Ed O'Brien on That Pedal Show

Ed O'Brien spends well over an hour with the two hosts of That Pedal Show, one of whom built his pedalboard, with a guitar in his lap. He was born in 1968 and raised on Top of the Pops. His dad handed him Sgt Pepper at six and he didn't like it. What made him want to play was the Police's “Walking on the Moon”, because it sounded as if it had been recorded on the moon. He didn't hear Hendrix until he was 18 or Led Zeppelin until he was 27. The first pedal he bought was a Boss delay, before he owned a distortion pedal. “It's always been about sound, it's never been about the guitar per se.”

With the EMI advance the band went to Denmark Street and came back with guitars he now calls dogs, all badly set up. He plays the Memory Man that Neil Finn's family graffitied when he lent it to them, and builds the loops for “Full Stop” the way he does on stage, heard only in his earpiece until he brings them in. One song in the set has a backing track. They tour with 60-odd songs, and a song they are unsure about goes in the setlist for that reason.

For Kid A he had a Fernandes sustainer fitted to his Clapton Strat, after Michael Brook, who built the Edge's infinite guitar, kept his own design a trade secret. The signature Fender began with a dream and an email sent before he could think better of it, and is made in Ensenada so that a 17-year-old can afford one. Years after Radiohead headlined an Amnesty International show in 1998 on a bill with Page and Plant, Robert Plant told them that watching them that night made him see the age of virtuosity was over.

He is finishing a solo record with Flood and explains the six stages of creativity. Stage three is deciding the work is rubbish. Stage four, the worst, is deciding he is.