Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien is working on his first solo album.
O’Brien says his solo work will be ready for 2017. Speaking to BBC6 O’Brien said, “it starts in Brazil. Kids were born 2004 and 2006. And I said to the guys, in five years time, me and my wife are gonna go and live in Brazil for a year. I don’t wanna put the kibosh on anything but this is something we have to do. Don’t feel you can’t make a record. Make a record without me, if I can come in later on whatever…And I was really aware that I’d had so many adventures with this band; I wanted to have an adventure with my family.”
O’Brien kept his word. He actually did go and live in Brazil for a year with his family. His solo album will reflect his time in the South American country.
“Everyone sings,” he said. “There must be 4000 people on each samba school who parade down there, and the combination of writing music and that feeling of being there and being like, ‘Oh my god, music can be like this.’ It was so profound, so it’s fed my whole inspiration and writing. There’s an element of that joy of music. But it also again, like, a lot of Brazilian music there’s a dark heart, melancholy, but, we’re all feeling this, we recognize it but let’s celebrate being a human being because that’s part of the journey for most of us. So that’s like a watershed in my life.”
O’Brien also confirmed that Radiohead did make an album in Nashville with Jack White at Third Man Records but shelved it. It was really fun. Jack was so hospitable, him and his engineer – he records everything on 8-track. Listen, it’s not worth waiting for. If anything was amazing, you can be sure – we’d try and put it out.”
Radiohead bass player Colin Greenwood is now the only Radiohead member to not release a solo project.