00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. 00:00:20 Speaker 2: Ed O'Brien spent the last few decades crafting some of the most textured, expansive guitar and modern rock music, from the fragmented beauty of kid A and Amnesiac, to the experimental layers of King of Limbs, even back to the more straight ahead sounds on Okay Computer. Ed has expanded the guitar's palette, but over the last few years he's been exploring a universe parallel to Radiohead, one where he's at the center. Starting with Earth in twenty twenty, which he released under the moniker eo b and now with Blue Morpho under his birth name At O'Brien. As album's title hints, Ed found himself in a transformative period of the last six years, and not unlike the striking Butterfly the albums named after, came out the other side a new, perhaps even better person, with a gorgeous album to show for it. On today's Broken Record, Ed takes us through some of the journey of making this album, starting in solitude, playing guitar figures just for his own edification, through writing and eventually connecting with a crew of talented friends to bring the songs to life. Ed also discussed this evolution of his playing over time, the impact Brazil's had on a musically in which producer he wishes Radiohead had worked with in the nineties. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my interview with Ed O'Brien from Amazon Music Studio one twenty six. So I should have this test before you go. 00:01:45 Speaker 1: It's all good. I like that. Cool. Who's the that's the Burundi black Wow? Have you heard that? 00:02:06 Speaker 3: No? 00:02:06 Speaker 1: Sounds great? 00:02:07 Speaker 2: Cool? 00:02:08 Speaker 1: I put this together. 00:02:09 Speaker 2: It's the original comes from here. 00:02:23 Speaker 4: Wow, wow, wow, the Burundi drummers, Bruni drummers. 00:02:34 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:02:35 Speaker 1: And then you know about this point. 00:02:37 Speaker 5: Malcolm, you know, Malcolm McLaren, Malcolm McLaren and Adam and the ants. 00:02:42 Speaker 1: Adam and the ants. 00:02:43 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's that's That's what McLaren said to Adam and the answer you got to take the Burundi bee and make put pop music on the top. 00:02:52 Speaker 2: And always wondered if Gary Glitter, Yeah, I mean did he get it from that? 00:02:56 Speaker 5: Because this is fucking glam this oh hey rough can roll. 00:03:02 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:03:03 Speaker 6: Yeah, it's different, but it's it's not sampled and it's not white the bee, but even the hey similar tribal. 00:03:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. 00:03:17 Speaker 5: He's of course persona non grata in the UK. Yeah, discussing great records, that's but the sound, right, sound is great, unbelievable. 00:03:25 Speaker 2: I thought was really corny growing up, and I was going to like, you know, whatever games or whatever and they would play that. 00:03:31 Speaker 5: But can you truck swede black suedead or black skinnhead skinhead? 00:03:35 Speaker 1: That's obviously he was listening to. 00:03:38 Speaker 5: Well, there's something going on there across pollination with Gary Glitter and. 00:03:41 Speaker 1: I think he did. I think he just sampled it. He just sampled it. My oh did he probably? Pretty of course is wrong. Yeah, and Johnny Mitchell did it too. Did you ever hear that? No? Was she sampled that? She she just tooked? 00:03:55 Speaker 2: Yeah, she sampled it, actually Gary Glitter, not Gary Glitter. Burundi, the Burundi did what was that? He's in a summer line? She did it on on jungle line. 00:04:07 Speaker 1: Wow? 00:04:15 Speaker 6: So wal sound true? 00:04:18 Speaker 1: Why so beautiful? It's really why this album is why. 00:04:29 Speaker 4: Through ibs, I need. 00:04:31 Speaker 5: To listen to this record. Yeah you'll you'll dig it here sing the summer loans. Yeah, I don't know, I know of it, but I don't know it's. 00:04:38 Speaker 2: After I didn't really know it too well until recently. It's one of those records. 00:04:41 Speaker 1: There's a lot of records like that. 00:04:42 Speaker 2: Again, I love that, you know, I try and I try, and I try, and I don't know, and then all of a sudden it, yeah, it opens up, opens up. 00:04:49 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:04:50 Speaker 1: Right, it's amazing the gift of the music. 00:04:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, which that happened for I was reading a bit you that happened for you a couple of times. 00:04:57 Speaker 1: Right, Yes, Zepplin didn't really even get. 00:04:59 Speaker 5: It until I remember we were it was that we were touring the Bends and I was living on my own. Came back for Christmas, finished that and I never heard let Zeppelin. And I had a girlfriend and she lived in Monmouth. I went to see her, and Monmouth is the studio where you know, Robert Plant used to live in Monmouth, and I think Zepplin recorded there, and I suddenly, suddenly Zepplin opened up because we were so tribal growing up. I was in like in the alternative goth Smith's and you know, in the eighties, the kids who were listening to Zepplin were all in tenim jackets, leather jackets, and you know, rockers and it was so you just didn't cross those lines, which was such a shame. And then Zeppelin opened up and I still I mean I love Zeppelin. I mean, you know, I understand Zeppelin in a way. I feel it like the spiritual element of Zeppelin, Like, I mean, is there a better big track ever than Kashmir? I mean, that's like that's a spiritual like that's a that's like a that is like a Himalayan track in terms of you know, a peek of musical and sonic power. 00:06:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's why I I re listened to that recently. I hadn't heard it in a long time, and it's just really bugged out. 00:06:20 Speaker 5: You know, that live version that they did when they played that one off gig the Alma Urtican, they did it the in London and two thousand and seven. Yeah, it's fucking unbelievable. I dare I say. I think it's it's got a vibe, it's more powerful than the record. Really, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable, you know, and you know, just yeah, what what a track. 00:06:43 Speaker 1: It's like, it's insane. I have to listen to that. Yeah, it's really good. I kind of avoided. I want. 00:06:48 Speaker 2: You know, I was young at that time, but I was like, man, maybe I can just like gets some money. 00:06:52 Speaker 1: And get out there and go see that or something. It was so it was insanely. 00:06:55 Speaker 2: I had a friend out here who won somehow won tickets through the radio and went like when a full trip that got flown out and why I was so jealous. 00:07:03 Speaker 1: I stopped talking on my things. 00:07:06 Speaker 5: And I wanted to go, but I didn't pull I didn't play the radio head card, which I probably should have in hindsights, was kind of reluctant to do that, and I should have done that. Yeah, maybe i'd still not got a ticket to know that that would have done anything. 00:07:22 Speaker 2: Well you know, I'm sure, well you know, and I wondered too to what degree and maybe you'll know more? And I didn't realize that the UK, because in America was definitely that segmented if you were into alternative music or punk or anything like that, or even like. 00:07:39 Speaker 1: Hip hop, like it was, it was hard to cross. 00:07:42 Speaker 2: Over into like things that felt more commercial or but I want to cut the other way too, Like for those guys if they were like, because the fuck about. 00:07:50 Speaker 5: Radio, I want it I'm sure it does. And I mean, I think, what's what I love about now? You know, a lot of people kind of it's very easy in the current age to be a naysayer about the culture of music and what's happening now. But I see in my kids and what I love is there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure. We grew up with this concept of a guilty pleasure, like I remember having to hide stuff yep, that I loved. But I remember when I was at university when Madonna Vogue came out and I was doing my finals and I was into the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Pixies and the sort of semi hit the fact that I loved that song. But what's great now is that kids suggest like I like that, like that there's nothing that doesn't seem to be those divisions. 00:08:37 Speaker 2: There's really not, and there's a ton of benefit to that. D I think there's some drawbacks. 00:08:43 Speaker 1: What are they? That's interesting? What do you think the drawback to me is? 00:08:49 Speaker 2: You know, I thought about this recently when when like when recent Quentin Tarantino got in trouble for like shitting on a couple of actors recently, or was it Paul Dano, Paul Dana. Yeah, yeah, that was so cruol. It was cruel, but you know, a part of me I started thinking about it. Yeah, irrespective of what you think about Paul Dano, who I think was great and and there will be blood, but it's sort of like, you know, that's the thing about like Miles Davis. 00:09:14 Speaker 1: He used to do that. People just got people are. 00:09:18 Speaker 2: Fucking ground, You're frenzy, you know. And then I started thinking about. 00:09:23 Speaker 1: Do you think people are too nice? Maybe people, I mean, I don't want to see that. 00:09:27 Speaker 2: But sometimes the job is to is to make it is to make it. It's to take a stand and to say how you feel, and to say how you feel. 00:09:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I get you. 00:09:36 Speaker 5: We were talking about this yesterday about music publications. When we grew up, we used to have these publications, these music mags called Enemy and Meloy Maker and Enemy was ruthless and they hated Radiyhead in the early day, so they called us a lily livid excuse of a rock band. Un quoting, but you know, you read that review and it had an impact and it was like it sharpened your acting a bit. You go like fuck, okay, fuck you all we're going showy. So yeah, there was definitely a little bit of nihlinis or just speaking the truth. You're right, I think a lot of people are. It's interesting. 00:10:09 Speaker 1: It's finding that balance. I think you can. I think you can what. 00:10:13 Speaker 5: I found for me, I like to speak the truth, but I like speaking truth with kindness because you know you can also, you know, like Miles as Miles, he grew up in a toughest, toughest ear right, so he has no it's like only the fittest survive, you know, in this and there's something to that, but also you can lose people along the way, and you know, it's like, I'm really into sport, particularly soccer, and the generation of soccer players now, they're not like thirty years ago, which you had that fittest survive and it was tough. The great managers very much like I think they follow people like your man Phil Jackson who coached the Bulls, right, they know how to mass sorry, but they they're more enlightened and they go, Okay, that guy needs that, that girl needs that, you know, and and I kind of quite like that. I like, I like that we've kind of moved on a little bit more, but having said that, you know, it was funny, it was, but you can bring people down, and I listen, I'm one of those people as well. I need you know, I grew up in a tough love era, but actually I thrive more when I'm given a bit more support. And in my own music, I need that. I need, I need to know I can do it. 00:11:32 Speaker 2: That I'm the same way, the same way, so I struggle as well. Yeah, and I think the trade offs are largely probably worth it, you know, but I do, I do think about that. I'm like, I just probably sometimes you know, like the gate the idea of there being no gatekeepers now sometimes is a. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: Little like, you know, we're Gonnam again. Yeah, oh my god. I mean maybe some things that you get through that should have. But I mean, thank god he was there, thank god, you're right, You're right, we do. Yeah, it's true, mo Astin. 00:12:02 Speaker 5: It's like old guys, all those guys, Chris Blackwell, Island Records, all these people like real music music. 00:12:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I kind of missed that. Yeah, we'll be back with more from Ed O'Brien. 00:12:19 Speaker 2: Speaking of kind of harsh critics, I guess I didn't realize until just today that John Peele wasn't really I was going to ask you about John Peel, but then I found out he wasn't so supportive. 00:12:30 Speaker 5: No, we weren't his kind of band. But then I remember a story when we played Glastonbury in eight ninety seven. We headlined Glastonbury on the Saturday night, which was sort of is on the Okay Compute right the start the Okay Compute, and he traditionally did the He did like the TV and radio that went out, and one of the DJs, Mary Anne Hobbs, who's sort of always been a champion of the band, she and him were watching that performance and he said he said afterwards to her, he said, oh, I think I need to revisit Radiohead. And we were really keen when kid A came out. We were like, please can Peel play? And I think Peel did. We never got to do a visit to peel Acres, which we never did a Peel session. You didn't do a session, no, because I think we would have subsequently, but he died. But I think that we were just not you know. The first album was a bit confusing for a lot of people, not the least us, and we were on a major label. He always gravitated towards independent labels, and we had a monster hitting creeps, so that kind of were immediately no not having that. 00:13:44 Speaker 1: So it took us a lot. It was just I. 00:13:46 Speaker 5: Think we just kept on knocking at the door and you know, but we could have got in there. 00:13:51 Speaker 1: But yeah, but that's okay. 00:13:54 Speaker 2: Was the first record confusing because it was such a hit out the gate and that was confusing. 00:13:59 Speaker 1: No, it was confusing. 00:14:00 Speaker 5: Well, there was that. I mean that was a blessing obviously in hindsight, because I think otherwise we would have been dropped. It was we just didn't know what we were doing. That kind of the level of commitment and what it took to the level of seriousness that it required to to do what we were doing. And I think, I think inevitably, I mean, some some bands come straight some artists come straight out of the box, right, but we were one that we were still trying to It's trying to find our voice collectively and also Tom lyrically, I think it was trying to find his voice. So we we hadn't we hadn't got our ship together, and it's just a those things can take it just to take a bit of time, and and you need people to sort of knock you down to to find find the way as well. You need to you need to find a robustness. And you need to look at a few photo shoots you've done and go like, we look really crap, and you go, okay, we need to we need to hear black you know all that. 00:14:54 Speaker 1: Stuff because you're just saying yes to things. 00:14:56 Speaker 5: Well yeah, and you don't know what you're doing, and so you you you make these mistakes very publicly, and as long as you learn from them and evolve from them, that's fine. It's the you know, so I think we did and we just worked really hard. It made us knuckle down even more so the second album comes along, it's like okay, because people said we were one the hit Wonders and in a way that album is it kind of is that. And we were like, well, right, every single song on this next album is going to be it's going to be a tune. Yeah, And it was, thank you, well it was you know. 00:15:29 Speaker 2: You know, you're talking about kind of finding yourselves as a band. I'm curious about finding yourself as a guitar player. Leading up to talking about your new record, If you had to look back at the various eras of your Plane from the beginning when you first pick it up to now, can do you see distinct eras in your plane? 00:15:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. 00:15:52 Speaker 5: I mean the first album is really it's very simple. I mean, we had a we had a we had a if you like, a formula which was quiet versus and loud choruses. So the loud choruses meant that all three of us, Tom, Johnny and myself would stamp on distortion pedals and the verses would be minimal. And also I think in a way that it was very much it was in a way supporting my role in that was very simple. I didn't play leads, so it was supporting Johnny in that respect, and it was that was the thing that I always for me, it was a little bit one dimensional, you know, in terms of my own playing, and it was that's the kind of music we were doing then. I mean, there's a track on their Blowout which I played some got a sound and that's when I first sort of got a crazy sound or a sound that was different and sort of riffed on that, and I remember it was on It was really on the second album. It started to open up with me. We were sort of more interested in you know, you get bored of things, so that that guitar distorted onslaught became something we used less and less. 00:16:56 Speaker 1: We still used it, but it. 00:16:59 Speaker 5: Wasn't as it was just we were more interested in textures and sounds, and that for me was really I remember we worked on Planet Telex and those guitar sounds were all things that I programmed. I had, you know, I had a RAQ unit, a cool rack unit, and so I was really into that. And then you know, Okay Computer, for me, it really flowered and it What was interesting about that was that because when you're playing clubs, that kind of quiet verse, loud chorus thing with distorted guitars works really well. 00:17:33 Speaker 1: Yeah you know, bang, it's in. 00:17:35 Speaker 5: Your face where you start getting more successull you and playing bigger venues. And I remember, by the time we're touring ninety six, between the Benz and Okay Computer, I mean, we did these shows in Canada that were essentially our first arena shows, and these songs that kind of thing doesn't work so well, and we were sound checking stuff off Okay Computer, like let Down, and suddenly, you know, a delayed clean, delayed guitar sounded so beautiful in these bigger spaces. So I think the sound developed as the venues changed. And because we always wrote to Didney material, that was always the point, Like sound checks, just to alleviate the boredom of the road and playing the same songs. We would sound check new songs and we would also play them in the set, so as the venues got bigger, we could use the acoustics of the room. And for me, that's when it really you know, I think for me, okay, computer at the moment, I really felt like as a guitarist, I was sort of finding my stride. I think it was very obvious what Johnny did from in a very early stage of this incredible lead, this powerful lead thing, and you know, he was able to do stuff that I couldn't. 00:18:46 Speaker 1: I couldn't do that, stuff that wasn't in me. I didn't. 00:18:49 Speaker 5: I just didn't do it. But as we changed, like I became just sort of obsessed with sound, and it just sort of developed from there, and and you know, and nikid A was another leap, and then you know, yeah, it was it's been great. It's it was great sort of laboratory in The great thing about Radiohead was it was, you know, the. 00:19:07 Speaker 1: Weirder, the sounds, more encouragement you got, yeah, from from from from everybody, you know. 00:19:14 Speaker 5: And it was always trying to I mean lots of the weird sounds never got in, but it was trying to get this stuff sounded. I mean, I I've always loved sound. I I you know, you realize what makes you tick and sound is something that I Sound for me is very visual, you know, and when I connect with something, I connect sonically, but I connect it very visually. And that's what Yeah, that's what That's what floats my boat. 00:19:42 Speaker 1: Really did you always know that was? Was it always clear to you? That sound? 00:19:47 Speaker 5: It's interesting, Yeah, looking back, I mean like, why did I want to plick up the guitar? I mean, I heard the Beatles. I've you know, I've had amazing music exposed in the seventies through Top of the Pops, this British, this TV show, it's amazing weekly TV show. But it wasn't until I heard the Police and it was specifically the track Walking on the Moon by the and Andy Summon's guitar playing and the sound of the track has got this all, this reverbed and lay and it was suddenly. What I loved about it was that track sounded as if it was recorded on the moon. How I imagined it would be. I could feel like the moon, and so I think. 00:20:23 Speaker 1: It had that little Yeah. 00:20:26 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:20:26 Speaker 5: They did the Roland Space Echo famously, you know, and also the the Echoplex. Stuart Copeland put put delay on his drums the Space Echo believe, and Andy Summers had an his drums. 00:20:40 Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't know that, Yeah he did. 00:20:41 Speaker 5: He went there's a great I seen some lovely footage. They went to Manny's in New York and bought load again. He bought a Space Eco and you know Stui Copman's drumming with a Space Eco on it. Man, it was like killer. That's wild, Yeah, really wild. And he play in live, so he. 00:20:56 Speaker 1: Must have played differently. Yeah, that's right. 00:20:59 Speaker 5: But he had the monitor, you'd have it with him so in the studio, so he was actually the monitors it was coming through. So it's just extraordinary stuff. Yeah, And of course they would got that through the reggae and the dub influence, you know, the space could being a really important part of the you know, dub and reggae Arsenal. 00:21:16 Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it was. 00:21:18 Speaker 5: It was Doze and then and then I was very lucky because I grew up in an era of post punk which was really so creative, and you had players like John McGeoch who was this He played with you know Magazine and Susie, you know, Susan the Banshie is great, you know Juju all the spell band and stuff like his. 00:21:40 Speaker 1: He was next level. 00:21:41 Speaker 5: And then he went on to play with Leiden and Pill and and all that stuff, and then. 00:21:46 Speaker 1: We played Republic. Yeah, he I think he. 00:21:48 Speaker 5: Joined he was in a band after after Susan Banchi's he went to he formed a band with Richard Johnson Jobs and from the Skids called The Armory Show not great. And then but then he joined Yeah, but then he joined an incarnation of Pill and he did there was that album is It with Happy on it and really good. 00:22:10 Speaker 1: It's like the really good. Yes it has it's like the is Everybody Happy? 00:22:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, he played on that. 00:22:18 Speaker 5: Yeah, he played on that, and it's mcgi it's like classic mcgeal playing did. 00:22:24 Speaker 1: You ever get to did you ever? Susie and Susan. 00:22:26 Speaker 2: The band Shoes is a there's such a mystery to me, but I love them. Yeah, did you ever get to meet? And he passed away, but do you ever get to But I. 00:22:34 Speaker 5: Think Susie Tom said that when we did the shows, the radio shows last year, Susie, Susie came to the London show. I think she's friends with Tom. She's just the queen, the queen of punk. 00:22:47 Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, one of my favorites. 00:22:49 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:22:49 Speaker 5: No, and she and she did that had a beautiful you know she you know, graduated from the school of punk and went on this incredible, this incredible journey. 00:22:57 Speaker 1: So yeah, they again deeply creative. Yeah. 00:23:01 Speaker 2: So back to so sound turns And when you say sound is what. 00:23:05 Speaker 1: Does it for you? It's it's more tech. It's our music sound, but it's more it's the texture. Yeah, the texture and the texture of it. 00:23:11 Speaker 5: And I'm really I don't like I mean, one of the things on my album was I don't like I'm always trying to undigitize it. I don't like it when it's too clean. My particular on this record I had this I was really sort of kind of obsessed with that era of recording from about sixty eight sixty nine to seventy three seventy four, and particularly for me, what characterized that was you had the move from sort of analogue, but you were getting transistors in the amps and some of the components which gave you clearer top end. So I'm thinking in terms of recordings, So Miles in a silent way, you know, Minnie Riperton, any of the you know, Charles Stepney stuff. You know we were with earth Winder and Fire yesterday, were you yeah, oh yeah, they were here yesterday. 00:23:58 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:23:59 Speaker 4: Wow. 00:24:00 Speaker 2: I played them the demo that Charles Stepney did of That's the Way of the World, the Way of the World, That's where the world art like it was a Charles Stepney and I played there like kind of like they hadn't heard You're not way back then. 00:24:13 Speaker 7: Wow. 00:24:14 Speaker 2: Philip Bailey was like, I think you have like a like a Latin kind of flavor to it. And then like I put her eyes like, yeah, that's the thing I heard way back before we cut. 00:24:21 Speaker 8: It was it was well, they were like I mean, I mean, earth Wind and Father's There's there's a lot to say they were the greatest group ever, you know, and I know a lot of people say, like the Beatles were, but I would I would hit back with Earth Wind and Fire and Slim the Family Stone. 00:24:36 Speaker 2: You know something about those two three not too dissimilar either in just the like you know the greatest, you know they they they're like Stevie wonder maybe you. 00:24:46 Speaker 7: Wonder what you know? 00:24:47 Speaker 5: He was no listen, I was saying this just now at Casey, I w has ever been an artist who's had a greater run of albums than Stevie did from like sixty eight right through to Hotter Than July nineteen eighty Yeah, nobody. 00:25:00 Speaker 2: Had people forget about how that's such believable. 00:25:03 Speaker 1: That is a killer unbelievable. I remember remember seeing what was a single of it called there was Jamming, Jamming, Master Blasting, Master Blaster, Holy shit. 00:25:14 Speaker 5: When that was on top of the pops, I remember like and Stevie had the dreads with the beads. Yeah, and like like I didn't know all of Stevie's I was a kid, so I didn't know Stevie's stuff before that. But you know, I remember actually the joy of discovering Stevie like in properly in nineteen ninety two, and like in a vision what talking about for you know, first fulfilling, this first finale. You know, it's just unbelievable. So yeah, I mean I think in terms of bands though, yeah, I mean Sly and Earth When Fire and the Beatles, like I mean just you know, take your pick on whatever mood or day you want. 00:25:52 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And that's it, not just because you're here. Yeah, radioheard Mike's slipping there somewhere. 00:25:58 Speaker 1: It may not have been long enough. We could see lists the d list of that lot. I take that as long as. 00:26:04 Speaker 2: But there's a there's a similarity that I guess the parallels would be really tight. I don't even if you say that, but just really great songs, just great song like just song songs seem to come first. And then I mean not I was talking to about that yesterday is because yeah, it's like the arrangements were so wild on Earth Win five songs, but the songs did not get lost ever. Like you were, you knew, even as a lay person, you knew exactly what was happening and where it was going. But but there was something way crazy happening underneath. And that's the Beatles, that's Sly, that's. 00:26:37 Speaker 5: That, and then you know the other ingredient family that we're all family, you know, like my radio heads Bander Brothers, Sly family, Stone family, Yeah, Earth Wind and Fire family. How many whites you know their family they become families and light families. They argue when they do all of that, But there's a lot of love and I think that I think that is because music is magic. You know that the medium we work in is it's there's you know, as Quincy Jones used to say, like you know, you wait for God to walk through the room, you know, and there is that and that's what there's the magic of that. How do you summon God? Well, first we have to work hard. Spirit that's given. But the second thing, I think spirit comes through you when it can see the love. And the love doesn't have to be your or pally. The love is just it's there. It's like a it's a brotherhood, a sisterhood. Well, Maurice White, I mean, like, what was he trying to do? He was trying to make sacred music essentially right move shift the consciousness of the world. That's that's spirit. So we're all conduits. That band when they're in it, they're working as once. I mean, has there ever been a tighter band than than Earth Wind and Fire. They didn't have any click tracks and they're in it, but they were co creating with spirit, so I think and the Beatles, you know, definitely were as well. I think there's that element is as I understand it kind of from the inside. 00:28:06 Speaker 1: That's a huge part. 00:28:08 Speaker 5: Of Now my brother's in the band mic what you're talking about, you know, But that's what I feel, and that's kind of I know. 00:28:17 Speaker 2: I feel this is a really good I hate I hate, I hate segues that are too good, but incantations is the first. 00:28:23 Speaker 1: Then I feel like we should listen a little bit. 00:28:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, everything. 00:29:12 Speaker 9: It consur fe. 00:29:18 Speaker 7: And the Gurse of Lonagol. 00:29:25 Speaker 1: And all these you're so learning from it. 00:29:33 Speaker 7: All and a fall day falling to condo the whole. 00:29:52 Speaker 3: And with the. 00:29:58 Speaker 1: I can't feel anything at all. Cool Chang. 00:30:13 Speaker 9: Conditions up so conditions, the Joe in conditions up so contitions, man, the Joe. 00:30:43 Speaker 1: Good sun nice sum on. That system is great. It sounds so good. I'm hearing stuff. Yeah, I'm hearing stuff I didn't hear before. 00:30:58 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:30:59 Speaker 1: Stream it's amazing, man, Thank you, thank you, thank you. 00:31:05 Speaker 2: Talk about textures. There's all kinds of texture there's so much that's the rain that did. The dynamism of that is wild. How did how did that song come about? 00:31:15 Speaker 5: That comes That was when the sort of the the first shoots of this album were really from a very dark place and I fell into this this sort of very dark depression, which I sort of reframed it and it was like a dark knight of the soul. And that was one of the songs. During this process. One of the things I did. I had a daily practice which was literally just pick up my guitar and play. Go to this little room. It was in the second lockdown, and I played for three hours and I was just therapy. And that was one of the songs. One of the musical motifs or the cyclical guitar riff sort of emerged in one of these sittings, and when I heard it, I was like, Oh, that's that's the place that I am it. I felt like I was in this labynth. I was stuck in this labyrinth. I didn't know how to get out this place. And you know the story of the Greek myth of Theseus and the minutur and Theseus gets thrown in the labyrinth, and which is this maze that was constructed by King Minos of crete Midas of crete, and there was a beast in there, and in order to get out he had to slay the beast, but you get lost. So nobody had got out, and the king's daughter had fallen in love with him, and her name was I think her name was Ariadne, and Ariadney had this thread that she gave to theseus as he was descended down and so he had to follow this thread out, but on the way he also had to slay the minu tour this half man, half beast. So that was literally so that it's funny with music. What I've kind of what I think is extraordinary about the medium music is that, you know, music is essentially maths. It's mathematical intervals in patterns, and that this music can come out of you or it's you know, I don't know how it happens, and it somehow manages to capture the emotion of where you are at that time. So that was a really dark place and for me that was always the opener of the album. And you know, the whole idea of Incantations was I had this feeling that I spend a lot of time in Wales, in our houses in Wales, and it's in the hills there, and it's it's it's very wild countryside, it's very ancient, and there's a power in this land. 00:33:42 Speaker 1: You can feel it. 00:33:43 Speaker 5: And I had this image of, like, so a lot of the time I go walking in the in these ancient old trails, like thousands of years old, and you could feel it. But I could feel the power of the land, and I felt that was healing me. So I felt incantations are like spells and ancient. You know, it's very Celtic, a lot of you know, Celtic spirituality. They invoked spirit and and my image was of that Shakespeare play Macbeth the Three, which is around the cauldron in this wood, and the cauldron's bubbling and there's a fire and they're they're they're delivering spells a toil toll, bubble and trouble. And I had this thing of like, the earth is going to heal me, you know, She's gonna heal me. And so that's that's what I was sort of throwing into the mix of this dark place, and it was, yeah, it's sort of you know, it's funny how these things emerge, and it wasn't a conscious thing. I wasn't like the thing about this record was it wasn't I wasn't controlling it in a way. It just comes out. And my job was to not get in the way. My job was what is this? 00:34:46 Speaker 1: Yeah? I didn't know what. I knew where. 00:34:48 Speaker 5: I kind of didn't know where we were starting, and I didn't know where we were finished. But I knew when we were finished, you know, I knew it was that, Okay, this is But that was what's so beautiful about this whole process was just letting go what is this? 00:35:01 Speaker 2: So? But it started with just you in a room, yeah, and a guitar, and it slowly became a little more. 00:35:06 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:35:07 Speaker 5: It really got to a stage where and I was working with Paul Epworth and Riley McIntyre, and Paul's a brilliant co writer, and so we would sort of work stuff up in my studio and in his studio, the three of us, and then it gets to a time when I need to get musicians in. I need to get a band in. So my great he's my brother, David Kumu. He's a solo artist in his own right. He played on my first record. I've known him for a while. I went to see his band play at the Roundhouse in London. His band the Seven Gens, David Koman, the Seven Generations, Seven Gens. 00:35:42 Speaker 1: And it was mesmeric and I. 00:35:45 Speaker 5: Saw and it was just at the time that we were I think I need to get a band together, and finding a musical family is not easy, right yeah, And I was like, okay, so it's like, Dave, can you put a band together? 00:35:56 Speaker 1: And he said, how about the Seven Gens? I said, I'm in. 00:35:58 Speaker 5: So these incredible players, Eve Fernandez on bass, Dancy on drums, Crispin Fryn percussion, Nick Rahm on keys, and Esca who became She's she's a vocalist for Dave as well. She became a really important part of the whole project. So I sort of borrowed his family and we had three days of recording and it was just kind of a utopian recording experience. These guys are so good and they got the vibers of the song we would. 00:36:28 Speaker 1: I remember that song. 00:36:29 Speaker 5: Was the first song we did and we so I think we did it on a Monday. Everybody gets when we start playing eleven And I remember Riley because I. 00:36:38 Speaker 1: Kind of primed it. 00:36:39 Speaker 5: I said, listen, and he knew the musical references. I said, I want it to sound like you know, I want it to sound like that ear A sixty eight seventy three. I don't want to sound too digitu it's not be clean. I kept on sing, there's you know this is there's got to be dirt under the fingernails here. You've got to feel the earth, you know, you got to feel that, you know, you got to feel the saturation. I was really influenced you know who does it obviously really well Inflow and Danger Mouse, all the work they did with Michael Kiwanuka. Right, I love the saturate. I love the sound of those records, great records. Right, And so Riley knew, and so remember just we've gone through a couple of takes and just you know, settled down, everyone have a cup of tea, and Riley played mer Monitormis. I was like, shit, okay, we've got the sound. The playing's good. It was amazing. And then Paul's studio, which is which is an old church, yeah a holy space was just kind of magic. 00:37:33 Speaker 1: Wow, it's an old it's an old church. That he yeah, he always properly. 00:37:37 Speaker 2: We know. 00:37:37 Speaker 5: It's in crouch End in London. It was originally owned by Dave Stewart of the Rhythmics. He owned it and then and actually Radiohead we recorded some voc computer in there back in ninety seven and then he sold it to David Gray and then Paul bought it off David Gray. I don't know in about twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen when Paul, because Paul was a co you know, he worked with Adele and co wrote Rolling in the Deep and produced that. So he put all his good fortune into this amazing studio and that's got the best gear and has just made it this incredible space. 00:38:12 Speaker 1: Two studios there. And he came from Black Party. Yeah, that's right. 00:38:15 Speaker 5: Paul came from that background, and then he found himself to be he like was was producing Florence and Machine Adele, you know, and then went on he became like the A list producer, yeah, you know, and went down and plowed that furrow for a while. 00:38:32 Speaker 2: It must have been nice to get back to this a little bit, but yeah, I. 00:38:35 Speaker 1: Think it was good. 00:38:35 Speaker 5: You know. What was lovely. What was lovely about it was we connected. I mean, you know, when I worked with Paul. I wasn't working with him because he was the A list producer. I work with people. I realized this. I work with people that I love, you know, I can't do it with people I don't love. 00:38:53 Speaker 1: Why Why Because it's such. 00:38:55 Speaker 5: A personal thing making you spend so much time with them. And I'm just like one of those people. I'm I'm I'm a heart person. So Paul and I connected, you know, you know those moments in life when you talk to somebody. We spoke on the phone before we'd ever met. We were we're often running for an hour and it's like a it's like a soul connection, and so I think it was great for both of us. It was great for me because he's an incredible songwriter, so it was great to bounce stuff ideas off him and he you know, he he sold Fajio, the track sol Fegio. He started that, he initiated that. So it was really you know, because when you work on when you're a solo artist, you need you need people to riff with that. The more ideas the better. So yeah, it was really amazing working with him. 00:39:43 Speaker 1: Did it ever, did you ever find it getting too far. 00:39:46 Speaker 2: From where you wanted it and you had to move a back or I don't know. 00:39:50 Speaker 5: I didn't know where we were going. So I was embracing it all and it was very much, very much and used that word leaning into, but I'm really leaning into serendipity and synchronosity because I have a I have a very strong spiritual practice, and. 00:40:08 Speaker 1: What's beautiful about this journey is. 00:40:10 Speaker 5: That I have this utter conviction and I know that you have everything around you, were given everything around you in order to evolve. You have all the circumstances, all the things to give. So when you meet people in chance, seemingly chance happenings or occurrences you know are given to you, there's often things there. So I really leant into that, and if the music wanted to take a left term, we just followed that and I didn't worry. What I was good about was I would flag out. I would say, Okay, I'm not feeling this, but again, what's been really I had Again, one of the things I learned on this record was in the past and certainly where I've come from, if you flag up saying I'm not feeling this, the the onus is to find a solution and go I'm not feeling this, but we. 00:41:02 Speaker 1: Should do this. 00:41:03 Speaker 5: Yeah, And I I was just like, I was like, not into that. I'm not feeling this, but I don't know what to do and leaving the space that you don't know, you don't have the answer because I think the ego wants to go I know how to sort this out. This is what we do, this is the way forward. But what I do is I would just like, I'll go, Paul. 00:41:26 Speaker 1: Riley, I don't know why. 00:41:27 Speaker 5: I'm just not feeling this. And it's almost everyone can tell in the room and you go, well, I don't know, And what was so amazing was within and how you'd found the solution. But the solution, like the riff that emerges, it comes through you. So it's what I feel like it is is you're leaving room for spirit to go, Okay, I've got the solution and you just pick it up and say, okay, it's that. So it's all part of the process of letting go. And I that for me is why I mean I've gone up another love in creativity and recording because the less I know I feel, the richer it becomes, or the less import or the less I have solutions. I just it's like, oh, it wants to go this way, and I love that because that's where you get surprises rather than like imposing your own rigid idea of what it should be. I'm not into that. I like, I don't know what this is. Let's see what it is. You have the things that you resonate with, like you point out, like I love this sound, and you know, and we did a whole thing, spend a couple of days like listening to music that you know from that era and also kiwanuukra and a lot of salt stuff. We're going like I love this, I love the sound of that, and so you build up like a mood board of sounds and kind of flavors and then you go. But that, again is intuitive and what's intuition. It's like following another thread. 00:42:52 Speaker 1: So I. 00:42:54 Speaker 5: Really love that whole kind of I yeah, like I said, letting goes, it's just amazing. 00:42:59 Speaker 1: It's interesting listening to you talking. I'm realizing it. I'm thinking this through. I mean, art really is one of the few. 00:43:06 Speaker 2: Spaces in life where getting last virtual. 00:43:10 Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think, what you know, when I heard someone say a definition of an artist it's like it's really following your intuition. And I think that's so amazing because you know, the mind can go. What's so interesting, The mind will go. The mind is the some some parts of all your experiences. So your mind says you can do this, you can do that, you can't do that, so it's kind of limiting. But your intuition. I was this intuition though, and your mind can only see what's in front of you. The intuition can see around the bend, and the intuition can also see your your your arc, your journey of life. And I really believe that, and I think so the intuition goes, this might seem mad at this stage, but and you go and you double goat, but this feels really good. And that's what we must do. We must follow that thing. And we're like, I don't understand it, and it might not make sense now, but you can be sure if you do that at some later stage, it will makes sense. But what's also true about intuition, it's almost like a muscle that has to be used. So again, you have to look after your intuition. Your intuition needs it needs nurturing. And I've learned that over the years. There are things things you do and don't do that help sharpen your intuition, those which also dull it, you know, and blunt it. 00:44:28 Speaker 2: So what do you what do you how do you keep your intuition? 00:44:34 Speaker 5: Well, I think humility is a big part of that gratitude for my spiritual practice. Things to avoid drugs, you know, you know, cocaine and things like that. They're not great for your intuition. And you know, you again, you. 00:44:48 Speaker 2: Know, I don't know, I've met some I don't know, you know, I've I've had some conversations. 00:44:52 Speaker 5: Well, the thing is when things going well, no, that's true, but yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, but it's it's not a long term solution. I think those things can be That's why people get into them. They go super quick and they're like wow, but it won't last. And so I think I think it's Yeah, for me, it's like and relying on it and taking time out and stillness. I think still that I have a strong meditative practice. So I think all these things and listening and kind of honoring as well what you feel and your truth. I think that's super important because it's like, rather than doing the shoulds. It's like, what do I feel? What do I really feel? And I think again, if you keep doing that with your intuition, then your intuition gets stronger and rewards you. And it's like builds it builds up its own confidence or it becomes stronger like a muscle. 00:45:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, when do you think you learn this? Oh, that's a really good question. 00:45:54 Speaker 5: I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, it's I've been on this spiritual journey. I've been on this journey. I call it spiritual journey. I've been on this journey like essentially it started off as a journey of healing and it's been going on since about two thousand and two. It's a really good I don't know, there was no Eureka moment, but on my journey on this on the healing, trying to heal myself and become a whole if you like, what I've found is it's a it's a it's just been a series of things that you do and you work out things that work for you, work don't work for you, and then it's just and it can be everything from nutrition to meditation to the people you hang out with. Being a good gate keeper, yoga, all these things. I mean, you know, it's really interesting. So I don't think there was any moment. And you know, listen, I'm you know, someone could turn around and go that's bullshit, and I go, yeah, you're probably right. I don't, but I'm just I guess I'm a seeker. You seem like I'm a seeker. I'm definitely. 00:47:04 Speaker 1: Always. 00:47:05 Speaker 5: And like I remember like at school, like you know, we'd have these lectures when you're seventeen, you have every week you have visiting lectures, and you know, you'd have like we were in Oxford, so you'd have an Oxford. 00:47:14 Speaker 1: Academic and you'd have a lawyer. 00:47:15 Speaker 5: And then I remember one week there was this guy who came along and he was talking about Tibet and he was talking about spirituality and Buddhism, and all my. 00:47:27 Speaker 1: Mates are kind of like fucking hippie. 00:47:30 Speaker 5: This is like nineteen eighty five, and I'm like transfixed. And you know, there was this thing that if if you could go and have a coffee with a lecturer afterwards, and I was straight, and I was the only guy there and I was just like fascinated. So it's in my DNA. It's like I've always been. I've always loved I grew up in a so there was Oxford, but when my parents split up, we moved to West Oxfordshire and it's very old Britain. It's about two miles from this place called white Horse Hill, Uffington. White Horse, this beautiful chalk white Horse in the hill. 00:48:07 Speaker 1: It's a beautiful image. 00:48:08 Speaker 5: It's the front of English settlement by xtc Oh because they were from Swindon just down the road. But it's an ancient part of Britain and Averbury's down the road. So I was always I was always drawn to I guess places, old power, nodes of power, spirit places, you know. So again I followed my intuition. And music's great for that because you know how many musicians. While we talked about led Zeppelin earlier, I mean that that's steeped in and you think it like you know, talking about earth wind and fire and so it's in this music. So I think it's a natural thing. So I'm just seeking. I'm just eyes open. And also about twenty years ago I did this thing. Where as I'm not going to let my creative or my critical faculty get in the way of anything because It's very easy to go, what are you doing that for? You come from Oxford, how can you empirically prove that you know? Where's the academic rigor? I let that go and I said, I'm going to read everything and anything, and I'm going to just see how it sits. And I'm going to experience stuff from being to Brazil to see healers and you know. 00:49:15 Speaker 1: All this stuff. 00:49:15 Speaker 5: And I'm like, Okay, I'm going to experience it and see how that feels, and then I'll decide, you know what do I resonate with so? And it just carries on so. 00:49:24 Speaker 1: And that goes back. 00:49:25 Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, you know, the Tibetan Buddhist guy giving the lecture at your university, the one thing university couldn't give you, but it wasn't supposed to give you, but it somehow did. 00:49:35 Speaker 5: It did that, you know, and it's so It's so brilliant. And what I love about life is that you realize you're given. 00:49:45 Speaker 1: Oh. 00:49:45 Speaker 5: I feel I've been given these little markers along the way, and they could be they could be the parents of a friend when you're growing up, who were the only bohemian couple that you knew who he was a writer and an artist and you you're going their house, and it was just like, oh my god, it can be like this family can be like this. So we're given all these little things. And yeah, like I said, I really sense that the universe gives each of us what we this, the circumstances. Well, certainly given me the circumstances in order to evolve and the things around me. It's my it's my decision whether my eyes and ears are open to that stuff. 00:50:22 Speaker 2: Amazing you brought up Brazil, so we should maybe go to but yeah, great. As I was listening to the I was listening to the record without looking at the titles. 00:50:30 Speaker 1: I was listening and I was like. 00:50:32 Speaker 2: Man, it's not like I said, did you Is there something Brazilian going on with this? 00:50:35 Speaker 1: And I looked at the title. Yeah, there we go, Yeah exactly. 00:50:38 Speaker 10: Yeah. 00:51:23 Speaker 3: Sunny days a Sunny Days, A Sunny Days a boy, Sunny days, Sunny days, Sunny days a boy. 00:51:48 Speaker 1: I said, that's got something. 00:52:05 Speaker 11: Should love to ride the sun. 00:52:07 Speaker 4: Serve me up from give you a ma me on. 00:52:16 Speaker 12: Every day, sent. 00:52:17 Speaker 7: Me singing heavenly excuse and so. 00:52:36 Speaker 11: And so. 00:53:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, forgive me for so many nice little so many nice touches. Thank you. 00:53:35 Speaker 5: It's nice to hear it on the big system atual. I haven't heard it that loud with lots. 00:53:39 Speaker 1: Of sub It's great. I love it. 00:53:43 Speaker 2: It's the the the groove is subtle, right, and then it opens up and it's just yeah, and it's it's full on, you know, at that point it's done. 00:53:53 Speaker 1: It's amazing. 00:53:54 Speaker 2: And then all the nice little little synth that was going on. 00:53:57 Speaker 5: Right there and Selena strings rather yeh because yeah, and who was. 00:54:04 Speaker 2: That singing in the ka? 00:54:06 Speaker 5: Okay, she's amazing. She's gonna be We're all gonna go out on tour. Esca and Davey play guitar, and yeah, she's she's just a beautiful singer. 00:54:15 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:54:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, when are you guys going out? 00:54:17 Speaker 5: We're gonna go out in October in Europe and hopefully, you know, you know, economics dependently, but we we've got to come. I mean, having spent like two days in La, I'm like, I want to come to La and play. 00:54:28 Speaker 1: This let's book it tonight. 00:54:32 Speaker 5: I want to a party and I want to get the vibe and you know, I feel like it'd be such a great place to come here, you know, the connections and you know, meeting people like yourself. It's like there's a there's a it feels like it's open. It's it's got the sadness, but it's got the joy in there as well. 00:54:48 Speaker 2: Well, not to get the real but it's interesting. 00:54:50 Speaker 1: There's a lot of. 00:54:52 Speaker 2: Bad will towards Los Angeles lately for some reason, and living here, I don't feel it, you know, So it's weird. I hear it a lot, you know, I hear it. 00:55:00 Speaker 1: Well, people love people get jeallessedty pretty great. They're jealous. People are leaving here though I don't know the alous see people. 00:55:06 Speaker 2: From here are leaving here? Wow or brogat? I mean did that come? Did that come from a visit to Brazil. You've mentioned spending some time there. 00:55:16 Speaker 5: Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in Brazil and I love Brazilian music, and we went to live there in my family. We went to live there for about six seven months a few years ago. It's always been there and for me, it's the whole thing about Brazil. It's the people, it's the land, it's the music, it's the soccer, it's the love, it's the spirituality, it's the dance. 00:55:37 Speaker 1: It's the and it's a tough place to live. You know, there's poverties. 00:55:41 Speaker 5: You know, they've got real problems, economic problems in terms of the division of wealth. But you know, Lula and Dilma and the Workers Party have done amazing things in the last twenty years. 00:55:53 Speaker 1: So there's an emerging middle class. There's it's just a beautiful it's it's funny. It's one of those things. Have you ever been to Brazil? 00:56:00 Speaker 10: I have not. 00:56:01 Speaker 1: It's on top of my life. Well you should go. It's good. 00:56:04 Speaker 5: I also what I love it. It feels like every color under the sun. You know, you've got Japanese community. They've lived there for one hundred years and they're Japanese, but they're Brazilian and it's it's got you know, it's it's just beautiful. 00:56:19 Speaker 2: And they deal with the different than the states in England in terms of the diversity is dealt with different. 00:56:26 Speaker 5: And I remember, like I had had a when I first went to Brazil with my wife in like two thousand and we have to be on the same flight as a couple of friends. And one of my friends, this guy called Trevor, he's you know, he's black, British and he'd never been to Brazil. None of us have been to Brazil. And we were staying in the rear and five days later we bumped into them on Ipanema and we went for a drink and and Trevor's really and I said, Trevor, how you finally said, He said, I feel comfortable in my skin. Finally said, you know, even in Britain, you know, I've grown up with this, you know, having to been very conscious of being black. He said, I come to Brazil, I'm home, you know. Well, and you know, Brazil took the most amount of slaves in West Africa by year. This incredible state which is kind of like my favorite place in Brazil is the Black State. You know, it's where they had the most slaves. And the music and the culture Candomblate it's like and what I love about it is you know that it's like it's just seemed the assimilation is just softer. And you know, obviously in America got You've had serious problems with that, and we did in Britain as well. You know, we were an empire, terrible empire, but Brazil, for whatever reason, and the Portuguese weren't great either, but it seems to be almost almost I don't know, it just seems to be a bit more of a melting pot, you know. And music there is you know, you've got this, you've got the you've got the rhythm of Africa and the spirit. But you've got some of the little melodies from European, from the Portuguese. 00:58:03 Speaker 1: Why do you have this which is so specific? It's such a specific flavor of melody. Yeah, that gives it this. 00:58:09 Speaker 5: And when you hear the samba like Carnival samba. Yeah, we went to Carnival in Brazil in Rio in twenty thirteen and you really get it there because they're very tight about the music. So the battery are the drums, it's all. I mean, it's West African, right, it's But then they've got these little kind of cavacchinos that they call these eight string kind of mandolins, and they're digging and they're really they're just like European kind of like they're like almost fard s kind of. 00:58:37 Speaker 1: It's like that high pitch. Yeah, but it's it's a heady brew. 00:58:41 Speaker 5: And like I mean, talk about trance music, ye, that is the first trance music you go to, you know, because Carnival runs some ten at night through to six in the morning and they're very specific. So samba has this very specific tempo and part of the battery you get the you get the rhythmic and the drums and stuff, but underpinning it these big bass drums and they go boom, boom boom, and that's the tempo with all six samba schools each night. It's over two nights and twelve sums and you go to you go to bed at seven the morning and. 00:59:13 Speaker 1: Just boom boom. It's like it's and it's it's incredible. That's awesome. 00:59:18 Speaker 5: You get into the state and then and then and the rhythm is like these poly rhythms and it's just that, I mean, it's like rhythmic jazz and and what's so amazing is like the battery will do some kind of rhythmic polyrhythmic move and not only the musicians get it, but the whole the whole audience because they're so savvy, they go yeah, and you can hear the cheers and there, and as a British man, I'm like, well it sounds good, but I didn't understand that significant moment and they and they all go, yeah, it's amazing. It's just such an extraordinary country. 00:59:53 Speaker 1: A man, I love that. I can't wait to go. The music is just it's unbelievable. It's next level. Right. 00:59:57 Speaker 2: Speaking of there's that famous Quincy John's interviewers I'm on him earlier. 01:00:01 Speaker 1: He interjects about something wild and. 01:00:04 Speaker 2: He got an interviewer, You like Brazilian music, Yeah, and it's like so funny, but also at the same time like, yeah, quin see, that's right. 01:00:13 Speaker 1: Just tell everyone because that's it's some of the best music in the world. It's unbelievable. 01:00:17 Speaker 5: And like those composers and go back to Joe Beim and all those yeah, I mean what they were doing and then taking the beauty and the subtleness of some but it's all in there. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. 01:00:28 Speaker 2: Tell me about the you know, recording four three, tell me if you know anything about it. 01:00:32 Speaker 5: Minimal so standard tuning, our student. Our tuning has been standardized since the end of the nineteen thirties. Middle A equals four hundred and forty hertz, so you get a tune of that's. 01:00:43 Speaker 1: How eight middle A being right next to middle C. Yeah, yeah, exactly, So middle A is four forty hurts. 01:00:49 Speaker 5: There is a whole music used to fluctuate a bit more because they didn't have tuners, and there's a whole I've been on this journey now for about fourteen years, and there's this whole. There was this whole school of thought that a lot of old music up until the nineties Entry was played and obviously composed at four three to two hurts, and the idea being is that it's more whole. And there's this have you heard of cymatics where they blow they blow frequencies sound waves at sand and they form patterns. Now four forty hurts, it's kind of frazzled at four to three to two hurts, perfect geometric patterns. 01:01:36 Speaker 1: Wow. 01:01:37 Speaker 5: So that given, that's what it's doing to your cells and your body. So I'm really interested in that idea of music. Doesn't it's not just it's not just nice on the year. There's something that goes on on a sort of cellular deeper level. And there was really I did an interview with Rolling Stone the other week and James Blake has gone I think he's gone four three two Ziggy Marley, there's a whole movement. Its Sheebecca Hutchings, who played on this record. I had a conversation with him about the reason he came and played on record, as I had a conversation about four three two, and I think people a lot of people opening up to it, and for me, I feel it makes the music more whole. Now a lot of people go, oh, you know, you're full of what do you know? But I feel it, and so I think it's I was really keen. I'm really keen to really. 01:02:28 Speaker 1: Go for it. 01:02:28 Speaker 5: So I it's easy for a guitar to be four three two hurts, but a keyboard, you know, piano, So I committed to it. I had our piano tune to four three two. I've got Rhoades tuned to four three two. I'm gonna experiment. Actually four four four slightly sharper, but I'm really interested in. 01:02:48 Speaker 1: It's a lot of class calls at like four four four two two concert pitches four four two. 01:02:52 Speaker 5: Yeah, but I'm really interested in just like it used to be varied, and I don't I don't like things when they get locked in and standardized. It's like this is the rule a must equals four forty hurts, And it's great because it's a bit of a rabbit hole. But there's some very interesting theories about this. You know, there's this whole thing how the nazis standardized tuning at four forty. 01:03:13 Speaker 1: There's all this stuff. 01:03:15 Speaker 5: I don't know because you know, like any information, at the moment, you don't know whether it's two or not. But you just got to go and what you feel. And also there is some science behind it. 01:03:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it's just the music, but you you kind of feel something good under this and it could just be the music. 01:03:31 Speaker 5: But maybe everything some of the tune, it's everything, and I think it's everything. And it's interesting because a lot of people have said, oh, yeah, I put the record on me. It sort of makes me feel calm, and that's what four three two does. It's more whole. And remember we are all frequencies, you know, we everything in this room, all of us. We're frequency. The future medicine will be frequential healing. That illness that you have, is that flu you have is a certain frequency, so you know, like homeopathy, you match it with another frequency, the same frequency and knock it out. So we are all frequencies. So there's science in there. 01:04:09 Speaker 2: Wow, I'm gonna I'm gonna do a deep dive. 01:04:12 Speaker 1: I'm going to do a deep dive on it. 01:04:13 Speaker 3: Now. 01:04:13 Speaker 2: I feel like I could change my whole life. After a break, we'll be back with more from Ed O'Brien's A couple of random last questions I always wanted to ask, And I don't know this may maybe maybe this is uh, but it gets on your bad side. The Pretty Things in the Square and Paranoid Android. Ever heard the similarities between the two, No, I was always just curious, can I play the Pretty Show? 01:04:42 Speaker 1: Cut it if it gets No, I'm curious the people think it's some kind of lift. Well, I don't know. I've always just kind of heard it though. That's interesting, not a limt. 01:04:50 Speaker 5: I'll be completely honest, obviously if if we were influenced, but well maybe I wouldn't. 01:04:55 Speaker 1: Maybe you won't. I don't know. We can cut it if you quick don't mention the Pretty Things. Yeah, no, I've never heard the Pretty Thing. Have you heard that heard? Have you heard that parachute it came out? 01:05:04 Speaker 5: No, I've never I don't even know The Pretty Things. It's just really good, real good album. There's this song on it and they have like a bit of a the top of. 01:05:13 Speaker 2: Them, after like the second song, they do a bit of like a like a medley Abbey Road style kind of medley. 01:05:18 Speaker 1: But at the top of the album. 01:05:19 Speaker 12: This is one of the one of them in this. 01:05:39 Speaker 11: She came running. 01:05:41 Speaker 6: I was lucky. 01:05:46 Speaker 1: It's good. Itsn't it's nice. 01:05:48 Speaker 4: Kind of that era. 01:05:51 Speaker 1: It was like in Melody Make or something. 01:05:54 Speaker 2: It was like right behind let it Be or something for this like it was number two for the Album of the Year left or. 01:06:00 Speaker 1: Something, but kind of got lots of time. Yeah, I know this this. Oh wow, see we go major. There, that's minor. Okay, wow, there's a switch. 01:06:20 Speaker 4: Okay, you got mad. 01:06:21 Speaker 5: Yeah, they stay minor. So there's G minor f over you know, G minor. Then we go major E major. That stays at E minor. I think, you know, wow, okay, that's they got They got me Tom, Yeah, no, I mean you know. But also I think I remember when I first heard that when you know, you know, we in the rehearsal student Tom sort of brought that in and I think that was It's very Morricone called change as well, Like we were listening to a lot of Morricone, So I think what I loved about when he brought that and was suddenly like that song and that actually those chords, all all of them, because they were very Latin, they felt very Latin. 01:07:15 Speaker 1: It's suddenly we went, we went more widescreen. Wow. 01:07:20 Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's well, that's really interesting. Yeah, I'm gonna check. 01:07:25 Speaker 1: I'm glad. I'm glad you heard it too. 01:07:26 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I'm going it's the same step down and you know, it's the it is the G minor with the F over the GM, you know. 01:07:34 Speaker 1: But I mean yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure it's all Wow. 01:07:37 Speaker 2: Okay, I've revisited Hail of the Thief a lot the last three years, you know, like a lot. Yeah, it feels like it has its own mm hmm. I mean every album sort of does, even kid A and Amnesiac, even though I know they get groups together quite a bit, have a distinct feel. But there's something really about Hailed the Thief that feels somehow like a like a like the perfect balance of everything that came before it. 01:08:09 Speaker 3: Wow. 01:08:09 Speaker 1: That's yeah, yeah, I done or feel that. Well. It's interesting. 01:08:13 Speaker 5: So that is interesting because that was Hail to the Thief was a response to when we made kid A and amnize. Those songs were largely conceived in the studio and we learned how to play them out on the road, and we felt like we were bringing life. So that tour for kid A was obviously playing stuff from Okay Computer in the Bends, but also interpreting the stuff from kid A and I think it was the first time that we again we had to expand our kind of our palette in terms of, you know, how we got those songs, how we did those songs on kid A and Amnesic live, right, And I think you're right that it's true that and come and think of it. So we were excited by the way we changed as a life band. Making those two albums changed us. We had to we had to bring in more stuff, and I think hell to the was we didn't want to go back into the studio for a really long time. We just didn't want to go through that intense period that kid A and Amnisic was, so we were sort of letting go a bit more and just doing what we were doing live. So yeah, that's that's that's a good point. Yeah, I think you're right there. 01:09:28 Speaker 1: So kid A and Amnesiac did feel a little. 01:09:30 Speaker 2: It felt intense in that it wasn't you weren't, Yes, it was it was it was It wasn't the band in its natural state. 01:09:38 Speaker 5: Exactly, No, completely, and it was forcing. It was like an article. It was very much a Bowie thing. It's like, we're going to change tack here, and this is the kind of music where we didn't know exactly what it would be like. But Tom was like, I'm done with melody and more rhythm and more textures because you can't force those things on. They have to sound natural. But it wasn't the natural state of the band. We were becoming something else. And there was a lot of stuff on that was played as a band, but it was Jack's to pose with a lot of stuff that we were stretching out, using different instruments and different types of songs and samples and all sorts. 01:10:18 Speaker 2: It's still a hell of a catalog. It's like, I mean to contend with that. You go, but you know, I'll go away from it for a long time and I come back it's like I'm still there. 01:10:27 Speaker 3: You know. 01:10:27 Speaker 5: It's one of the funny things about because we did the shows last year and it might it might sound a bit weird this. But one of the really lovely things was in the process of it, Like when rehearsing, I was like, yeah, these are really good songs in a way I appreciate them in a way that that I'd never appreciate them before because you were just doing it, but then you stop doing it. And also, I guess the other thing is that there was the first time that we weren't doing new material, So that whole thing was you could kind of really feel the songs in a way that we haven't before in terms of, you know, their eras of our life, but also the beauty of the songs and the and the beauty. 01:11:16 Speaker 1: Of the way we play them. 01:11:18 Speaker 5: Yeah, and that was so that was really lovely, and I could really understand in a way, I could feel the emotions of the songs, like I could understand why. 01:11:26 Speaker 1: People liked us, which you know before you. 01:11:30 Speaker 5: Know, I wasn't shocked, but I didn't fully understand it, but I understood it. I was like, oh, yeah, these are and like you said, it's a really there's a lot of really good songs there, and and you can play you can have two sets of quite different material each night, and they're all pretty strong, So yeah, I think, yeah. 01:11:50 Speaker 1: It's it's a yeah, it's a good place to be. 01:11:52 Speaker 2: Do you think you guys were playing them different on this last stour or do you. 01:11:57 Speaker 5: Like yeah, I don't know. I don't It's it's funny because you don't want to get too slick with radio head songs. It's like you need to have some jeopardy. You need to feel like times it's gonna all fall over the edge, you know, And that's really good. We've because we've always had a but there's always been a slight kind of nail biting element to what we do because you know the place we've been. However, what's lovely is that we can play songs like Present Tense, which is essentially I've always loved it because it it feels like a Brazilian song off off off a moon shaped Paul. But what's so lovely is that we've now got there because there's one thing being edgy, and that's fine. There's one thing doing that and we could do that, but there's another thing, be able to play with softness, and I think we're able to do that now that you know, we're not panicking, we're appreciating and we're in a calmer place, and so that the songs that merit that, they, yeah, the ones that need that. We're reaching places that we've never reached before in those songs because they need you to sort of embody that that loose business and no tension, and you know what. 01:13:12 Speaker 1: Songs did feel like that for you. I feel like they need the. 01:13:16 Speaker 5: Like present tense. I mean, I think Pyramids song benefited. I think it's that thing of I think as you get, as you get older, you it's I guess it's a bit like being a method actor or something that you find the state that you need to be so a song likes it. 01:13:34 Speaker 1: It's interesting. It's a good question. 01:13:35 Speaker 5: I don't know quite the answer that, because I was just about to say, like off kDa National Anthem, which is already was and recorded really spiking, but the way we were playing it actually it wasn't it had an edge, but it it was just it becomes it becomes like a deeper beast, like the bass and the groove is deeper. And then and then when we go into the outro and it's just like you know, and I remember Tom started playing this kind of major seventh kind of lick and we're like, oh yeah, we're fucking in this place and it's like whoa. It's like, so yeah, I think I think we can get deeper in terms of a deeper groove, and we we you know, it's just like it's fatter. Wow, yeah, which is nice, which we weren't before. I always thought we were better. I always remember we were. I remember, I'm laughing when we played Coachella in twenty twelve. We headlined one night and we did it, and I stayed the next night for Drey and Snoop were doing their thing. And it was the year that the Tupac hologram. Yeah right, okay, so weird moment, you know, and I had some of those chocolate mushrooms. 01:14:45 Speaker 1: I stayed on. 01:14:48 Speaker 5: And you know, it's very lovely. I walked out. I was, I was, I was, you know, do you want to come and see us? Like, yeah, of course I do. It's like and I remember, like the first song ushering in the VIP thing. You stand, it's amazing. You walk in front of the bass bins, in front of the audience, and you walk down the middle and you stand there and it's you know, and I remember watching that show and the and the sound, and I was just like, man, shit, this makes us look like a fucking string quartet. 01:15:16 Speaker 1: You know. 01:15:17 Speaker 5: And I think I think we've always longed, you know, it's we've always longed to have a bit of that West coast or what at that depth, that base. 01:15:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think we not the weather, but it's work in progress. 01:15:33 Speaker 2: I think the next record you send it to Dre, get that missed? 01:15:36 Speaker 5: Do you know my dream when no kidding, This is the thing. I don't think I've ever said this. My dream was like on kid A. It was like that the year of reinvention. I was so into Dre as a like I loved everything he did. So we're talking two thousands and I remember No Diggity had just come out and I was just like, fuck, why don't how cool would it be for radio to work with Dr Dre. I would have loved that. I would have been a pig and shit. 01:16:04 Speaker 2: Man, that would have been incredible. 01:16:06 Speaker 5: Well, I don't know, I mean, you know, I'm not sure about I mean, he might not put up with us, and. 01:16:12 Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. It was just like it was just like. 01:16:15 Speaker 5: A dream in another world, in a parallel universe, we'd have gone in and done a record with Dre and and you know, because that's what Bowie would have done, right, Bowie, if he was at the same area, gone like because you know, you think about him when he did Young Americans. Yeah, he goes, I want that Philly sound. Yeah, well that equivalent for us would have been like, I want something like that West Coast, yeah, you know, and and juxtaposed that with our gnarly thingy whatever we did. Anyway, I just thought he could take because we we had Riffscalore and we had pockets and grooves Scalore that even if we didn't, you know, we we sent him a load of stuff. And you know, because he was always the best at sampling and what he did and right and taking what he did and used, and he. 01:16:59 Speaker 2: Would use live like he had live players. 01:17:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, he had his guys. 01:17:02 Speaker 2: He'd be like, exactly going to take this from Joe Corcker, but you're going to chop it like that. 01:17:07 Speaker 5: And I always felt like we had the potential to that someone. I was always delighted, like when anyone of that world sampled us, you know, really, oh just I loved it because that meant that, you know, it meant that you were. There was a bit of a groove to what you did. I mean, you know, we just that was so much of the music that we listened to, you know. 01:17:31 Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, maybe another lifetime if you like this one it is, it's one for another lifetime. 01:17:40 Speaker 5: It's another reincarnation with with Dray and another reincarnation. 01:17:45 Speaker 1: We'll dream it. 01:17:45 Speaker 2: We'll dream it. 01:17:47 Speaker 1: It was great talking love so much. Beautiful Records, Thank you so much. 01:17:50 Speaker 2: I'm glad we got to listen to some of it and talk. Yeah, thank you, beautiful thanks, justin thank you, beautiful Thanks. An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist of our favorite songs from ed Olbrian and some of the other songs mentioned in this episode as well. We ture to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Up a podcast to see all of our interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record pot. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.