Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien Discusses His New Solo Album and Shares “Blue Morpho”
In Our Headphones
KEXP
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
On a special episode of In Our Headphones, host Evie Stokes talks with Ed O’Brien of Radiohead about his upcoming solo album Blue Morpho. The two chat about mental health, finding healing in nature, and the joy O’Brien felt reuniting with his Radiohead brothers during their recent concerts. O’Brien also shares the title track and first single from Blue Morpho, out May 22 via Transgressive Records.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is in our headphones and I'm Evie Stokes. I had the pleasure of speaking with Ed O'Brien. You may know him from that band Radiohead, but he has a solo record coming out called Blue Morpho on May 22nd. It is beautiful. I have listened to it start to finish and I'm really excited that we had a chance to speak with him and feature him |
| 0:22.5 | for the podcast. So here's some more for my conversation with Ed. I just want to say I loved |
| 0:28.0 | blue morpho. I listened to it in full all the way through yesterday while I was on a nice |
| 0:32.5 | long walk in nature and it was the perfect accompaniment. The record is lovely. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it's all about |
| 0:39.4 | nature. It's all about our beautiful planet that we live on. We're so blessed to be living upon. |
| 0:44.6 | Well, I, you know, I read too that you said the record as a whole was sort of inspired by those |
| 0:51.0 | healing effects that nature has. Do you want to tell me a little bit more about what that means to you? |
| 0:57.3 | I think like a lot of us, we go through moments in our life when it gets intense. |
| 1:04.0 | And I think it's been quite, I'm quite happy to share that I've had my moments of |
| 1:09.4 | suffered from depression. Nothing spectacular |
| 1:12.6 | until 2021 and the 2020 and most of 2021 I, you know, I went into big hole and really it was nature, |
| 1:24.1 | being in nature and that really was so transformative for me. |
| 1:30.1 | And it's so important for my equilibrium to be in nature and to hear the birds now. |
| 1:40.1 | And maybe it's something with age and stuff like that but i'm increasingly aware and we're all |
| 1:45.1 | increasingly aware of the of the chaos that has that is unfolding continually and seems to be |
| 1:52.8 | ramping up and it's all man-made isn't it when you're in nature nature is she doesn't do that. I mean, she can be, you know, a huge storm |
| 2:04.6 | can be terrifying, but it's not, that's just what she does. And so increasingly I'm sort of aware of |
| 2:10.8 | the peace, but also the beauty and the, and just the magnificence of this planet that we live on. |
| 2:17.0 | And, you know, what a gift that we have when just such a gift. |
| 2:21.1 | I have to agree. |
| 2:21.9 | And as someone who struggled with mental health as well, nature is very important to me. |
| 2:25.2 | So I read too that when you were going through some struggles with your mental health, |
... |
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