Ed O’Brien: “My role in Radiohead is one of serving the song. It’s not easy to make that transition to doing it on your own”
The guitarist discusses making his own headway under his EOB moniker.
Ed O’Brien. Image: Jim Dyson / Getty
Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien has spoken about moving from a background role to heading up his own solo project, EOB, the moniker under which he’s just released his first solo record, Earth.
He said of the move: “My role in Radiohead is one of serving the song. It’s one of serving’s Thom [Yorke]’s songs and Thom’s lyric. It’s not easy to make that transition to doing it on your own.”
O’Brien made the comments in an interview with Rolling Stone, who also asked him if a solo record was always an ambition of his, as EOB is one of the last solo projects to come out of Radiohead – with Yorke, Philip Selway, and Jonny Greenwood all having already embarked on a solo venture.
In response, O’Brien explained: “If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I had ambitions to make a solo record, I would have said that I didn’t. I was busy. I wanted to be a hands-on dad, and Radiohead kept me busy. It only really came about once I figured out how to how to write songs and once they started flowing out.”
In our 8/10 review of Earth, we found the record was “inhabited with a playful levity, bathed in hope, heart and romance, much like the Primal Scream album that inspired its genesis.”
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