“My therapy was literally locking myself in a room for three hours in the morning”: Radiohead's Ed O'Brien on using guitar playing as therapy in the midst of depression

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien has just announced his second solo album, Blue Morpho – a record that draws its primary inspiration from using the guitar as therapy in the midst of dark times.

“From 1990 or ’91 through to 2018, when we stopped touring and went on hiatus, it was pretty much nonstop,” he recently shared in an interview with Rolling Stone, as he looked back on his career with the legendary band.

“It’s all-encompassing, and it demands your full attention, and it’s addictive in that way. But it’s not necessarily healthy, because you just keep going, keep going, keep going. And then when you stop, suddenly the ghosts catch up.”

“I went into a deep depression,” O’Brien admits. “It was the first time in my life that I had to stop. And what I realized was that I’d been keeping busy, like a lot of people do, running from these ghosts of my past, particularly from my childhood.”

“It was really hard,” he continues. “Some days you just didn’t want to get out of bed. I thought, ‘Will this be with me forever?’”

The guitarist admits he wasn't interested in medication or traditional therapy, but found solace in working on a music project with no set goal in mind – and noodling on his guitar for a good chunk of the day.

“My therapy was literally locking myself in a room for three hours in the morning whilst the kids were homeschooling and my wife was working,” he recalls. “I was in such a dark place, but I knew that I had to get up each day, get out of bed, and do this thing.”

Eventually, the load was lifted – one strum at a time.

“The most challenging bit, and the bit that I find fascinating and full of mystery, is the songwriting bit. You get so excited seeing this one little thing you can play on the guitar, you suddenly hear this whole piece…. Music and magic, five letters, they share the same three.”

As for how he'd describe the album that was borne out of this period, O'Brien sums it up as, “It felt honest, and at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing for me.”

In more recent news, one of the guitars that O’Brien has been experimenting with recently is the off-kilter Circle Guitar by Circle Instruments, an electro-mechanical guitar that uses a MIDI-enabled physical sequencer to strum the strings.