenty eight, and the relationship and she was so cool and and like a millennial and like really like again her energized like it was like you know that horrible thing that people say you seem
wise beyond your years. Well, I knew very few people twenty seven twenty eight who had her kind of wiz to them and her kind of but it was interesting because she has an amazing relationship with her parents where and I talked to about it and she'd go like, well, mean, yeah, like they take an interest in my emotions that like, ah, maybe there's this correlation. I'm you know, amateur psychology.
There the fact that we're going to talk about a new album that you're releasing is not even connected. But it's not all the stuff that we just talked about, because thematically there are many levels to it. There is the personal, but there's also this very much the sense of the bigger picture. I mean, the album's called Earth, right, yeah, so the minute shy of kind of human relationships and the things that are close to you on a day
to day basis, and then something much bigger. There's a sense of something much bigger going on, which is exactly what we've just been talking about, isn't it. I suppose the first question on the subject of the album is kind of an obvious one that you know, having been in the band, haven't been in Radiohead for thirty five odd years now, nine albums done? Why now to release your debut? So no record.
That's a good question because it doesn't make a lot of sense. It should be the kind of thing you're doing like I was doing twenty years ago. I think partly because so I started it back in really twenty thirteen. My kids were born in two thousand and four, two thousand and six, and those initial years of parenthood with the band, I had no other time, and I was very, very very again. Because I mentioned I came from a
split family. I wanted to be There were periods of time that I was away obviously with Radiohead quite a lot of time. So when I was home, I wanted to be home. I wanted to be really present and I wanted to I wanted to roll my sleeves up. I wanted to really do it because for me, when when my son was born, it's like the love bomb going off. It's like everything changes.
I mean it was.
It was just so huge. And also this whole other thing kicked in. It was just like, ah, this fucking music thing. I mean, small potatoes compared to parent And this is my purpose. My purpose is to raise these children so that they leave our house and they can be positive, good members of the human race. And literally it's that and that thing, and it's like that's nature kicked in totally. Twenty twelve, so my daughter was she was six, my son was eight. Suddenly you're no longer.
It's not so much hands on. We were very lucky. After we toured what was it, the album called King of Limbs. After we talked King of Limbs, I'd said previously five years to the guys, I said, I want to go and live in Brazil with my family. My wife's mother's from Guyana. Wife and I have traveled in Brazil. We had a such in South America, and we had such a love for Brazilian music and Brazilian culture and Brazilian the emotion of being in Brazil and the you know,
being in this incredible country it light and shade. You know, there's there's a lot of darkness there. And so we went out and lived there and life was reduced to We were living in a sort of a small kind of adobe house that wasn't much bigger than this room squash, but living next to waterfall, and it was really a diyllic and there was no mobile phone, and there was a signal on there's there was internet Wi Fi, very very slow, like you know circuit ninety ye, yeah exactly.
That was about a ten minute walk away. And suddenly there was all this time and the kids went to the little village school. I had this itch that I wanted to scratch. I knew there was something always missing when I look back on it, like, you know, I love being in really head and you know, contributing stuff like that, but if I'm really really honest for me, there was something that's just missing. And I realized once I got into the whole songwriting things like, oh my god,
this is it. This is you know. I'd written bits and pieces, but not lyrics. I'd written some music, and I kind of got into it more around the time of Okay Computer and I was building up a few tunes, but you know, no lyrics as such. And then around the time of kid A that's when I read my life reached the sort of crisis with depression stuff like that,
and everything just shuts down. So and that was about so ninety nine, two thousand, so twenty twelve comes out and I suddenly go, I've got this time, and I start getting into rhythm of it and I find a way to write. That's the other thing. I didn't know how to write music, you know, I didn't know. I didn't find a method that worked for me. And I found a method.
Is that because it had always been a collaborative thing. You'd never really spent time away on your own building something up from scratch.
Yeah, And I'd never seen the process that Tom had got to when he presented a song to the band that sometimes needed no arrangement. Other times we would hammer out arrangements and parts and stuff like that. I never saw the process that he'd undergone, like maybe he'd started a song three with a RIF three years previously, and just the process of just going back to something.
Oh I like that.
So that one of the things I read like there were use There's lots of good books stuff. There's this book called The Artist's Way, which was actually someone gave that to me and it was really helpful. And the big thing for me was that initial stage of creativity when you're in the flow and it's almost like a semi meditative state and you're there and stuff is coming out.
What I learned was that's not the time to get your editorial heading, because if you start judging at the time, you'll go this is shit, this is shit, this is shit. And that's what I did constantly for years. This is shit, this is not your shit, this is no good, this is shit. What I learned to do was like that initial flurry, I was just whatever I enjoyed, whatever moved me. Bang,
then you can edit, you let edit. At the later stage you go back to you and go, oh, I like that bit, like oh, work on that so you then kind of get back into that state and work on it again. And it was it was a process of discovery for me, and I mean it was completely intoxicating. Once I started. It was I love that moment and I'm not experiencing this, so I'm looking forward to the
next time this. You know this, but that the moment when a song or this thing comes to you and it is like it comes through I'm sure every all musicians say this. Once you learn to let go and you it comes through you and it's kind of like this thing, this dream happens and it's like the potential of the song or what you're doing. You suddenly go, wow, it could be like this, and that's such an amazing feeling because that's like dreaming it up.
It's like wow. The hard part is.
Realizing that potential and fulfilling it. And that's that's I guess the craft, the easier part is, or the most you know, the most way you're fully kind of emotionally charged up. Are those initial stages for me at least, and actually the latter stages when when the dream is being realized, it's the bits in the middle and you're going like how the fuck are you going to get here?
You know? And you do?
You go, well, you know my record, I went into the sonic trenches big time and No. Five six weeks and it's like it's like it's that wading through mud. It's like lack of clarity. Oh, but that's that's the journey.
You mentioned there. You've always been quite hard on yourself. There's a sort of self depreciating quote that comes with the album where you mentioned that Tom's obviously made solo music, Philip and Johnny as well, and you say the world doesn't or the world didn't need a shit solo record from me, So like would you just never had the confidence to sort of to do it? Like what was probably holding you back?
Probably a bit of that.
I didn't have the confidence, that's for sure. If you don't have the confidence, then you're not going to be able to do it. I didn't think it was my play to be singing and writing lyrics. I didn't think I was cape. I didn't think I could I could do it, and I was aware that, you know, there can be a trend of people in bands like Radiohead, everybody has solo projects.
I really really love.
And respect what Tom, Johnny and Philip have done, you know, and you know how amazing is the drummer of band like Radiohead. You know, he's working with a rom bear back. I mean, it's just it's phenomenal. I mean it's a completely different head for him as well, you know, going from behind the drum kit to do it. So I was so in respect and in a way I didn't want to kind of I thought, oh well, if I brought something out, I fucking taint the legacy of not
only Radiohead but them. So I was just like, the world doesn't need a shit record for me. So that kind of held me back for a long time, and I had very, very very little self confidence in that regard. I mean, I'm still not.
I'm not. You know.
A big thing for me was lack of confidence. Is it's a funny thing because too much lack of confidence is debilitating. But I also think that humility is a good thing as well. I'm a real believer. I think I really think that it's you know, all the twets that I met have never been humble, and all the good people. For me, it was suddenly like these songs started coming and I was like we left Brazil with come back to Britain. I was in my shed in the gardeners. I was like, oh my god, I'm feeling
this and then it's a process. I then went and demoed with there Wonderfully in Davenport who works with gas coombs and stuff like in Courtyard Studio in Oxyordshire, and we demoed him and he.
Was like this is good man.
I'm really and it's a little bit different, you know, bringing the whole Brazil and he said you can sing this. I was like, Nana, I can't sing it. You know, I'll get someone. And he kept on saying it over a two year period and then finally the session before I had a week in demoing before we went in a sort of so we're talking September twenty fourteen, the week before Radio had reconvened to make a moon Shape pool. I went in and there was a moment I heard
something in my vocals. I was just like, oh, I like that, and I said yeah, and he said, I've been telling you for two years. I needed to believe it. But for me it was the music and then just doing it. You just have to do it. It's like I'm apprehensive about going out there and playing live. But if it's anything like the way that it's been, you've just got to do it, you know, you just got to jump in there full and you have to understand
that it's a process. And for me, the thing that I've sort of held on to, it's like it's the start. I remember what the start was like with radio Head. Our first album, apart from one song, maybe half a song, was shit. Pablo Honey wasn't a very good album. The Benz was a good album, you know, much stronger. But the way that you can evolve, and that for me is just like I stopped being so hard on myself.
I stopped saying I wanted I wanted. I mean the hard part was I wanted to realize the potential that I felt about these songs. But I also was like, don't stay tinkering away for five six years in a studio to get what you think is perfect. Get what you think is what moves you.
Move on.
And I'm lucky because I got to state an album and I really liked it. I really loved it, and it's like, okay, great, I can move on from that. So I got that place and the fact Okay, this is I'm really happy with this. Took a while to get there, so yeah, I think I was desperately unconfident.
If you played the album to the rest of the band now.
No, because I well, partly because you know, we're we're all in different places now. We occasionally get together for meetings, but everybody's doing stuff. So Philip asked he wanted to he wanted to hear it, so I sent him sentim a copy. You know, everybody's doing their thing, and it's
it's great, and it's all very different as well. I mean, I think what's interesting probably for people who like Radiohead, and everybody's stuff is really quite different, and I think that reflects how different we all are within the space of Radiohead. And I think Radioheaded as a filter for if all five of us, the management always used to say this years and years ago, this will all five of you happy? Really all five of you, not just three, not just one five, And if all five of us is a well.
That's right.
It's interesting because I think through the solo projects in a weird way, when you it's almost like deconstructing radio Head because you can hear people's contributions to the the whole that becomes ahead eventually, and I think that's certainly the case. Now this is the opportunity for people to hear your contribution to Radiohead because through this record, I'm like, oh, clearly that's something that Ed brings when they.
Used to get Can you feel like that's interesting in terms.
Of like filling in the gaps on me about the stuff we've just spoken. So you moved to Brazil with your family. That was a big moment for the sort of crystallization and the beginnings of these ideas. You came home, how did you go about I mean this was worked on part recorded written in between sessions for a moon Shape Paul. Yeah, So the gap between basically twenty fourteen
and twenty nineteen, what happened? Where were you and how did you go about assembling the people that have worked with you on this record?
So twenty fourteen it was kind of like down tools because I'm mentoring a Radiohead cycle. So we started in September twenty fourteen. That record was finished January twenty sixteen.
We go out on tour.
Spring twenty sixteen, and the tour takes us through to twenty well twenty nineteen. It was going to be twenty eighteen, and that's when I said I was going to start. I was then going to do the album. But then, Yeah, what happened was that everybody wanted to do a tour and I said all right, and I had to say stopped making my album to go out. So I got to the stage with a lot of the songs they were all ready to go into, ready to be recorded twenty fourteen, but there was no chance. You know, it's
a different head as well. You know, for me being in radihead and doing my thing, it's very very different space, and it's not I wasn't able to find that. To bounce between the two didn't feel possible. You had to be all in with each one. Different energies, very very I think that's the main thing. Very different energies that are entering two totally different worlds. For me, what I decided to do in that paid Okay, So I can't record, what can I do? I can start dreaming up? Gain
my team together. So the first thing I wanted to do was producer. Who's my favorite producer in the world, Flood? Well, aren't I lucky? Because Flood's kids are at the same school, and our wives got to know one another on they were trying to the food at the school was atrocious for the kids, and they were like there were four or five of them who were this sort of talking to the school about come on, we need to engage with this. So Susan, my wife, was just like, you know,
you know a guy called Flood. I said, well, no, but I mean he's only my favorite fucking record producer.
And it was great.
And I love that this basically started by all school the School Gates totally.
I love it and to me, this is and I want it. I'm glad you pick up. I love the fact it starts school Gates because you know, like I said, my family's so important. I come from this thing, and I wanted this thing. The energy of this record and the energy we made it to be inclusive. It's not an exclusive boys club, it's an inclusive it's it's love centered, it's heart based. So it starts at the school Gates. And he like the Foles record. So this is twenty thirteen.
The Foles record has been holy Fire come out and I love that record. And I said to him, and I was a little bit nervous again I said, I said, someone introduced me and said this is flood and this is it. Oh hi, I said, listen fucking love holy fire. And he always like, well, it's just pop music in it. And we started this conversation and this friendship to her and our families. We went on holiday to Greece together
and he became a really good friend. Our friendship blossomed so quickly, and it was great having somebody who I mean, he's a sonic genius.
The guy.
I mean, I like, you know, that's a whole other thing. Like he's he's on a level of sonics I've never met in anybody else. It's it's almost he's so so talented. So he's got this incredible gift that I've never met
anybody who's like that. But anyway, he to be able to talk to him about, you know, about life and family and music and studios and recordings and bands, and I mean, it's like it's like the perfect friendship, right, you know, And we'd be they would come to New Year, to our house in Wales and we were down by the river talking as the dust stuttled, talking about in telling me about certain sessions that he's done and not.
You know, We've got a lot of stories. There's a lot of history, and we did a lot of comparing about the positive aspects and the negative aspects of music and the industry and everything. So he became a great friend. First of all, I wanted to know what he thought about the demos that I've been doing. So I went to Assaultant Battery in the summer, I think it was twenty fifteen. I was nervous, you know, and sat there
and after about four songs he turned around. I said, he said, do you want me to work with this?
And I was like, fuck yeah.
I didn't even have to kind of like ask him. He said, would you like me to work on this? And then boom we were locked in And so went from there. I mean, the other thing was the personnel.
There was effectively a kind of house band that you put together. Yeah, and then beyond that, well let's start with that. But I do want to ask you about the fact that there's a couple of other voices, a couple of other contributors to the album as well.
When I was demoing in twenty thirteen, I think Random Access Memories staff Punk to come out, and obviously, you know, all the tunes on that particularly, you know, get Lucky was everybody loves an incredible song. You know, obviously Narl Rogers is a big part of that. However, I saw that the Grammy. Someone showed me the Grammy rehearsal footage of them. There's Stevie Wondon, there's Pharrell, and there's the Robots,
and there's Nar Rogers. But like, oh my god, that's on my hockey mo drums and Nathan East on base. So like in my head when I was demoing, I like, I wanted those guys. They're the best at what they do, that they are, and I wanted that energy, that joy, Yeah, that energy and that obviously supreme musicians, but with people like that they bring in this history, but this.
Energy, it's really deep.
And so they were on my wish list and I kept, you know, my natural self deprecating self at termes that I'm not worthy, no, and then I just turned around. I was like, hang, I was that whoa wha, wha, wha, whoa whoa. It's a bit like going to Brazil for seven months. It's like you're in this incredible situation. You're in this band radio Head, and sometimes you forget like how people perceive radio.
So just ask.
They're not gonna, you know, you find out the manager's number. They're not going to turn you way and go fuck off. They're going to like, oh, you're the guy you're playing radio? Oh well yeah sure. I phoned up Omar we were on tour, and I remember we were on tour in New Orleans and I think it was twenty sixteen, and I talked to him. I said, I wanted to want to record I had and I talked to Flood about this.
I said, we want to start. I want to start the record off in Wales because Wales been a place after come back from Brazil. That's a place that I would go off and write and I found it incredibly fertile place. I mean it's mid Wales where Robert Plants has written a lot. So there's something magical about that land. And we've got a lot of friends there now as well. Going back there and Omer said, he said, like I said,
three weeks, I want to get Nathan. Another guy called David Akuma and he said, okay, it sounds that he was intrigued. Nathan was the same and obviously the last not the last person but he was actually the first on my lists was David Akumu and who's an extraordinary musician, human being light and he was the first name on the list. Is that I thought, I need David. He's an extraordinary you know, his producer, singer, everything. I need somebody like that, who knows where I come from. That
was the thing that really intrigued me. Was like, if you had a rhythm section like Nathan and Omar and you met it which is a very you know, very African American, very American, very African American background, and you meet that with this European sonic sensibility, That's the place that I was really interested in. Yeah, and we had three weeks in we had a mobile set up in the autumn of October twenty eighteen.
There are some other people that contributed to the record. The album starts with a track called Shangri La that I want to ask you about in a moment, But it closes with a track that is a ultimately a duet between yourself and Laura Marlin. Why did you approach Laura Marlin.
Because she's the best I mean, and like the mantra became like when I was just like when I had the Dreamist and Omar and David and Nathan were on board, I'm like, well, and that's the other thing, Flood. I had Flood, and I realized, like, why would I not ask the best? So again I was on tour, I sent an email to Laura. I didn't didn't know. I loved her music and I love watching her as an artist.
And she was so young when she started fifteen sixteen, absolutely and she's made six albums, right, I mean, it's extraordinary.
And then so I met.
Up with her, just talked about the idea, and she seemed to be into the idea. It was just a great arm afternoon. She knew Katherine as well a bit Catherine Marx, who was also a very important part of the record. I wanted to bring the team together that had kind of done Holy Fire, so Catherine and Flood and Alan Mulder mixing well, Alan co produced and mixed and stuff, Katherine and Cecil who also engineered the record.
Catherine knew Laura. Laura came in for an afternoon and she did some backing vocals on Mass, but on Cloak of the Night it was and for me, that was the most nerve wracking part of the record because I've got to sing. I'm singing and playing it up with Laura Marlay.
Because of it always like intimidating vocal ability.
Oh my god, I mean, she can do it. She just does it.
I'm I'm a novice. I'm an absolute novice at this game. So you know, she's done years and years of singing and doing this. I in that stage. I'm still learning about my voice. My voice, you know, needs to go out on the road. I haven't been out on the road doing that. So in the studio it was kind of like a bit hit and miss for me.
I think it was good that I was nervous. There's a there's a.
Fragility to what I certainly what I'm singing, and I think the strength and the two voices. I had the words and I had my vocal vocal line and the guitar that I was playing, and just said, you know, let's just see what happens. And she immediately sort of hit a seam and it's just it's just such a I mean, it's again so intoxicating to be able to sing with somebody like that. It's like, wow, you know, it makes you sound better. It's like they say about
great actors. You work with a great actor or whatever is and they said, they make you better, they make you look better.
It's definitely like an impressive team that you put together to make the album, because it sounds like everybody brought something different that created the hole in the end. Obviously. Yeah, the album opens with Shangola. People are kind of familiar. You know, maybe if people's minds wander immediately to shangle
Ou at Glastonbury Festival, there is a direct connection. Tell me a little bit about how and when you wrote that song, and it was pretty much after you headline Glastmary in twenty seventeen, right.
Well, it wasn't headlined, it was I think it was twenty fourteen. We went to Glastonbury and had a we hadn't played, but you know, it just had a glassome is a really important porn a few days for me and my wife and our friends, and it feels like you reconnect with your tribe. That's I'm never happier than four o'clock in Shangri La and it's And I came back and I was I was so inspired by I was still I was so inspired by being there that I wanted to write about that feeling, but I wanted
to write about also, it's not just about that. It's about a personal journey. It's about leaving the shit behind. It's moving forward, however hard that might be, finding the people, finding the tribe, finding the people that you resonate with.
You know.
That felt like that idea, and in my mind I had a it is. I mean, it is like finding the ultimate part of your tribe, your people in the middle of the woods. It's a bit like you know, that whole acid house thing had a profound effect on my generation, me and stuff like that, and I suppose it's sort of it's kind of there as well. I know it's easy to remember the darker aspects of it, but it was such a profoundly important moment in social history of this country. So I wanted to somehow get
that spirit in the music. And the music was quite easy. It was just like it needed to be groove based. And what was great again about that talking about people came to play on when we went to record it. So after three weeks, David, Omaron Nathan it was then down to me and Laura came in in February. The following February, and also Glen Kotchi, who's a Drummond Wilco beautifully came and helped us out and did some stuff
wonderful playing. And the other person who helped us who I was, I was getting bored with my guitar player. I was like, I need another flavor, Adrian Utley. And Adrian is such a you know, an old compadre porter said, and radioheader, you know, of the same era, and a huge amount of love and respect. I think goes definitely goes from must towards them, and I think it goes both ways. And he's such a phenomenal player, and it
was just great. We did a second stint Flood Cecil Richie the other engineer, and I had a second stint in whales in this house and I found out Adrian, do you want to come for the night and have some good food and just try some guitar and and it was great. He did some guitar and then him Flood and I just natted into the early hours about you know, about all sorts.
You mentioned earlier, the fact that you are going to be taken out on the road and playing some shows in North America and February. I saw the other day that you'd announced that you were going to be playing Bonnaru in the summer. I'm sure there's more to come.
There's a lot smart.
I mean, basically, it's it's proper touring, Okay, yeah, I mean they just get, you know, tour over here Europe.
You know who's in the band. And how are you feeling about I mean, I'm sure you've started rehearsals already.
I start rehearsals next week.
Okay, so how are you feeling about it? Broadly? And Yeaho's coming with you.
So the keyboard player I've got is Hanako and Maury. She's been playing with Kate. She's phenomenal. I've got an amazing guitarist called Ross Chapman who has deputies for Alex and everything, everything my rhythm section. I've got a bass player, dil Shan Abrahams. He's an incredible player as well. He's come from but he's done some big stuff, big pop stuff. You mean, he was Kylie's Kylie Minogue's bass player for years. And then this drummer from New Orleans called Alvin Ford Junior,
and he is steeped to New Orleans. His father's gospel drummer. I'm really excited. I mean, I'm nervous as well, because again for me, it's it's different type of gig. I'm going to be at the front man, how do I do that? But again it's the start, and I'm just gonna What I really want to do is rather than get nervous about it, and I just I want to
enjoy every moment. I want to enjoy the nerves, I want to enjoy the insecurity because I also think what's really great about this time is, you know, you look at a lot of the musicians. I feel like it's a real age of authenticity. The biggest start either the biggest musician or one of them. The biggest grossest act
on the planet is Ed Sheeran. And if you'd said this twenty years ago that a guy could go out with just his guitar and be the biggest live act in the world, and the kind of the demeanor that he has, it's not like he's Dave garn or Bono. It's very different. And I've got a lot of respect for him. I mean, and I think what's really interesting and seeing Adele's performance of Glasphemy, what I loved about that headline slot was, Wow, we're living in an age
of authenticity. People can be themselves and I think that's really really important. When we were starting with the Radiohead, it was almost like it was like the Wizard of Oz. You had to put on a front, you had to your frontman. Ideally was some kind of composite of Bono, my Stipe, Morrissey, Dave garn all of those. There was a classic. And I feel like it's different now and I think it's a really I actually think in Britain it feels like a really exciting time in music.
I really.
I mean the things that I really that make me really happy about the current music scene. And I'm not in any way a part of it, but it's the whole black British scene. It's like the Storm Sea, It's the Little Sims, It's Dave, all these people, it's like Green Tea Pain. It's like that to me, is like, oh wow, this is this is what makes it. This is what makes it exciting. And I think it kind of it broadens it and it makes it. Yeah, I
just feel like everything's just more open now. I may be completely wrong.
No, No, it's definitely a lot of the kind of old artificts and the things that the kind of the cliches and.
The male it's boring. I mean, I know we kind of reacted against that anyway. And I'm not saying all those people that I've mentioned are extraordinary front man, you know, and Michael was, they're all brilliant, but I think I think they exhausted that generation. Certainly our generation exhausted that possibility. I just find that whole notion and I think we sort of finished it off. Our generation finished off Oasis and Blur. It's just kind of boring. Now guys and bands.
I mean, I'm sure they'll be a renaissance, but what I'm saying is maybe the expectations of how you should be or what you the front that you put on that's boring people in bands making music is not more in whether it's guys. You know, there is great great music, great bands.
You know.
I just think that that front. I think that's what I'm trying to get out. It's the front. It's trying to be something that you're not, or putting a front on and saying, you know, I'm like this, I'm this perfect human being and we're gonna market you in a way that makes you It's like, I'm not interested in that.
And maybe it's because I'm older, but I also genuinely feel like when you see people like Adele and you know, you see Storms you talk or Sims or Ed Sheeran or anyone, people are themselves.
I love that.
And maybe it's because the audience is now they can sniff in authenticity and bullshit a lot better. Anyway, good Night,