Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on Depression, Trauma & Finding Light Again

37:34How's that for my big monologue on Ed O 'Brien? As you were just saying that, I'm like, you are so coherent and 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, you know, talking about Sorrento. 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 perfectly. This is my autopsy. But what you're saying is, presumably, that's a journey.

38:10That's a very common journey. I mean, nobody wants to get still and stop and 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, etc. And 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 Pai Mutan 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, intentions.

38:59And one of them was this thing, and you mentioned it about nobody wants uncertainty. 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 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 learnt Is the accumulation of a lifetime's worth of experiences is in that place of uncertainty that disappears me like oh shit where am i but that's where transformation happens you know and i and and it is a funny thing it's it's uh 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 influence, that wouldn't be fair, but certainly young adults, we seek comfort and we seek security.

40:26We don't trust in the universe. 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 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 who'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.

41:26And 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, et cetera, 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, uh, and this is just driving all of our suffering.

42:10And to your point, uncertainty is a big one and, and maybe the most nuanced one because truly everything is uncertain. We just do not know. Yeah. 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 want it to be yeah exactly and and you know the less i sort of tried to control it or move it the more the the richer it got that the and 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 with that and going this feels good or that i'm not sure that's very good and that's really important because you're not like a rudderless ship.

43:30You're like in the river, but you're just gently going, oh, that feels good. And 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. So that 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 good yeah 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 is it just it stays with you it's intuition like how do you know when oh i need to go back and develop that versus like yeah it's so interesting one of the things i i i feel like i'm a real novice to songwriting so i'm kind of speaking with i'm 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 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.

45:13But 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 go, meh.

46:00You 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 seat it's in that thing and you get the same thing with it's extraordinary you can get the same thing with music with with some notes in an interval and patterns you know

46:39so i've been sleeping on a birch mattress for 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, things like organic cotton and natural latex, fabricated to be solid but comfortable to support the body without being overly soft and so you can sleep cool. Also, and you may not know this, most conventional mattresses are made with all manner of synthetics that create chemical off-gassing.

47:19This is not good, which is another reason why Birch is so good. Sleep quality, plus the quality of the product that you actually spend a third of your life on, these things really matter to me. They matter to Birch, and they really should matter to you too. And with Birch, you get all of it. Plus, the setup is simple. It shows up at your door, rolls out easily, and you get 120 nights to really see how your body responds. Go to birchliving.com slash richroll for 27 % off site-wide. That's birchliving.com slash richroll and get 27 % off site-wide. I'm a dog person. We have two giant great Pyrenees.

48:00They're the best. And if you're a dog person like me, then you know they're not just pets, they're family and they deserve the best. Which brings me to Ollie, fine purveyors of fresh meals made with high quality ingredients, portioned specifically for your dog and delivered right to your door. The thing about Ollie is that you can tell that they care. And since switching, the difference is pretty obvious. Mealtime is like a whole event for my guys, complete focus, bowl's gone in seconds. But it's not just the food. Through their app, you can actually check in on your dog's health. Things like weight, coat, and even digestion just by sharing a photo.

48:40Just another reason why I'm obsessed and my great Pyrenees are too. But don't just take it from me or from Moses or from Amma. Check it out for yourself and let your dogs check it out too. Head to ollie.com slash richroll. Tell them all about your dog and use code richroll to get 70 % off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus they offer an obsession guarantee. If you're not completely obsessed, you'll get your money back. That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash Rich Roll and enter code Rich Roll to get 70 % off your first box. Ollie, feed the obsession.

49:21Based 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 general terms, because I think it's another one of those. Spending so much time in the countryside. I was originally a country boy and then lived in a city in London for 30 years and Manchester and then country boy again. And what you realize when you live in a city is that human beings go around and they go, wow, look at these beautiful buildings, these things that we've created. It's all about human beings enamored with their own creativity and their own cleverness.

50:09Whereas 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 thing and they can represent that. That's where real beauty resides. And I feel the same way with AI, I feel like I see these very, very blinkered people who are enamored with AI and its potential and they're using all sorts of excuses. They always pull out the medical one, they always go, it's going to revolutionize medicine. But 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 you know the the pop artists were people like Madonna and George Michael and You know, not that I was huge fans of Madonna, but brilliant pop star and a great singer and a great songwriter.

51:31All 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, 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 has another lifetime. A machine can't have a soul. It's like a mind. It can have a supreme intelligence. And I just think great music has to have soul.

52:16All my favorite music. You know, they come from, 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 I just had enough and it felt like I was full, that well was full.

53:11I never need to hear this music again. And then at that stage, 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 had finally stopped and they could breathe and sing their songs. that so I was really enamored by birdsong and the sounds of nature I couldn't listen to and then what happens I start it's like a it's like it's like ground zero and then you just feed and I started feeding um there's an album called Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk, which is an extraordinary record. So that was one of the things that I bought that on vinyl in lockdown.

54:01And 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. 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 brainpower, if you like, to go, well, the form is like that.

55:10It 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 onto for a listener. So I was just trying to find that. And that again was, I mean, it was so interesting. I mean, the track Blue Morpho, the first thing that went down on that was an acoustic guitar track. So it's so interesting.

55:52I hadn't thought of this, but I guess that may be, and 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. two in the studio in Wales, we 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 birdsong. 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 would go from that section to that section, which is Blue Morpho, but I didn't know how they around.

56:41And certainly at the top of the song, 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 sort of gave me confidence, but that was also underpinned 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 i don't know what i'm doing let's just you know just i don't i don't know what i'm doing i know 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 yeah that's where it is the record you're going on this journey it opens with incantations it's you know it's a it's it's dark and it's it's kind of pounding and you're having this visceral experience and then blue morpho you hear the birds you realize there's light at the end of the tunnel like 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 there's a lot of like film composition uh dna built into this record have you thought about that i mean i know johnny's got that johnny's got that down yeah he's the king he's 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.

58:52He'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 with music, it's very visual. I like, I mean, I've always loved film music. You know, I think one of the earliest albums my parents had was Midnight Cowboy, the John Voight, Dustin Hoffman. Great soundtrack. Obviously, everybody's talking the Fred Neal song, Nielsen sang it, but also the soundtrack by John Barry. But I loved Ennio Morricone, loved the soundtrack. I mean, one of my favorite films, but I had the album for three years before I ever saw the film was Wim Wenders, Paris, Texas, the Raikuda soundtrack.

59:41I loved 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. Uh, I think there's something there. 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.

1:00:26I want to, I feel like I'm going to do another album. like i'm i just love making my own movies if you like and i'd which you did with yeah well my ideal is that i make the music and then someone else makes the movie that's what would be really i mean i'd love to be able to do who's going to make the movie to my album yeah he's going to make the movie to my album and if if there's anyone out there who you know and i i think it's interesting there i think it's also with you know look at my my friend my my sort of bestie garth who who's a film director and done all the Singh 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 who Johnny works with who he's made videos for Tom I think directors also that there's a niche there that they quite like that they get these little five, six minutes.

1:01:23Whether 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 of confusion and despair the the sort of perpetually dissatisfied caterpillar that goes into the chrysalis and emerges as the blue morpho um 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?

1:02:27What is the wisdom that 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 you but for me, I'm so thankful for having gone through that journey. I would go through that again because when you come out the other side and the transformation and the evolution, the gains that are to be had are so extraordinary.

1:03:18And how I feel now and the clarity that I have, and I haven't had depression since then. I feel like I'm whole. As you can tell, I don't have like you need this, this, this. I'm that very digressive. 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. And 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, it's supremely uncomfortable, you look back and you go, I got through this.

1:04:03I held on. 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 just in the dark to say to that person, this too shall pass, or you're going to look back on this and be grateful and you're going to learn so much, that's very difficult. Is there 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.

1:04:45Well, 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, I went through the whole thing. It can be, 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'd be 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 in the moment to propel you forward out of that but the other thing is the as I keep as I sort of alluded to is the thing that I actually tell friends when they're going through this, and I've had friends going through it, I guess the best advice I said, learn to meditate.

1:05:44That'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 what you're reaching is a place to... 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 uh you would do well living out in malibu you're kind of like this you're a wellness influencer ed you know like you you you grew up with osteopaths as parents yeah uh you're into acupuncture meditation yeah healthy eating immersion in nature uh you know buddhism past life like you're just i mean yeah i know i'm a yeah like you know you're uh an easy fit out here how does that work in the in the uk is this still um these novel ideas yeah i mean i've community it's 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.

1:06:57And 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. 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. oh well are you gonna do that no no you know and I've loved that thing that openness so embracing different things oh I'll 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 Malibu and so oh you need to do this mine is entirely uh it is just experience experiential I've got I've tried that and things come on my path and I've tried lots of things that don't work.

1:07:51Where I've come to is just, these are things I've figured out for myself. And, and, and, you know, you're not going to do meditation and have a meditative practice unless there's something there. Cause it's, it's a commitment. Same thing with giving up booze. If that doesn't work and live and eating well, if, if that makes you, that doesn't change how you feel you, well, what's the point investing in that? I'll go back 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 um you know i went to see a healer 25 years ago and my wife and i had to keep it pretty quiet and i haven't even ever told my father because my father is 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 or oprah went yeah was that the one that oprah went to see yeah so it i've i what is it about this place you you you i mean you're at the atlantic you 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 you've you've had them 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 from the pacific whereas we haven't had that we're really on the other side of the world but we gradually in the 60s stuff came through but there's something about this land here, isn't there?

1:09:35There's something about, I always used to find this on tour in America. You'd arrive and you should 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. Well, I think also Los Angeles was, this is historically the place of dreamers. 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.

1:10:26And so it was written outside of the like rules and structures. And I think it attracted people who wanted to get away from that. So the, you know, the free thinking thing, it's just a more permissive environment for that, I think, for better and worse, you know. 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 whole, creating 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 up level 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 i spent for years hiding my hiding didn't know what i really felt or didn't allow myself i or I should feel, it's that you've got to be supremely honest to your truth.

1:11:40There's obviously a commercial aspect which can 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. It has to move you. I think what I realized is that you make music that you want to hear. I like my music feels like this sort of amalgam of things and I think in a way I'm trying to make music that yeah that that I haven't got in my library or and so but that's how do I do that it's by being true to myself yeah especially with AI all we have is our perspective yeah and our experience and our taste we're all unique and that's what makes it so amazing and it's 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 i bet your album just came out so what do you read reviews do you like you don't you don't i haven'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 that 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 i it's really liberating not reading what people write about you because again it's that thing back to what I said, you then don't walk around with this notion that you're either important or you're not important.

1:13:33You 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. Well, it's not like we're getting back together again, but we did a tour. Yeah. How is the health of Radiohead? How has your role in that band evolved as a result of stepping out on your own? I don't think it's changed 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.

1:14:28It'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 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 uh so it just again it feels really simple it's just really lovely to be playing these these these songs he's these lovely songs with people who are, you've had this long journey with, who are supreme musicians, really good people at heart.

1:15:23And 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 and 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.

1:16:06And then when you kind of went back and you're getting into the tour again, you're like these are good songs yeah like it's i know i i know that sounds like actually everyone's always laughing 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 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 we didn't have any new material to to to have to find or work on or 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 we haven't done any we hadn't done any group therapy yeah is it which at times that would have been a good documentary yeah no and full credit to 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 i 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 were a lot of people around us and it 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 five I mean that is Radiohead you know playing these songs that Tom has written and we add to and color and we add our own stuff, but that's what it is.

1:18:31And 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 culling. 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.

1:19:11You'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, the questions that you ask are, you make it easy. It's a flow. Good, man. Well, come back and let's continue the conversation. Thank you. What a place. Yeah. Look at this.

1:19:53Thank you for coming out here. Cheers. Thank you. Thanks.