Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on Depression, Trauma & Finding Light Again

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**Ed O'Brien** (1:15)
This underlying depression had been going on for years. It just seems so bleak and it seems, how do I get out of there? Depressions, breakdowns, illnesses, the body is saying, there's something not right here.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:27)
Ed O'Brien of Radiohead, one of the architects of modern rock and rock and roll hall of fame inductee, has a solo record called Blue Morpho.

**Rich Roll** (1:37)
The idea that the guy from Radiohead is going to complain about not being happy, nobody wants to hear that.

**Ed O'Brien** (1:43)
No. And it was exactly that. It felt very indulgent. I'm not like that. I'm a rock.
But my body was just saying enough. I felt like I was carrying a weight every day that was weighing me down. It was very, very, very physical. I cared so much before what people thought of me. The healing process is a process of self-love. I'm going, I'm okay.
I'm okay. I'm no longer hiding. You have to ask, well, why was I hiding? Well, I was hiding because.

**Rich Roll** (2:17)
It's like perfect timing that I'm sitting with you today to have this conversation.

**Ed O'Brien** (2:21)
There are no coincidences, right? Just synchronicities.

**Rich Roll** (2:25)
In your case, like I'm curious of the ways in which the album Blue Morpho mimics, like the process of creating that work of art mirrors the journey that you went on with your mental health and your depression and this process of trying to make sense and come to some place of healing and wholeness.

**Ed O'Brien** (2:50)
I mean, it completely mirrors that.
It's a transformation, creativity is it? I guess it's a transformation of sorts. There's a start and middle and an end. The middle is where it gets really challenging. I feel like I haven't got enough experience of this transformation, but my experience of transformation is, it feels impossible without the deeply challenging aspect that is at the heart of it. Because if you take the mental health, my belief is that there's an innate, or not my belief, but I resonate with those who say, or this idea that there's an innate human, the body has an innate human intelligence, it wants to heal. And that's what depressions and that's what breakdowns and that's what illnesses can be or early onsets. The body is saying, there's something not right here. And are you going to listen to this? And the coping mechanisms and the things from childhood that become part of our character and we think they're us.
There gets to a point, your body goes, your body knows it's no longer serving you. Your mind goes, this is me, I'm just carrying on. And essentially, I think that's what a breakdown is. Your body is saying enough.

**Rich Roll** (4:25)
Yeah. The universe is always knocking, trying to get our attention.

**Ed O'Brien** (4:31)
Yeah.

**Rich Roll** (4:32)
But we're so captured by our minds and by the stories that we're recycling in our brain thinking that they're ours, not realizing that they were embedded before we had the ability to exercise agency over them. And we're kind of all operating on some kind of loop, like playing out a narrative that we didn't consciously choose. And when the universe is knocking, trying to get your attention, we always have the opportunity to pay attention and make change. But for some reason, it seems like the human animal needs to be in sufficient pain or suffering before they'll heed that knock and start making those changes. Like we can all make a different choice.