Ed O'Brien: “We're not spokespeople, we're just musicians”

Ed O'Brien bristles at the idea that Radiohead speak for anyone. He loves the lyrics on Hail to the Thief and likes their feeling, he tells TCPalm, the Treasure Coast papers' website, by telephone. We're not spokespeople, we're just musicians.¹

Making a Radiohead album is communal, he says. Thom Yorke brings in fairly stripped-down versions of the songs, the others start writing their parts, and anyone can put in as much as he wants; the credit always ends up with Yorke. You throw things into the pot: Some stay, some don't.¹

Tonight's show at the Sound Advice Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach is part of the band's first big American tour of their own in nearly two years, and O'Brien calls playing in America a privilege. The encouragement from American audiences gives them licence to push things musically, he says.