ed's chatting with adam baxton
at his Big Tape program on BBC-6
// BBC-6, June 2010
:: listen to the audio version (c) BBC, 2010
:: english transcript by rocki @ atease
:: russian version...wanted!!!!!!!!!
chatting on In Rainbows and everything else!
__________
AB therefore, you ladies and gentlemen, for 2010, a tape oddysey - my compilation, my Big mix tape this week, which features music suitable for a journey into space. And I am joined by one of the preeminent space rockers of this or any other time: Ed O'Brien from Radiohead!
ED Hi
AB How are you doing man?
ED I'm very good man, how are you?
AB I'm good! I'm so excited to see you, to meet you, it's ... I mean, we've met before, but it's always very exciting to see you! I'm such a big fan of Radiohead, and, actually we haven't interviewed too many other musicians on this program! Emmy the Great was our only other musical guest I think, wasn't she? No, Supergrass of course. But, I'm a sort of a, let's say, unusual interviewer at the best of times?
ED laughing
AB And when I'm up against people that I really admire, as I have been on this show, you know, it's, sometimes it gets away from me.
ED Yeah ...
AB I'm just warning you, in case things get really rubbish!
Ed Ok. Alright, Ok.
AB But before we go any further, can I fire off a quick fire of questions to you that I've been asking all my guests for the last few weeks? Answer any way you wish to to these: Who are you?
ED: Edward O'Brien
AB: What do you do?
Ed: Play guitar! And I'm a dad.
AB: Who do you do?
Ed: Who do you do? How do you do? (Laughing)
AB: Faves?
Ed: Faves? Uh, football!
AB: Worsties?
Ed: Worsties --- smelly cabs.
AB: Jedward?
Ed: X-factor
AB: Thank you very much, Ed!
Ed: Right!
AB: That's all there is to it, there's no right or wrong way to respond to those questions.
Ed: Yeah, ok.
AB: Um. How are you doing, anyway? How's the band?
Ed: Good! Really good, we're in the studio at the moment. Well, not right at this moment. We're in the heart of the record.
AB: Yeah?
Ed: and, it's great! It feels, it feels... I 'm really excited, I feel like this is the best record ... I'm sounding like one of those blokes ``I feel like this is the best record we've ever made``, but it really .... it's genuinely exciting. It's very different from what we did last time! And, it's just, it's just really nice to be doing this. It's so good to be making music with the band that you feel is still as good as has ever been!
Ab: Yeah! Well, especially after the last record, ``In rainbows``, you managed to kind of completely reinvent yourselves and actually you seemed to turn a corner and start having a lot more fun as well!
Ed: Yeah...
Ab: That's what it looked like from the outside looking in.
Ed: Yeah...
Ab: Was that fair?
Ed: It wasn't fun making the record, but what we decided was that, really, making records had been hard. It's always been a slog; traditionally Radiohead in the studio has been, it's kind of: Don your tin helmet, get in there, and just see it out. It's kind of like a war of atrition!
Ab: Yeah...
Ed: And, basically, at the end of ``In rainbows``, it had taken three years to sort of come together. And, we initially started off on our own, and then we pulled in someone else, and then after a year, we worked with Nigel again. And ...
Ab: Nigel Godrich!
Ed: Nigel Godrich, that's right... And, it was such a hard ... it was such a slog. We knew we had these songs, we knew ... we really believed in these songs. So, we had to do it right. And, it just took a long time! And, we basically decided then and there at the end of that record: ``We are never going to do it again this way.`` And so, everything ... that was kind of like the end of Radiohead mark II/2. And we decided that the only way ... the only way that would work for us to carry on is to actually do it in a different spirit, you know? Enjoy it!
Ab: This is after ``Hail to the thief``?
Ed: No, this is after ``In rainbows``!
Ab: Oh, this is after ``In rainbows``!
Ed: Yeah, this is after ``In rainbows``!
Ab: Oh, I see!
Ed: So, the touring... you know, so ... cause that was such a hard record to make.
Ab: Right... because, it sounds so carefree!
Ed: Well, that's what everyone says!
Ab: Yeah!
Ed: ``You guys, it sounds like you had a great time in the studio!`` Oh man...
Ab: It sounds like a summer's day!
Ed: That was a slog!
Ab: Wow!
Ed: I mean, it was really, really ... it was a really long process. And by the end, for instance, a song like, I don't know, a song like ``House of cards`` had been recorded six times! Plus the fact that we played them ... our genius idea ... in 2006, to go out on tour, and do about fifty-odd shows! And the idea was we'd play all these songs live, get back in the studio and record them.
Ab: Right.
Ed: And that's when we went in, back in with Nigel! We went in and recorded, and having played these songs fifty times ... so we had kind of got the arrangements sorted ... we were like ``We just want to get them down, we've played this enough...`` We were just ... and we got them down, and they were.. most of them were rubbish! And it was this .. “Uh!!” (sigh) You just have to keep going.
Ab: It's so hard for a fan of a band to think about what it would be like for those songs to be rubb...
Ed: Loud laughing
Ab: I can't imagine what it would be like to hear a rubbish Radiohead song, especially if I know that those songs, I already like them, I know that they're good songs, right? So I can't imagine what a rubbish version of them would be like! Why were they rubbish?
Ed: Oh man! Have you ever seen that Stones documentary ... is it the Jean-Luc Goddard one on Sympathy for the Devil?
Ab: Oh yeah...
Ed: So they've spent three days recording it. Well, it's brilliant seeing that as a person in a band, because Day 1 and Day 2 --- it's rubbish! You know, it's not until they get the conga player in... Bill's playing, Bill's playing a cabasa or something, and Keith's on bass. And then it gets to, three days later, and, I think that's the truth; I think you probably find that with lots of bands! I know that I've heard demos of bands. For instance, I think there were, do you remember ages ago, when U2 did Achtung Baby, they leaked their, all this, whole ... there was a whole leaked tape of them basically just jamming! And, most of it's rubbish! And it's true, most of it, you know, most of ... a lot of what you end up doing in the creative process is rubbish!
Ab: Yeah...
Ed: And, and the art is to not give in, is to carry on, persevere,
Ab: And to be hard on yourself I suppose!
Ed: Yeah! And, what the great thing with Nigel is that he raises the bar, so, you know, kind of...
Ab: He's hard, man! I mean, I've been at the wrong end of Nigel's taskmaster skills once or twice as well! It's quite scary!
Ed: He drives you hard ... you think you've done the take, you think you've done your overdub, you think it's ... and then,, ``Maybe one more time.``
Ab: He's the guy that told Macca off for not being good enough, for goodness sake!
Ed: (Loud laughing) Well, that's why he's so good, you know. He gets the best performances out of you. He's amazing! He's a ... because he also drives himself really hard as well! You know? He's a real ... the quality of the stuff that he does is really high. So it's good, you know, it's good to actually be driven hard, you know.
Ab: Absolutely! And ... so, have you any idea when this album might see the light of day, the current one? Do you think you're weeks away, or months away from completion. You can't say, I guess!
Ed: No. But I would love ... ideally it would be great if it came out sometime this year! It's got to. I mean, I hope so. We’re at the finishing line. Usually when you’re making a record, I'm sure it's like that when you do anything, when you make a film or whatever, write a book! But, for ages and ages it seems like the finishing line is miles away. Now it feels ... it's in touching distance. But, of course, it being the creative process, this last bit also. I mean you have, it's like anything, you have bursts of energy and you achieve a lot in a certain small period of time and then sometimes things slow down ... and you're just like ... nearly there, you're nearly there, and then, you get there. Yeah, so hopefully it's going to be a matter of weeks!
Ab: Excellent! Let's listen to some of the music that you've brought in right now. This is a track from Diodato. I don't know anything about this band! All I know about them is that they provided the opening titles for ``Being there``, the Peter Sellors movie.
Ed: Yeah, I mean, that's where I first heard this track, in that bit when Chauncey... “Being there” is one of my all time favorite films.
Ab: It's an amazing film!
Ed: And when he leaves the house into the big wild world, Chauncey Garden, and he's walking down, he's walking in Washington, DC, lost, and this music comes on. I mean, I don't know anything... Diodato, he was Brazilian I think?
Ab: Ok
Ed: In the band, he had like a young ... I think there's a young funky guitarist who's a bit of a prodigy kid. And then they had Stanley Clarke, the ubermeister funkmeister on bass, and ...
Ab: Well, we can hear it bubbling away underneath us, and we won't play the whole thing because it's a bit of an epic, but it is a nice ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Song plays~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ab: Diodato there, with ``Also sprach zarathustra`` by Richard strauss. How are you doing, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome! We are ...flailing in space. This is Adam Buxton here, this is my Big mixtape: 2010: A tape oddysey, and my guest is Ed O'Brien from radiohead!
Ed: Hello, again!
Ab: He's the tall, handsome one who plays the guitar, and he has many pedals onstage! Is that fair?
Ed: Lots of pedals!
Ab: You love your pedals
Ed: I love pedals, man!
Ab: Absolutely love pedals...
Ed: I've got more as well...
Ab: Listen, before we get into that, on the ``2001`` tip there, as we were, have you ever heard the Portsmouth Symphonia's version of that track? Do you know about the Portsmouth Symphonia?
Ed: Nothing!
Ab: Well, this is something that Brian Eno was involved with, one of the many enjoyable, perverse art projects that he's undertaken in his life! And, this was around 1970 at the Portsmouth School of art, and the idea was that it was an orchestra comprised of ... non-musicians. And if they were musicians, you had to play an instrument that was entirely new to you, okay?
Ed: Mhmm
Ab: So, it was a kind of completely naive orchestra, if you will. And you can imagine that the noise they created was quite bizarre! And the project was ... it had to be done, they had to play as well as they possibly could. They couldn't do, like, jokey playing. In fact, Brian Eno said, at one point they had one guy who came in and he thought it was a big joke, and he was sort of making funny honking noises and they had to boot him out, because he wasn't taking the thing seriously. But this is what they sounded like doing `2001` there, the ``Also Sprach Zarathustra``!
(Song begins; they are both laughing hard throughout)
Ab: The timpani's good!!
Ed: It's like there's bagpipes ... Sounds like... (Does a bagpipe drone grumble noise)
Ab: There's no way they were ever going to get that one! And this is the thing, is ... it's particularly effective with the brass instruments, cause they're so hard to play!
Ed: So hard! I played the trumpet for four years.
Ab: Did you!
Ed: And, I was rubbish after four years, it's really hard!
Ab: Wow!
Ed: It's not like picking up a guitar where you can strum a chord and...
Ab: You can make it sound decent in a day...
Ed: Yeah..! (They both begin laughing hard again)
Ab: Woah! What are they going to do now?
---song stops playing---
Ab: Oh man, you've got to love Brian Eno!
Ed: Brilliant man!
Ab: You of course worked with Eno ... you spent a day in the studio with him... did he not sort of oversee the creation of either Lucky or The tourist? For the War Child album?
Ed: No, he wasn't! We've never worked with him.
Ab: Have you not...?
Ed: No! We sent him ...we sent ...
Ab: Or you, what was the deal with the War Child album, was that something that he kind of roped you into?
Ed: Yeah, he ... was ... isn't he the patron of War Child.
Ab: Oh yeah.
Ed: And he started up, and it was a brilliant idea, it was actually one of those great moments when you look back on it, that whole thing of everybody doing a track in a day! And it was really exciting!
Ab: Yeah!
Ed: Brian Eno, actually, when we were making OK Computer -- here's a bit of trivia -- There's a track on the album called ``Let down`` And, we'd finished it quite early on, and we sent it off for him to be... for him to mix it! And ... um, yeah!
Ab: And, what did he come back with?
Ed: Um...
Ab: He just sort of tried it out ... you were sort of thinking ``Let's see what Brian Eno comes up with``!
Ed: Well, I think the thing was, because it was Nigel's first ... first big ... first album, and I think he was kind of quite up for someone else ... maybe he, I think Nigel at the time, I don't know why, but maybe it was deemed ... It was the fashion in those days that sometimes you get someone in to mix it. You know, The Bends and Pablo honey ... The Bends had been recorded and produced by John Leckie but mixed by Slade and Kolderie. So there was a trend, there was a trend for people to mix stuff. And, I thought... I remember thinking that we thought that the track was appropriate, and maybe Eno's kind of, kind of ... it was a big sort of ... it was a big, beautiful kind of stellar track, and that it might suit him. And, uh, you know, it's very difficult to mix something that you have no idea of what the band wanted.
Ab: Cause the final mix on the album is not his!
Ed: No! Nigel mixed the whole lot, and I mean, Nigel, he's ubermixer, he's amazing!
Ab: He is a massive doo wop fan though, Eno, isn't he?
Ed: He is a big doo wop fan...
Ab: And so, did he try any of his...
Ed: begins laughing
Ab: doo wop backing vocals on there?
Ed: No! No he hasn't, but apparently many stories of Brian Eno doing sessions and sort of coming in and adding some doo wop vocals to some fairly unlikely tunes!
Ab: Yeah, yeah yeah! Oh, I always like a bit of Eno doo wop, you know? He's a big fan of backing vocals obviously...
Ed: Yeah!
Ab: He believes strongly that a great song always has a sort of harmony backing vocal that you can sing along with! And that 's the enjoyable thing for the listener. I find that all the time that I like to take the high harmony parts...
Ed: Yeah..
Ab: in the car!
Ed: You're like my mum!
Ab: Right!
Ed: Yeah...
Ab: And, that's your job in Radiohead... when you're playing live, of course, is to do those high harmonies!
Ed: Yes!
Ab: So, when you're in the car, do you find yourself carrying on, you know, when you're not at work?
Ed: Yeah! I like ... I mean, it's kind of ... yeah! I guess it's that ... backing vocals things are great. For me it's always, if I'm honest, up until recently I always found them pretty tricky, because Thom had usually sung them in the studio! So, he's got a much higher range than I have, and he's also got a much better voice than I have!! So, I remember, you know, sort of ... Ok Computer era sort of going on stage and doing backing vocals, and you know... (Does a quick version of ``from a great height`` vocals without words), and trying not to... really going for it, cause I was very self-conscious that I wasn't actually doing the job properly!
Ab: Cause the first time I ever saw you play, I was really struck by how similar your voices sounded! And, when, I guess `No surprises` is the one where it's a very, very distinctive harmony line that comes in at the end there!
Ed: Yeah...
Ab: And, I was knocked out! I was like, ``Wow, he can really sing!!``
Ed: Oh really!
Ab: And it sounded... I always sort of assumed that it was Thom doing both vocal parts on the album ...
Ed: Yeah, he does! You know, I 've done very little vocal parts in the ... on the recording, because it's just ... I guess it's a confidence thing, and Thom's got such an amazing voice that he can go in and (snaps finger) ... he just gets those backing vocals out.
Ab: Yeah...
Ed: And, you might be an hour later there with me kind of like .. `` Uh, yeah! Almost there, really!``
Ab: Laughs... But live it sounds just amazing!
Ed: Well, I love it! I mean, I love singing, basically I really love singing, and then, you know, once you get the confidence and you love something, then it becomes a lot easier to relax, you get the notes, you know!
Ab: Man, I want to talk to you about the whole business of playing live and touring in just a second, but let's have some more music now! This is another track that you've brought in with you, Ed! Tell us about this one.
Ed: This track is ``Into the sun`` by Diplo and Martina Topley-bird! And, about the first time I heard this was on the tour bus about three years ago, and Thom played this track!
Ab: I know Martina Topley-bird but I don't know Diplo!
Ed: Do you know that track `Pon de floor`?
Ab: Oh, sure! Major Lazer!
Ed: Major lazer! He's one half of Major lazer, he's very talented. He used to go out with M.I.A. He basically programmed and kind of... I think he did a lot of the music on `Paper planes` And, he's a whiz, he's brilliant, and Martina Topley-bird is obviously brilliant. I mean she sang on `Maxinquaye` didn't she?
Ab: And, she was Tricky's `muse` for a while!
Ed: She's amazing! And her voice is just... you know
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Song plays~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ab: That was `Into the sun` by Diplo featuring Martina Topley-Bird. Hey! How are you doing, listeners? This is Adam Buxton here. Thanks for listening to my big mix tape! This afternoon, my guest is Ed O'Brien from Radiohead! How are you doing, Ed?
Ed: I'm good, man.
Ab: Very nice to see you! And we were talking before about the whole business of singing and playing live and stuff like that. I mean, how long have you been at it now?
Ed: We, well, we've been a band since 1985!
Ab: 1985 ...
Ed: Yeah!
Ab: ... That was a long time ago!
Ed: That was a long time... the summer of Live Aid!
Ab: Good one...
Ed: Yes...
Ab: And, when you formed then you were called...
Ed: ``On a Friday``
Ab: ``On a Friday``
Ed: Yeah
Ab: And, what... at some point you were called something like Whirligig or something?
Ed: (laughing) Do you want a full rundown?
Ab: Yeah, come on, man!
Ed: OK! Try not to laugh too hard... Then we became ``Dearest``
Ab: ``Dearest``!! Whose idea was that?
Ed: I think that was ... I shouldn't attribute the blame, I think maybe that was Thom's one. And then ... there was ``Shindig``!
Ab: ``Shindig``! What the hell was that? Were you going through like a Pogues phase or something?
Ed: I think one of the things was we were sort of quite... There was a kind of ... there was a bit of an Irish phase going on then! Phil had an Irish girlfriend at the time...
Ab: That's enough, isn't it!
Ed: Yeah... and we were sort of ... there was a kind of ... that's right, there was another. the worst one was a name called ``Wise Up``!
Ab: ``Wise Up``! I've never heard ``Wise Up``!
Ed: ``Wise up`` was a kind of a ... isn't it like a Northern Irish kind of phrase ... `Well, why didn't you wise up?` But of course it was at the same time as Happy Mondays and was a bit like ``Flowered Up``
Ab: Ok...
Ed: So it was kind of quite clever, really!
Ab: It's more like some kind of Janet Street-Porter youth show! ``Come on, wise up!``
Ed: Yeah!
Ab: And a little bit of rapping in the middle...
Ed: Yeah, exactly! Sunday morning.
Ab: ``Shindig`` is my favorite.
Ed: ``Shindig`` ... terrible!
Ab: ``Ladies and gentlemen... Shindig!!``
Ed: laughs
Ab: (Making instrument sounds)
Ed: See, the thing is, well, stylistically at that time we were all over the shop. I mean, you know, we were literally playing the music that we loved and we loved everything. So, there was a track that sounded ... We did a ... You know, we had a track that sounded like Elvis Costello, there'd be a track in homage to The Smiths, there was a ... do you remember Steve Earle, Copperhead Road?
Ab: Uh-huh! Sure..
Ed: One summer, Phil went away to Northern Ireland, you know, to be with his girlfriend, so we got another friend in to play, and Nigel was a bit more of a rock drummer. And he kind of liked four-on-the-floors and, you know, stick-twiddling kind of thing. And it was, suddenly, we were sort of like country-rock!! So it was, you know, you kind of have to go down all those different avenues or country lanes as in our case!
Ab: Absolutely! One of the impressive and heartening things about Radiohead is that ... apparently by shear dint of hard work and tenacity ... and you know... perspicaciousness, you have turned yourselves into a good band, from fairly inauspicious beginnings, if you don't mind me saying so!
Ed: Yeah
Ab: Do you know what I mean? Would you say that's fair?
Ed: Yeah, I mean ... Ok, so when we first started, I thought that we were the best band in the world. I remember there was this feeling that, when we first, you know 1985... probably about the third rehearsal, there was a feeling that I remember, thinking ``God, this is amazing`` Then, of course, six years later you get your record deal, you sign, you make a record, and you still think you're really good. And then, you make a record, and it's not great...
Ab: Yeah.
Ed: And, we hadn't got our chops together. You know, for instance, when we were signed, it was the sort of Nirvana, you know, post-Stone Roses ... and people were saying, people would say... I remember one record company said, ``So, what's your ... what's your agenda? What's your manifesto?`` And we were like ... (Uhh...) ``Music?``
So we sort of stumbled, you know, the first ... and I think, collective image wise, we looked terrible, you know, we didn't think these things were important. And I guess that was fairly naive, and of course they're important, how you look and how you present yourself. So, we were fairly shambolic in the early days, and I think it was by the whole experience of ``Pablo honey`` and then ``Creep`` getting really big in America, and, you know, finding yourself in the public eye, looking shambolic, and we knew we had to get our stuff together, you know? And so, who do we look towards? And they were the coolest band at the time, and they're still very cool, were Massive Attack, as far as we were concerned. It was like, Okay, we need to re-appraise things. And, it wasn't a very conscious thing, but we knew we had to do it differently, so it was kind of like ... I think the big thing was doing the videos first. It was getting, on ``The Bends``, it was getting Jake Scott in to do ``Fake plastic trees`` and ``Street spirit``. And it was just, at that time, the video could really define you, as well! And so, that really helped!
Ab: Yeah, because ... I know! I remember being sort of aware of Radiohead and aware of Pablo Honey; I remember very clearly seeing those posters with the baby there and thinking, ``What the hell is that??`` And then, a friend of mine, Louis Therou in fact, he was a guest on this show, sort of said ``Are you into Radiohead?``, and I was like, ``Not really...`` And he said, ``Oh, you should check out this album `` The bends `` that's come out, it's good! And I was like ``Really, is it...`` And, he gave me a tape of it and I just didn't listen to it for ages. Then i was on holiday in France, and it was kind of a grim holiday, just me and my dad wandering around, we didn't know what we were doing! And on one long drive, I thought, ``Oh, I'm just going to listen to this thing that Louis's given me...``, and instantly, ``Planet telex`` comes on and you think,, ``Oh, OK, this is quite different...`` and, ``Uh, this is good! This is what they call `widescreen music' on press releases... And i thought, you know, track after track you think, ``Hey, this is ... I don't know which part of me this is speaking to but it's speaking very loudly to it!``
Ed: Well, we knew after ``Pablo honey``, I remember, my dad is always a good (?????????), he said ``One good song on Pablo honey``, I said ``What's that??`` He said, ``It's `Creep``, the rest is...`` you know? And, that's maybe a little harsh. But, basically, when we were doing ``The Bends``, we knew that the idea was that ... twelve songs, every song had to be a kind of a single. It had to be in that... we had to, because we were losing momentum, and we were losing momentum fast. And, sort of, ``Creep`` held us in there. But you know, bands, when you're young, it's inertia and momentum. It's ... if you feel you're ... if you're going down, you've almost.. ..and everyone can sniff it, anyone can, and they want it. They want to see you... they wanted to see us fail! You know, we were five minor public school boys from Oxfordshire, you know? They didn't ... we weren't liked by the Melody Maker and NME. The reviews were terrible and they were probably justified, but they really didn't like anything about us!
Ab: Yeah..
Ed: Except, the listeners.. except they liked ``Creep``! That kept us in there, and so it was like ``OK, we've got kind of that one chance`` and that was our chance on the record. And, Leckie was brilliant, and that's when we met Nigel 'cause he was the engineer on that session! So, um...
Ab: So it all started coming together!
Ed: Yeah!
Ab: And was that, but was that a fun time, was that a hopeful time, or were you ground down by it? Did you just think, ``Listen, maybe we shouldn't be doing this...``
Ed: Not really, it wasn't fun. I mean, it was... the thing that was always there, was when we were touring ``Pablo Honey`` were there these songs that Thom had written, and we knew that they were really special. You know, because we were playing a lot of them live. You know, we all must have been mid-twenties, so you know you want to do things a certain way, you know you want to do this, but you don't have the confidence to see it through. So, for instance, when we first went to the studio, and it was the last time the record company really told us what to do, EMI, they said, ``We want you to record these five songs up front and we think they're potential singles.``
And, so there was 'Just' and there was 'Sulk' ... and it was disastrous, because it put all this pressure on us to get it right at the beginning, and it's like... You don't enter a recording session like that! You enter into it like you just... do it! You know, the thing pans, it pans out, it evolves naturally! So, we weren't in a position to say, ``No, we're not going to do that`` ... so it was a bit fraught! And, what happened was, we had about six, seven weeks in the studio, in London, and then sort of abort... we didn't abort the sessions, but we thought, ``Right, all we need to do is go out on the road, reconvene,`` and basically went out on the road and played all these songs live, came back in and did them live, most of them live, in about three weeks, at the Manor Studios outside Oxford! And it was, you know, it's just very, very lucky. But I guess we just kept on doing it, we kept on going, and that was the key!
Ab: Yeah! Keep your head down!
Ed: Yeah!
Ab: We're going to skip ahead musically right now to OK Computer, one of the b-sides that came out, I think for ``Karma police``?
Ed: Yeah
Ab: And that was an album that obviously meant a lot to a huge amount of people, continues to mean a lot to an awful lot of people; that's when I met my wife, that year, '97, and, it was really intense! There was so much good music around, and then that album came out, and every one of those tracks spoke to me, and then there was this instrumental on the ``Karma police`` single, and I just thought, ``Wow, this is the weirdest thing I've
ever heard!`` I found out since that you're responsible for it! It was ``Meeting in the aisle`` Am I right in saying that it's the only instrumental that Radiohead have ever done?Ed: Yeah, I think it's the only instrumental. I'm only... I'm responsible for coming up with the original riff and the music, but I wasn't responsible for the production of the track. Nigel, and, in fact, Nigel... we all worked on that. But yeah, I think, that came out of St. Catherine's court, Jane Seymour's house, where we recorded OK Computer, late at night, fooling around with my pedals, as is usual! ...and then came out with this riff ... and then we sampled it. Sam and Henry, who are basically Zero 7, they did the drum programming on that. So, I like this track, because it reminds me of ... it conveys that feeling of what it was like around that time. There's a whole element of just ... you're kind of, almost like in a trance. You're just doing the stuff. You're going in this bubble through the world.
And OK Computer was amazing... but it was like, this thing, we were sort of the same, the eye in the storm, and this thing was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It was a magic time, don't get me wrong, and for me, this always sums up that time of kind of just, what's the word, progression, movement, and sort of being quite spaced out naturally.
Ab: This is ``Meeting in the aisle``
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Ab: That's ``Meeting in the aisle`` from Radiohead, and my guest is Ed O'brien, from the band. Let me take you back to that time, if you don't mind! I'm thinking of the documentary, ``Meeting people is easy``, directed by Grant Gee. And that is, basically, painting a picture of the band around the Ok Computer touring time... and you look as if you're under a lot of pressure, both sort of external pressure from critics and things becoming successful; and also sort of internal pressure about how to actually deal with that. Do you think, when you see that film, and... I don't know if you've seen it since, do you think it was sort of exaggerated, that feeling of claustrophobia and imminent implosion, or was that a fairly accurate portrait?
Ed: It was very accurate when Grant was out with us. And he happened to... and I don't know what it was... but he happened to be around the moments where it all got a little hairy. I mean, there were lighter moments. You know, the Japanese stuff was followed by a glorious tour of Australia! But it was ... you know? I just think it was one of those things, it was just growing pains. And I think that we wanted to be in that situation, we just weren't very good at handling it! We were basically collectively quite shy, individually we were quite shy, and it was... we just weren't very well prepared for it! But, it was all good.
Ab: And then ... sort of because I remember thinking like ``Oh no, this band is not going to last, they're just going to fold!`` ...because the lead singer is, you know, he's writing these songs from his heart, and suddenly he's got all these fans out there who feel like he's communicating directly with them... There's all that unbelievable pressure from a group of unusually emotional and intelligent fans ; I would characterize Radiohead fans as being.
You know, myself included!Ed: Of course!
Ab: OK. But that must continue to be a huge pressure for all the members of the band, or is it not?
Ed: Not really! I mean, it was a pressure on Thom around that time, and I think, hence, you see the shift to “Kid A”.
Ab: Withdrawing a little...
Ed: Withdrawing, that's right, and I think what's interesting about ``In rainbows``, I remember at the time, and I think it was sort of brought on by Thom doing ``The Eraser``... When Thom did ``The Eraser``, the vocals were suddenly, the first time in a long time, the first time since ``OK Computer``, they were up front. And that was a big thing on ``In rainbows``. Suddenly, there was something very tangible to hold onto, and I think what happened was that Thom ... it was a, you know, a security thing. It was to remain intact. He withdrew, and ``Kid A`` is like it is because it's a reaction from what went on before... and I think precisely, as you said, it doesn't set comfortably. Suddenly people are latching on to every word that you're writing and taking them to heart and personalizing them. And that's a strong load to bear!
Ab: It's a lot of responsibility! And the flip side of that, of course, is that when you're so visible and so successful, you've got a lot of people saying ``Come on, they're not that good,`` and, ``Why don't they stop whining?`` and you know... ``What's so wrong with being successful, if you don't like it, stop doing it!`` Were there bits of criticism that remain with you to this day, things that either fans or critics said about the band that you thought, ``Ooh, that hurts!``
Ed: Not really. I mean the only thing ... (begins laughing) The only thing that comes to my mind was ... a really good friend of mine Roj, he said, ``Listen, you've got to check out this website`` ... and I never, and I never ever... I don't read our reviews, I stopped reading them around the time of ``Kid A``, I don't see ``us``, I don't listen to ``us``, you know, because it makes you too self-conscious! And he directed me, the only bit of criticism, he said, he directed me to this website. And it was about how I was the worst-dressed member of Radiohead! And I looked at it, and I was like, ``Yeah, they're right, aren't they! They're really right...``
Ab: Around about when was this?
Ed: Oh, this was back in 2003. So, I mean, it's very superficial. I mean, you hear people say we whine, well you know, I mean (gags). You know, life isn't necessarily a bed of roses wherever you are. And I think that in those days, we were struggling with a lot of things. We were struggling with ... with ourselves, and, you know. So, it's fine.
Ab: Struggling with universal things...
Ed: Exactly...
Ab: That's why people latch onto the music and that's why it means so much to them!
Ed: Totally! And, we've always been honest... I mean Nigel said to us in the early days, he was like, ``God, you guys are like method actors!!``
And we would have to get into the right collective mind space, and it would come out. But it wasn't a conscious thing, it's not putting on, it was as we were, and I think we were sort of very lucky! And it still is true to that. You have... The only way you can make music is to be honest about ... The only way music is good is if it honestly reflects where you are, as an individual and as a collective. And, that's always been the case, and it has to carry on being the case, otherwise you get into dreadful kind of scenarios where you're second-guessing what people want, and you should be like this. It's like, it just comes out.
Ab: Absolutely! Man, just before we play a bit more music, you were mentioning being called badly-dressed there, by someone? I mean, that's harsh, I think of you as being very sartorially-correct on stage these days...
Ed: Well, I made an effort in the last four years! (Begins laughing)
Ab: Ever since reading that...
Ed: Yeah, man, it was terrible! And they were right, they had these pictures, and there were like captioned with like .. ``What are those trousers??``, they were like, ``What the hell was going on?``
Ab: What were you wearing, like salmon-pink cords or something?
Ed: No! They were like... they were ill-fitting, because I'm quite tall. I would get the kind of things that didn't quite fit so maybe they were a little bit short, you know? (Both laughing)
Ab: Mr. Bean!
Ed: Exactly!
Ab: And then, are there times when, you know, you're all in your dressing-rooms or whatever, before a gig, and then everyone convenes for whatever the Radiohead version of the band hug is, before you go onstage, and, do you look at what someone else is wearing, and you think (Does the sound ``Whump whum!!``) ...`` Do we mention it, or?``
Ed: In the early days, certainly.
Ab: Oh really!
Ed: Yeah! I mean, we don't have individual dressing rooms, we still have our space. Now it's kind of ... it's funny, you kind of,... The more time you hang out with people, the more you sort of morph into looking the same; we've been saying that recently. But, certainly in the early days, there was a waistcoat, there was a waistcoat that Colin used to wear, you know that was... he'll kill me for mentioning it, but ... And everybody would look at me constantly and I knew there'd be sort of a raised eyebrow.. it was kind of like... ``Those trousers are two inches too short!`` (laughs) ``but we're not going to tell him!``
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Ab: That was called ``Hawaii in ten seconds``, before that you heard (Mentions a song title but it gets cut off) / ...from ``Scott 4``, I think we've played almost every track from ``Scott 4`` at some point on the Big Mix Tape. That's what you're listening to, incidentally! Hey, I'm Adam Buxton, thank you so much for tuning in, listeners! This week our fictional compilation is a space-themed tape, it's called ``2010: A tape oddysey``, and my guest, who chose that last track incidentally, is Ed O'Brien, from Radiohead. How are you doing, Ed?
Ed: Very well, thank you.
Ab: I've got some questions from some of the people who 've been blogging, and logging into the blog, doing some blog logs, and we were overwhelmed with questions, let me say, when people found out that you were going to be on the show, so apologies to anyone out there who doesn't have their question read out! Here's one from James, he says ``Ed, after seeing many of your concerts, I noticed that unlike Jonny, Thom, and Colin, you seem to use a wide range of guitars. I see strats, teles, Gibsons, and `The plank` flying on and off stage. Which one is your favorite, or do you not get attached to your guitars in that way?`` What's `The plank'...?
Ed: The plank is... it was built by Peter Plank, our sort of chief backline. Pete's been with us ... Plank's been with us forever, since like '93. He looks after ... he's in the studio with us, looks after all our gear, and he built me a guitar in '93, then we had all our gear nicked in '95 when we were on tour in America. And, he built another one! So, it's a very beautiful kind of ... it's kind of a Rickenbacker / Gibson hybrid that he built. And, um, yeah, it's lovely!
Ab: Do you have favorites?
Ed: Yeah. I've got... I just... he's right! I play way too many guitars on stage, and I'm stripping it down, next time we go out: two guitars: a Gibson 335 and a Fender Tele, that's all I'm going to use!
Ab: And a lot of pedals, lots of pedals!
Ed: No, I'm stripping... I'm actually..
Ab: Are you?
Ed: Yeah man, but i've got it down to an art now, I 've really been .. I've been working on it.
Ab: Which one would you keep, which is the ultimate pedal?
Ed: The ultimate pedal... Well, i've just got this one called the Klon `Centaur`... It's brilliant, cause it's like, it's a boutique pedal, you know
Ab: Ooh! ``I am the klon centaur, what is your bidding?? Step on my face, I will change the sound!``
Ed: But it's got, it's got a centaur on the pedal!
Ab: Does it? Does it have little horns coming out?
Ed: Yeah, totally man! It's disconcerting looking down there and there's a centaur.
Ab: What about the Kaoss pad, is that still coming with you?
Ed: The Kaoss pad, Jonny uses the Kaoss pad, that's still around, yeah!
Ab: That's still there!
Ed: Yeah that's still there. That's still rocking our world!
Ab: Excellent. Thank you very much for your question there, James. Let's play another track right now that you brought in for our space tape, Ed! What have you got for us?
Ed: Well, I've got ``Runaways`` by XTC, which is, it might seem a little tenuous link, but I thought we'd be running away into space, you know?
Ab: Sure!
Ed: And, XTC are a band, well... I mean, that's the first track off ``English Settlement``, great album, I think ``Black Sea`` is probably my favorite album by XTC. But, they were a Swindon band as well! So, they're kind of... I lived halfway between Oxford and Swindon. And, um, there was this bizarre rivalry between Oxford and Swindon that used to exist, and it used to manifest itself in football games mainly. And, I was sort of on the cusp of it, and you'd hear, on the one hand, the Oxford song about Swindon would be like... don't know if you'd ever heard it, it was like.. ``We hate Swindon, we hate Swindon, we hate Swindon we hate Swindon. We hate Swindon, we hate Swindon. We are the Swindon haters.``
(Both laugh)
Ed: So there was that coming from the east side of Oxfordshire, and the other side it was more, ``We love Swindon, we love Swindon. We are the Swindon lovers.`` And, I've digressed of course, but, XTC, amazing band, and I love this tune, and I think it's when they had just discovered the 12-string, and...
Ab: Fantastic! This is XTC with ``Runaways``
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Ab: XTC, with ``Runaways`` there! This was the choice of my guest this week, Ed O'Brien. Hey, this is Adam Buxton and you're listening to my Big Mix Tape on 6Music, thank you so much for doing so! And, Andy Partridge of course is someone whose live commitments as a band have been curtailed by his stage fright, a lot of the time. I don't know if he's... if that's something he's got over, completely, or not really. He's still sort of studio-bound, because of that. And, that's a shame I guess for any musician, because, presumably playing live is more than half the deal, a lot of the time, isn't it?
Ed: Well, it is for us.
Ab: Yeah, isn't that the fun part?
Ed: It is for us, but I guess it's horses for courses, you know? I mean, it'd be really ... it must be a nightmare for you if you, you know, you feel that you have to go out and play live, and you've got such fear of it! I mean, I'm totally ... whatever he needs to do to make music is the thing. For us, it's a big part of what we do, so yeah.
Ab: Is it something you look forward to?
Ed: Yeah,
Ab: ..or do you feel frightened of it?
Ed: Um...a little bit apprehensive at the start of a tour, in terms of just, are we going to play well? And then, when you're doing it, it's brilliant.
Ab: Looking up at the stage and seeing you guys play and doing an amazing job, it's so exciting and you just think... there are moments when... like when you play ``There there`` particularly ... it's the most exciting thing I've ever seen! And you can tell the rest of the crowd feel the same way. And it just lives up to all your fantasies about what it would be like to see this amazing band, and.. Is it like that on the stage though? Do you ever get that feeling like ..``I'm in an amazing band!``
Ed: You get that feeling when ...``This is an amazing night...``And the amazing night is not about us, it's about everybody. It's about the audience, it's about us. It's a real ... that's the amazing thing about music, and that's the thing that I love about live... that, you know, When you come to one of our shows, you, you're all participating as much as we are in terms of its... You know, if you want to get down to physics, it's an exchange of energy, there's energies going on there. So what happens is on a great night, what we do, individually, collectively, and what the audience do, it becomes greater than the sum of all its parts. And literally, there are those nights when you think the roof is going to come off and we're all going to, we're going to be sucked up into space and we're just going to... it feels amazing! Yeah, and it gets... and I think you're tapping into those very primal things ... rhythm, you know, tribal, meditative, hypnotic, melodic. That's why we love music, cause it taps into something with all of us, it resonates very, very deeply. So, yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I mean I have felt like, when you're in the middle of it, it's just... and you're lost in it. It's just amazing...
Ab: And, I mentioned ``There there``, but are there tracks that you particularly enjoy playing, and you think ``Ah! I can't wait to play that one.``
Ed: ``Arpeggi`` on the last tour, was like, that was a real moment, cause it just like... It was one of those tracks that was always greeted ... Phil started up the drums, and it was always greeted with this (Does a surprised gasp), and you could feel it, and it just builds and builds, and builds, and builds, and builds, and builds. And then it cuts down, and there's this moment of kind of delicate beauty where we're all kind of... and then suddenly it goes into the big... you know... For me, when I love music, it's really, really, I can see it, I can feel it, it's like a film, and it takes you places. It's very vivid. So, ``Arpeggi``'s a good one for that.
Ab: And, conversely, is there a track that you think ``Oh, not this one again...``
Ed: (Laughing) There must be, and I'm trying to rack my brain ...
Ab: Either because it's technically challenging or just because you're sick of it..
Ed: There used to be, no, no, I mean, I think the technically challenging ones are good, cause they're the ones on tour as well. But, the ones that are really easy... I mean we're lucky because we have a big body of songs, so the songs we play we never get sick of, but certainly in the early days, there was a B-side, it was on the ``My iron lung`` EP called ``Punchdrunk lovesick singalong``, and it had so many chord changes, and we always used to joke that ... Colin used to fluff it all over. There were some, ``Hmm..`` ... like, the bass is very unforgiving, at least with a guitar you can sort of like move it or bend a note, but the bass, you're kind of, if you don't get the right root note... But we all used to make mistakes, and that was a little kind of time, it was the early days when you played, and you had a limited number of songs, and you played, you just played it, and you'd play the same songs. And I have to, I've mentioned... Colin is the best bass player in the world, so I feel like I'm just kind of like... that we were all making mistakes on that, but he will know if he's listening, he'll know exactly what I mean, we used to laugh!
Ab: What about when you finish a tour, when you come off tour, after all that adrenaline is spent or at least it's still sort of coursing through your veins and exiting your body, that must be quite a period of adjustment, when you come back home, and you just have to deal with everything...
Ed: Tricky!! Yeah, I think it's ...
Ab: Have you got better at making that adjustment now?
Ed: I think you should ask my wife that, but probably not! Probably not, I mean, what I'm going to do next time is stay away from home for about a week and just decompress.
Ab: Ok!
Ed: And maybe go to the woods, and string up a hammock and build... You know? Cause there is that, it's like Pavlov's dogs, you know, that scenario. Nine o'clock in the evening you're kind of like (gasps) ... you're awake, and your body clock's going. And, the worst thing that happens is, for instance, you finish a tour in America on the West Coast, so you're ... so you're going on stage at nine o'clock in America, that's five o'clock in the morning in the UK! You fly back two days later... every morning for the next week, I'm, bang, five o'clock in the morning, I'm awake, I'm ready to play, where's ... where's a gig man?
(Adam laughs)
Ed: It's really, really ... it's really hard. And of course, you know, on tour it's quite a selfish existence, because everything is geared to you doing the best performance that day. So, you have people to help, you have lovely food cooked for you, you don't have to clean an arse, you don't have to do anything! It's done for you, you don't have to do the nappies, anything! And, um, so when you get back it's sort of a ...
Ab: It's a shock!
Ed: Yeah. And also you walk back in sort of expecting to be sort of the returning hero, and it's like just... “Life has continued...” and you're just down. And you go, “But we rocked twenty thousand people last night!”
Ab: ``Brad pitt was at the show, for Christ's sake, gimme some respect!``
Ed: Exactly...
Ab: ``You make your own tea!!``
Ed: That's exactly what it's like in the O'Brien household ... I can be a total arse when I get off tour, you know, and you've got to recognize that as well.
Ab: (Laughs) Let's hear another track that you've brought in for our space mix. Now, this is Mary Wells.
Ed: I know...
Ab: How is this space-related?
Ed: The thing is, I was thinking about this, like, you're in space, and have you ever seen that documentary ``In the shadow of the Moon``?
Ab: Uh, I don't think so...
Ed: It's an amazing documentary, and it's about, basically it's a documentary, it interviews all the Apollo crews, various ones.
Ab: There's a similar documentary called “For all mankind” that has Eno's music on it, that's very good as well!
Ed: Yeah, and, what's interesting is that when all the astronauts, they always, there's this almost universal kind of ... experience that they have. And it's a very spiritual one. And they always look back on the Earth, and they see this beautiful blue planet, that James Lovelock calls `Gaia`, and it's like the most beautiful thing, and they're aware of, for the first time, of how precious and how beautiful it is. And I thought, well, you know, given that, what would be the bit of music, if I was kind of like making it into a film, what would I do? And I'd be there with my own... I 'd look, and I'd want Mary Wells ``My guy``, because there's something in that song of true beauty, true... it's very human is what. It's full of love, and it's just a joyful song, and I think it would ... you know, I wouldn't necessarily want Richard Strauss to accompany me at that moment, I want something to warm my heart, and that song does that, it's amazing.
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Ab: Mary Wells, with ``My Guy``, that was the final selection of my guest this week, Ed O'Brien from Radiohead. Thank you so much for coming in and joining me, Ed, it's been so nice to talk to you!
Ed: Pleasured!
Ab: Well, listeners, that's pretty much it though for our program today...
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