Ed O'Brien

Edward John O'Brien (born 15 April 1968) is an English guitarist and member of the alternative rock band Radiohead. O'Brien attended Abingdon School in Oxfordshire, England, where he met the other members of Radiohead. O'Brien makes extensive use of effects units to create atmospheric sounds and textures, and provides backing vocals. His first solo album, Earth, was released in 2020, under the name EOB.

Ed O'Brien
Ed O'Brien performing with Radiohead in Glasgow, 2017
Background information
Birth nameEdward John O'Brien
Also known asEOB
Born (1968-04-15) 15 April 1968
Oxford, England
GenresAlternative rock, experimental rock, electronic
Occupation(s)Musician, songwriter
InstrumentsGuitar, vocals
Years active1985–present
LabelsXL, TBD, Capitol
Associated actsRadiohead, 7 Worlds Collide, Kay

In 2010, Rolling Stone named O'Brien the 59th greatest guitarist of all time. Along with the other members of Radiohead, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

Early life

As a child, O'Brien enjoyed cricket and theatre. His parents split when he was 10; O'Brien said "I think that's when music became my refuge".[1] He grew up listening to post-punk acts such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Adam and the Ants, Depeche Mode, the Police and David Bowie. He said: "It was a very foetal [time] for music because people who went to art college or artists, or musicians, suddenly thought, 'Oh, I can be that'."[2]

The members of Radiohead met while attending Abingdon School, an independent school for boys in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.[3] While O'Brien was playing Lysander in a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, he met future Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, who was scoring the production.[1] Yorke asked him to join him for a jam. According to O'Brien, "Before that, [life] was a bit confusing, a bit crap. And then suddenly ... I felt something very strong, almost like some kind of epiphany, almost like: 'This is it.'"[4]

O'Brien, along with drummer Philip Selway, was in the year above Yorke and bassist Colin Greenwood, and three years above Colin's brother, multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood.[5] In 1985, they formed On a Friday, the name referring to the band's usual rehearsal day in the school's music room.[5] O'Brien studied economics at the University of Manchester.

Career

Radiohead
Main article: Radiohead

In 1991, On a Friday signed a six-album record contract with EMI and changed their name to Radiohead.[6] They found early success with their 1992 single "Creep".[7] Their third album, OK Computer (1997), propelled them to international fame and is often acclaimed as one of the best albums of all time.[8][9] OK Computer saw O'Brien use less distortion and more delay and other effects, creating a sound that was, in his words, "more about textures".[10]

O'Brien became depressed during the extensive OK Computer tour, but focused on supporting Yorke.[11] After the tour, he returned to Oxford and fell further into depression. He said: "I was single, on my own, World Cup ’98 summer… I was the lowest I’ve ever been. It was the irony as well – you’re at the top, that old cliché. Did loads of drugs [and] went full on into all the wrong things."[11]

Radiohead's next albums, Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), were recorded simultaneously, and marked a dramatic change in sound, incorporating influences from electronic music, classical music, jazz and krautrock.[12] O'Brien kept an online diary of Radiohead's progress during the recording.[13] He initially struggled with the band's change in direction, saying: "It's scary – everyone feels insecure. I'm a guitarist and suddenly it's like, well, there are no guitars on this track, or no drums."[14] At the suggestion of Michael Brook, creator of the Infinite Guitar, O'Brien began using sustain units, which allow guitar notes to be sustained infinitely. He combined these with looping and delay effects to create synthesiser-like sounds.[15]

By 2011, Radiohead had sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.[16] They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2019.[17] Whereas Yorke is the main songwriter, O'Brien said his role was to "service the songs" and act as "the mum ... My job was to always put my arm around [Thom], and his job was to be Thom."[11]

Solo work

O'Brien releases solo music under the name EOB. His first solo track, the ambient composition "Santa Teresa", was released on 4 October 2019.[18] His first solo album, Earth, was released on 17 April 2020 on Capitol Records[19] to positive reviews.[20] It was produced by Flood, Catherine Marks, and Adam "Cecil" Bartlett and was mixed by Alan Moulder, with contributions from drummer Omar Hakim, Invisible members Nathan East and Dave Okumu, folk singer Laura Marling, Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley, Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood.[21]

Recording for Earth began in late 2017 and ended in early 2019. The music was inspired by O'Brien's time living in Brazil and attending Carnival, which he described as a "musical eureka moment".[21] The first track, "Brasil", was released on 5 December 2019, with a video directed by Andrew Donoho.[22] The second, "Shangri-La", was released on 6 February, alongside the album title, release date and tracklist.[19] O'Brien began a North American tour in February 2020.[23]

Other work
O'Brien performing with 7 Worlds Collide, 2009

O'Brien contributed to the soundtrack for the BBC drama series Eureka Street before recording Kid A. He played guitar on the 2003 Asian Dub Foundation album Enemy of the Enemy.[24] O'Brien and Selway toured and recorded with Neil Finn as part of the 7 Worlds Collide project; he provided guitar and backing vocals on their eponymous 2001 live album and 2009 studio album The Sun Came Out.[25]

O'Brien is a founding director of the Featured Artists Coalition, a nonprofit organisation set up to protect the rights of featured musical artists, particularly in the digital age.[26] He appeared on the 16 April 2011 episode of the BBC Radio 5 Live sports programme Fighting Talk in support of Record Shop Day.[27]

O'Brien worked with Fender to design a signature model guitar, the EOB Stratocaster, which went on sale in November 2017. It features a tremolo bridge and a sustainer neck pickup.[28]

In 2013, O'Brien cofounded the Laundry, a workspace, restaurant and nightclub converted from a laundry in London Fields.[29] The following year, he and Selway signed an open letter protesting a ban on guitars in British prisons.[30] In 2019, O'Brien joined the RSPB Let Nature Sing project, which aims to get birdsong into the UK charts to raise awareness of the decline in Britain's birdlife.[31]

Musicianship

O'Brien's earliest guitar influence was Andy Summers of the Police, particularly his use of delay and chorus effects on "Walking on the Moon".[10] His other influences include Peter Buck of R.E.M, Paul Weller of the Jam, Johnny Marr of the Smiths, John McGeoch of Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Edge of U2.[10] O'Brien admired how these guitarists created "space" rather than playing conventional guitar solos.[2] He said: "They were great guitarists, but they weren’t lead guitarists ... My favourite guitarists know when not to play. Then you make more of it when you do play. Make it count."[10]

O'Brien usually plays Fender Stratocasters, including the Eric Clapton Stratocaster.[32] He also plays Gretsch and Rickenbacker guitars, including a twelve-string Rickenbacker.[32] While Jonny Greenwood plays most of Radiohead's lead guitar parts, O'Brien often creates ambient effects, making extensive use of effects units.[33] He said of the technique: "It's a bit like you're creating a canvas. That would be in accompaniment with Thom playing chords on the piano — you're building up a cloud of effects behind."[10] O'Brien said in 2017 that his most used effects are distortion, an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man delay, and a DigiTech Whammy pitch shifter.[10]

To create the high-pitched chiming sound that introduces "Lucky", O'Brien strums above the guitar nut.[33] He also creates the reverberating pops on the introduction of "2 + 2 = 5".[33] On "Karma Police", O'Brien distorts his guitar by driving a delay effect to self-oscillation, then turning the delay rate to a low frequency, creating a "melting" effect.[34] "Treefingers" was created by processing O'Brien's guitar loops.[15] On "Dollars and Cents", O'Brien used a pitch shifter pedal to shift his guitar chords from minor to major.[35] For "All I Need", he used a sustain unit and a guitar strung with four bottom E strings, creating a "thicker" sound.[10]

O'Brien said of his playing: "I literally learned to play my instrument within the band, so I started off very limited — and I'm still very limited. But I've been lucky, because I've been in a band that has not required you to be a virtuoso."[32] In a 2015 Rolling Stone article, David Fricke named O'Brien the 59th greatest guitarist of all time.[36] O'Brien also sings backing vocals for Radiohead, which Pitchfork described in 2006 as "the band's most consistent secret weapon".[37]

Personal life

O'Brien lives in London with his wife Susan Kobrin, who worked for Amnesty International.[38][39] The couple have a son, Salvador, born in January 2004, and a daughter, Oona, born in 2006.[40] O'Brien is a cricket fan[41] and supports Manchester United Football Club.[42] Around 2000, he gave up alcohol and took up meditation; he said: "[Alcohol] was fucking me up. I thought, 'I can carry on, or I can be a better person.'"[41] In 2011, he and his family moved to Brazil and lived for a year on a farm near Ubatuba.[11] In March 2020, O'Brien announced that he had contracted Covid-19 and was recovering in isolation.[43]

Solo discography

Studio album
List of studio albums, with selected chart positions and certifications
Title Details Peak chart positions
UK
[44]		 GER
[45]		 US
Sales
[46]		 US
Heat
[47]
Earth
  • Released: 17 April 2020
  • Label: Capitol Records
  • Formats: LP, CD, cassette, download
 1394198

Singles
Title Year Peak chart positions Album
US
AAA
[48]
"Santa Teresa" 2019 — Non-album single
"Brasil" — Earth
"Shangri-La" 2020 5
"Olympik" —
"Cloak of the Night" —
"Breathing" — Non-album single
"Table For One" —
gollark: I don't see why not.
gollark: Both are. If your computer is too slow, just buy better computers.
gollark: ```haskellprimes = filterPrime [2..] where filterPrime (p:xs) = p : filterPrime [x | x <- xs, x `mod` p /= 0]```So elegant. So concise. So incomprehensible.
gollark: Obviously, Haskell has the best syntax.
gollark: And the objects' types are objects too.

See also

References
  1. Monroe, Jazz (9 April 2020). "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien: 'Humanity has only really learned from disaster'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
  2. Casandra Scaroni and Samuel Dietz. “ You’ve got to find a voice”. Alltuntun. 2 September 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2016
  3. McLean, Craig (14 July 2003). "Don't worry, be happy". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 December 2007.
  4. "Ed O'Brien from Radiohead talks about the first time he jammed with Thom., Ed O'Brien, The First Time With... - BBC Radio 6 Music". BBC. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  5. Randall, Mac (1 April 1998). "The Golden Age of Radiohead". Guitar World.
  6. Ross, Alex (20 August 2001). "The Searchers". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 14 February 2008. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  7. "Jonny Greenwood - 100 Greatest Guitarists". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
  8. "Q Magazine: The 100 Greatest British Albums of All Time - How many do you own? (Either on CD, Vinyl, Tape or Download)". List Challenges.
  9. "Radiohead's OK Computer named best album of the past 25 years". Telegraph.co.uk. 22 December 2010.
  10. Michael Astley-Brown, Rob Laing (14 November 2017). "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien: "I was always drawn to sounds that didn't sound like the guitar". MusicRadar. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  11. "Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien steps up". The Face. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  12. Reynolds, Simon (July 2001). "Walking on Thin Ice". The Wire. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2007.
  13. "The Best You Can Is Good Enough: Radiohead vs. The Corporate Machine < Features | PopMatters". www.popmatters.com. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
  14. Cavanagh, David (October 2000). "I Can See The Monsters". Q.
  15. "Radiohead's Guitarist Created His Own Instrument and Helped Change the Band's Music". Esquire. 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  16. Jonathan, Emma. "BBC Worldwide takes exclusive Radiohead performance to the world". BBC. 3 May 2011. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  17. Greene, Andy; Greene, Andy (30 March 2019). "Radiohead, Stevie Nicks, The Cure, Janet Jackson Enter Rock Hall at Epic Ceremony". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  18. Minsker, Evan; Monroe, Jazz (4 October 2019). "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien Debuts First Solo Music: Listen". Pitchfork. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  19. "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien Announces Debut Album, Shares New Song". Pitchfork. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  20. "Earth by EOB". Metacritic. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
  21. Schatz, Lake (2 December 2019). "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien to release debut solo album in 2020, new single "Brasil" coming this week". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
  22. "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien Shares Video for New Song "Brasil": Listen". Pitchfork. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  23. Trapunski, Richard (8 February 2020). "Review: Radiohead's Ed O'Brien played his first ever solo show in Toronto". NOW Magazine. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  24. "ED MUSIC? - NME". NME. 24 April 2003. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
  25. "New 7 Worlds Collide (Ed O'Brien/Neil Finn/Jeff Tweedy/Johnny Marr) – "Bodhisattva Blues" (". Stereogum. 31 August 2009. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
  26. Youngs, Ian (12 March 2009). "Music stars call for more power". BBC News.
  27. "Radio 5 live Programmes – Fighting Talk, Music Special". BBC. 16 April 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
  28. "Summer NAMM 2017: Fender launches Ed O'Brien Sustainer Stratocaster guitar". MusicRadar. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  29. Emma Bartholomew and Ed Sheridan, Local Democracy Reporter. "London Fields workspace and nightclub The Laundry could be demolished to make way for luxury flats". Hackney Gazette. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  30. Grow, Kory; Grow, Kory (29 April 2014). "Radiohead and Pink Floyd Members Petition to Keep Guitars in Prisons". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  31. "Ed O'Brien on the power of nature, his debut solo album, and what's next for Radiohead". www.nme.com. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  32. "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien: Hail to the Texturalist". Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  33. "Ed O'Brien – 100 Greatest Guitarists: David Fricke's Picks". Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  34. Randall 2000, p. 224
  35. "Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: The Searchers: Radiohead's unquiet revolution". 14 February 2008. Archived from the original on 14 February 2008. Retrieved 2016-08-02.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  36. "Ed O'Brien – 100 Greatest Guitarists: David Fricke's Picks". Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  37. "Pitchfork: Track Reviews". 16 March 2008. Archived from the original on 16 March 2008. Retrieved 19 November 2017.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  38. Binelli, Mark. The Future According to Radiohead. Rolling Stone. 7 February 2008
  39. Craig McLean (10 December 2007). "Radiohead: Caught in the flash, part 1 | Music | The Observer". London: Guardian. Retrieved 8 November 2011.
  40. Radiohead's interviews' archive (23 September 2016). "(2016/09/23) Virgin Radio, Edith Bowman, Ed" – via YouTube.
  41. "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien: "Cricket Was My Refuge"". Wisden. 31 August 2018. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
  42. Odell, Michael (July 2003). "Silence! Genius At Work". Q (204): 98.
  43. "Radiohead's Ed O'Brien says he "most probably" has coronavirus". NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM. 23 March 2020. Retrieved 23 March 2020.
  44. "EOB – Official Charts Company". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  45. "Chartverfolgung / EOB" (in German). Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  46. "Top Album Sales: May 2, 2020". Billboard. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  47. "Heatseekers Albums: May 2, 2020". Billboard. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  48. "Adult Alternative Songs - July 4, 2020". Billboard. Retrieved 12 July 2020.

Notes

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.