1. @dcMissaci Will there be more songs like Santa Teresa?
ED SAYS: “Santa Teresa is my ambient side. It comes very naturally. I’m definitely in an ambient mood right now.”
2. @ExitMusicAr Tell us a bit about the cover songs you're playing live. Why did you choose them?
ED SAYS: “We’ve been playing Ulrich Schnaus “On my own”, cause it’s a banger and Labi Siffre ‘I got the..’ The latter is an extraordinary soul song. I’ve got a band who can play this and deep down I’ve always felt there was a soul singer within me. I know, big statement, but I’m just being honest.. but much work to do on that front and it helps me stretch my wings that song.”
3. @pensinemutine Do you believe that, as Edgar Cayce once said, sound will be the medicine of tomorrow?
ED SAYS: “Totally. Music is frequency. Look at the physics of it all. Everything operates at a frequential level. All diseases have their frequency. Discover what that frequency is and you then have your way in. Bio resonance does this I believe. Very interesting. My dentist did bio resonance in my mouth after extracting a tooth. No blood and no pain!”
4. @saaaaa12am What is the most memorable thing that happened while you were performing onstage?
ED SAYS: “Probably Glastonbury ’97…”
5. @manu_marr What would be the order of your guitar pedals in your pedalboard? Why? Cheers and thanks!
ED SAYS: “EQ pedal into Kingsley page boost pedal into Hudson sidecar distortion, into whammy pedal, into mar flanger into catalinbread belle époque delay pedal into electro harmonic memory man pedal… Minimal at the moment, unlike my Radiohead pedalboards”
6. @yolilondon EOB sounds great live! Please tell us a bit about the new band members, and how did it feel playing your new songs in front of an audience for the first time
ED SAYS: “Alvin Ford Jr plays drums and is from New Orleans. Dishan Abrahams is originally from Sri Lanka, raised in Perth, Australia and now lives in London, he plays bass. Hinako Omori plays keyboards and sings, and Ross Chapman plays guitar and sings. They are truly extraordinary musicians. I feel very lucky that we can play together we were definitely having fun before the lockdown."
7. @seizenzetsu Which philosophers and authors influence your work? Cheers.
ED SAYS: “I really like Jung and people like Aldous Huxley. Jung said at the end of his life, that all his work was contained in the Tao Te Ching. It’s beautiful.I don’t like philosophers with big egos, and who think that we are the centre of the Universe.”
8. @deadairface Don’t know if you know it, but you’ve played over 1100 concerts with Radiohead over the last 25 years. How surreal was it to play the recent live solo shows without seeing Thom and Jonny to your left? Something missing, or glad to be rid of them for a bit lol
ED SAYS: “That’s a lot of shows. Thank you for highlighting. My thing is totally different. When I did my first show in Toronto it felt completely natural to have my new band around me. Strange being in the middle though?!!”
9. @ponkermagoo77 Covid19 has forced us to scale back, to family units, and to a national level, at least physically. How do you think our collective consciousness will shift after this period of isolation? And how will it impact the arts if events like tours just cease to be?
ED SAYS: “I truly believe that this changes everything and will change everything. There is no going back to how it was. So much to answer here. On a basic level Boris Johnson, our Tory PM, said yesterday that he owes his life to the NHS. He can’t possibly follow the route of his predecessors in the last 12 years by cutting and privatising huge chunks of the NHS. Our society has been turned upside down and our key workers and health workers are finally being valued for what they contribute to society. This will not be forgotten by anybody alive at the moment. Lots more to write about this."
10. @lgnacio07167899 How many hours per day or week you take to play and compose music?
ED SAYS: “Not enough at the moment. After next week and the release, I’m going to get up early and start writing every morning.”
11. @stephenkahlig Any favorite EOB tunes from within the band? You know which band I mean...
ED SAYS: “No, haven’t heard anything!”
12. @edobriengod Ed, do you support lesbians and if you do can you say “lesbian rights”?
ED SAYS: “Take a wild guess??!! Of course I do!! F**k yes. Shout lesbian rights to the rafters!!”
13. @krysthopher Any chance of you coming to South America later in the year when, hopefully, this virus goes away?
ED SAYS: “Please yes. I need to spend more time on that incredible continent. Magic in the air...”
14. @ChieftanMews Edward - first time caller, long time listener. Your new music is luscious. Is it true you invented live music webcasts in the late 20th to early 21st century and do you find they would be useful in these times of calamity?
ED SAYS: “Chieftain.. it’s been too long. You know the answer to that. We did live streaming when bandwidth was so narrow. Those webcasts we (Radiohead ) started doing around the time of recording Kid A were such fun.. slightly anarchic throw away and usually assisted by a load of booze and a spliff. They were the antidote to the intensity and focus of our recordings.
15. @mikecahpentah I've noticed you seem to gravitate towards positivity and brightness in music more than what Radiohead is traditionally known for. Has this ever brought conflict upon you and your band mates?
ED SAYS: “I’ve worked hard at being positive!! Meditation, going alcohol free.. eating the right stuff.. sorting my emotional shit out. I had an amazing personal trainer on the journey and he said to me, you don’t help anyone by being down.. and I used to hide it. I always hid from the band. Finding peace of mind and happiness is as old as the hills and it’s a journey that has been told for thousands of years.. it’s always internal.. just listen to footage of George Harrison and John Lennon talk about it.”
16. @EcLickBelow Can you describe a recent standout experience you've had playing your new music live?
ED SAYS: “It was playing Brasil at The Roundhouse 5 weeks ago. Last song in the set and when the Bass came in, you could feel the energy in the room shift the whole trance outro was glorious.”
17. @bonfanteslade What are 3 traits you discovered about yourself during the songwriting process, positive and negative?
ED SAYS: “I learnt about what my truth is. Sounds grand, but that has to be at the heart of anything creative. What is the truth here? Someone said this there other day and I liked it.. ‘Art is not about perfection, it is about the truth'”
18. @secretorganist1 Hi Ed! Read any good books lately? Looking for lockdown recommendations...
ED SAYS: "Yes... I read 'The Overstory' by Richard Powers at the end of last year.. but is the best book I have read in years.. it's a really important book for us all... I am reading Thoreau's Walden, which feels very apt too.. Also whilst I am doing a lot of signing for the album release I am listening to the audiobook of Elton John's autobiography as read by him and Taron Egerton.. it's brilliant.. what a life and what an amazing man.. self deprecating and obviously a kind soul.. what an incredible musician too.. interestingly I only like his stuff pre his cocaine years.. I never got his music because we grew up with all that Nikita shit, and I was listening to the Smiths.. but in the Summer of 2004 we were on holiday in France.. our son was 6 months old and waking up at 5am.. that was my shift and the only CD they had in the house was the original Elton John's greatest hits.. I put it on out of curiosity and these incredible songs came out of the speaker.. Tiny Dancer is perfection .. incredible.. oozes West Coast golen light freedom..."
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