The Rich Roll Podcast - Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on Depression, Trauma & Finding Light Again

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

Ed O'Brien is a member of Radiohead and the artist behind his new solo album "Blue Morpho." This conversation explores the intersection of creativity and mental health, and the ways transformation so often mirrors the artistic process itself. We get into the prolonged depression that birthed the record, the dark night of the soul, childhood trauma, the surrender that comes with embracing uncertainty, the limits of AI, and much more. As we talk, we realize his album and my book are circling the very same themes. Call it synchronicity. Ed is lovely. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: PlantPower Meal Planner: Get $20 off an annual subscription with code RICHROLL20👉🏼https://meals.richroll.com AG1: Get the Welcome Kit + D3 + K2 + Flavor sampler pack FREE ($126 in gifts)👉🏼https://www.drinkAG1.com/richroll Rivian: Electric vehicles that keep the world adventurous forever👉🏼https://www.rivian.com WHOOP: Join now and get one month free👉🏼https://www.join.whoop.com/Roll Birch: Get 27% off ALL mattresses + 2 free eco-rest pillows👉🏼https://www.BirchLiving.com/richroll Ollie: Get 70% off your Welcome Kit with code RICHROLL👉🏼https://www.ollie.com/richroll Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors  Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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To get it, go to meals.witroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz and enter promo code Richroll 20 at checkout. This underlying depression had been going on for years. It just seems so bleak and it seems how do I get out of there? Depressions, breakdowns, illnesses, the body is saying there's something not right here. Ed O'Brien of Radiohead. One of the architects of Modern Rock. and rock and roll Hall of Fame inductee has a solo record called Blue Morpho.

The idea that the guy from Radiohead is going to complain about not being happy, you know, nobody wants to hear that. No, and it was exactly that. It felt very indulgent. I'm not like that. I'm a rock. I'm a band. But my body was just saying enough. I felt like I was carrying a weight every day that was weighing me down. It was very, very, very physical. I cared so much before what people thought of me.

And the healing process is a process of self-love and going, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm no longer hiding. You have to ask, well, why was I hiding? Well, I was hiding because... It's like perfect timing that I'm sitting with you today to have this conversation. There are no coincidences, right? Just synchronicities. In your case, like I'm curious of the ways in which the album Bluomorpho mimics, like the process of creating that work of art mirrors the journey that you went on with your with your mental health

and your depression and and um this process of trying to make sense and and come to some place of healing and wholeness. Mm. I mean it's it completely mirrors that. Um and it is a it's a transformation creativity is it I guess it's a transformation of sorts and there's a start and middle of an end and the middle is where it gets really challenging. I feel like I haven't got enough experience of this transformation, but my experience of transformation is it feels impossible without the deeply challenging aspect that is at the heart of it. Because, you know, if you take the human body, if you take the mental health, you know, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, belief is that the there's an innate or not my belief but I I resonate with those who say or

this idea that there's an innate human the body has an innate human intelligence it wants to heal you know and that's what depressions and that's what's breakdowns and that's what illnesses can be or early onset the body is saying there's something not right here and are you going to listen to And, you know, the coping mechanisms and the things from childhood that we all, that become part of our character and, you know, we think they're us, there gets to a point your body goes, your body knows it's no longer serving you. Your mind goes, oh, I'm just, this is me, I'm just carrying on. And essentially, I think that sort of breakdown is. Your body's saying, enough. Yeah.

The universe is always knocking, trying to get our attention. Yeah. but we're so captured by our minds and by the stories that we're recycling in our brain, thinking that they're ours not realizing that they were embedded before, you know, we had the ability to exercise agency over them. And we're kind of all operating on some kind of loop, like playing out a narrative that we didn't consciously choose. And when the universe is knocking trying to get your attention, we always have the opportunity to pay attention and make change,

but for some reason, it seems like the human animal needs to be in sufficient pain or suffering before they'll heed that knock and start making those changes. Like we can all make a different choice, but for some reason, we need to be in that place of suffering as, you know, kind of like the crucible for our growth and for our learning. And I don't know why that is. But if we don't pay attention, those knocks get louder.

And the chaos, you know, starts to increase and the pain increases until we are willing to listen and course correct. I mean, I think fundamentally, you know, there's human beings don't like being out of their comfort zone. They get into a rhythm. And that becomes, that's how they make sense of everything.

And, yeah, the only way to break that and then you're right i always say this or my person experience is the universe gives you has you have everything around you in order to evolve and it's whether you listen or whether you're awake to it and you know and you're right exactly if i look back on my situation this this underlying depression had been going on for years and i i'd sort of try to address it with you know I went to see a healer in Brazil to sort of kick it all off but I also made things everything from dietary changes which were actually profound you know eliminating alcohol for a while no drugs um food the kind of food I was eating because you know there's the there's the

link between the guts and the and the brain oh I thought I'm I'm dealing with this I'm dealing with this it's this but you get to you get to a certain point that that toolbox that you have in order to help, it's like that for me was that darkest moment. It was like everything I was doing wasn't making a job difference. And when you're when you're in it, you don't want to hear that this is your opportunity for growth and transformation. No, because it's hell. It's paralyzing.

It's hell. That's right. And I think that thing of framing it within a bit like an artist or a musician or something when they frame the work they do within the arc of their life, it's the same thing with these moments of supreme challenge and darkness. If you can frame it as this is my hero's journey, and I think that's why I definitely embraced this notion of the dark night of the soul, which I think comes from St. John of the Cross, and this idea,

and, you know, Dante's Inferno, midway through life, I lost myself in the woods. When I was able to, I was just okay, when I'm like, I'm not a freak, this is what people for thousands of years have been going through. And this is part of the journey. This is the part of the journey of existence. I think it's super important to have that.

To be able to frame it, almost like you frame your life as a film sometimes in the sense of trying to make sense of it. You know, because on the, you know, the cold face of it, it just seems so bleak and it seemed, how do I get out of there? And I think for me that that was the hardest bit. It was like, how long is this going to go on for? Because after nine months, I didn't feel like I'd made any shifts.

But for instance, I guess if I'd had a, if I'd lived in a community, for instance, if we were in a proper community where you had your elders and your elders who'd been through that, they could go and they're, it's all right, you just sit with it. But I had a feeling that's what I had to do. but for me, it was, the moment I was able to frame it in a bigger journey, is the bigger picture, it suddenly became more palatable. It was easier to deal with. How long had you been in the depths before you were able to make that perspective shift? I think about six, seven months. That's a long time.

Yeah, they're gradual things. It was particularly bad in the winter. and then the spring and summer comes, but you're still carrying away, you're still like, why do I feel heavy? Why is this exhausting? What's, you know, why that, why?

But then a bit of sunshine gives you a bit more, you know, you might go and swim in a river and you feel better. And so it, yeah, it was, it did feel a lot like a long time. And I, that for me was, I was fortunate because my wife, Susie, she's a kinesiologist.

And she'd been through a similar sort of, hers was longer through her teachings and through her her work it's like she's like you've got to sit in the fire trust in the trust in the universe this wasn't your first doubt with depression but maybe the most acute or prolonged like it's coinciding with lockdown right you tried the dietary you've made lifestyle changes yeah and helpful but not going to solve the whole problem. You have this perspective shift where you realize maybe I can exert some agency. If I just look at this as a hero's journey and I'm just in it right now,

what were the decisions that you made about how you were going to exercise that agency? Like what did you decide to explore in terms of modalities to claw your way out of this hole? I kept it pretty simple. I mean, I'd had. bits of therapy over the years, but I found that it was completely conditional on my relationship with the therapist and how much I resonated with them. And I hadn't found anybody that I resonated with, so I didn't have a therapist. One thing that really helped, I'd had for years five elements acupuncture, which is the old form of acupuncture. It was pre-Maoist China. So it's all about

the destiny of an individual and also their relationship between heaven and earth. It's very, it's, it's the old acupuncture. The communists didn't like it, of course, when it came in, because they're all about, there's no, you know, the individuality is subsumed to the... This is not serving the state. This is not serving the state. So all the five elements, practitioners, got driven out to Taiwan. So what are the old knowledge?

Well, the old Taoist knowledge gets, goes out to Taiwan. And there was a British man called J.R. Worsley, who went over, I think, in the 50s or 60s. And he brought the old form 50. He bought five elements acupuncture to the UK. And actually, all interesting to America. And it's different from TCM, traditional Chinese medicine is fabulous. You know, you put it. But it's all about you put a, you put a needle in there.

It affects your kidneys. You know, it's very utilitarian. This is philosophical. It's spiritual. So that was tremendously helpful because I would go and see him every four weeks. And you'd talk for half an hour because he's established. So how are you? So there's a therapeutic.

But what was great, it went more than therapy. Because okay, I'm going to hit some points here. And they were very beautiful names like Heaven's Gate or. And I found it profoundly powerful. So that helps shift. stuff. But I just think being still, I think I've had such a busy life. And a lot of that was, as I say, running from the ghosts of my past. There was a reason I was busy. We had talked previously and you had mentioned that you came across Gabor Mate's work.

Yeah, amazing. This epiphany that perhaps there's something in your childhood that needs a little. little bit of excavation in order for you to make peace with yourself. Yeah. I mean, again, I was reading this book at the start of this having fallen into this hole. And this book was exactly what I needed. The universe provided me. Susie said, I think you should read this book when the body says no.

And I was reading it. And, you know, it's essentially he noticed some private. practice that a lot of people with autoimmune diseases and cancers and addictions, where's the source of this? It's all in childhood. And he said it's all in childhood. And he does that beautiful thing that somebody who's very learned and you know they're speaking a truth, it seems really simple.

And I was reading this and he was giving examples of case studies and talking about the trauma the child and I was reading it so I'm going I was like well that's like my childhood and I'd never allowed myself to go my child I'd never allowed myself to use that word trauma right it feels like such a heavy word trauma was something that was I you know if like Gabon Matte for instance his his parents and his grandparents were in concentration camps. That felt to me like trauma. That's the level of hurt and trauma. So I wasn't allowing myself.

I'd go, well, you know, it was, yeah, it was a bit of shit, but, you know, in that classic way. But what I realized I'd done was, I think in order to cope with it. And obviously like, you know, Gen X in Britain, no one none of us none of us

processed anything we had all this stuff you should be like this and all this kind of some pretty nasty stuff could happen but we weren't listened to and that's just how it was

and so it makes for a very good humour I mean I think that's one the reason the British have kind of quite dry and sarcastic humour because well it's that line in is it crimes of Muslim

meaners? Is it the humor is tragedy plus time? Yeah. If it bends, it's, if it's bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny. So tragedy plus time. Tragedy Comedy. Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's why the, you know, you look at Monti Python and, you know, that there'll be a lot of trauma there, those childhoods. And just the British way, very zipped up and very, you know, Americans can see it. You can see what we, we like as a nation. But it feels indulgent. to think that if your childhood isn't, you know, completely insane, that you would characterize it as being traumatic. You know what I mean?

And so it feels like, oh, come on. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't really. It wasn't that bad. But that then prevents you from really kind of performing an autopsy on whatever emotional needs went unmet that that show up later in life and create these narratives about, you know, it stops you from here. and your inner monologue and all of that. Yeah, it stops you from healing. And that's the thing.

And it was exactly that. It felt very indulgent. I'm not like that. I'm a rock. I'm a bad. But my body was just saying enough. And that's somebody who said, you have to process this stuff.

Because I also had a sense before this, that the way I was being was sort of unsustainable. I was using profound amounts of energy to see a day three or see a project through. And I knew that in the medium of music, I had this innate sense music shouldn't be like a struggle it should be a flow and

that's what I found subsequently about all of it life is a flow once you've once you process stuff and once you're becoming whole you're not using colossal amounts of energy

just to make things happen I felt like I was carrying a weight every day that was weighing me down it was very very very very physical. I mean, part of the process of this is I think it's so interesting how it manifests itself in the body. What's the operative story that's running in the background that is motivating you to push and be hard and have that burdened kind of relationship with the world in your work? I had a relentless, I was never satisfied with what I'd done. So,

Jared's who is the the the my five elements acupuncture uh practitioner he's the kind of he's the top guy in the UK he said to me when I went back to see him and I was in this period of darkness and he said he said are you happy with what you've you've achieved so we're talking 2021 and it required supreme honesty if anyone else had asked me that in a I'd have gone a course it's it's amazing I'm the most blessed And I knew that, but I didn't feel it. And I said to him, I said, no, I don't.

And he said, don't you think that's crazy? I said, I know it's crazy. You know, that's why when someone asked me that or a journalist, you go, yes, of course, it's extraordinary. I know that I've had the most blessed experience on my creative life. It doesn't get better. If you want to be in a band from the 90s, it doesn't get better than being in Radiohead, right? And if you'd said to my 16-year-old self,

this is going to be what you're like. I really like, wow. And it is extraordinary, but I didn't feel it. And that was all self-worth and the way that we were, just the way that people talk to you as a young child. You know, I had an epiphany in sort of three-quarters away through this. I was meditating and this thing came up in my mind. And I've spoken quite a lot about this.

And my report, like a lot of kids' reports, said, could do better. and I realized that oh my God that's that those tattooed on your brain yeah those three words stopped me

sitting back and going wow this is great because it says you cannot enjoy this you've got to keep doing you've got to do and it's relentless it's exhausting

it's not sustainable the idea that the guy from Radiohead is going to complain about not being happy you know nobody wants to hear that no this episode is

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wearable health and fitness coach in the form of the screenless band that you see right here. which has been affixed to my left wrist ever since I first adorned it six and a half years ago. It stayed there for one reason because the insights it provides me with every single day have just proven invaluable, helping me to dial in my sleep and my recovery based upon the amount of strain I impose upon myself, all of which I have to say has massively influenced when and how hard I push myself as well as the daily habits. I'm best to adopt and those that I need. to ditch. And right now, I'm really relying upon it more than ever as I applaud this slow return to some semblance of fitness in the aftermath of undergoing spinal fusion surgery, which has required

me to pay much more attention to how my body responds to various types of fitness and recovery stimuli. And right now, you can get into it by going to join.wop.com slash roll for one month free of work. You have this animating force that's telling you you're not enough. You got to push harder. You have to always be going the extra mile in order to earn love and acceptance and feel worthy of not just being in this band, but being alive. And that leads to this lack of satisfaction.

But not for nothing, it's got to feel at times quite heavy and burdensome to be in a band like Radiohead that is so revered. I mean, this band is so iconic. It's almost like a religion for people. And to have to carry that around is so loaded with expectations on how you're showing up to fulfill that promise with the legion of fans all over the world. I mean, how do you carry that? How does that feel inside you? It's interesting. I don't feel that at all like my son said to me because I don't I doesn't register with me at all that my son said to me when we did these shows last last year he said that I don't think you realized how big radio head are and I go I think you're right I I have they're pretty big yeah yeah and yeah and

but I've got no because you're in it you don't have that perspective yeah and my life is you know my life as soon as the kids were born, that becomes like, if I, that becomes a central part of my life. That's the most important thing in my life. And everything else gets. Now, if I hadn't had any kids and I'd stayed into that bubble and, you know, I think that would have happened. But because kids don't give a shit and I loved being a dad, I think when Sal was born, when Salvador was born, I had a sense of this is.

my purpose. This felt more real and more powerful and deeper than anything I'd ever had. And I remember the day after he was born at home and we'd set up a birthing pool in the sitting room and and the next day. So Sal, we had an enormous bed and Sal for the first year slept in our bed between Susie and myself. It was so beautiful. And Susie didn't get out of bed for 14 days with this whole thing, very much, very much subscribed and influenced by the whole continuum concept. And so the mother and child, Susie and Sal were asleep. And I was clearing, I mean, it was just like a bomb site.

I was getting rid of this huge amounts of water that had, you know, it had all the, all the stuff from a birth. And I remember I felt like, I had this moment. I was like, and I was so like, this is. my job. I found my role. So that stopped me from being in kind of radio headlander. And I'm pretty private. I've never liked. I've always felt deeply uncomfortable on the more public aspect of, you know, if we do an award ceremony or we go out on mass. I love the gigs. I love, love, love love love those shows because there's a can but the more the other stuff I always sort of sort of

was able to so I did that question you asked me doesn't really register with me yeah I didn't really carry that with me and I kind of like that because the other thing is that I again I realized that a very early I remember I was around the time of okay computer and I was a single guy and I was at a party and I was having conversation with this girl and we were getting on really well and it was like she's lovely and she's liking me and and then she said she said what do you do and up until then I've been really honest I said I'm in this band and you know and I said and in before that the previous five years you go I'm in radio they go oh yeah creep right you go yeah and there was a and this is okay computer being out for three months and she said what do you do and I said I'm in a band so what's like

she in radio and it was bizarre and it completely changed yeah changed the connection and we were getting on well and I thought and then this is going to freak out yeah I was just like I was just like oh I I I you see you see rich I one of the things I realized in this whole but it took until okay computer for that to happen yeah exactly and suddenly you're on another level but I've always one of my things is I love talking to people I grew up so my parents and my grandparents were osteopaths and they had their practice on the ground floor of this big oxford house so There were five rooms and there was a big waiting room with lots of patients waiting to be treated. I would just wander down as a toddler, two-year-old and just talk to people, old, young.

So I've always loved, I've always been interested in other people and just talking to people. So you have to, the radio head stuff has to be worn lightly if you're going to make connections to people. I'm interested in that. I'm interested in, I don't know, I'm interested in people. I'm interested in people. I'm, you know. Yeah. What's interesting to me about that is, you know,

knowing you a little bit from the time we spent in Austin. There's a healthy part to that, this idea, like, I'm not comfortable with all the hullabaloo. Like, I know what my priorities are. I understand what's really important. But the flip side of that coin is motivated by something different. Like, there is a discomfort. within you around

worthiness and you know we talked about this last time like you're very comfortable kind of being in the background in radio head like you create the soundscapes you're literally responsible for the sound that we identify as being radio head but your face

is not as recognizable because you're not fronting the band you're kind of in the back playing around with wires and plugging things in and working pedals and whatever it is that you do and this mental health journey that you've been on and this album that you just released, this hero's journey, isn't just about depression. It's about self-love and honoring your own artistic voice to

get in front more than you ever have and use your voice and be comfortable with that. Like there is a very beautiful self-reverance in this work where you're honoring yourself. maybe for the first time as an artist. And that is the consequence of this mental health hero's journey that you've been on, that you can be in the fullness of your creative expression. Yeah, I mean, it's the process of it's interesting because it's, I'm no longer hiding. I mean, it's that, it's that thing.

And why was I, you have to tell why was I hiding? Well, I was hiding because I had huge, lack of self-worth, you know, and by the way, you know, we were all responsible for the sound. It's really lovely of you to say that. I mean, I definitely played a partner, but it was a collective thing. But I didn't feel comfortable being front and center, and I guess I was always hiding. And I think that thing, that started in my childhood in that sort of quite scary environment as a child. you know is if you don't if you don't put your head above the parapet you're not going to get her

but what's so amazing about all of this I mean I essentially say that the healing journey is a journey of the truth is a journey of truth right and the truth sets you free so what I've found on this whole process so you know like the previous record I did solo I was wracked with like can I do this body but I was deeply uncomfortable being that being that person on point so what do I go out under my initials EOB yeah you wouldn't even put your full name on it It says everything. Like you're kind of, but it's a step. It's a step.

You made a solo album, but you're still too uncomfortable to actually attach your name to it. Yeah, but it's that thing. The truth sets you free. And you, you, you, I've been saying, I'm not fully there, but I'm definitely on the journey. I really don't care anymore because I cared so much before what people thought of me because, I guess, I wanted to be liked and loved. why does somebody want to be liked in love? Because they feel that there was a deficit of that. There's a hole there.

It's a classic journey, right? So once you learn about, once you go to that dark place and the healing process, as you said, is a process of self-love and going, I'm okay, I'm okay, you know. And then you feel it. And then, of course, for me, my connection with spirit, for want of the better word, that's the thing that makes everything else

I can handle anything in a way. I don't care what people think of me now. You know, that feeling that I have, and I think very much like Thoreau, you know, his writings and Walden that when I'm in nature, that's my, you know, when we're here. And if you were to leave me here all day and I'm wandering around and I've got a cup of tea and I can make some tea, good tea and hear the birds and see the creatures. and you can say anything to me now and it's going to brush off me. Whereas before I'd be rocked by it.

But it's that connection with spirit which is at the center now, which is anchored in there. And that's the thing that I try to do on a daily basis to maintain that. If I don't have that center, that's the thing that knocks me and I do start caring. But that is the key thing. And that was the thing that came to me in this dark night of the soul. It's like, you know, people use that beautiful word grace. And I can't explain it because I'm, it's quite hard to explain for those who, you know, I come from, like I always say, I come from Oxford, which is one of the most cerebral places on the planet. They threw out spirits and God when they threw out religion.

And I understand the casting aside of religion because it's, you know, there are beautiful aspects of it, but there's also controlling people, which is, and the, you know. but that thing is so part of my life now and has been and and I think I've been seeking it for a long time like I've been meditating for 20 years I call myself the mongrel meditator I taught myself and for years I just would turn up on the mat and just just be quiet and but now it feels different it's a different level and that's the thing I think it's that thing that when when you really look at that when I really looked at the so how does it all fit together what are the what what happens first i think that thing of that dark night of the soul forces you to look at your fears and sit at your fears really find out what it is that's put you in this place and then you sit and you're not running away from it and that each day

it gets easier to sit with them and then you find stillness and in that stillness comes grace comes spirit And so it's quite a tricky thing to talk about, but that's my truth. That's what I feel. And I think, I don't know if you've experienced that form of grace. Have you, is that something that on your journey? Yeah, of course. I think a lot of it has to do with, again, going back to, you know, the story that we tell ourselves about what it is.

Like, we have words for these things. you're having a mental health crisis, you know. And when you use violent word choices like that, it's going to compel you to think that there's something bad or wrong. And when you experience some degree of discomfort, your first impulse is, how do I change this? How do I get out of this? It's not supposed to be this way.

And what you're talking about is being okay with the discomfort. Like the stillness is acceptance and surrender. and when you're attached to whatever you're going through changing, you're actually interfering with the process that actually is going to get you to change and transform, which is stopping everything, being okay with where you're at, relinquishing your impulse to control, letting go of your discomfort with the uncertainty of it all and what it means, and allowing it to be what it is.

It's basically accepting reality. And in your case, you go out to Wales. This is your special place. And this very primal, untouched part of the world becomes an antenna to spirit that allows you to inhabit a deeper sense of stillness that brings the healing that you need so that you can detach from outcomes, focus on process. And the more in alignment you become, the easier it is for you to speak your truth and get in front of the microphone and create art that is actually a reflection of who you truly are rather than trying to make something that you think people want from you or that you should be doing because of your station in life. How's that for my big monologue on Ed O'Brien? As you were just saying that, I'm like, you are so coherent. eloquent on this. I mean, there's a reason you're writing books and there's a reason you do

this podcast. I'm still in that phase. It's funny, as you said that, because when you say it's like being with a teacher who, you know, you're talking about Sorrent, it's like, I'm still in that phase when I'm kind of, I haven't pieced it all together. It's still bits like that, and I can see bits and I'm sort of riffing on it, but you just put it. This is my autopsy. But it's, but what you're saying is, presumably, that's also, that's, that's a journey. That's a very common journey. I mean, nobody wants to get still and stop and, you know, sit in their discomfort. We want to go out in the world and make people like us and notice us and do things and have relationships, et cetera. And we just, we just get in our own way constantly.

But you know what's so interesting that I found, I had several mantras and one of them was, I do this thing where I had every day part of my ritual was you know I meditate then I'd go outside with a pot of tea beautiful piemutan tea a white tea rain or shine any season and I'd listen to the birds and then I've got my book and I'd read my just my intentions and one of them was was this thing and you mentioned it about nobody wants unsurricular It's one of my mantras is like that's the place to be.

I know creatively that's the place to be. Uncertainty because uncertainty is in creativity, that's the place where you do your best work. You're not relying on what's gone before, what you know, you're kind of out of your comfort zone. And I think that's the same thing in life because what I love about, and I now, I embrace uncertainty, uncertainty or I know I know that it's really good for me because that's the place that's free

of past conditioning you know that's the place where everything that your mind has learned as the accumulation of a lifetime's worth of experiences in that place of uncertainty that disappears and you're like oh shit where am I but that's where transformation happens you know And I, and it is a funny thing. It's, it's a, I wonder if that's part of the journey. That's the, the journey of the soul, the evolution is that, is that, you know, you're right, when we're in a more, not infantile space, but I wouldn't say infant, because that wouldn't be fair, but certainly young adults, we seek comfort and we seek security.

We don't trust in the universe. you know, the world tells us it's brutish and it's ugly and our system kind of encourages that as well. But when you go through this other side and you go through these breakthroughs, it's learning more to let go and to trusting and then you go, okay, I like being in this place of uncertainty. I feel like right now I'm in a really big moment of uncertainty. But uncertainty is reality. Yes, exactly. We think that things are more certain, than they are. And we make most of our life decisions trying to control external circumstances to give us a greater sense of certainty. I think I brought this up in the panel that we did,

but there's a great psychiatrist called Phil Stutz. He's been on the show a couple times. And his whole thing, he treats a lot of very successful people here in town who are terminally dissatisfied. And his whole thing on what's driving this degree of unhappiness and dissatisfaction is that they deny three unavoidable truths of life. Pain, uncertainty, and the need for constant work. Meaning we're all diluted into this idea that if we can accumulate enough and have enough stature and prestige, etc., that we will be able to transcend. these truths that we will arrive at a place where we won't have to deal with pain anymore. Everything's locked down. There'll be no more uncertainty. And we won't really have to work on ourselves anymore. And this is just driving all of our suffering. And to your point,

uncertainty is a big one and maybe the most nuanced one because truly everything is uncertain. We just do not know. And we think we do and we have these control impulses. But as an artist, There's no room for discovery if you go into the studio or approach whatever it is you're trying to express locked into some idea of what it's going to be or should be. And I know, because I've heard you talk about this with Blue Morpho, going in without an agenda and just paying attention and opening up your antenna for something to come in is how this whole thing happened by not being attached to what it should be or could be and allowing it to be what it wanted to be. Yeah, exactly. And the less I sort of try to control it or move it, the more. the richer it got, and the more, yeah, kind of, I felt the more magnificent it got, because it didn't feel like me. And my only job is, my job is my intuition to being honest

of that and going, this feels good, or I'm not sure that's very good. And that's really important because you're not like a rudderless ship. You're like in the river, but you're just gently going, oh, that feels good. And you're not, you can't force anything. It's happening. but it needs you to be present and it needs you to be true to what you're feeling and the truth that you know you can so that you know

in creativity you can do those things where you can work on something all day but you've got to also have the guts to go I'm not really feeling it's you can see you know we all have that thing we put a lot of effort into stuff and and but that's okay right that's how do you know when you've

stumbled upon an idea, a progression of sounds that is working. It stays with you, it's intuition. Like, how do you know when, oh, I need to go back and develop that versus like, eh? It's so interesting. One of the things I feel like I'm a real novice to songwriting. So I'm kind of speaking about it in a way that it's still kind of... The guy in radio head.

Well, but the songwriting aspect that comes, that how these songs come about, that was the domain of Tom. You know, Tom would get to the, and he would bring us the songs in rehearsal, not in the early days and then the studio. And then we might flesh them out and arrange them and write our own parts. But we weren't involved. We're very, very, very rarely, very rarely involved in the actual first shoots of that song. That was him on his own. And then he might work with Johnny or something. but for me, I hadn't experienced that

and I've really been experiencing like that the last 12 years. So I still feel like it's early days in that. But what I found that, I mean, I find it just extraordinary is that sometimes you get this thing and essentially music is it's mathematical intervals and their patterns

and sometimes they're repeated. I mean, that's essentially what it is. But sometimes that, that musical, motif can come out. And in that moment, you suddenly feel this excitement because you can feel like the universe of this song. You don't know all the detail, but you suddenly go, oh wow. And there's something about the emotion that comes with it, but it's also you feel the potential of what this thing. A track that doesn't have that, you kind of get there. You don't feel that. It's just like it comes out and you go, okay. But the really good ones, they, it's like a, it is, it's like an acorn

seed, an acorn. In that seed, you have the potential of this magnificent tree that can grow and be that thing. The potential of that growth is all in there from that seed. It's in that thing. And you get the same thing with, it's extraordinary, you can get the same thing with music. with some notes in an interval in patterns, you know. So I've been sleeping on a birch mattress for a better part of about five years at this point. And one thing I would say is that having a great mattress is one of those things. You don't really fully appreciate until you experience the difference night after night. Yes, it has enhanced my sleep quality, courtesy of the quality of its responsibly sourced materials,

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Based upon what you just said, I think I can predict how you feel about the advent of AI in music and in songwriting. Yeah. Say your piece on that. I mean, I really worry about AI in a general. terms because I think it's another one of those living spending so much time in the countryside I was originally country boy and then lived in a city in London for 30 years in Manchester and then country boy again and what you realize when you live in a city is that human beings would go around and they go wow look at these beautiful buildings that these things that we've created it's all

about human beings enamored with their own creativity and their own cleverness whereas if in the countryside you look at a tree and you go you look at those leaves you look at the perfection of that branch and you go great artists can maybe match that beauty and that that thing and they can represent that that's where real beauty resides and uh I feel the same way with AI I feel like I see these very very blinked people who are enamored with AI and it's potential and they're using all sorts of excuses like they always pull out the medical one they always go it's going to revolutionize medicine but you know what do they let in through the back door and so in terms of creativity there's no doubt that it will have a huge effect on the music industry

and what it will probably there's always been an aspect of of music that has has had a the mass appeal certainly sort of what i call sort of plastic pop music I think that's where AI will make the biggest inroads, which is a shame because also I grew up in an era of pop music where the pop artists were people like Madonna and George Michael. And not that I was huge fans of Madonna, but brilliant pop star and a great singer and a great songwriter and a great songwriter, all these things.

I think the plastic, that thing, I think the artistry of, you know, AI doesn't have a soul yet. And in my understanding spirit, how can it have a soul? I resonate with Buddhism. You know, very much so I'm not a practicing Buddhist, but the whole idea we've had many, many lives. We have a thing called a soul which inhabits our physical body. And when we're born, that soul enters a physical body.

And when we die, it leaves. And then it goes up and it has another lifetime. A machine can't have a soul. It can have a, it's like a mind. It can have a supreme intelligence. And I just think great music has to have soul, all my favorite music. You know, they come from, it's not just, it's not just mathematics. There's a huge aspect of it that is mathematics.

And that's what it tries to do. But it's the energy and it's the love and it's the emotion and whatever it is that accompanies it, that can elevate and make music what it is. When you were going through it, what role, did music play in you navigating this depression? I stopped listening to music and it was more about the form, the type of music. And it was really about the type of music, I guess if you want that I traditionally come from. I guess alternative music and I think that there was, I just had enough.

And it felt like I was full, that well was full. I never need to hear this music again. And then at that stage, I was just, it was that first lockdown. And I was just listening to birdsong. The birds were alive, they were happy. It felt like they were celebrating that human beings have finally stopped and they could breathe and sing their songs.

So I was really enamored by birds' song and the sounds of nature. I couldn't listen to. And then what happens, I start, it's like a, it's like ground zero. And then you just feed, and I started feeding, there's an album called Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk, which is an extraordinary record. So that was one of the things,

I bought that on vinyl in lockdown. And that sort of started, that was, that really resonated. And then I realized what I was being drawn to was sort of music that felt like it didn't have the traditional form or the kind of form that I was used to. Because I was sort of letting go, the music had to represent that I didn't want to hear something with a very distinct arrangement, like a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, that had no interest for me at all. I felt bored by it. It felt like, but I said, how do I, at the same time, I was, playing my guitar in a very unformless way,

but just little musical motifs. And the thing was as the days went by, and I started to listen to more classical music and more jazz music. So what was coming in was not formless music, but music that I couldn't, because I didn't have the musical brain power, if you like, to go,

the form is like that, it felt like it was more open-ended. I could understand the movements. How can I make sounds that reflect this emotional state that I'm experiencing? Yeah, and it had to be without form, but it couldn't be, it had to have some form, it had to have melody, it had to have a journey through it. You know, it couldn't be sort of gratuitously, you know, there has to be something that you latch on to for a listen. I was just trying to find that and that again was, I mean, it was so interesting. I mean, the track Blue Morpho when the first thing that went down on that was an acoustic guitar track.

So it's so interesting. I hadn't thought of this, but I guess that may be, this is the first time I've realized this, that may be the moment where the record was suddenly, this is how it is. So it was a beautiful hot summer, 2022. In the studio in Wales, you had the windows up, beautiful. It's a Georgian house. So these big windows and sash windows. We had a microphone outside here for the birdsong because we were going to record some of this bird song.

Yeah, which is how that song opens. Exactly. And then I had these series of little musical motifs. And I had an idea for like, it goes from that. section to that section, which is Blue Morpho. But I didn't know how they run. And certainly at the top of the song, I didn't know how to, I didn't know how we would step into this song. And so I just sort of let go and I had my Kusa guitar and I just played it. And I thought it was a kind of a rough thing. And that version, that guitar is the guitar that is on Blue Morpho.

And that was the arrangement now. I didn't know what I was doing. I was just letting go. And that was, and that sort of gave me confidence, but that was also underpinned and it was, and it's that thing. And like I'm saying, the more I'm letting go. And that was being in a place of uncertainty.

But not before where uncertainty was something that I might be frightened of or paralyzed by. It was just like, it's embracing. It's like, I don't know what I'm doing. It's just, you know, just I don't, I don't know what I'm doing. That's the discovery part. Yeah. That's the comfort with uncertainty that gives birth to something new that you couldn't have predicted if you were trying to manage it. Exactly.

And that's the beauty of what I do. And that's why for me now, it is so intoxicating. It's so like, oh my God, I want to do this more because the more I lean into this uncertainty. Well, that's where the shit is. Yeah, exactly. That's where it is. The record, you're going on this journey. It opens with incantations.

It's dark and it's kind of pounding and you're having this visceral experience. And then Bluomorpho, you hear the birds, you realize there's light at the end of the tunnel. It's going to be okay. You're telling this story. And in listening to it and listening to the album again and again, like, you could be a film composer. Like there's a lot of like film composition DNA built into this record. Have you thought about that? I mean, I know Johnny's got that wire.

Johnny's got that down. Yeah. He's the king. He's figured that one. He's figured it out. And he's so good at that because he's also got all the musical chops. He's got, you know, he can score stuff he writes. I can't write music.

It's interesting. Yeah, I mean, you know, music for me is very visual. When I connect the music, it's very visual. I like, I mean, I've always. loved film music. I think one of the earliest albums my parents had was Midnight Cowboy. The John Void, Dustin Hoffman. Great soundtrack.

Obviously, everybody's talking, the Fred Neal's song. Nilsen sang it, but also the soundtrack by John Barry. But I loved Ennio Morricone. Love to sound, I mean, one of my favorite films, but I I had the album before I ever, I had the album for three years before I ever saw the film was Wim Wenders, Paris, Texas, the Raikuda soundtrack. I love that.

And I would listen in my bedroom in West Oxford and dream about deserts in West Texas, you know. So this is, I'm seeing your future. I think, I think, yeah, you're lighting up talking about this.

I think there's something there for you. Yeah, I mean, I'm intrigued. I just, I just, there's a discipline involved there. And I,

don't know whether I can I would be able to like shackle my my letting go with the discipline of making a record you know I'm I'm still at a stage and I had a meeting with a music supervisor here in LA and he's great and he was saying similar things and I said to myself I want to do another album first I want to I feel like I'm I just love making my own movies, if you like. And I'd, which you did with this record. Yeah, well, my ideal is that I make the music and then someone else makes the movie.

That's what would be really good. I mean, I'd love to be able to do. Who's going to make the movie to my album? Yeah, who's going to make the movie to my album. And if there's anyone out there, you know, and I think it's interesting there. I think it's also with, you know, look at my friend, my sort of bestie Garth, who, who's a film director and done all the sing movies and written them in animation. but made Son of Rambo. He started off in making, you know, videos as David Fincher and, you know,

but there are people like, you know, Paul Thomas Anderson, Johnny works with whom, who, where he's made videos for Tom. I think directors also, there's a niche there that they quite like that they get these little five, six minutes songs. And whether I have the musical rigor and capacity to do, that thing, music, soundtracks. I don't know. I definitely would like to do it someday, but I don't feel I'm ready for it now. I want to just explore.

I want to just make my own music at the moment. You referred to your depression as a dark night of the soul or this hero's journey. There's lots of phrases that you can kind of attach to what it's like to be in that state of confusion and despair. the sort of perpetually dissatisfied caterpillar that goes into the chrysalis and emerges as the blue morpho butterfly what are the lessons that you have learned from going through this process that you want people to understand so that they can engage with their own challenges

similarly like what is the wisdom it's a you've come out of these experiences. Yeah, it's okay. This is a well-worn journey. And I love this expression that you Americans have. You've got this. You really have got this. If you can lean into it and, you know, obviously there are various versions of it.

And I'm not talking about a version whereby I'm about to take my own life. Mine was not as acute as that. So that's a whole other level. you need you know but for me I'm so thankful for having gone through that journey

I am I would go that go through that again because when you come out the other side and the transformation and the evolution the gains that to be had

are so extraordinary and how I feel now and the clarity that I have and I haven't had depression since then I feel like I'm a whole as you can tell I know I don't have like

you need this this I'm that very digress is it's okay. And actually, again, back to my original thing, if you can frame what you're going through as part of the arc of your journey as this is just a moment, this too shall pass. But the thing that you will grow from this will be extraordinary, the clarity that you'll have and the peace that you'll find, you will look back on that time. and even though you're in the middle of it and it's supremely uncomfortable

you look back and you go I got through this I held on you know some days it's one foot in front of the other other days it's just literally holding on it's interesting that we have the choice

to basically perceive anything that happens to us as an opportunity for growth and transformation but if you're in that deep state of despair or you know just in the dark to say to that person, like, this too shall pass or, you know, you're going to look back on this and be grateful and you're going to learn so much. That's very difficult. It's really difficult. Like,

is there, like, anything that you've learned that you can share with somebody who is in that state to help them avoid a little bit of unnecessary suffering? Well, I don't think you just sit there and wait for it to pass. I think there has to be, you have to try and figure out what it is. And that can be a multitude of things, right? Like I said, like I went through the whole thing, it can be, you know, if I were to eat a diet of junk food and take loads of drugs and just spend my time on my phone on social media, I've been in a terrible place.

So, you know, like you said, lifestyle things are huge. And in fact, in many ways that I think those, thinking about it, those things are super helpful. Lifestyle changes are super helpful in the moment to propel you forward out of that. But the other thing is, as I keep, as I sort of alluded to, is the thing that I actually tell friends when they're going through this and, you know, I've had friends going through it, I guess the best advice I said,

learn to meditate. That's a practical thing. But there's something in that that it's you're being proactive, but you're allowing the healing to happen because, you know, know, what you're reaching as a place. I mean, I truly believe that every child on this planet should be taught at school, the ability, mindfulness and meditation as a coping mechanism because so much of it is about that. 100%.

I feel like you would do well living out of Malibu. You're kind of like this, you're a wellness influencer, Ed. You know, like you grew up with osteopaths as parents. Yeah. You're into acupuncture, meditation. healthy eating, immersion in nature, you know, Buddhism, past life. Like, you're just, I mean, you're custom fit. I know, I'm a walking flip in Malibu cliche.

Like, you know, you're an easy fit out here. How does that work in the UK? Is this still these novel ideas? Yeah, I mean, I've, community of friends. It's funny. I think I've always resonated with the West Coast spirit. I've always, I mean, what I've loved about California, and out here is this openness.

And I think a lot of people out here are seeking. And I'm a seeker. And I've loved the openness. Like, oh, I'm going to try that. My grandmother was American, American. So I came over to America from, you know, from age 13. And I loved that sense of you can do this. You've got this.

That openness. And whereas Britain was all about, oh, you can't do that, mate. Oh, no. Well, are you going to do that? No, no. You know, and I've loved that thing, that openness. So embracing different things. Oh, I try that.

And that's my journey. My journey is not like I don't have some guru. I haven't lived in a community like Maliboon. So, oh, you need to do this. Mine is entirely, it is just experiential. I've got, oh, I've tried that. And things come on my path. And I've tried lots of things that don't work.

Where I've come to is just these are. things I've figured out for myself and you know you're not going to do meditation and have a meditative practice unless there's something there because it's it's a commitment same thing with giving up booze if that doesn't work and live and eating well if that makes you that doesn't change how you feel you well what's the point investing in that I'll go about because getting drunk was great you know so well it wasn't but um yeah so britain wasn't like that but it's it's the dial is shifting another generation I was definitely, you know, I went to see a healer 25 years ago and my wife and I had to keep it

pretty quiet. I haven't even ever told my father because my father was an osteopath and he'd go like, it's all nonsense. I haven't even told him. He doesn't know. Because I, again, I didn't have the courage to go like, well, you know, fuck you. I went and it was good. And, you know, whereas I come to, I come to California and go, oh yeah, which healer? Did you? see. Oh yeah, we saw him. You need to see this. You need to see that one. Oprah went. Yeah, Was that the one that Oprah went to see? Oh my God. What is it about this place?

I mean, you're the Atlantic, you're the Pacific rather. You know, you've got Asia, which a lot of this stuff has come from Asia, right? You know, you've had a, and I mean, I guess that's what it is. Your influence from Asia is far stronger because you're nearer and certainly over the top from Seattle and all the way down. You've had this influence of Asia from the Pacific. Whereas we haven't had that. We're really on the other side.

world. But we gradually in the 60s stuff came through, but there's something about this land here, isn't there? There's something about, I always used to find this, you know, on tour in America. You'd arrive and you'd come from the north from playing in Oregon. And the moment you crossed into California, there's something about the light. There's something about the energy. And that supports seekers and that supports this thing. And maybe it's an abundance of, spirit in nature, maybe, I don't know, you probably know better, but. Well, I think also Los Angeles was, you know, this is historically the place of dreamers. You know, the dreamers, the people with the imagination, the artists gravitated here.

And there's a permissiveness. It sort of didn't, it wasn't developed with a history. And so it was written outside of. the like rules and structures. I think it attracted people who wanted to get away from that. Yeah. So the, you know, the free thinking thing is just, it's just a more permissive environment for that, I think, for better and worse. Yeah. But on that note, you've evolved as an artist as well as a songwriter, as a musician, a vocalist.

We talked about embracing uncertainty and as you become more. more whole creating this this greater access to your own personal truth and how that ends up in your music so what is the message that you have for the aspiring artist or musician out there who's trying to uplevel their relationship with creativity to thine own self be true i mean you know be true to yourself that is the absolute key and you've got to figure out what that is because that I spent for years hiding my hiding didn't know what I really felt or didn't allow myself. I thought I should feel. It's that you've got to be supremely honest to what you, to your truth. There's obviously a commercial aspect which is can get make things very confusing,

but you never make music for other people. You make it for yourself. First and foremost, you cannot second guess what people. There's no idea. You have to, it has to move you. I think what I realize is that you make music that you want to hear. My music feels like the sort of amalgam of things. And I think in a way I'm trying to make music that, yeah, that I haven't got in my library. And so, but that's, how do I do that? It's by being true to myself. Especially with AI.

All we have is our perspective. Yeah. And our experience and our taste. And we're all unique. And that's what makes it so amazing. you know and it's it can be scary because you know nobody likes to be judged you know but it's all right it's just there's lots of music out there that your album just came out so what did do you read reviews do you like you don't you don't read a review since okay computer wow since april 1997

because it they were so good and i realized there was this whole thing that reviews can create sort of well at time they were able to create heaven or hell you know a bad review was horrific and a good review oh brilliant that's not a healthy statement and then you realize of course the reviewers that's their unique filter how are they feeling that day how do they feel about you as an artist is that tainted by it's like I it's really liberating not reading what people write about you because again it's that thing back to what I said you you then don't walk around with this notion that you're either important or you're not important. You just be.

That's the essence. Just be. Just do it. So the band's getting back together again. Radiohead, you guys are touring. Yeah, we did. We did it. Well, it's not like we're getting back together again, but we did a tour.

Yeah. Yeah. How is the health of Radiohead? How is your role in that band evolved as a result of stepping out on your own? Like, how does that work? at all. I mean, I think it's just what was nice about it was it feels very democratic, which is kind of its strength. I felt like with that touring, I just had an enormous sense of gratitude because in so many ways that to be doing this with my brothers and I say my brothers, but it does

feel like a brotherhood. It's that kind of depth. You have that, you know, like you do in families. You have, you know, when you serve up a meal, you know, your, you know, your sister doesn't like ketchup. You don't, you know, and you know, she doesn't, likewise, all these, these bits of intimate knowledge. I have the same thing with these guys without even reason. I know that, I don't know that Colin doesn't like coleslaw, but here, you know, and so you have all this incredibly detailed, it's just there because you've grown up together. So it just, again, it feels really simple. It's just really lovely to be playing these songs, these lovely songs

with people who are, you've had this long journey with, who are supreme musicians, really good people at heart. And yeah, I mean, that's what, and how lucky are we that people want to come and see it and these songs move people. And I think that's the thing. When we played live, we were just, we were sort of, it was just, it was extraordinary. It was very, very emotional. And we found it very emotional.

And on those levels of we could sort of, we've been doing this now for a while and we hadn't done it for a while. So, but we've been playing songs together for many years. they're emotional, they're deep songs. And there's a beauty there and people want to see it. I heard you say in another interview that you hadn't listened to a lot of the songs for a long time. And then when you kind of went back and you're getting into the tour again, you're like, these are good songs. Yeah.

I know. I know that sounds like actually. Everyone's always laughed when I said that. But that was my feeling. It's because when you're doing them, I think because with Radiohead, there was this sort of, and again, it comes. to could do better. And I think that was a universal thing for all of us.

It was, we just continue. You got to do more. You've got to get better, better, better. So you never appreciated what you'd done. And it was so nice. And going through, we didn't have any new material to have to find or work on. We were just being. And you go, wow, that song's really, and not having played them for seven, eight years.

Yeah. So that's. I would imagine it takes some real. intentionality and conscious effort to maintain the health of all of these relationships. What is it that you and the members of the band have done to, like, protect the sanctity of those bonds so that you can continue to, you know, play music together so many years later? Well, we haven't done any, we hadn't done any group therapy. Yeah.

Has it? Which at times that would have been a good thing to do. Yeah. No, and full credits them. And I think, you know, bands inherently dysfunctional. So group therapy is not a bad idea. I mean, I think what we did was we've just gone away from one another. And everybody's moved forward and everybody's grown and everybody's done their own work, if you like.

And I'm not saying they did therapy, but it's that people have been, you can see that, age has been good to us in terms of fostering respect and love. And I just think at the end of that iteration of Radiohead in 2018, there are a lot of people around us. And it had got so big. And Brian, our manager, sort of in the subsequent years, we'd have meetings. Just bring it down to the five of us. and when you distill it to the fibre

I mean that is radiohead you know playing these songs that Tom has written and we add to in colour and we add our own stuff but that's what it is and again it's quite simple but it's amazing how complex these things

and you know it's the classic stories of when you have a successful enterprise you can get people who attach themselves to it who aren't good for that. They're not good. They're not part of it. They're not good for the soul, but they're trying to make themselves important in that organization. So we've had a bit of

you know, worming out. Yeah, some coaling. Some culling, some weeding. Yeah, definitely. I got to get you to the airport, so I'm going to let you go. But it was a real treat to talk to you, Ed. Congrats on the album. You're lovely. I want only good things for you. And this latest expression, I think, is the first in many to come of you bringing full expression to your voice. And I commend you for not only enduring what you did to give birth to this work of art, but by being so open to sharing what that experience was like to help normalize the experience of going through difficult times. It's powerful. Thank you, Rich.

Well, right back at you, you know, the questions that you ask are you make a difference. easy. Yeah. It's a flow. Good, man. Well, come back and let's continue the conversation. Thank you. What a place. Yeah. Look at this. Coming out here. Cheers. Thank you. Thanks.