The Rich Roll Podcast
Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on Depression, Trauma & Finding Light Again
22 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This underlying depression had been going on for years. It just seems so bleak, and it seemed, how do I get out of there? Depressions, breakdowns, illnesses, the body's saying, there's something not right here.
Ed O'Brien of Radiohead.
One of the architects of modern rock and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Has a solo record called Blue Morpho.
The idea that the guy from Radiohead is going to complain about not being happy, you know, nobody wants to hear that.
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.
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Chapter 2: What personal struggles inspired Ed O'Brien's new album?
I thought, I'm dealing with this, I'm dealing with this, it's this. you get to a certain point of that toolbox that you have in order to help. It's like, that for me was that darkest moment. It was like everything I was doing wasn't making a jot of difference.
And when you're in it, you don't want to hear that this is your opportunity for growth and transformation. No, because it's hell. It's paralyzing.
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 moments of supreme challenge and darkness.
If you can frame it as 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 St. John of the Cross.
and this idea and you know dante's inferno midway through life i lost myself in the woods when i was able to i was 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
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 cold 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 going to 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, the moment I was able to frame it in a bigger journey, the bigger picture, it suddenly became more palatable. It was easier to deal with.
How long had you been in the depths before you were able to make that perspective shift?
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Chapter 3: How does Ed O'Brien relate creativity to mental health?
Susie 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 a lot of people with autoimmune diseases and cancers and addictions, where's the source of this, it's all in childhood. And he said, it's all in childhood.
And he does that beautiful thing that somebody who's very learned and you know they're speaking the truth, it seems really simple. 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.
I'd never allowed myself to use that word trauma, right? It feels like such a heavy word. Trauma was something that was, you know, if like Gabor Mate, for instance, his parents and his grandparents were in concentration camps. That felt to me like trauma. That's a level of hurt and trauma. So I wasn't allowing myself.
I'd go, well, you know, it was, yeah, it was a bit of 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 obviously like, you know, Gen X in Britain, No one, none of us, none of us processed anything. We had all this stuff, you should be like this, and all this kind of some pretty nasty stuff could happen, but we weren't listened to.
And that's just how it was. And so it makes for a very good humor. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons the British have a kind of quite dry and sarcastic humor. Get on with it. Well, it's that line in, is it Crimes and Misdemeanors? Is it that humor is tragedy plus time? Yeah. If it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny. Tragedy plus time equals comedy. Exactly.
So I think that's why, you know, you look at Monty Python and, you know, there'll be a lot of trauma there, those childhoods. Just the British way, very zipped up and very, you know, Americans can see it. You can see what we like as a nation.
But it feels indulgent.
to think that if your childhood isn't you know completely insane that you would characterize it as being traumatic you know what i mean and so it feels like oh come on yeah exactly it wasn't really it wasn't that bad 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
who you are and your inner monologue and all of that.
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Chapter 4: What transformations did Ed experience during his dark night of the soul?
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 once you process stuff and once you once you're becoming whole and
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.
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?
I had a relentless, I was never satisfied with. what I'd done. So Gerard, who's my five elements acupuncture practitioner, 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 achieved? So we're talking 2021. And it required supreme honesty.
If anyone else had asked me that, I'd have gone, of course. 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. And he said, don't you think that's crazy? I said, I know it's crazy. You know, that's why when someone asks me that or a journalist, you go, yes, of course, it's extraordinary. I know that I've had the most experience.
blessed experience in my creative life it doesn't get better if you want to be in a band from the 90s yeah 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 your life I really like wow it's and it is extraordinary but I didn't feel it and that was all self-worth and and and the way that we were
just the way that people talk to you as a young child. You know, 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 report, like a lot of kids' reports, said could do better. And I realized that, oh my God, that's, that, that those- Tattooed on your brain. Yeah.
Those three words stopped me sitting back and going, wow. This is great because 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.
The idea that the guy from Radiohead is going to complain about not being happy. You know, nobody wants to hear that.
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Chapter 5: How does Ed O'Brien view the role of uncertainty in creativity?
I remember it 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 then she said, what do you do? And up until then, I'd been really honest.
I said, oh, I'm in this band, and you know, and I said, and before that, the previous five years, you go, I'm in Radiohead. They go, oh yeah, Creep, right? You go, yeah, and there was a, and this is, OK Computer had 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 went, Radiohead. And it was bizarre.
And it completely changed the connection. And we were getting on well. And I thought, this is going to freak out. I was just like, oh. You see, Richard, one of the things I realized in this whole... But it took until OK Computer for that to happen. 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 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-old and just talk to people old young so for i've always loved i've always been interested in other people and and just talking to people so
The Radiohead stuff has to be worn lightly if you're going to make connections with people. I'm interested in that. I don't know, I'm interested in people.
What's interesting to me about that is, 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 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.
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 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 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.
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Chapter 6: What lifestyle changes did Ed make to combat depression?
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, my connection with spirit, for want of a better word, that's the thing that makes everything else possible. 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 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 hit, hear the birds and see the, see the creatures. And,
You can say anything to me now and it's going to brush off me, whereas before I'd be rocked by it. But it's that connection with spirit which is at the center 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 center, 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, you know, people use that beautiful word grace. And I can't explain it because I'm, 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 casting aside of religion because it's, There are beautiful aspects of it, but there's also controlling people. But that thing is so part of my life now and has been. And I think I've been seeking it for a long time. I've been meditating for 20 years. I call myself the mongrel meditator. I taught myself. And for years, I just would turn up on the mat and just be quiet.
But now it feels different. It's a different level. And that's the thing. I think it's that thing that when I really looked at the... So how does it all fit together? What happens first? I think that thing of 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 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 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?
Yeah, I think that... On your journey. Yeah, of course. I think a lot of it has to do with, again, going back to the story that we tell ourselves about what it is. We have words for these things. You're having a mental health crisis. And when you... use violent word choices like that, it's going to compel you to think that there's something bad or wrong.
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Chapter 7: How does Ed O'Brien's perspective on self-worth influence his music?
So that was one of the things that I bought that on vinyl in, in lockdown. And that's, that sort of started, um, 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. It felt like... But 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 listening 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. It 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? Free of any kind of constraints.
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. 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, when the first thing that went down on that was an acoustic guitar track. So 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 the record was suddenly, this is how it is. So it was a beautiful, hot summer, 2022.
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 gonna 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, 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. 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, that guitar is the guitar that is on Blue Morpher. And that was the arrangement.
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