Speaker 1: I love being in Radiohead and contributing stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but if I'm really really honest, for me, there was
Speaker 1: something that's just missing Evening everyone.
Speaker 2: I hope wherever you're listening to this, you are staying
Speaker 2: safe and staying sane. Tonight's episode of the podcast was
Speaker 2: recorded in the second week of January, which, with everything
Speaker 2: going on I'm sure you'll agree now feels like a
Speaker 2: lifetime ago, given that we're now into April and a
Speaker 2: huge chunk of the world's population is living in lockdown.
Speaker 2: Ed O'Brien from Radiohead is my guest this evening, and
Speaker 2: in recent weeks Ed has been unwell with what he
Speaker 2: suspects was coronavirus. He had the symptoms. I was very
Speaker 2: pleased and relieved to watch a video that he posted
Speaker 2: on social media at the end of March saying that
Speaker 2: he'd recovered and was feeling much better. So sending my
Speaker 2: best wish to Ed and everyone else in fact who's
Speaker 2: been affected by what's going on right now. Like I said,
Speaker 2: this midnight chat was done before most of us had
Speaker 2: even heard of social distancing. Recorded early in this new decade,
Speaker 2: the very beginning of twenty twenty, Ed has made a
Speaker 2: solo album under the name Eob. It's called Earth and
Speaker 2: comes out on the seventeenth of April. We talk a
Speaker 2: bit about why he's chosen, now thirty odd years into
Speaker 2: the career of Radiohead to share this debut and so
Speaker 2: much more. Thank you to Ed for being so immediately
Speaker 2: warm and open, especially talking about his experiences with depression
Speaker 2: and self confidence. I'm sure lots of big Radiohead fans
Speaker 2: will be tuning into this, and Ed was forthcoming talking
Speaker 2: about the band, but also I hope you'll get something
Speaker 2: out of this, even if you're not. Ed Sheeran, Glastonbury,
Speaker 2: male rock star cliches, and the age of authenticity. There
Speaker 2: are his thoughts on lots of other topics during our chat.
Speaker 2: If you're a first time listener to Midnight Chats, please
Speaker 2: do subscribe wherever you're listening to this to get all
Speaker 2: of the new conversations we put out. It's great when
Speaker 2: people share links and review the podcast. Normally i'd stick
Speaker 2: a plug in here for Loud and Quiet, the music magazine,
Speaker 2: a website we make alongside this, But right now, like
Speaker 2: so many of us small businesses, we are spending a
Speaker 2: bit of time just figuring out what the hell we're
Speaker 2: going to do so. In the meantime, there is now
Speaker 2: a donate button on the website Loud and Quiet dot
Speaker 2: com if you do want to support what we do.
Speaker 2: But on with tonight's podcast. This is episode ninety one
Speaker 2: of Midnight Chats with Ed O'Brien. Ed, Welcome to Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: How has twenty twenty started for you? Has it started
Speaker 2: in relaxed fashion or has it been busy from the outset?
Speaker 1: Started off? It was a good Christmas. I if I'm honest,
Speaker 1: I struggled as we entered this new decade. I went
Speaker 1: through one of my kind of quite rare patches of
Speaker 1: being sort of feeling quite despondent about it all. I mean,
Speaker 1: and now I feel much better, And I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe that's also you know, when you feel crap, that
Speaker 1: can also be you've eaten too much at Christmas. But
Speaker 1: I definitely felt you know, usually when you enter a
Speaker 1: new decade, there's a big fanfare, isn't There's a lot
Speaker 1: of the years ahead, but there's nothing of this, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I'm definitely feeling what a lot
Speaker 1: of people feel apprehensive, nervous, unsure. It's been a balance.
Speaker 2: Come on, talking about the album that you're releasing, it's
Speaker 2: actually full of quite a lot of optimism generally speaking.
Speaker 2: But when you're going through a period like that, do
Speaker 2: you have any kind of rituals to just get yourself
Speaker 2: to sort of think more optimistically, kind of get yourself
Speaker 2: out of that FuG that kind of negative thought cycle.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I do a lot of things. I've
Speaker 1: been doing a lot of things for quite a long
Speaker 1: time that really really helped me. So for instance, a
Speaker 1: big thing for me that I started seventeen eighteen years
Speaker 1: ago as meditation, So that's kind of I have things
Speaker 1: like that, and I ran and do exercise, and I
Speaker 1: tried to eat while I've tried to eliminate sugars. There
Speaker 1: are all these things that you know, twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: for a long time, I suffered from depression, and I
Speaker 1: realized that it wasn't like a chronic depression, but it
Speaker 1: was like this low level depression. And I took out
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff and that's when I gave up
Speaker 1: drinking about seventeen eighteen years ago. That was the first
Speaker 1: thing you got, Oh god, I feel so much better
Speaker 1: already and then suddenly like, ah, certain foods and taking
Speaker 1: out sugars was a massive thing for me. I had
Speaker 1: this thing called Candida, which some of your listers might
Speaker 1: know about or not have, and it's it's pretty that's
Speaker 1: big links to depression there as well. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of rare that it hits. So when it hits, and
Speaker 1: it was, it was like going back, it's just And
Speaker 1: so I think I've got to the stage now where
Speaker 1: I think it's important, you know, to be a human
Speaker 1: being on this planet. I think if I was to
Speaker 1: go around going, oh, well, you know, it's all okay,
Speaker 1: it's all going to be okay, it's like you're not
Speaker 1: really feeling it, you know, and it is hard, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Listen, and I keep on saying this,
Speaker 1: you know, my life and the life that I lived,
Speaker 1: I've won the lottery, you know, But I do say this,
Speaker 1: if I'm feeling it, Christ knows what other people who
Speaker 1: don't have the good fortune that I have and the
Speaker 1: life that I've lived and the you know. And also
Speaker 1: it goes back to the other thing. We are all
Speaker 1: connected in this. It doesn't matter how you know, how
Speaker 1: comfortable your life is, well, we're all connected to what's
Speaker 1: going on, and there's no doubt that what's going on is.
Speaker 3: A huge change.
Speaker 1: There's a massive This period in history will be looked
Speaker 1: at as a pivotal point in the history of humanity,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. And so you need to feel
Speaker 1: And for me, it was just like, okay, I need
Speaker 1: to feel like, I need to feel this. I am
Speaker 1: genuinely and generally an optimistic person. I do have incredible
Speaker 1: faith in humanity human beings. However, there are times when
Speaker 1: it just seems overwhelmingly shit and sorry to get so heavy,
Speaker 1: I have to be honest about this, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of it, but I think it's important because it's important
Speaker 1: to feel that. I think only through that can you
Speaker 1: be empathetic and have compassion for people genuinely if you
Speaker 1: feel that. So when you get this periods, that for
Speaker 1: me is the moment to try and go for walks,
Speaker 1: just simplify, you know, sit by a fire, read a book, bok.
Speaker 1: I read an amazing book. I was very lucky I've been.
Speaker 1: It's a book called The Over Story by Richard Powers,
Speaker 1: which is the best book I've read for years, and
Speaker 1: it's so prescient it's so now. And that was again
Speaker 1: the timing of that was absolutely perfect. And I've sort
Speaker 1: of finished the book, and as I finished the book,
Speaker 1: my sort of the darkness left. When you say what
Speaker 1: are the things? There are many things, and there are
Speaker 1: many things that I do to stay optimistic, to stay
Speaker 1: just to stay hopeful, because I think again being hopeful
Speaker 1: at this time is a really really important thing. Hope
Speaker 1: is what we need because hope inspires you, It motivates you,
Speaker 1: doesn't it.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting what you're saying about how you
Speaker 2: have to engage, because not engaging and kind of pretending
Speaker 2: it's not happening is to not be part of the
Speaker 2: solution or move things forward. So what do you do
Speaker 2: in those periods? Do you kind of do you find
Speaker 2: you do have to back away from watching the evening
Speaker 2: news or going on Twitter for a couple of days,
Speaker 2: or just to sort of have this momentary quiet and
Speaker 2: then jump back into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you have to be good, as they say,
Speaker 1: good gatekeeper. I mean I avoid Twitter anyway. I mean
Speaker 1: I've got a starting a presence, but I first, for instance,
Speaker 1: if it's social media, it would be Instagram. It just
Speaker 1: seems to be the energy that it seems to be nicer.
Speaker 1: So Twitter is a bit of a shit fest, and
Speaker 1: I just I avoid it and the evening news and
Speaker 1: the papers. So read the papers, I don't read it,
Speaker 1: don't read them during the week. I might hear the
Speaker 1: news on the radio. Again, you have to be careful.
Speaker 1: And I went through a period when I realized this
Speaker 1: sort of twenty odd years ago that I had this
Speaker 1: depression that had been and it got quite a cute
Speaker 1: around the time of after you know, the touring of
Speaker 1: Okay Computer and it was as much as well, it
Speaker 1: was a crisis in the way I was living my
Speaker 1: life and all that stuff. And these things can be
Speaker 1: I look at them as opportunities as well, Like when
Speaker 1: you hit a crisis, well, it usually means that there's
Speaker 1: a reason you got You've got to change what's doing
Speaker 1: so and I learned then to be a good gatekeeper.
Speaker 1: I mean, for five six years in the sort of
Speaker 1: the early noughties, I didn't read a paper, I didn't
Speaker 1: see any news because it all became too much. And
Speaker 1: i'd been sort of, you know, not a heavy activist,
Speaker 1: but mild activism based to have gone the may daw rallies
Speaker 1: and I think it was the two thousand and three
Speaker 1: Iraq war that was sort of the It was around
Speaker 1: that time that that was the sort of a watershed
Speaker 1: moment for me, because there's a time when I gave
Speaker 1: up drinking. It was a time when I had to
Speaker 1: and I realized, you know, we'd had the whole nine
Speaker 1: to eleven thing, and I realized how upset and disappointed
Speaker 1: I was with our young government at the time and
Speaker 1: the politicians and our political and business elites. That everybody
Speaker 1: at that time, two million of us all and plus
Speaker 1: those who didn't march, all knew what was going on
Speaker 1: about that Iraq invasion, the potential invasion, and the Prime
Speaker 1: minister at the time, Blair and his inner cabal decided
Speaker 1: that they'd already aligned with George Bush and we all know,
Speaker 1: we know the story, despite his protestations, they declared. And
Speaker 1: for me, and I'm a student as well, I studied
Speaker 1: politics and economics at university, so I had a great
Speaker 1: interest in politics and stuff like that. And after that, I
Speaker 1: was just like, this is shit, this is absolutely bollocked.
Speaker 3: So I stopped.
Speaker 1: So again, I digressed slightly. I had a great trainer
Speaker 1: about ten years ago and he said, Listen, you don't
Speaker 1: help the world by going down your if your energy
Speaker 1: is crap and you think you don't help the world,
Speaker 1: So you have to do You have to pull yourself
Speaker 1: out and do those things that make you more buoyant,
Speaker 1: make you a human being that can help this planet
Speaker 1: and where we are.
Speaker 2: What kind of hopeful things are you concentrating on? Then?
Speaker 2: Is that things like looking at the young people around
Speaker 2: me and you've got a young family, Like looking at
Speaker 2: school children protesting against climate change and hitting the streets
Speaker 2: of London in the autumn last year, you kind of
Speaker 2: do do you zone in one of those things and think, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to positive, My positive energy is going to
Speaker 2: join their positive edgy.
Speaker 1: That's how I'm feeling, totally, boy, and lots of things.
Speaker 1: Black lives matter me too. I mean, for all the
Speaker 1: crap that's happening, and this is the thing that I
Speaker 1: and this and it's not and this is the thing,
Speaker 1: it's not holding onto it. What seems to be what
Speaker 1: I think, But what seems to be happening is we're
Speaker 1: going through this huge moment of change and this system
Speaker 1: that we're all part of, you know, this current economic
Speaker 1: structure and I'm not going to stay capitalism because that
Speaker 1: immediately puts in the anti capitalism. You know, it's not socialism,
Speaker 1: not this economic structure which socialism has been a part
Speaker 1: of as well as well as capitalism. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1: This is the thing that people realize. It's it doesn't
Speaker 1: serve ninety nine percent of humanity, and it certainly doesn't
Speaker 1: serve the planet. So I think what's happening is this
Speaker 1: is the moment that it's breaking up. So that's why
Speaker 1: you've got all this change and all this chaos and stuff.
Speaker 1: But there are amazing things like the Me Too movement,
Speaker 1: like Black Lives Matter, like Greta Turnberg, like the schools,
Speaker 1: these things, and this is powerful stuff, and it's got
Speaker 1: a different energy from say when I was a student.
Speaker 1: When I was a student, you know, in the eighties,
Speaker 1: it was on the back of things like the minor
Speaker 1: strike eighty four. I went to the university in Manchester
Speaker 1: eighty seven. It was quite a politicized environment, but it
Speaker 1: was all about the energy. It was really interesting and
Speaker 1: it was what I grew up. It was all about
Speaker 1: a fight. It's all about the struggle. And you know,
Speaker 1: I used to go on these demos and anti war marches,
Speaker 1: and you know, I remember great Clause twenty eight march
Speaker 1: in Manchester, which was the government was going to stop
Speaker 1: teaching or I can't even remember, but I knew, well,
Speaker 1: I knew it was anti it was anti gay. So
Speaker 1: it's I got to stand up for you know, our
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, that community. And I think the difference
Speaker 1: is now that the energy is different. I mean it's
Speaker 1: different times, but it was always a fight. And I
Speaker 1: think when you meet force with force, I've learnt this
Speaker 1: in life. If you go into a situation and you say,
Speaker 1: fuck you, I'm going to fight you, all you do
Speaker 1: is you cause more you meet that other force and
Speaker 1: it just gets bigger and bigger, and it then becomes
Speaker 1: all about it's about how how much force have you gotten?
Speaker 1: You know, if you've got the if you're the government
Speaker 1: or your paws me, you've got more force. So that's
Speaker 1: how it always ends. So after the march on Iraq,
Speaker 1: I sort of I didn't. In fact, this year with
Speaker 1: extinction Rebellum was the first time. So however many years,
Speaker 1: what sixteen years, the first time i'd sort of gone
Speaker 1: out and gone out on the streets because again I
Speaker 1: was like, antie this thing, and what did that achieve?
Speaker 1: What did that march achieve? Absolutely nothing? Absolutely nothing, a
Speaker 1: moment of solidarity with a lot of people. I read
Speaker 1: this quote and it was from Mother Teresa and she said,
Speaker 1: and it's a very subtle thing, and she said, I
Speaker 1: won't go on any anti war march, but I'll go
Speaker 1: on every pro peace march. And I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's the difference. No, there's actually a big difference, because
Speaker 1: one is by antis meeting forces force That's where I'd
Speaker 1: come from. The pro piece thing is no, this is
Speaker 1: the vision, this is the thing that I want, This
Speaker 1: is the and that's the energy that I'm going to direct.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? And then I'm like, oh, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what the new. So when I I
Speaker 1: went last year, I was like extinction of bell and
Speaker 1: I this is it, this is and the way they're
Speaker 1: doing it was beautiful and brilliant and it was I
Speaker 1: went to see some of them in their offices that
Speaker 1: were offices, you know, their rooms.
Speaker 3: It was really interesting.
Speaker 1: The energy was so different and very lots and lots
Speaker 1: of kind of if I can say, female energy, which
Speaker 1: a lot of the old activism seemed to be very
Speaker 1: male and it was stuck in that kind of again
Speaker 1: struggle fight, and it's different these I think what's really
Speaker 1: interesting now is the is the activism is taking a
Speaker 1: far more enlightened form. And you know, and I think
Speaker 1: the emergence of again fam to what I'm trying to find,
Speaker 1: but that feminine energy, it's like it's more enlightened. The
Speaker 1: guys tend to result to, you know, that kind of
Speaker 1: you know, again, you look at all the crap that's
Speaker 1: going on in the world. You know, it's a very
Speaker 1: basic thing. If you do statistics, it's all young men.
Speaker 1: It's fucking all men, you know, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I know it's a really obvious thing to say, but
Speaker 1: you know, after years of studying politics and you look
Speaker 1: at it, it's usually men. You know that what's going on?
Speaker 1: That general who was just blitz by an American cruise
Speaker 1: missile or whatever or drone, he was a warmongering Iran engin,
Speaker 1: Who's the presents a man. I don't want to get
Speaker 1: too much into it, but I am hopeful because I think, actually,
Speaker 1: again another bigger pictures, the world needs more females. It
Speaker 1: needs more, you know, it needs more you know, and
Speaker 1: it has been a patriarchy for thousands of years, there's
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. But for me, it feels like
Speaker 1: it's changing and people are waking up to that.
Speaker 2: These are causes. Some of the causes that have kind
Speaker 2: of almost come into that have developed into bigger conversations,
Speaker 2: say the last couple of years, we're talking about climate change,
Speaker 2: for example, music declares emergency, extinction, rebellion. These are topics.
Speaker 2: These are areas that you've kind of been banging the
Speaker 2: drum for for quite a long time, like in terms
Speaker 2: of your own activism and radio head as well in
Speaker 2: terms of the charities and people that you've chosen to
Speaker 2: work with over the years. So in that sense, you
Speaker 2: just please to see some of this rise to the
Speaker 2: surface and just see some encouraging signs on that front
Speaker 2: because you were out there on your own, perhaps doing
Speaker 2: it for a while.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think we were out there on
Speaker 1: our own. I think it was just bloody obvious. It's
Speaker 1: just like you just have to have an like make
Speaker 1: trade fair and all this stuff and green peace, and
Speaker 1: it's just it's not rocket science. I mean, we didn't
Speaker 1: discover this stuff. We were just reading about it, and
Speaker 1: we you know, and you notice what's going on in
Speaker 1: the world, and you go, this needs to be changed.
Speaker 1: This seems incredibly unfair, This seems unbalanced, This doesn't seem right.
Speaker 1: So I don't think we were particularly No, I just
Speaker 1: think it's I know, I just feel like, I don't
Speaker 1: know whether I'm happy. I'm just I think it's inspiring
Speaker 1: to see so many young people. And I think that
Speaker 1: is the big thing this generation, the millennials, even in
Speaker 1: the Generation z's as they call them, and then the
Speaker 1: kids to follow. They're different and they're you know, and
Speaker 1: you hear all these cliches about people like saying, oh
Speaker 1: the kids are they're in But I think there's so
Speaker 1: much truth in that.
Speaker 3: I really do.
Speaker 1: They're different and maybe you know, we grew up so
Speaker 1: I was born in sixty eight. Britain in the seventies
Speaker 1: was a pretty you know, even I grew up in
Speaker 1: middle class Oxford, it was there was a lot of darkness.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: You might you know, you might have you had material company,
Speaker 1: like there was food on your plane and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but you didn't have I think emotionally, as a society
Speaker 1: we've developed a lot more kids weren't your emotional needs
Speaker 1: weren't met. I came from a split family. Nowadays, if
Speaker 1: you had split family, there would be concern about the kids,
Speaker 1: and the kids might even have someone to talk to.
Speaker 1: Back in seventy eight, when my parents split up, I
Speaker 1: had one uncle who gave me twenty quid.
Speaker 3: And said, I feel you feel for you, Eddie. So
Speaker 3: I think it was.
Speaker 1: But I think the kids nowadays, you know, obviously there
Speaker 1: are a lot of kids who have a lot of shit,
Speaker 1: and particularly in the cities and particularly on you know,
Speaker 1: the ones living below the poverty. But in terms the
Speaker 1: middle classes, I think their emotional needs are a lot
Speaker 1: better met. Parents give kids a lot more attention now is,
Speaker 1: and I think that means that they grow up having
Speaker 1: a sense of self and knowing and feels feelings secure
Speaker 1: in themselves, which we never did. And they don't spend
Speaker 1: the first thirty years of their lives going around like
Speaker 1: headless chickens like we are, like fuck, I'm fuck, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna drink'm gonna drugs, you know what, to fill a
Speaker 1: kind of an emotional hole, whereas kids now like go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't need I feel good, I'm pretty, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's great, and that's really good. So I think
Speaker 1: there's a I think that's a big change. And it
Speaker 1: was interesting when when the occupy stuff happened. My wife
Speaker 1: and I used to we had little kids, so we
Speaker 1: couldn't you know, but you know, got to know someone
Speaker 1: and said how can we help? Well, we took down
Speaker 1: some calor gas gas canisters for their cooking down to
Speaker 1: where they were down in Saint Paul's. And what was
Speaker 1: really interesting like the woman that I got to know,
Speaker 1: she's like twenty seven twenty eight, and the relationship and
Speaker 1: she was so cool and and like a millennial and
Speaker 1: like really like again her energized like it was like
Speaker 1: you know that horrible thing that people say you seem
Speaker 1: wise beyond your years. Well, I knew very few people
Speaker 1: twenty seven twenty eight who had her kind of wiz
Speaker 1: to them and her kind of but it was interesting
Speaker 1: because she has an amazing relationship with her parents where
Speaker 1: and I talked to about it and she'd go like, well, mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: like they take an interest in my emotions that like, ah,
Speaker 1: maybe there's this correlation. I'm you know, amateur psychology.
Speaker 2: There the fact that we're going to talk about a
Speaker 2: new album that you're releasing is not even connected. But
Speaker 2: it's not all the stuff that we just talked about,
Speaker 2: because thematically there are many levels to it. There is
Speaker 2: the personal, but there's also this very much the sense
Speaker 2: of the bigger picture. I mean, the album's called Earth, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: so the minute shy of kind of human relationships and
Speaker 2: the things that are close to you on a day
Speaker 2: to day basis, and then something much bigger. There's a
Speaker 2: sense of something much bigger going on, which is exactly
Speaker 2: what we've just been talking about, isn't it. I suppose
Speaker 2: the first question on the subject of the album is
Speaker 2: kind of an obvious one that you know, having been
Speaker 2: in the band, haven't been in Radiohead for thirty five
Speaker 2: odd years now, nine albums done? Why now to release
Speaker 2: your debut? So no record.
Speaker 1: That's a good question because it doesn't make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. It should be the kind of thing you're
Speaker 1: doing like I was doing twenty years ago. I think
Speaker 1: partly because so I started it back in really twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: My kids were born in two thousand and four, two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, and those initial years of parenthood with
Speaker 1: the band, I had no other time, and I was very,
Speaker 1: very very again. Because I mentioned I came from a
Speaker 1: split family. I wanted to be There were periods of
Speaker 1: time that I was away obviously with Radiohead quite a
Speaker 1: lot of time. So when I was home, I wanted
Speaker 1: to be home. I wanted to be really present and
Speaker 1: I wanted to I wanted to roll my sleeves up.
Speaker 1: I wanted to really do it because for me, when
Speaker 1: when my son was born, it's like the love bomb
Speaker 1: going off. It's like everything changes.
Speaker 3: I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was just so huge. And also this whole other
Speaker 1: thing kicked in. It was just like, ah, this fucking
Speaker 1: music thing. I mean, small potatoes compared to parent And
Speaker 1: this is my purpose. My purpose is to raise these
Speaker 1: children so that they leave our house and they can
Speaker 1: be positive, good members of the human race. And literally
Speaker 1: it's that and that thing, and it's like that's nature
Speaker 1: kicked in totally. Twenty twelve, so my daughter was she
Speaker 1: was six, my son was eight. Suddenly you're no longer.
Speaker 1: It's not so much hands on. We were very lucky.
Speaker 1: After we toured what was it, the album called King
Speaker 1: of Limbs. After we talked King of Limbs, I'd said
Speaker 1: previously five years to the guys, I said, I want
Speaker 1: to go and live in Brazil with my family. My
Speaker 1: wife's mother's from Guyana. Wife and I have traveled in Brazil.
Speaker 1: We had a such in South America, and we had
Speaker 1: such a love for Brazilian music and Brazilian culture and
Speaker 1: Brazilian the emotion of being in Brazil and the you know,
Speaker 1: being in this incredible country it light and shade. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of darkness there. And so we
Speaker 1: went out and lived there and life was reduced to
Speaker 1: We were living in a sort of a small kind
Speaker 1: of adobe house that wasn't much bigger than this room squash,
Speaker 1: but living next to waterfall, and it was really a
Speaker 1: diyllic and there was no mobile phone, and there was
Speaker 1: a signal on there's there was internet Wi Fi, very
Speaker 1: very slow, like you know circuit ninety ye, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: That was about a ten minute walk away. And suddenly
Speaker 1: there was all this time and the kids went to
Speaker 1: the little village school. I had this itch that I
Speaker 1: wanted to scratch. I knew there was something always missing
Speaker 1: when I look back on it, like, you know, I
Speaker 1: love being in really head and you know, contributing stuff
Speaker 1: like that, but if I'm really really honest for me,
Speaker 1: there was something that's just missing. And I realized once
Speaker 1: I got into the whole songwriting things like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is it. This is you know. I'd written bits
Speaker 1: and pieces, but not lyrics. I'd written some music, and
Speaker 1: I kind of got into it more around the time
Speaker 1: of Okay Computer and I was building up a few tunes,
Speaker 1: but you know, no lyrics as such. And then around
Speaker 1: the time of kid A that's when I read my
Speaker 1: life reached the sort of crisis with depression stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and everything just shuts down. So and that was about
Speaker 1: so ninety nine, two thousand, so twenty twelve comes out
Speaker 1: and I suddenly go, I've got this time, and I
Speaker 1: start getting into rhythm of it and I find a
Speaker 1: way to write. That's the other thing. I didn't know
Speaker 1: how to write music, you know, I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: didn't find a method that worked for me. And I
Speaker 1: found a method.
Speaker 2: Is that because it had always been a collaborative thing.
Speaker 2: You'd never really spent time away on your own building
Speaker 2: something up from scratch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'd never seen the process that Tom had
Speaker 1: got to when he presented a song to the band
Speaker 1: that sometimes needed no arrangement. Other times we would hammer
Speaker 1: out arrangements and parts and stuff like that. I never
Speaker 1: saw the process that he'd undergone, like maybe he'd started
Speaker 1: a song three with a RIF three years previously, and
Speaker 1: just the process of just going back to something.
Speaker 3: Oh I like that.
Speaker 1: So that one of the things I read like there
Speaker 1: were use There's lots of good books stuff. There's this
Speaker 1: book called The Artist's Way, which was actually someone gave
Speaker 1: that to me and it was really helpful. And the
Speaker 1: big thing for me was that initial stage of creativity
Speaker 1: when you're in the flow and it's almost like a
Speaker 1: semi meditative state and you're there and stuff is coming out.
Speaker 1: What I learned was that's not the time to get
Speaker 1: your editorial heading, because if you start judging at the time,
Speaker 1: you'll go this is shit, this is shit, this is shit.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did constantly for years. This is shit,
Speaker 1: this is not your shit, this is no good, this
Speaker 1: is shit. What I learned to do was like that
Speaker 1: initial flurry, I was just whatever I enjoyed, whatever moved me. Bang,
Speaker 1: then you can edit, you let edit. At the later
Speaker 1: stage you go back to you and go, oh, I like
Speaker 1: that bit, like oh, work on that so you then
Speaker 1: kind of get back into that state and work on
Speaker 1: it again. And it was it was a process of
Speaker 1: discovery for me, and I mean it was completely intoxicating.
Speaker 1: Once I started. It was I love that moment and
Speaker 1: I'm not experiencing this, so I'm looking forward to the
Speaker 1: next time this. You know this, but that the moment
Speaker 1: when a song or this thing comes to you and
Speaker 1: it is like it comes through I'm sure every all
Speaker 1: musicians say this. Once you learn to let go and
Speaker 1: you it comes through you and it's kind of like
Speaker 1: this thing, this dream happens and it's like the potential
Speaker 1: of the song or what you're doing. You suddenly go, wow,
Speaker 1: it could be like this, and that's such an amazing
Speaker 1: feeling because that's like dreaming it up.
Speaker 3: It's like wow. The hard part is.
Speaker 1: Realizing that potential and fulfilling it. And that's that's I
Speaker 1: guess the craft, the easier part is, or the most
Speaker 1: you know, the most way you're fully kind of emotionally
Speaker 1: charged up. Are those initial stages for me at least,
Speaker 1: and actually the latter stages when when the dream is
Speaker 1: being realized, it's the bits in the middle and you're
Speaker 1: going like how the fuck are you going to get here?
Speaker 3: You know? And you do?
Speaker 1: You go, well, you know my record, I went into
Speaker 1: the sonic trenches big time and No. Five six weeks
Speaker 1: and it's like it's like it's that wading through mud.
Speaker 1: It's like lack of clarity. Oh, but that's that's the journey.
Speaker 2: You mentioned there. You've always been quite hard on yourself.
Speaker 2: There's a sort of self depreciating quote that comes with
Speaker 2: the album where you mentioned that Tom's obviously made solo music,
Speaker 2: Philip and Johnny as well, and you say the world
Speaker 2: doesn't or the world didn't need a shit solo record
Speaker 2: from me, So like would you just never had the
Speaker 2: confidence to sort of to do it? Like what was
Speaker 2: probably holding you back?
Speaker 3: Probably a bit of that.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the confidence, that's for sure. If you
Speaker 1: don't have the confidence, then you're not going to be
Speaker 1: able to do it. I didn't think it was my
Speaker 1: play to be singing and writing lyrics. I didn't think
Speaker 1: I was cape. I didn't think I could I could
Speaker 1: do it, and I was aware that, you know, there
Speaker 1: can be a trend of people in bands like Radiohead,
Speaker 1: everybody has solo projects.
Speaker 3: I really really love.
Speaker 1: And respect what Tom, Johnny and Philip have done, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know how amazing is the drummer of band
Speaker 1: like Radiohead. You know, he's working with a rom bear back.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's phenomenal. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: completely different head for him as well, you know, going
Speaker 1: from behind the drum kit to do it. So I
Speaker 1: was so in respect and in a way I didn't
Speaker 1: want to kind of I thought, oh well, if I
Speaker 1: brought something out, I fucking taint the legacy of not
Speaker 1: only Radiohead but them. So I was just like, the
Speaker 1: world doesn't need a shit record for me. So that
Speaker 1: kind of held me back for a long time, and
Speaker 1: I had very, very very little self confidence in that regard.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm still not.
Speaker 3: I'm not. You know.
Speaker 1: A big thing for me was lack of confidence. Is
Speaker 1: it's a funny thing because too much lack of confidence
Speaker 1: is debilitating. But I also think that humility is a
Speaker 1: good thing as well. I'm a real believer. I think
Speaker 1: I really think that it's you know, all the twets
Speaker 1: that I met have never been humble, and all the
Speaker 1: good people. For me, it was suddenly like these songs
Speaker 1: started coming and I was like we left Brazil with
Speaker 1: come back to Britain. I was in my shed in
Speaker 1: the gardeners. I was like, oh my god, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: this and then it's a process. I then went and
Speaker 1: demoed with there Wonderfully in Davenport who works with gas
Speaker 1: coombs and stuff like in Courtyard Studio in Oxyordshire, and
Speaker 1: we demoed him and he.
Speaker 3: Was like this is good man.
Speaker 1: I'm really and it's a little bit different, you know,
Speaker 1: bringing the whole Brazil and he said you can sing this.
Speaker 1: I was like, Nana, I can't sing it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll get someone. And he kept on saying it over
Speaker 1: a two year period and then finally the session before
Speaker 1: I had a week in demoing before we went in
Speaker 1: a sort of so we're talking September twenty fourteen, the
Speaker 1: week before Radio had reconvened to make a moon Shape pool.
Speaker 1: I went in and there was a moment I heard
Speaker 1: something in my vocals. I was just like, oh, I
Speaker 1: like that, and I said yeah, and he said, I've
Speaker 1: been telling you for two years. I needed to believe it.
Speaker 1: But for me it was the music and then just
Speaker 1: doing it. You just have to do it. It's like
Speaker 1: I'm apprehensive about going out there and playing live. But
Speaker 1: if it's anything like the way that it's been, you've
Speaker 1: just got to do it, you know, you just got
Speaker 1: to jump in there full and you have to understand
Speaker 1: that it's a process. And for me, the thing that
Speaker 1: I've sort of held on to, it's like it's the start.
Speaker 1: I remember what the start was like with radio Head.
Speaker 1: Our first album, apart from one song, maybe half a song,
Speaker 1: was shit. Pablo Honey wasn't a very good album. The
Speaker 1: Benz was a good album, you know, much stronger. But
Speaker 1: the way that you can evolve, and that for me
Speaker 1: is just like I stopped being so hard on myself.
Speaker 1: I stopped saying I wanted I wanted. I mean the
Speaker 1: hard part was I wanted to realize the potential that
Speaker 1: I felt about these songs. But I also was like,
Speaker 1: don't stay tinkering away for five six years in a
Speaker 1: studio to get what you think is perfect. Get what
Speaker 1: you think is what moves you.
Speaker 3: Move on.
Speaker 1: And I'm lucky because I got to state an album
Speaker 1: and I really liked it. I really loved it, and
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, great, I can move on from that.
Speaker 1: So I got that place and the fact Okay, this
Speaker 1: is I'm really happy with this. Took a while to
Speaker 1: get there, so yeah, I think I was desperately unconfident.
Speaker 2: If you played the album to the rest of the
Speaker 2: band now.
Speaker 1: No, because I well, partly because you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: all in different places now. We occasionally get together for meetings,
Speaker 1: but everybody's doing stuff. So Philip asked he wanted to
Speaker 1: he wanted to hear it, so I sent him sentim
Speaker 1: a copy. You know, everybody's doing their thing, and it's
Speaker 1: it's great, and it's all very different as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting probably for people who like Radiohead,
Speaker 1: and everybody's stuff is really quite different, and I think
Speaker 1: that reflects how different we all are within the space
Speaker 1: of Radiohead. And I think Radioheaded as a filter for
Speaker 1: if all five of us, the management always used to
Speaker 1: say this years and years ago, this will all five
Speaker 1: of you happy? Really all five of you, not just three,
Speaker 1: not just one five, And if all five of us
Speaker 1: is a well.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because I think through the solo projects in
Speaker 2: a weird way, when you it's almost like deconstructing radio
Speaker 2: Head because you can hear people's contributions to the the
Speaker 2: whole that becomes ahead eventually, and I think that's certainly
Speaker 2: the case. Now this is the opportunity for people to
Speaker 2: hear your contribution to Radiohead because through this record, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: clearly that's something that Ed brings when they.
Speaker 1: Used to get Can you feel like that's interesting in terms.
Speaker 2: Of like filling in the gaps on me about the
Speaker 2: stuff we've just spoken. So you moved to Brazil with
Speaker 2: your family. That was a big moment for the sort
Speaker 2: of crystallization and the beginnings of these ideas. You came home,
Speaker 2: how did you go about I mean this was worked
Speaker 2: on part recorded written in between sessions for a moon
Speaker 2: Shape Paul. Yeah, So the gap between basically twenty fourteen
Speaker 2: and twenty nineteen, what happened? Where were you and how
Speaker 2: did you go about assembling the people that have worked
Speaker 2: with you on this record?
Speaker 1: So twenty fourteen it was kind of like down tools
Speaker 1: because I'm mentoring a Radiohead cycle. So we started in
Speaker 1: September twenty fourteen. That record was finished January twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: We go out on tour.
Speaker 1: Spring twenty sixteen, and the tour takes us through to
Speaker 1: twenty well twenty nineteen. It was going to be twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: and that's when I said I was going to start.
Speaker 1: I was then going to do the album. But then, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what happened was that everybody wanted to do a tour
Speaker 1: and I said all right, and I had to say
Speaker 1: stopped making my album to go out. So I got
Speaker 1: to the stage with a lot of the songs they
Speaker 1: were all ready to go into, ready to be recorded
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, but there was no chance. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a different head as well. You know, for me being
Speaker 1: in radihead and doing my thing, it's very very different space,
Speaker 1: and it's not I wasn't able to find that. To
Speaker 1: bounce between the two didn't feel possible. You had to
Speaker 1: be all in with each one. Different energies, very very
Speaker 1: I think that's the main thing. Very different energies that
Speaker 1: are entering two totally different worlds. For me, what I
Speaker 1: decided to do in that paid Okay, So I can't record,
Speaker 1: what can I do? I can start dreaming up? Gain
Speaker 1: my team together. So the first thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: do was producer. Who's my favorite producer in the world, Flood? Well,
Speaker 1: aren't I lucky? Because Flood's kids are at the same school,
Speaker 1: and our wives got to know one another on they
Speaker 1: were trying to the food at the school was atrocious
Speaker 1: for the kids, and they were like there were four
Speaker 1: or five of them who were this sort of talking
Speaker 1: to the school about come on, we need to engage
Speaker 1: with this. So Susan, my wife, was just like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know a guy called Flood. I said, well, no,
Speaker 1: but I mean he's only my favorite fucking record producer.
Speaker 3: And it was great.
Speaker 2: And I love that this basically started by all school
Speaker 2: the School Gates totally.
Speaker 1: I love it and to me, this is and I
Speaker 1: want it. I'm glad you pick up. I love the
Speaker 1: fact it starts school Gates because you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: my family's so important. I come from this thing, and
Speaker 1: I wanted this thing. The energy of this record and
Speaker 1: the energy we made it to be inclusive. It's not
Speaker 1: an exclusive boys club, it's an inclusive it's it's love centered,
Speaker 1: it's heart based. So it starts at the school Gates.
Speaker 1: And he like the Foles record. So this is twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: The Foles record has been holy Fire come out and
Speaker 1: I love that record. And I said to him, and
Speaker 1: I was a little bit nervous again I said, I said,
Speaker 1: someone introduced me and said this is flood and this
Speaker 1: is it. Oh hi, I said, listen fucking love holy fire.
Speaker 1: And he always like, well, it's just pop music in it.
Speaker 1: And we started this conversation and this friendship to her
Speaker 1: and our families. We went on holiday to Greece together
Speaker 1: and he became a really good friend. Our friendship blossomed
Speaker 1: so quickly, and it was great having somebody who I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a sonic genius.
Speaker 3: The guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I like, you know, that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 1: Like he's he's on a level of sonics I've never
Speaker 1: met in anybody else. It's it's almost he's so so talented.
Speaker 1: So he's got this incredible gift that I've never met
Speaker 1: anybody who's like that. But anyway, he to be able
Speaker 1: to talk to him about, you know, about life and
Speaker 1: family and music and studios and recordings and bands, and
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like it's like the perfect friendship, right,
Speaker 1: you know, And we'd be they would come to New Year,
Speaker 1: to our house in Wales and we were down by
Speaker 1: the river talking as the dust stuttled, talking about in
Speaker 1: telling me about certain sessions that he's done and not.
Speaker 1: You know, We've got a lot of stories. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of history, and we did a lot of comparing
Speaker 1: about the positive aspects and the negative aspects of music
Speaker 1: and the industry and everything. So he became a great friend.
Speaker 1: First of all, I wanted to know what he thought
Speaker 1: about the demos that I've been doing. So I went
Speaker 1: to Assaultant Battery in the summer, I think it was
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. I was nervous, you know, and sat there
Speaker 1: and after about four songs he turned around. I said,
Speaker 1: he said, do you want me to work with this?
Speaker 3: And I was like, fuck yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't even have to kind of like ask him.
Speaker 1: He said, would you like me to work on this?
Speaker 1: And then boom we were locked in And so went
Speaker 1: from there. I mean, the other thing was the personnel.
Speaker 2: There was effectively a kind of house band that you
Speaker 2: put together. Yeah, and then beyond that, well let's start
Speaker 2: with that. But I do want to ask you about
Speaker 2: the fact that there's a couple of other voices, a
Speaker 2: couple of other contributors to the album as well.
Speaker 1: When I was demoing in twenty thirteen, I think Random
Speaker 1: Access Memories staff Punk to come out, and obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: all the tunes on that particularly, you know, get Lucky
Speaker 1: was everybody loves an incredible song. You know, obviously Narl
Speaker 1: Rogers is a big part of that. However, I saw
Speaker 1: that the Grammy. Someone showed me the Grammy rehearsal footage
Speaker 1: of them. There's Stevie Wondon, there's Pharrell, and there's the Robots,
Speaker 1: and there's Nar Rogers. But like, oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: on my hockey mo drums and Nathan East on base.
Speaker 1: So like in my head when I was demoing, I like,
Speaker 1: I wanted those guys. They're the best at what they do,
Speaker 1: that they are, and I wanted that energy, that joy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that energy and that obviously supreme musicians, but with people
Speaker 1: like that they bring in this history, but this.
Speaker 3: Energy, it's really deep.
Speaker 1: And so they were on my wish list and I kept,
Speaker 1: you know, my natural self deprecating self at termes that
Speaker 1: I'm not worthy, no, and then I just turned around.
Speaker 1: I was like, hang, I was that whoa wha, wha, wha,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa. It's a bit like going to Brazil for
Speaker 1: seven months. It's like you're in this incredible situation. You're
Speaker 1: in this band radio Head, and sometimes you forget like
Speaker 1: how people perceive radio.
Speaker 3: So just ask.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna, you know, you find out the manager's number.
Speaker 1: They're not going to turn you way and go fuck off.
Speaker 1: They're going to like, oh, you're the guy you're playing radio?
Speaker 1: Oh well yeah sure. I phoned up Omar we were
Speaker 1: on tour, and I remember we were on tour in
Speaker 1: New Orleans and I think it was twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 1: I talked to him. I said, I wanted to want
Speaker 1: to record I had and I talked to Flood about this.
Speaker 1: I said, we want to start. I want to start
Speaker 1: the record off in Wales because Wales been a place
Speaker 1: after come back from Brazil. That's a place that I
Speaker 1: would go off and write and I found it incredibly
Speaker 1: fertile place. I mean it's mid Wales where Robert Plants
Speaker 1: has written a lot. So there's something magical about that land.
Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of friends there now as well.
Speaker 1: Going back there and Omer said, he said, like I said,
Speaker 1: three weeks, I want to get Nathan. Another guy called
Speaker 1: David Akuma and he said, okay, it sounds that he
Speaker 1: was intrigued. Nathan was the same and obviously the last
Speaker 1: not the last person but he was actually the first
Speaker 1: on my lists was David Akumu and who's an extraordinary musician,
Speaker 1: human being light and he was the first name on
Speaker 1: the list. Is that I thought, I need David. He's
Speaker 1: an extraordinary you know, his producer, singer, everything. I need
Speaker 1: somebody like that, who knows where I come from. That
Speaker 1: was the thing that really intrigued me. Was like, if
Speaker 1: you had a rhythm section like Nathan and Omar and
Speaker 1: you met it which is a very you know, very
Speaker 1: African American, very American, very African American background, and you
Speaker 1: meet that with this European sonic sensibility, That's the place
Speaker 1: that I was really interested in. Yeah, and we had
Speaker 1: three weeks in we had a mobile set up in
Speaker 1: the autumn of October twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: There are some other people that contributed to the record.
Speaker 2: The album starts with a track called Shangri La that
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about in a moment, But
Speaker 2: it closes with a track that is a ultimately a
Speaker 2: duet between yourself and Laura Marlin. Why did you approach
Speaker 2: Laura Marlin.
Speaker 1: Because she's the best I mean, and like the mantra
Speaker 1: became like when I was just like when I had
Speaker 1: the Dreamist and Omar and David and Nathan were on board,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, and that's the other thing, Flood. I
Speaker 1: had Flood, and I realized, like, why would I not
Speaker 1: ask the best? So again I was on tour, I
Speaker 1: sent an email to Laura. I didn't didn't know. I
Speaker 1: loved her music and I love watching her as an artist.
Speaker 1: And she was so young when she started fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: absolutely and she's made six albums, right, I mean, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 3: And then so I met.
Speaker 1: Up with her, just talked about the idea, and she
Speaker 1: seemed to be into the idea. It was just a
Speaker 1: great arm afternoon. She knew Katherine as well a bit
Speaker 1: Catherine Marx, who was also a very important part of
Speaker 1: the record. I wanted to bring the team together that
Speaker 1: had kind of done Holy Fire, so Catherine and Flood
Speaker 1: and Alan Mulder mixing well, Alan co produced and mixed
Speaker 1: and stuff, Katherine and Cecil who also engineered the record.
Speaker 1: Catherine knew Laura. Laura came in for an afternoon and
Speaker 1: she did some backing vocals on Mass, but on Cloak
Speaker 1: of the Night it was and for me, that was
Speaker 1: the most nerve wracking part of the record because I've
Speaker 1: got to sing. I'm singing and playing it up with
Speaker 1: Laura Marlay.
Speaker 2: Because of it always like intimidating vocal ability.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I mean, she can do it. She
Speaker 3: just does it.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a novice. I'm an absolute novice at this game.
Speaker 1: So you know, she's done years and years of singing
Speaker 1: and doing this. I in that stage. I'm still learning
Speaker 1: about my voice. My voice, you know, needs to go
Speaker 1: out on the road. I haven't been out on the
Speaker 1: road doing that. So in the studio it was kind
Speaker 1: of like a bit hit and miss for me.
Speaker 3: I think it was good that I was nervous. There's
Speaker 3: a there's a.
Speaker 1: Fragility to what I certainly what I'm singing, and I
Speaker 1: think the strength and the two voices. I had the
Speaker 1: words and I had my vocal vocal line and the
Speaker 1: guitar that I was playing, and just said, you know,
Speaker 1: let's just see what happens. And she immediately sort of
Speaker 1: hit a seam and it's just it's just such a
Speaker 1: I mean, it's again so intoxicating to be able to
Speaker 1: sing with somebody like that. It's like, wow, you know,
Speaker 1: it makes you sound better. It's like they say about
Speaker 1: great actors. You work with a great actor or whatever
Speaker 1: is and they said, they make you better, they make
Speaker 1: you look better.
Speaker 2: It's definitely like an impressive team that you put together
Speaker 2: to make the album, because it sounds like everybody brought
Speaker 2: something different that created the hole in the end. Obviously. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the album opens with Shangola. People are kind of familiar.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe if people's minds wander immediately to shangle
Speaker 2: Ou at Glastonbury Festival, there is a direct connection. Tell
Speaker 2: me a little bit about how and when you wrote
Speaker 2: that song, and it was pretty much after you headline
Speaker 2: Glastmary in twenty seventeen, right.
Speaker 1: Well, it wasn't headlined, it was I think it was
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. We went to Glastonbury and had a we
Speaker 1: hadn't played, but you know, it just had a glassome
Speaker 1: is a really important porn a few days for me
Speaker 1: and my wife and our friends, and it feels like
Speaker 1: you reconnect with your tribe. That's I'm never happier than
Speaker 1: four o'clock in Shangri La and it's And I came
Speaker 1: back and I was I was so inspired by I
Speaker 1: was still I was so inspired by being there that
Speaker 1: I wanted to write about that feeling, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to write about also, it's not just about that. It's
Speaker 1: about a personal journey. It's about leaving the shit behind.
Speaker 1: It's moving forward, however hard that might be, finding the people,
Speaker 1: finding the tribe, finding the people that you resonate with.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: That felt like that idea, and in my mind I
Speaker 1: had a it is. I mean, it is like finding
Speaker 1: the ultimate part of your tribe, your people in the
Speaker 1: middle of the woods. It's a bit like you know,
Speaker 1: that whole acid house thing had a profound effect on
Speaker 1: my generation, me and stuff like that, and I suppose
Speaker 1: it's sort of it's kind of there as well. I
Speaker 1: know it's easy to remember the darker aspects of it,
Speaker 1: but it was such a profoundly important moment in social
Speaker 1: history of this country. So I wanted to somehow get
Speaker 1: that spirit in the music. And the music was quite easy.
Speaker 1: It was just like it needed to be groove based.
Speaker 1: And what was great again about that talking about people
Speaker 1: came to play on when we went to record it.
Speaker 1: So after three weeks, David, Omaron Nathan it was then
Speaker 1: down to me and Laura came in in February. The
Speaker 1: following February, and also Glen Kotchi, who's a Drummond Wilco
Speaker 1: beautifully came and helped us out and did some stuff
Speaker 1: wonderful playing. And the other person who helped us who
Speaker 1: I was, I was getting bored with my guitar player.
Speaker 1: I was like, I need another flavor, Adrian Utley. And
Speaker 1: Adrian is such a you know, an old compadre porter said,
Speaker 1: and radioheader, you know, of the same era, and a
Speaker 1: huge amount of love and respect. I think goes definitely
Speaker 1: goes from must towards them, and I think it goes
Speaker 1: both ways. And he's such a phenomenal player, and it
Speaker 1: was just great. We did a second stint Flood Cecil
Speaker 1: Richie the other engineer, and I had a second stint
Speaker 1: in whales in this house and I found out Adrian,
Speaker 1: do you want to come for the night and have
Speaker 1: some good food and just try some guitar and and
Speaker 1: it was great. He did some guitar and then him
Speaker 1: Flood and I just natted into the early hours about
Speaker 1: you know, about all sorts.
Speaker 2: You mentioned earlier, the fact that you are going to
Speaker 2: be taken out on the road and playing some shows
Speaker 2: in North America and February. I saw the other day
Speaker 2: that you'd announced that you were going to be playing
Speaker 2: Bonnaru in the summer. I'm sure there's more to come.
Speaker 3: There's a lot smart.
Speaker 1: I mean, basically, it's it's proper touring, Okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they just get, you know, tour over here Europe.
Speaker 2: You know who's in the band. And how are you
Speaker 2: feeling about I mean, I'm sure you've started rehearsals already.
Speaker 3: I start rehearsals next week.
Speaker 2: Okay, so how are you feeling about it? Broadly? And
Speaker 2: Yeaho's coming with you.
Speaker 1: So the keyboard player I've got is Hanako and Maury.
Speaker 1: She's been playing with Kate. She's phenomenal. I've got an
Speaker 1: amazing guitarist called Ross Chapman who has deputies for Alex
Speaker 1: and everything, everything my rhythm section. I've got a bass player,
Speaker 1: dil Shan Abrahams. He's an incredible player as well. He's
Speaker 1: come from but he's done some big stuff, big pop stuff.
Speaker 1: You mean, he was Kylie's Kylie Minogue's bass player for years.
Speaker 1: And then this drummer from New Orleans called Alvin Ford Junior,
Speaker 1: and he is steeped to New Orleans. His father's gospel drummer.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. I mean, I'm nervous as well, because
Speaker 1: again for me, it's it's different type of gig. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be at the front man, how do I
Speaker 1: do that? But again it's the start, and I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna What I really want to do is rather than
Speaker 1: get nervous about it, and I just I want to
Speaker 1: enjoy every moment. I want to enjoy the nerves, I
Speaker 1: want to enjoy the insecurity because I also think what's
Speaker 1: really great about this time is, you know, you look
Speaker 1: at a lot of the musicians. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: a real age of authenticity. The biggest start either the
Speaker 1: biggest musician or one of them. The biggest grossest act
Speaker 1: on the planet is Ed Sheeran. And if you'd said
Speaker 1: this twenty years ago that a guy could go out
Speaker 1: with just his guitar and be the biggest live act
Speaker 1: in the world, and the kind of the demeanor that
Speaker 1: he has, it's not like he's Dave garn or Bono.
Speaker 1: It's very different. And I've got a lot of respect
Speaker 1: for him. I mean, and I think what's really interesting
Speaker 1: and seeing Adele's performance of Glasphemy, what I loved about
Speaker 1: that headline slot was, Wow, we're living in an age
Speaker 1: of authenticity. People can be themselves and I think that's
Speaker 1: really really important. When we were starting with the Radiohead,
Speaker 1: it was almost like it was like the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 1: You had to put on a front, you had to
Speaker 1: your frontman. Ideally was some kind of composite of Bono,
Speaker 1: my Stipe, Morrissey, Dave garn all of those. There was
Speaker 1: a classic. And I feel like it's different now and
Speaker 1: I think it's a really I actually think in Britain
Speaker 1: it feels like a really exciting time in music.
Speaker 3: I really.
Speaker 1: I mean the things that I really that make me
Speaker 1: really happy about the current music scene. And I'm not
Speaker 1: in any way a part of it, but it's the
Speaker 1: whole black British scene. It's like the Storm Sea, It's
Speaker 1: the Little Sims, It's Dave, all these people, it's like
Speaker 1: Green Tea Pain. It's like that to me, is like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this is this is what makes it. This
Speaker 1: is what makes it exciting. And I think it kind
Speaker 1: of it broadens it and it makes it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just feel like everything's just more open now. I may
Speaker 1: be completely wrong.
Speaker 2: No, No, it's definitely a lot of the kind of
Speaker 2: old artificts and the things that the kind of the
Speaker 2: cliches and.
Speaker 1: The male it's boring. I mean, I know we kind
Speaker 1: of reacted against that anyway. And I'm not saying all
Speaker 1: those people that I've mentioned are extraordinary front man, you know,
Speaker 1: and Michael was, they're all brilliant, but I think I
Speaker 1: think they exhausted that generation. Certainly our generation exhausted that possibility.
Speaker 1: I just find that whole notion and I think we
Speaker 1: sort of finished it off. Our generation finished off Oasis
Speaker 1: and Blur. It's just kind of boring. Now guys and bands.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure they'll be a renaissance, but what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is maybe the expectations of how you should
Speaker 1: be or what you the front that you put on
Speaker 1: that's boring people in bands making music is not more
Speaker 1: in whether it's guys. You know, there is great great music,
Speaker 1: great bands.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I just think that that front. I think that's what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get out. It's the front. It's trying
Speaker 1: to be something that you're not, or putting a front
Speaker 1: on and saying, you know, I'm like this, I'm this
Speaker 1: perfect human being and we're gonna market you in a
Speaker 1: way that makes you It's like, I'm not interested in that.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's because I'm older, but I also genuinely
Speaker 1: feel like when you see people like Adele and you know,
Speaker 1: you see Storms you talk or Sims or Ed Sheeran
Speaker 1: or anyone, people are themselves.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's because the audience is now they can
Speaker 1: sniff in authenticity and bullshit a lot better. Anyway, good Night,