{"id":2332594,"date":"2026-03-17T03:55:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2332594"},"modified":"2026-03-17T03:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:55:36","slug":"guitarist-talks-new-solo-album-radiohead-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/guitarist-talks-new-solo-album-radiohead-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitarist Talks New Solo Album, Radiohead Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tEd O\u2019Brien is just getting back from a post-dinner stroll near his home in Wales when he logs onto Zoom. \u201cIt\u2019s a very dark, still night,\u201d he says. \u201cWent for a lovely walk as the light faded in the Welsh hills.\u201d Around this time of year, as winter turns toward spring, it tends to get muddy, but he doesn\u2019t mind. \u201cIt\u2019s earthy,\u201d he adds. \u201cThere\u2019s healing in this land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Brien, 57, speaks with the same calm warmth and sense of hidden depths that he has brought to Radiohead<\/a>\u2019s music for decades. As a founding member of the acclaimed British band, he\u2019s made crucial contributions on guitar and backing vocals to songs from \u201cStreet Spirit (Fade Out)\u201d<\/a> to \u201cWeird Fishes\/Arpeggi\u201d<\/a> and beyond, more than earning his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>, Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s list of the Greatest Guitarists of All Time<\/a>, and millions of fans\u2019 hearts. But he\u2019s never opened up the way he does on Blue Morpho<\/em>, the solo album he\u2019s preparing to release on May 22.<\/p>\n

\n\tBlue Morpho<\/em> is technically the second album O\u2019Brien has released outside Radiohead, coming after 2020\u2019s Earth<\/em><\/a>, which he presented to the world under the name EOB<\/a>, but in many ways its strikingly personal tone and daring creative risks make it feel like a debut. The story of its creation, which he\u2019s discussing for the first time in this candid hour-plus conversation, is one of equally profound sadness and renewal. Listening back to the album recently, he felt good about what he\u2019d done. \u201cIt felt honest,\u201d he says, \u201cand at the end of the day, that\u2019s the most important thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Brien spent more than four years making Blue Morpho<\/em>, starting not long after the April 2020 release of Earth<\/em>. As the world shut down and panicked in those early weeks of the pandemic, he and his family were comfortably ensconced at home in Wales. \u201cIt was spring, it was summer, it was novelty,\u201d he says. But by the following year, after a second lockdown that the family spent in London, he was feeling unmoored. He refers to the period that followed alternately as a \u201cmidlife crisis\u201d or \u201cmy dark night of the soul,\u201d alluding to the 16th-century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. Whatever you call it, it\u2019s clear that this was a painful time for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cI went into a deep depression,\u201d he says frankly. \u201cIt was the first time in my life that I had to stop. And what I realized was that I\u2019d been keeping busy, like a lot of people do, running from these ghosts of my past, particularly from my childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Brien was just 17 years old in 1985, when he and four classmates at a boys\u2019 school in Oxfordshire started the band that became Radiohead. By their mid-twenties, they were one of the hottest groups in the U.K., and their career gained momentum at a dizzying rate from there. \u201cFrom 1990 or \u201991 through to 2018, when we stopped touring and went on hiatus, it was pretty much nonstop,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s all-encompassing and it demands your full attention, and it\u2019s addictive in that way. But it\u2019s not necessarily healthy, because you just keep going, keep going, keep going. And then when you stop, suddenly the ghosts catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSteve Gullick*<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWith endless time on his hands, he found himself remembering what it was like to grow up in the Britain of the late 1970s, a generation removed from the end of the Second World War. \u201cThere was no therapy for children. Emotions weren\u2019t talked about,\u201d he says. \u201cMy parents split up when I was young, and it was good that they did split up, but no one ever asked my sister and I, \u2018How are you?\u2019 No one ever said, \u2018Are you OK?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYears later, in 2021, O\u2019Brien was aware that he\u2019d led a very lucky life as a member of what is quite plausibly the greatest rock<\/a> band of the modern era. \u201cI know I\u2019ve won the fucking golden ticket,\u201d O\u2019Brien says. \u201cIf you told my 14-year-old self, \u2018You\u2019re going to be in this band with these incredible people and you\u2019re going to make this music\u2019 \u2014 it does not get better than that. So how come I felt like that wasn\u2019t enough?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tA phrase that he\u2019d often seen on his report cards as a kid kept coming to mind: \u201cCould do better.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s great when you\u2019re younger, because it spurs you on,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like a rocket up your arse. \u2018OK, we\u2019ve made OK Computer<\/em><\/a>. What are we going to make next<\/a>?\u2019 Bang, bang. The problem is, when you get into your fifties, it\u2019s fucking unsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAS HE SAT WITH these thoughts and the months stretched on, he sank into a gloom that, at its worst, felt like it would never lift. \u201cIt was really hard,\u201d O\u2019Brien says. \u201cSome days you just didn\u2019t want to get out of bed. I thought, \u2018Will this be with me forever?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe wasn\u2019t interested in medication or traditional therapy. Instead, he found solace in working on new music without any set goal in mind, playing guitar for a good chunk of every day. \u201cMy therapy was literally locking myself in a room for three hours in the morning whilst the kids were homeschooling and my wife was working,\u201d he says. \u201cI was in such a dark place, but I knew that I had to get up each day, get out of bed, and do this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other key to his emotional recovery was getting back in touch with nature, a process he describes as \u201ca deep spiritual awakening\u201d rooted in the ancient landscape of Wales. \u201cI\u2019d take our dog, Ziggy, and we\u2019d go off and walk,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are a lot of places of spiritual significance in this land, whether it\u2019s an old monastery or abbey, or a mountain or a waterfall. I was drawn to these places, and through that, I healed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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