Earth by the artist newly known as EOB began life in the Mata Atlântica of Brazil and on the carnival streets of Rio, was wrestled into shape in the Cambrian Mountains in Wales, then was finally nailed down in the well-named Assault & Battery studios in a grimy corner of northwest London. This hard-grafting ideas-factory is home base of veteran producer Flood and multiple sonically-adventurous albums from artists including Foals, PJ Harvey Depeche Mode and U2.

The Face: Take us back to 2012 – 13. You, your wife and two young children are on a farm in the Brazilian forest, an hour from the coast, near a town called Ubatuba, equidistant between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, living very simply: no mobiles, no Wi-Fi, no Radiohead…

Ed: I started writing out there. I went out with a full electronic [concept]. I had my gear, my Ableton, and I’d been working on my laptop. Everyday at 11 o’clock I’d have a break and listen to music, a whole load of stuff that I was into, like Burial and a lot of dubstep. But it didn’t resonate with me in Brazil. 

One morning, I put on Screamadelica for the first time in years and I had a fucking eureka moment. Hearing Movin’ On Up, I was like: ​“Fuck! That’s the spirit!” It was rave, and it was connectedness, it was hope, it was powerful. There was a metaphor as well: for me, moving out of the darkness. 

The Face: Vocally in Radiohead you’ve always done brilliant harmonies with Thom. But how challenging was it for you finding the confidence to do a lead vocal? 

Ed: Initially when I wrote these songs I thought I’d get someone else to sing them. I thought maybe Thom would be up for it. But the week before we started, I was demo-ing the songs and it was literally a case of: I don’t hate what I’m hearing on playback. 

Uproxx: Let’s talk about Earth. You’ve been working inside of a band for so long that I imagine the experience of working on your own record must’ve been really gratifying in a lot of ways, but also uncomfortable and maybe even a little scary.

Ed: I feel like when I started the record, I was almost asleep. By the time I finished the record, I was fully awake and present. About halfway through the record, it wasn’t sounding very good. I came back off a Radiohead tour and listened to it and I just went, fuck. I wasn’t used to stepping forward and going, what do I really feel? I’m still kind of used to working in a group dynamic. And what it forced me to do is it was like an awakening. It sounds quite dramatic, but it was quite dramatic to me. What is your truth? If you don’t fully step into your truth, then it’s not going to sound good. Whatever you are doing is not going to be good. You have to step fully into it. And you have to ask yourself, what do you really feel? And that, for me, was like a massive jolt. For me, it is the greatest part of the journey. Once I stood within that place, suddenly, the album was finished within six weeks, bang. I absolutely loved the whole process because I feel like I’m a different person at the end. I really am.

NME: How did you end up with such a great cast of collaborators on this record?

Ed: “Getting Nathan East [bassist] and Omar Hakim [drummer] was something I fantasised about. ‘Random Access Memories’ by Daft Punk came out in the early days of making the record [in 2013]. I watched the footage of them rehearsing for the Grammys. You had the robots, Stevie Wonder, Pharrell, Nile Rodgers – who are all phenomenal, but it was Nathan on bass and Omar on drums who caught me. I always felt that they would be out of my reach, but then Radiohead were on tour in America and I got to know Daft Punk’s manager. He told me that they were such lovely guys, text them and put us in contact.”

NME: So your dream line-up just fell into place?

Ed: “When I had one of the greatest producers in the world on board with [British rock producer] Flood, I knew that I had to have the best musicians. If you asked me, ‘If you could have anyone, who would you choose?’ I would have said: Nathan East, Omar Hakim, The Invisible’s David Okumu, Adrian Utley and Laura Marling. I’m very fortunate that people were happy to talk to me. It’s not like I’m in S Club 7 and they’re not gonna take my call. I’m in Radiohead, so people are curious if you’ve got a project.”

NME: What drew you to Laura Marling?

Ed: “She’s just an extraordinary artist and an extraordinary woman. I would love to work with her again in the future. She’s constantly moving and evolving. When she emerged, people called her ‘the new Joni Mitchell’. There are definite parallels there in terms of serious music artistry and development – but she’s Laura Marling. Future generations will say ‘Laura Marling and Joni Mitchell’.”

Billboard: This album has had a long gestation. What’s it been like to carry these songs around for so long?

Ed: The writing phase started in 2013 when me and my family went to live in Brazil. I was very influenced by Brazilian culture. We experienced Carnival in Rio and that’s just the most extraordinarily huge celebration of being a human being walking on this planet. It’s this beautiful kaleidoscope of rhythm, melody, life, love, open-heartedness. All the good stuff. And that triggered something in me. It was a bit like falling in love. Suddenly this music starts to come out and it was one of the most powerful feelings I’ve ever experienced. It was totally absorbing and it’s taken over my creative life.

Billboard: You gathered your own village for this project—Laura Marling, Adrian Utley, Glenn Kotche and Radiohead bandmate Colin Greenwood. How did you determine your dream list of collaborators?

Ed: The first thing you have to do is get a great producer on board. Flood is a friend; our kids went to the same school and our families have been on holiday together. And it’s a beautiful, no-bullshit thing that happens when you’re with your kids. Then musician-wise, the first three musicians who came on board were David Okumu [of the Invisible], who’s an extraordinary singer, producer, songwriter, guitarist in the south of London. I met him at a party 10 years ago and it was like meeting a long-lost brother. The same thing really with Nathan and Omar. All of these people are extraordinary musicians and producers. And that was very important, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted them to be the best human beings as well. And that’s what Nathan and Omar and David are.

Billboard: Where did you record the album?

Ed: We rented a big house in the country in Wales, and brought in mobile equipment and we all lived, ate, slept under the same roof. We did that for three weeks and then went back to London and me, Flood, Catherine [Marks] and the engineers were left in a studio in North London called Assault and Battery. Laura Marling came in for an afternoon. Glenn Kotche of Wilco came in for a couple of days; he’s a good friend. And then we decamped back down to Wales in March of the following year and that’s where Adrian Utley of Portishead came and played.

Billboard: Aside from working with Colin, did you consult with any of your other Radiohead bandmates about the album?

Ed: Colin came and played on the demo back in 2013 and initially I thought maybe some of these songs might be Radiohead songs for the next album. In 2014 we started A Moon Shaped Pool and for that first session, there was a little bit of ambivalence of everyone getting back together again. So I said, “Why don’t you come and play on my songs.” I spoke to [producer] Nigel [Godrich] about it and he thought it was a good way of getting everybody back together again. The first day we worked on “Banksters.” And I knew, after that first day, I knew it wasn’t right. My songs helped get everybody back together but I think we all realized, I certainly realized, it’s a different energy.

Reverb: Before the proper recording of the album, was this all demoed? Did you have a hard drive full of material after this process? Was it pen-and-paper?

Ed: There wasn't years of material. This was all from about summer of 2013 to summer of 2014. I also had to let go of the computer. I don't respond well to operating as I go along—whether it was Ableton Live or Pro Tools, and they're great software—but I needed to literally be lost in the moment and not have my engineering head on or whatever.

So it was: iPhone [mimics creating a Voice Memo], recording bits that came out, and then going into a studio. I had a great studio in Oxfordshire which are owned by Radiohead's management called Courtyard, and there's a great engineer-producer called Ian Davenport, who's worked a lot with Gaz Coombes. And that's when we started putting the ideas down onto a hard drive, onto Pro Tools.

Reverb: In the album trailer you shot and released for Earth, it looked pretty much like a full studio but in a home environment. Is that your house, or, where was that?

Ed: [Laughs.] It's a house down the road in Wales. It's a big, beautiful, if you like, ancestral, home. I talked to Flood a lot—because you know, Flood and Catherine Marks produced [the record]; Flood produced all of it, Catherine was involved for some of it—and I talked to him a lot about wanting to capture the spirit of a place, and the spirit of this place in Wales, Lands, and to have a fully immersive experience. That we'd eat, sleep, and drink it.

I've been very fortunate in Radiohead—you know, the first time we did that was with OK Computer—and we've done this, this has been a tried and tested route. And what happens is, you kind of get the soul of the record, and you get it in the early stages.

We were lucky, we brought in a full mobile recording studio. We in fact tracked 16-track. We went 16 track onto 2-inch tape, which gave the bass and the drums so much more headroom and power. Nathan East—who's obviously been playing for years—the bass sound that he, Flood and Catherine, and Cecil the engineer were getting, he was like, Oh my god. Because it was important—bass and drums and rhythm were really important on this record.

So we basically just got a mobile setup and did three weeks there, and then went back to Assault & Battery Studios in Willesden in North London, and that's where the craft element of it took place.

Rolling Stone: You’re one of the last members of Radiohead to make a solo record. Was this always an ambition of yours?

Ed: Not really. If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I had ambitions to make a solo record, I would have said that I didn’t. I was busy. I wanted to be a hands-on dad, and Radiohead kept me busy. It only really came about once I figured out how to how to write songs and once they started flowing out.

I’m incredibly thankful that I’m in this great band that I’ve always loved. And in spite of all the great success and artistic endeavors and all the great work that I’ve been involved with, there’s always been a hole, and I didn’t know what that was. Sometimes you don’t realize there is a hole, but as soon as I sat down with a guitar or a keyboard and these songs started to come out, I was like, “Ahhh. This is what it’s all about. This is what I need to do.” It was a surprise.

Rolling Stone: This happened around the time you moved your family to Brazil?

Ed: Yeah. The seeds of inspiration were sown in Brazil. I wanted to take time out with my family and step off the hamster wheel of life. I lived in London, and it was a very busy life with lots of stuff going on and lots of being pushed and pulled in different ways. Relocating to Brazil and living very rurally meant timeout. Life was reduced to music, family, and food.

There was no wi-fi and no telephones. It was a very loving environment with a different culture from Britain. That’s a great place to come from, but there’s something about the open-heartedness and the abundance of love that Brazilians seem to have. There’s a kind of joy of life. That is coupled with my love for Brazilian music and attending Carnival in Rio. When you’re watching the people and participating, it really is the greatest show on earth.

I thought to myself, “I really want to write, and I want to get something of what I’m experiencing here in my music somehow.” I didn’t know what that would be or how it would be, but I just had to start. I knew I had to start writing.

Rolling Stone: This was a number of years ago. Why are we just hearing the music now?

Ed: Well, we got back to the U.K. in mid-2013. I started writing and demoing. I basically had everything written within a year. By 2014, I had songs and was ready to go if I had a team and a producer. But that is when the Radiohead cycle started for A Moon Shaped Pool, in September 2014. We didn’t finish the record until February 2016. And then there’s the subsequent touring, that went on intensely for a year and a half. Then there was a tour of South America and another tour of North America in 2018. I started recording the album proper at the end of 2017, but I had to fit it around Radiohead.

Rolling Stone: I’ve read that you weren’t even sure at first if you’d sing the songs yourself. That surprised me, because I’ve always really liked your voice.

Ed: You haven’t heard it a lot, though. I’ve done a bit live, but the last time I sang on a Radiohead record was a couple of backing vocals on In Rainbows. I haven’t really sung a whole lot on Radiohead records. It’s very different from being a backing singer to singing lead vocals. I’m not an extensive backing singing either. It’s not like doing harmonies with the Beatles. It’s very, very part-time.

I didn’t want to be in that situation where I have these great musicians and a great production team and the whole thing is let down by weak or poor vocals. To me, it’s all about the songs. If the songs needed to have another singer who was stronger, then that’s what I thought would happen.

In the demo process, however, I had to start singing. And the engineer, Ian Davenport, kept saying right from the very beginning, “You can sing this.” I said, “Nah, nah…” But a week before I reconvened with Radiohead in 2014, I had my last demo session. And I had a moment where I heard a quality in my voice and was suddenly like, “Oh, okay. You know what? I think I can do this.” And actually, more importantly, “I want to do this.” You have to want to do it in order to do it.

[My producer] Flood was always certain that I could do that. As soon as I had his assuredness and confidence…he’s worked with so many different singers over the years that I thought, “I don’t know how I’m going to get there, but I’m going to get there.” One of the the things I was enjoying about the touring I did this year was was feeling the voice get stronger. I know that’s what you have to do. It’s like a muscle, and the more you do it, the better it gets and the richer it gets.

Rolling Stone: Tell me about the decision to bring in Flood as the producer. I love his work on U2’s Pop, and I can hear some shades of that on this record.

Ed: I wanted somebody who could bring a sonic richness. I’m very lucky where I’ve come from in Radiohead. Sonics and sound and quality is really important to all of us. I’m a sound snob, if you like. There aren’t a lot of people who just blow me away. Flood was somebody that I knew. He started work as an engineer in the early Eighties, and he’s worked on so many records. He first engineered The Joshua Tree and ends up co-producing Achtung Baby and, of course, Depeche Mode.

In 2012, he made the Foals album Holy Fire with [co-producer] Alan Moulder and [engineer] CJ Marks. I loved the sonics and the excitement and the depth of sound. Fortunately and very luckily, he’s a father at the school my kids go to. I got to know him as a friend. When it came to doing the record, in my heart of hearts I wanted to work with him. I love the work he’s done with Polly Harvey and everybody, like the Murder Capital, this young Irish band. He does small albums to big albums.

I didn’t ask him directly if he’d be interested in producing me. What I wanted to do was play him the [music] I had and I wanted some honest counsel. It was the dream scenario for me, because after about four songs he turns around and he says, “Would you like me to do this with you?” He got it. He totally got the music from the demos and totally got the feeling of what I was trying to do. And I think he got excited as well. He saw the potential.

Rolling Stone: You’re used to being one-fifth of a band. What’s it like to be the sole decider and the guy calling all the shots for once?

Ed: Well, I’ll be honest. It took a while. It took me until two-thirds of the way through the record when suddenly another penny dropped and I realized that nobody can hear what I envisage in my head. It was then I really had to take the reins. Flood said to me, “What do you think?” I kind of compare it to an awakening. I awakened and realized that if we were going to do this album right and if it was going to be, in any way, halfway decent…

I’ll tell you what happened. After the Radiohead tour, I played [my album] for some people and they didn’t like it. I was really taken aback by this. It was potential record companies and things like that. Some people liked it and some didn’t like it. I listened and realized that I didn’t like it either and I had to take ownership of it.

It’s one thing having a form of rejection where you can say, “Well, you just don’t get it” and that’s fair enough. But if people don’t like it and you don’t like it, you’re a chump. It’s like, “What the fuck are you doing?” And for me it was like, “I have to really fucking love this. This is an album that I love.” And if people don’t like it, that’s fine. I’ve done my best and it’s just down to taste.

For me, that moment was revelatory. Once I step forward and make my mantle, “What is my truth? What am I really feeling here? What is my truth here?” As soon I as I did that, the record was finished in six weeks.

It’s really interesting. I’m very interested in art and the creative process. There’s something about taking full ownership and having no fear and just doing it. I’m in early days [with my own career], but I’ve obviously been a part of a few successful records over the years, and they’ve all taken a long time. It’s always that moment. Once you know what it is, then you can accelerate. But sometimes you don’t know what it is you want unless you have entered the swamp of sounds and you’ve immersed yourself in the laboratory of sounds and you try different things. I just love having having the vision and seeing it through.