Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien: “Technology’s evolution on the human…

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As a teenage witness at the dawn of the MTV era, Ed O’Brien felt his heroes didn’t make music – they descended from somewhere and delivered it. Yet having risen to those heights himself as Radiohead’s guitarist, with multiple albums that rewrote what rock music could be, O’Brien knows exactly how mortal he is.

Not long ago, he found himself near paralysis: exhausted, overwhelmed, unable to get out of bed. The long process of pulling out of what he calls a “dark night of the soul” led to Blue Morpho, his first solo album in six years.

Huck caught up with the Radiohead guitarist under the bright Texas sun, the day after he offered the world its first glimpse of the music – a première at Austin’s SXSW of Blue Morpho: The Three Act Play, a short film directed by his friend Kit Monteith. Moving through rivers, mountains, and forests in Wales, the film traces how O’Brien found his way back: through nature, and through music that is gritty, glitchy, and hard-won.

There’s a strong current of technophobia running through society right now. With OK Computer, you and your bandmates were way ahead. Now that everyone’s talking about AI and the effect that it’s going to have, you suddenly come up with this album about how fragile humans are as machines. Was that a conscious decision?

No, it’s not conscious at all. I guess it’s a response to everything being a human being walking on this planet and being sensitive to these things. I don’t think I’m very good at being conscious about things or trying to make a statement about anything. I just can’t do that. It’s always got to be personal. Sometimes those things you capture, there’s a zeitgeist moment on it, but it’s really just: What are you feeling?

With the new album dropping along with the accompanying short film, you’re being very open about your own mental health, has that been difficult?

I’ve always felt like it’s important to share. You don’t have to…

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