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

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  This underlying depression had been going on for years. It just seems so bleak, and it seems, how do I get out of there? Depressions, breakdowns, illnesses, the body is saying, there's something not right here.

• 1:16Rich Roll?

  Ed O'Brien of Radiohead.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  One of the architects of modern rock and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Has a solo record called Blue Morpho.

• 1:26Rich Roll?

  The idea that the guy from Radiohead is gonna complain about not being happy, you know, nobody wants to hear that.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  No. And it was exactly that. It felt very indulgent. I'm not like that. I'm a rock. But my body was just saying, enough. I felt like I was carrying a weight every day that was weighing me down. It was very, very, very physical. I cared so much before what people thought of me. The healing process is a process of self-love and going, I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm no longer hiding. You have to ask, well, why was I hiding? Well, I was hiding because...

• 2:05Rich Roll?

  It's like perfect timing that I'm sitting with you today to have this conversation.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  There are no coincidences, right? Just synchronicities.

• 2:14Rich Roll?

  In your case, like I'm curious of the ways in which the album Blue Morpho mimics, like the process of creating that work of art mirrors the journey that you went on with your, with your mental health and your depression and, and this process of trying to make sense and, and come to some place of healing and wholeness.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it completely mirrors that.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  And it is a, it's a transformation. Creativity is a, I guess it's a transformation of sorts. And there's a start, a middle and an end. And the middle is where it gets really challenging. I feel like I haven't got enough experience of this transformation, but my experience of transformation is it feels impossible without the deeply challenging aspect that is at the heart of it. Because, you know, if you take the human body, if you take the mental health, you know, my, my, my, my belief is that the, the, there's an innate, or not

• 3:27Speaker 01

  my belief, but I, I resonate with those who say, or this idea that there's an innate human, the body has an innate human intelligence. It wants to heal, you know, and that's what depressions and that's what breakdowns and that's what illnesses can be or early onset. The body is saying, there's something not right here. And are you going to listen to this? And, you know, the, the coping mechanisms and the things from childhood that we all, that become part of our character and, you know, we think they're us.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  There gets to a point, your body goes, your body knows it's no longer serving you. Your mind goes, oh, I'm just, this is me, I'm just carrying on. And, and essentially, I think that's what a breakdown is, your body's saying enough.

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. The universe is always knocking.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:18Rich Roll?

  Trying to get our attention.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:20Rich Roll?

  Uh, but we're so captured um by our minds and by the stories that we're recycling in our brain, thinking that they're ours, not realizing that they were embedded before, you know, we had the ability to exercise agency over them. And we're kind of all operating on some kind of loop, like playing out a narrative that we didn't consciously choose. And when the universe is knocking, trying to get your attention, we always have the opportunity to pay attention and make change. But for some reason, it seems like the human animal uh needs to be in sufficient pain or suffering before they'll heed that knock and start making those changes.

• 5:04Rich Roll?

  Like, we can all make a different choice. But for some reason, we need to be in that place of suffering as, you know, kind of like the, the crucible for our growth and for our learning. And I don't know why that is, uh, but if we don't pay attention, those knocks get louder. And those, the chaos, you know, starts to increase and the pain increases until we are willing to listen and course correct.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Well, I think fundamentally, you know, there's, there's, human beings don't like being out their comfort zone. They get into a rhythm and that becomes, that's how they make sense of everything. And yeah, it, it, the only way to break that, and, and then the, you're right. I, I always say this, or my personal experience is. The universe gives you, has, you have everything around you in order to evolve. And it's whether you listen or whether you're awake to it. And, you know, and you're right, exactly. If I look back on my situation, this, this underlying depression had been going on for years.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  And I've, I'd sort of tried to address it with, you know, I went to see a healer in Brazil to sort of kick it all off. But I also made things, everything from dietary changes, which were actually profound. You know, eliminating alcohol for a while, no drugs, um, food, the kind of food I was eating. Cause you know, there's the, there's the link between the guts and the, and the brain. Oh, I thought I'm, I'm dealing with this. I'm dealing with this. It's this. But you get, you get to a certain point of that toolbox that you have in order to, to, to help. It's like, that for me was that darkest moment was like, everything I was doing wasn't, wasn't.

• 6:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Wasn't making a jot of difference.

• 6:55Rich Roll?

  When you're, when you're in it, you don't want to hear that this is your opportunity for growth and transformation.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  No, cause it's hell.

• 7:02Rich Roll?

  It's paralyzing.

• 7:03Speaker 01

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

• 7:46Speaker 01

  When I was able to, I was just like, okay, when I'm like, I'm not a freak. This is what people for thousands of years have been going through. And this is part of the journey. This is the part of the journey of existence. And I think it's super important to have that.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  To be able to frame it, almost like you frame your life as a film sometimes in, in, in the sense of trying to make sense of it, you know, because on the, you know, the coal face of it, it just seems so bleak and it seems, how do I get out of there? And I think for me, that, that was the hardest bit. It was like, how long is this gonna go on for? Because after nine months, I didn't feel like I'd made any shifts. But for instance, I guess if I'd had a, if I lived in a community, for instance, if we were in a proper community where you had your elders and your elders had been through that, they could go there, it's all right, you just sit with it. But I had a feeling that's what I had to do. But for me, it was, it, the moment I was able to frame it in a, in, in, in, in a bigger

• 8:50Speaker 01

  journey, is the bigger picture, it suddenly became more palatable. It was, it was easier to deal with.

• 8:59Rich Roll?

  How long had you been in the depths before you were able to make that perspective shift?

• 9:04Speaker 01

  I think about six, seven months.

• 9:07Rich Roll?

  That's a long time.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're gradual things. It was particularly bad in the winter. And then the spring and summer comes, but you're still carrying a weight. You're still like, why, why, why do I feel heavy? Why is this exhausting? What's, you know, why that, why? But then a bit of sunshine gives you a bit more, you know, you might go and swim in a river and you feel better. And so it, yeah, it was, it did feel a lot like a long time. And I, that for me was, I was fortunate because my wife, Susie, she's a kinesiologist. And she'd been through a similar sort of, hers was longer, through her teachings and through her, her work. It's like, she's like, you've got this, you just go sit in the fire, trust in the, trust in the universe.

• 9:53Rich Roll?

  This wasn't your first bout with depression, uh, but maybe the most acute or prolonged, like it's coinciding with lockdown, right? You tried the dietary, you've made lifestyle changes.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:08Rich Roll?

  And helpful, but not gonna solve the whole problem. You have this perspective shift where you realize, maybe I can exert some agency if I just look at this as a hero's journey and I'm just in it right now.

• 10:24Rich Roll?

  What were the decisions that you made about how you were going to exercise that agency? Like, what did you decide to explore in terms of modalities to claw your way out of this hole?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  I kept it pretty simple. I, I mean, I'd had bits of therapy over the years, but I found that it was completely conditional on my relationship with the therapist and how much I resonated with him. And I hadn't found anybody that I resonated with. So I didn't have a therapist. One thing that really helped, I'd had for years, five elements acupuncture, which is the old form of acupuncture. It was pre Maoist China. So it's all about the destiny of an individual and also their relationship between heaven and earth. It's very, it's, it's, it's the old acupuncture. The communists didn't like it, of course,

• 11:19Speaker 01

  when it came in, because they're all about, there's no, you know, the individualities subsume to the-

• 11:25Rich Roll?

  This is not serving the state.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  This is not serving the state. So all the five elements practitioners got driven out to Taiwan. So a lot of the old knowledge, or the old Daoist knowledge gets, goes out to Taiwan. And there was a British man called J R Worsley, who went over, I think in the 50s or 60s, and he brought the old form 50, he brought five elements acupuncture to the UK and actually, interestingly, to America. And it's different from TCM, traditional Chinese medicine is fabulous, you know, you put it, but it's all about, you put a, you put a needle in there, affects your kidneys, you know, it's very, it's very utilitarian. This is philosophical, it's spiritual. So that was tremendously helpful because I would go

• 12:10Speaker 01

  and see him every four weeks, and you'd talk for half an hour because he's established. So how are you? So there's a, there's a therapeutic, but what was great, it was, it went more than therapy because, okay, I'm going to hit some points here. And they were very beautiful names like Heaven's Gate or, and I found it profoundly powerful. So that helped shift stuff.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  But I just think being still, I think I've been lived, had such a busy life and a lot of that was, as I say, running from the ghosts of my past. There was a reason I was busy.

• 12:54Rich Roll?

  We had talked previously and you you had mentioned that you came across Gabor Maté's work and

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  This epiphany that perhaps there's something in your childhood that that needs a little bit of excavation in order for you to uh

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:12Rich Roll?

  make peace with yourself.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it again, I was reading this book in at the start of this, having fallen into this hole. And this book was exactly what I needed. The universe provided me. Suzy said, I think you should read this book when the body says no. And I was reading it. And, you know, it's essentially, he noticed in private practice that that a lot of people that are immune diseases and cancers and addictions, where's the source of the of this? It's all in childhood. And he said it, he said, it's all in childhood. And he does that beautiful thing that somebody who's very learned, and you

• 13:55Speaker 01

  you know, they're speaking a truth. It seems really simple. And and I was reading this and he was giving examples of case studies and talking about the trauma of the child. And I was reading it, so I'm going, I was like, well, that's like my childhood. And I'd never allowed myself to go my child, I'd never allowed myself to use that word trauma, right? It feels like such a heavy word. Trauma was something that was, I, you know, if like Gabor Maté, for instance, his, his

• 14:35Speaker 01

  parents and his grandparents were in concentration camps. That felt to me like trauma. That's the level of hurt and trauma that. So I wasn't allowing myself, I'd go, well, you know, it was, yeah, it was a bit shit, but you know, in that classic way. But what I realized I'd done was, I think in order to cope with it, and I've obviously like, you know, Gen X in Britain.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  No one, none of us, none of us processed anything. We had all this stuff, you should be like this and, and all this kind of some pretty nasty stuff could happen. But we weren't listened to and that's just, that's just how it was. And so it makes for a very good humour. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons the British have a kind of quite dry and sarcastic humour.

• 15:25Rich Roll?

  Get on with it.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Well, it's that line in, um, uh, is it Crimes and Misdemeanors? Is it the, the, the, the humour is tragedy plus time?

• 15:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  If it bends, it's, if it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny. So.

• 15:43Rich Roll?

  Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's why the, you know, you look at Monty Python and, you know, that, that, that there'll be a lot of trauma there, those childhoods. And just the British way, very zipped up and very, you know, Americans can see it. You can see what we, we're like as a nation.

• 16:00Rich Roll?

  But it feels indulgent to think that if your childhood isn't, you know, completely insane, that you would characterize it as being traumatic.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 16:10Rich Roll?

  And so, so it feels like, oh, come on.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 16:14Rich Roll?

  It wasn't really.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  It wasn't that bad.

• 16:15Rich Roll?

  But that then prevents you from really kind of performing an autopsy on whatever emotional needs went unmet that show up later in life and create these narratives about, you know.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  It stops you from healing.

• 16:27Rich Roll?

  Who you are and your inner monologue and all of that.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it stops you from healing. And, and, and that's, and it was exactly that. It felt very indulgent. I'm not like that. I'm a rock, I'm a, but my body was just saying enough. And that's somebody who say you have to process this stuff. Because I also had a sense before this that the way I was being was sort of unsustainable. I was using profound amounts of energy to see a day three or see a project through. And I knew that in the medium of music, I had this innate sense, music shouldn't be like a struggle. It should be a flow. And, and that's what I found subsequently about all of it. Life is a flow. When, once you've.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Once you process stuff and once you, once you're becoming whole, you're not using colossal amounts of energy just to make things happen. I felt like I was carrying a weight every day that was weighing me down. It was very, very, very physical. I mean, part of the process of this is, I think it's so interesting how it manifests itself in the body.

• 17:34Rich Roll?

  What's the operative story that's running in the background that is motivating you to push and be hard? And have that burdened kind of relationship with the world and your work?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  I had a relentless, I was never satisfied with what I'd done. So Gerard, who's the, the, my five elements acupuncture practitioner, he's the kind of, he's the top guy in the UK. He said to me when I went back to see him and I was in this period of darkness and he said, he said, are you happy with what you've, you've achieved? So we're talking 2021. And it required supreme honesty. If anyone else had asked me that in a, I'd have gone, of course. It's, it's amazing. I'm the most blessed and I knew that, but I didn't feel it. And I said to him, I said, no, I don't.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And he said, don't you think that's crazy? And I said, I know it's crazy. You know, that's why when someone asks me that or, or a journalist, you go, yes, of course, it's extraordinary. I know that I've had the most blessed experience in my creative life. It doesn't get better. If you want to be in a band from the nineties, it doesn't get better than being in Radiohead, right? And if you'd said to my 16 year old self, this is going to be what you're like, I really like, wow. It's, and it is extraordinary, but I didn't feel it. And that was all self-worth and, and the way that we were.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Just the way that people talked to you as a young child, you know, I had, I had an epiphany in sort of three quarters of the way through this. I was meditating and this thing came up in my mind and I've spoken quite a lot about this. My, I, my report, like a lot of kids' reports said could do better. And I realized that, oh my God, that's, that, that those-

• 19:30Rich Roll?

  Tattooed on your brain.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Those three words stopped me sitting back and going, wow, this is great. Cause it says, you cannot enjoy this. You've got to keep doing, you've got to do, and it's relentless. It's exhausting. It's not sustainable.

• 19:44Rich Roll?

  The, uh, the idea that the guy from Radiohead is gonna complain about not being happy, you know, nobody wants to hear that.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:57Rich Roll?

  You have this animating force that's telling you, you're not enough. You gotta push harder. You have to always be, you know, going the extra mile in order to earn love and acceptance and, and feel worthy of not just being in this band, but, but, but being alive. And that leads to this lack of satisfaction. But not for nothing, it's gotta feel at times quite heavy and burdensome to be in a band like Radiohead that is so revered. I mean, this band is so iconic. It's almost like a religion for people. And to have to carry that around is so loaded with

• 20:37Rich Roll?

  expectations on how you're showing up to, to fulfill that, that, that promise with the legion of, of fans all over the world. I mean, how do, how do you carry that? How does that feel inside you?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  I, I, it's interesting. It's, I don't feel that at all. Like my son said to me, cause I don't, I, it doesn't register with me at all that. My son said to me when we did these shows last, last year, he said, Dad, I don't think you realize how big Radiohead are. And I go, I think you're right. I, I have-

• 21:11Rich Roll?

  They're pretty big.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, yeah. And, but I've got no-

• 21:17Rich Roll?

  Cause you're in it. You don't have that perspective.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And my life is, you know, my life is, as soon as the kids were born, that becomes like- If I, if I, that becomes a central part of my life. That's the most, the most important thing in my life. And everything else gets, and the, the, now if I hadn't had kids and I'd stayed into that bubble and, you know, I think that would have happened, but because kids don't give a shit. And, and I loved being a dad. I, I, I think when Sal was born and Salvador was born, I had a sense of, this is my purpose. This felt more real and more powerful and deeper than anything I'd ever had. And I remember the day after, he was born at home.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  And we'd set up a birthing pool in the sitting room and, and, and the next day, so Sal, we had an enormous bed and Sal, for the first year, slept in our bed between Susie and myself. It was so beautiful. And Susie didn't get out of bed for 14 days. We did this whole thing, very much, very much subscribed and influenced by the whole continuum concept. And so the mother and child, Susie and Sal were asleep and I was clearing, I mean, it was just like a bomb site. I was getting rid of this huge amounts of water that had, you know, it had, it had all the, the, all the stuff from a birth and, and I remember

• 22:48Speaker 01

  I felt like I had this moment, I was like, and I was so like, this is my job. I found my role. So that stopped me from being in kind of Radiohead land. And I'm pretty private. I've never liked, I've always felt deeply uncomfortable on the more public aspect of, you know, if we do an award ceremony or we go out en masse. I love the gigs. I love, love, love, love, love those shows. Cause there's a, but the, the more, the, the other stuff, I always sort of, sort of was able to, so I did, that question you asked me doesn't really register with me. Cause I, I didn't really carry that with me. And I

• 23:29Speaker 01

  kind of liked that because the other thing is that I, again, I realized that very early, I remember I was around the time of OK Computer and I was a single guy and I was at a party and I was having a conversation with this girl and we were getting on really well. It was like, she's lovely and she's liking me. And, and then she said, um, she said, what do you do? And up until then, I'd been really honest. I said, I'm in this band and, you know, and I says, and and in before that, the previous five years, you go, I'm in Radiohead. They go, oh, yeah, Creep, right? You go, yeah, yeah. And there was a and this is OK Computer been out for three months. And she said, what do you do? And I said, I'm in a band. She said, what's that? She's in Radiohead.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  And it was bizarre and it completely

• 24:13Rich Roll?

  Changed, yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Changed the connection.

• 24:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  And we were getting on well. And I thought

• 24:16Rich Roll?

  And then she she had to freak out.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just like, I was just like, oh, I I I, you see, you see, Richard, I, one of the things I realized in this whole

• 24:26Rich Roll?

  But it took until OK Computer for that to happen.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And suddenly you're on another level. But I've always, one of my things is, I love talking to people. I grew up, so my parents and my grandparents were osteopaths. And they had their practice on the ground floor of this big Oxford house. So there were there were five rooms and there was a big waiting room with lots of patients waiting to be treated. I would just wander down as a toddler, two year olds, and just talk to people, old, young. So for for I've always loved, I've always been interested in other people and and and just talking to people. So you have to, the Radiohead stuff has to be worn lightly if you're going to make connections to people. I'm interested in that. I'm interested in, I don't know, I I'm, I I I like, I'm interested

• 25:13Speaker 01

  in people. I'm, you know.

• 25:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What's interesting to me about that is, you know, knowing you a little bit from the time we spent in Austin. There's a healthy part to that, this idea, like, I'm not comfortable with all the hullabaloo. Like, I know what my priorities are. I understand what's really important. But the flip side of that coin is is motivated by something different. Like, there is a discomfort uh, within you around worthiness. And, you know, we talked about this last time, like, you're very comfortable kind of being in the background in Radiohead. Like, you create the soundscapes. You're literally responsible for the sound that we identify as being Radiohead.

• 25:59Rich Roll?

  But your face is not as recognizable because you're not fronting the band. You're kind of in the back, playing around with wires and plugging things in and working pedals and whatever it is that you do.

• 26:11Rich Roll?

  And this mental health journey that you've been on and this album that you just released, this Hero's Journey, isn't just about depression, it's about self-love and honoring your own artistic voice to get in front

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:30Rich Roll?

  more than you ever have and use your voice and be comfortable with that. Like, there is a very beautiful self-reverence in this work where you're honoring yourself, maybe for the first time as an artist. And that is the consequence of this mental health Hero's Journey that you've been on, that you can be in the fullness of your creative expression.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's the process of it's interesting because it's, I'm no longer hiding. I mean, it's that, it's that thing. And why was I, you have to ask, well, why was I hiding? Well, I was hiding because I had huge lack of self-worth, you know, and by the way, I, you know, we were all responsible for the sound. It's really lovely of you to say that. I mean, I definitely played a part in that, but it was, it was a collective thing. But I, I didn't feel comfortable being front and center. And I, I guess I was always hiding. And I think that

• 27:34Speaker 01

  thing that started in my childhood in that, that sort of quite scary environment as a child, you know, is if you don't, if you don't put your head above the parapet, you're not going to get hurt. But what's so amazing about all of this, I mean, I essentially say that the healing journey is a journey of the truth, is a journey of truth, right? And the truth sets you free. So what I've found on this whole process, so, you know, like the previous record I did solo, I was racked with like, can I do this? But I was deeply uncomfortable being that, being that person on point. So what do I do? I go out under my initials, EOB.

• 28:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you wouldn't even put your full name on it.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Says everything.

• 28:12Rich Roll?

  Like, you're kind of, but it's a step.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  It's a step.

• 28:15Rich Roll?

  You made a solo album, but you're still too uncomfortable to actually attach your name to it.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's that thing, the truth sets you free. And you, you, you, I've been saying, I'm not fully there, but I'm definitely on the journey. I really don't care anymore because I cared so much before what people thought of me because I guess I wanted to be liked and loved. Why does somebody want to be liked and loved? Because they feel that there was a deficit of that. There's a hole there. It's the classic journey, right? So, once you learn about, once you go to that dark place and the healing process, as you said, is a process of self-love and going, I'm okay, I'm okay, you know, and then you feel it. And then, of course, for me,

• 29:04Speaker 01

  my connection with spirit, for want of a better word, that's the thing that makes everything else. I can handle anything in a way. I don't care what people think of me now, you know, that feeling that I have and I, I think very much like Thoreau, you know, his writings and Walden, that, that when I'm in nature, that's my, you know, when we're here.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  And if you were to leave me here all day and I'm wandering around and I've got a cup of tea and I can make some tea, good tea and hear, hear the birds and see the, see the creatures and you can say anything to me now and it's gonna brush off me, whereas before I'd be rocked by it. But, but it's that connection with spirit which is at the centre now, which is anchored in there. And that's the thing that I try to do on a daily basis to maintain that. If I don't have that centre, that's the thing that knocks me and I do start caring. But that is the key thing and that was the thing that came to me in this dark night of the soul. It's like of, you know, people use that beautiful word grace and, and I can't explain it because I'm,

• 30:11Speaker 01

  it's quite hard to explain for those who, you know, I come from, like I always say, I come from Oxford, which is one of the most cerebral places on the planet. They threw out spirits and God when they threw out religion and I understand the, the casting aside of religion because it's.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  There are beautiful aspects of it, but there's also controlling people, which is and and the, you know, but that thing is so part of my life now and has been and and and I think I've been seeking it for a long time. Like I I've been meditating for twenty years. I call myself the Mongrel Meditator. I taught myself and for years I just would turn up on the mat and just just be quiet. And but now it feels different. It's a different level. And that's the thing. I think it's that thing that when when you really look at that, when I really looked at the the, so how does it all fit together? What are the what what happens first? I think that thing of

• 31:10Speaker 01

  that dark night of the soul forces you to look at your fears and sit at your fears, really find out what it is that's put you in this place. And then you sit and you're not running away from it. And that that each day it gets easier to sit with them. And then you find stillness. And in that stillness comes grace, comes spirit. And so it's it's it's quite a tricky thing to talk about, but that's my truth. That's what I feel. And I think I don't know if you've experienced that form of grace. Have you? Is that something that?

• 31:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  On your journey?

• 31:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course. I think a lot of it has to do with, again, going back to, you know, the story that we tell ourselves about what it is. Like, we have words for these things. You're having a mental health crisis, you know. And when you use violent word choices like that, it's gonna compel you to think that there's something bad or wrong. And when you experience some degree of discomfort, your first impulse is, how do I change this? How do I get out of this? It's not supposed to be this way. And what you're talking about is being okay with the discomfort. Like, the stillness is acceptance and surrender. And when you're attached to

• 32:34Rich Roll?

  Whatever you're going through changing, you're actually interfering with the process that actually is going to get you to change and transform, which is stopping everything, being okay with where you're at, relinquishing your impulse to control, letting go of your discomfort with the uncertainty of it all and what it means, and allowing it to be what it is. Like, it's basically accepting reality.

• 33:03Rich Roll?

  And in your case, you go out to Wales. This is your special place. And this very primal untouched part of the world becomes an antenna to spirit that allows you to inhabit a deeper sense of stillness that brings the healing that you need so that you can detach from outcomes, focus on process. And the more in alignment you become, the easier it is for you to speak your truth and get in front of the microphone and create art that is actually a reflection of who you truly are, rather than trying to make something that you think people want from you

• 33:46Rich Roll?

  or that you should be doing because of your station in life. How's that for my?

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 33:52Rich Roll?

  My big monologue on Ed O'Brien.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  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, you're talking about surrender. It's like, I'm still in that phase where 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.

• 34:19Rich Roll?

  This is my autopsy.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  But it's, but what you're saying is presumably, that's also, that's, that's a journey. That's a very common journey.

• 34:27Rich Roll?

  I mean, nobody wants to get still and stop and, you know, sit in their discomfort. We want to go out in the world and make people like us and notice us and do things and have relationships, et cetera. And we just, we just get in our own way constantly.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  You know what's so interesting that I found? I had several mantras and one of them was.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  I do this thing where I um, I had every day, part of my ritual was, you know, I'd 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, just my intentions, and one of them was, 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, because uncertainty is, in creativity, that's the place where

• 35:36Speaker 01

  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, 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. In that place of uncertainty, that disappears and you're like, oh shit, where am I? But that's where transformation happens, you know, and I,

• 36:18Speaker 01

  and, and it is a funny thing, it's, it's a, I wonder if that's part of the journey, that's the, the journey of, of the soul, the evolution is that, is that, you know, you're right, when we're in a more, not infantile space, but I wouldn't say infant, because that wouldn't be fair, but, but certainly young adults, we seek comfort and we seek security. We don't trust in the universe, you know, the world tells us it's brutish and it's ugly, and, and our system kind of encourages that as well. But when you go through this other side and you You go through these breakthroughs, it's learning more to let go and trusting. And then you go, okay, that I, I like being in this place of uncertainty.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  I feel like right now I'm in a really big moment of uncertainty.

• 37:07Rich Roll?

  But uncertainty is reality.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 37:11Rich Roll?

  We think that things are more certain than they are. And we make most of our life decisions, uh, trying to control external circumstances to give us a greater sense of certainty. I think I brought this up in, in the panel that we did, but there's a great psychiatrist called Phil Stutz, he's been on the show a couple of times. And his whole thing, uh, he treats a lot of very successful, um, people here in town who are terminally dissatisfied. And his whole thing on, on what's driving this degree of unhappiness and dissatisfaction is that they deny three unavoidable truths of life.

• 37:53Rich Roll?

  Pain, uncertainty, and the need for constant work. Meaning we're all deluded into this idea that if we can accumulate enough and have enough stature and, and prestige, et cetera, uh, 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. And 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.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:36Rich Roll?

  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, or should be. And I know, cause I've heard you talk about this with Blue Morpho, going in without an agenda and, and just paying attention and opening up your antenna for something to come in. Is how this whole thing happened by not being attached to what it should be or could be. And allowing it to be what it wanted to be.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And, and you know, the less I sort of tried to control it or move it. The more, the richer it got, the, 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, you're not like a rudderless ship. You're like, you're like in the river, but you're just gently going, oh, that feels good. And you're not, you can't force anything. It's happening, but it needs you to be present. And it needs you to be true to what you're feeling.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  And that the truth that, you know, you can, so that, you know, in creativity, you can, 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 this. 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?

• 40:19Rich Roll?

  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, eh?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  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.

• 40:48Rich Roll?

  The guy in Radiohead.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Well, but the songwriting aspect that comes that, 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 with 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 I'm. It's early days in that. But what's, what I found that.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I find it, 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, you don't feel that.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  It's just like it comes out and you go, okay. But the really good ones, they, it's, it's like a, it is, it's like a, an acorn seed, an acorn. In that seed, you have the potential of this magnificent tree that can grow and be that thing. The potential of that growth is all in there from that seed. It's in that thing. And you get the same thing with, it's extraordinary. You can get the same thing with music with, with some notes in an interval and patterns, you know.

• 42:57Rich Roll?

  Based upon what you just said, I think I can predict how you feel about the advent of AI in music and in songwriting.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:08Rich Roll?

  Say your piece on that.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  I mean, I really worry about AI in a general terms because I think it's another one of those.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Living, spending so much time in the countryside. I, I was originally a country boy and then lived in a city in London for thirty years in Manchester, then country boy again. And what you realize when you live in a city is that human beings will go around and they go, wow, look at these beautiful buildings, these things that we've created. It's all about.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Human beings enamored with their own creativity and their own cleverness. Whereas if in the countryside, you look at a tree and you go, you look at those leaves, you look at the perfection of that branch and you go. Great artists can maybe match that beauty and that that 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. Like they always pull out the medical one. They always go, it's going to revolutionize medicine.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  But you know, what do they let in through the back door? And so in terms of creativity. There's no doubt that it will have a huge effect on the music industry. And what it will probably, there's always been an aspect of of music that has has had a the mass appeal. Certainly sort of what I call sort of plastic pop music. I think that's where AI will make the biggest inroads. Which is a shame because also I grew up in an era of pop music where the, you know, the 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 and a great singer and a great songwriter, all these things.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  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 the 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.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  It can have a, it's like a mind, it can have a supreme intelligence. And I, I just think great music has to have soul. All my favorite music, you know, they, they come from, it's not just, it's not just mathematics. It's, there is, 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.

• 46:14Rich Roll?

  When you were going through it, what role did music play in you navigating this depression?

• 46:25Speaker 01

  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,

• 46:40Speaker 01

  and I think that there was, I just had enough and it felt like I was full, that well was full. I never need to hear this music again. And then at that stage, I was just, it was that first lockdown and I was just listening to birdsong. The birds were alive, they were happy. They felt, it felt like they were celebrating that human beings have finally stopped and they could breathe and sing their songs. So I was really enamored by birdsong and the sounds of nature. I couldn't listen to.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  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, in lockdown and that's, that's sort of started. That was, that really resonated. And then I realized what I was being drawn to was sort of music that felt like it didn't have the traditional form or the kind of form that I was used to.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  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 in for me at all. I felt bored by it. It felt like. But I was like, how do I, but at the same time, I was

• 48:16Speaker 01

  playing my guitar in a very unformless way, but just little musical motifs.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  And the, the, the thing was, as, as the days went by and I started to listen to, I started to listen to more classical music and more jazz music. So what was coming in was

• 48:35Speaker 01

  not formless music, but, but music that I couldn't, because it didn't have the musical brain power, if you like to go, well, the form is like that. It felt like it was more open ended. I could understand the movement.

• 48:50Rich Roll?

  How can I make sounds that reflect this emotional state that I'm experiencing?

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it had to be.

• 48:56Rich Roll?

  Free of any kind of constraints.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  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, it, it, it couldn't be sort of gratuitously. You know, there has to be something that you latch on to for a listener. So I was just trying to find that. And that again was. I mean, it was so interesting. I mean, the trap bloom morpho, when the first thing that went down on that was an acoustic guitar track. So it, it's so interesting. I hadn't thought of this, but I guess that maybe, this is the first time I've realized this, that maybe the moment where.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  The record was suddenly, this is how it is. So it was a beautiful hot summer twenty twenty 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 bird song because we were gonna record some of this bird song.

• 50:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, which is how that song opens.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then I had, I had these series of little mo- musical motifs. And I had an idea for like, we'll go from that section to that section, which is Blue Morpho. But I didn't know how they run. And certainly at the top of the song, I didn't know how to, I didn't know how we would step into this song.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  And so I just sort of let go and I had my acoustic guitar and I just played it. And I thought it was a kind of a rough thing. And that version,

• 50:37Speaker 01

  that guitar is the guitar that is on Blue Morpho. And that, that was the arrangement. Now, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just letting go.

• 50:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  And that was, and that sort of gave me confidence, but that was also underpinned and it was, and it's that thing, 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, it's embracing. It's, I don't know what I'm doing. It's just, you know, just, I don't, I don't know what I'm doing.

• 51:15Rich Roll?

  That's the discovery part. That's the, 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.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  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.

• 51:39Rich Roll?

  Well, that's where the shit is.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. That's where it is.

• 51:44Rich Roll?

  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 gonna 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.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Johnny's got that down. He's the king.

• 52:21Rich Roll?

  He's, he's figured that one out.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  He's figured it out. And he's so good at that because he's also got all the musical chops. He's got, you know, he can score stuff. He writes. I can't write music. Um, 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, uh, film music. Every, you know, I think one of the earliest, um, albums my parents had was Midnight Cowboy. Uh, the John Voight, Dustin Hoffman, great soundtrack. Uh, obviously everybody's talking the Fred Neil song, Nielsen sang it, but also the soundtrack by John Barry. But I loved Ennio Morricone, loved his soundtrack. I mean,

• 53:06Speaker 01

  one of my favorite films, but I, I had the album before I ever, I had the album for three years before I ever saw the film was Wim Wenders, Paris, Texas, the Rikuda soundtrack. I love that. And I would listen in my bedroom in West Oxford and dream about deserts in West Texas, you know?

• 53:24Rich Roll?

  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 for you.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  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, um.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  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 him, I said, I want to do another album first. I want to, I feel like I'm, I just love making my own movies, if you like, and I'd.

• 54:07Rich Roll?

  Which you did with this record.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 54:17Rich Roll?

  Who's gonna make the movie to my album, not the other way around.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  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 Sing movies and written them in, 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, who, well, he's made videos for Tom. I think directors also, that there's an itch there that they quite like, that they get these little five, six minutes.

• 54:57Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Whether I have the musical rigor and capacity to do that thing, music, soundtracks, I don't know. I definitely would like to do it someday, but I don't feel I'm ready for it now. I want to, I want to just explore. I want to just make my own music at the moment.

• 55:17Rich Roll?

  You referred to, uh, your depression as a, a dark night of the soul or this hero's journey. There's lots of, um, 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?

• 55:54Rich Roll?

  You want people to understand so that they can engage with their own challenges similarly. Like, what is the wisdom that you've come out of these experiences?

• 56:06Speaker 01

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

• 56:51Speaker 01

  are so extraordinary. And how I feel now and the clarity that I have, and I haven't had depression since then.

• 56:58Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  I feel like I'm a whole. As you can tell, I know I don't have like you, you need this, this, this.

• 57:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  I, I, I'm, I'm that very digressives. It, it's, 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 and it's supremely uncomfortable, you look back and you go, I got through this. I held on. You know, some days it's one foot in front of the other. Other days it's just literally holding on.

• 57:45Rich Roll?

  It's interesting that we have the choice to basically perceive anything that happens to us as an opportunity for growth and transformation.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:55Rich Roll?

  But if you're in that deep state of despair, or you know, just in the dark, to say to the person like, this too shall pass, or you know, you're going to look back on this and be grateful and you're going to learn so much. That's very difficult, right?

• 58:09Speaker 01

  It's really difficult.

• 58:10Rich Roll?

  Like, is there like anything that you've learned that you can share with somebody who is in that state to help them avoid a little bit of unnecessary suffering?

• 58:20Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think you just sit there and wait for it to pass. I think there has to be. You have to try and figure out what it is. And that can be a multitude of things, right? Like I said, like I went through the whole thing. It can be, you know, if I, 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 forwards out of that.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  But the other thing is, as I keep, as I sort of alluded to, is the thing that I actually tell friends when they're going through this, and you know, I've had friends going through it. I guess the best advice I said, learn to meditate. That's a practical thing, but there's something in that, that it's you're being proactive, but you're allowing the healing to happen because you know, what you're reaching is a place. So, I mean, I, 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. Hundred percent.

• 59:44Rich Roll?

  I feel like you would, uh, you would do well living out of 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.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:56Rich Roll?

  Uh, you're into acupuncture, meditation.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:59Rich Roll?

  Healthy eating, immersion in nature, uh, you know, Buddhism, past life. Like you're just, I mean.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:00:08Rich Roll?

  You're custom fit for this.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  I'm a walking, flipping Malibu cliche.

• 1:00:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Like, you know, you're an easy fit out here. How does that work in the, in the UK? Is this still, um, these novel ideas?

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I've.

• 1:00:20Rich Roll?

  Community of friends?

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  It's funny. I think I've always resonated with the West Coast spirit. I've always, I mean, what I've loved about California and out here is this openness. And I think a lot of people out here are seeking. And I'm a seeker.

• 1:00:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  And I've loved the openness. Like, oh, I'm gonna try that. My grandmother was American, American. So I came over to America from, you know, from age 13. And I loved that sense of you can do this. You've got this.

• 1:00:52Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  That openness. And whereas Britain was all about, oh, you can't do that, mate. Oh, no. What are you gonna do that? No, no. You know, and I've loved that thing, that openness. So embracing different things. Oh, I'd 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, i- i- i- is just experiential. I've got, oh, I've tried that. And things come on my path. And I've tried lots of things that don't work.

• 1:01:25Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Where I've come to is just, these are things I've figured out for myself. And, and, and, you know, you're not gonna do meditation and have a meditation 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 in investing in that? I'll go back. Cause 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.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  You know, I went to see a healer twenty five years ago and my wife and I had to keep it pretty quiet. 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.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  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, they go, oh, yeah, which healer did you see? Oh, yeah, we saw him.

• 1:02:31Rich Roll?

  You need to see this.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  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 sixties stuff came through. But there's something about this land here, isn't there? There's something about, I always used to find this, you know, on tour in America, you'd arrive

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  and you should come from the, 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, you probably know better, but.

• 1:03:40Rich Roll?

  Well, I think also Los Angeles was, you know, this is historically the place of dreamers, you know, the dreamers, the people with the imagination, the artists gravitated here. Uh, and there's a permissiveness. It's sort of didn't, it wasn't developed with a history. And so it was written outside of the like rules and structures. Uh, I think it attracted people who wanted to get away from that. So that, you know, the free thinking thing is, it's just, it's just a more.

• 1:04:17Rich Roll?

  Permissive environment for that, I think, for better and worse.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Rich Roll?

  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, 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?

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  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 thought I should feel. It's that you've got to be supremely honest to what you, to your truth. There's obviously a commercial aspect, which is, can get, make things very confusing, but you never make music for other people. You make it for yourself first and foremost. You cannot second guess what people, there's no idea. You have to, it has to move you. I think what I realized is that you make music that you want to hear.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:05:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, especially with AI. All we have is our perspective.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Rich Roll?

  And our experience and our taste.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  You know, but it's all right. It's just, there's lots of music out there.

• 1:06:14Rich Roll?

  That your album just came out. So what do you read reviews?

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:06:18Rich Roll?

  You don't, you don't care.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  I haven't read a review since OK Computer.

• 1:06:21Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Since April nineteen ninety seven. Cause 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 state. 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? It's like. I, I, I, it's really liberating not reading what people write about you. Cause again, it's that thing back to what I said, you, you then don't walk around with.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Uh, this notion that you're either important or you're not important. You just, you just be, that's the, that's the essence. Just be, just do it.

• 1:07:13Rich Roll?

  So the band's getting back together again. Radiohead, you guys are touring.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did, we did it. Well, it's not like we're getting back together again, but we did at all. Yeah.

• 1:07:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Rich Roll?

  How is the health of Radiohead? How has your role in that band evolved? As a result of stepping out on your own, like how does that work?

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Changed at all. I mean, I think it's just what was nice about it was it feels very democratic. Uh, which is kind of its strength. I felt like with that touring.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  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 I, it does feel like a brotherhood. It's that kind of depth. You have that. You know, like you do in families, you have, you know, when you serve up a meal. You know, you're, you know, your sister doesn't like ketchup. You don't, you know, and you know, she doesn't. Likewise, all these, these bits of intimate knowledge, I have the same thing with these guys without even reason. I know that. I don't know that Colin doesn't like coleslaw. But you know, and this, you have all this incredibly detailed, it's just there because you've grown up together. Uh, so.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  It just, again, it feels really simple. It's just really lovely to be playing these, these, these songs, these lovely songs with people who are, you've had this long journey with, who are supreme musicians, really good people at heart. And yeah, I mean, that's what, and, and how lucky are we that people want to come and see it? And these songs move people. And,

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  and, 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'd 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.

• 1:09:34Rich Roll?

  I heard you say in another interview that you hadn't listened to a lot of the songs for a long time. And then when you kind of went back and you're getting into the tour again, you're like, these are good songs. Like it's

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  I know. I know that sounds

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Everyone's always laughing when I said that. But that was my feeling. It was because when you're doing them, I think because with Radiohead, there was this sort of, and again, it comes to, could do better. And I think that was a universal thing for all of us. It was, we just continue, you've 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, 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. So that's

• 1:10:25Rich Roll?

  I would imagine it takes some real intentionality and conscious effort to maintain the health of all of these relationships.

• 1:10:38Rich Roll?

  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?

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Well, we we hadn't done any, we hadn't done any group therapy.

• 1:10:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Which at times that would have been a good thing to do.

• 1:11:00Rich Roll?

  Like the Metallica documentary?

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  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. 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

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  fostering respect and love. And I just think at the end of that iteration of Radiohead in 2018, there are a lot of people around us. And it had got so big and Brian, our manager, sort of in the subsequent years, we'd have meetings, just bring it down to the five of us. And when you distill it to the 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. And again, it's quite simple, but it's amazing how complex these things and, you know, it's the classic stories of when you have a successful enterprise,

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  you can get people who attach themselves to it.

• 1:12:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  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 they're trying to make themselves important in that organization. So we, we've had a bit of You know, worming out.

• 1:12:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, some culling.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Some culling, some weeding. Yeah, definitely.

• 1:12:38Rich Roll?

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

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  Thank you, Rich. Well, right back at you. You know, the questions that you ask are, you make it easy. It's a flow.

• 1:13:23Rich Roll?

  Good, man. Well, come back and let's continue the conversation.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Thank you. What a place. Look at this.

• 1:13:28Rich Roll?

  Thank you for coming out here. Cheers.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:13:31Rich Roll?

  Thanks.