RADIOHEAD
We meet Radiohead’s sonic explorer to talk about his new signature Strat and how to use guitars more boldy and creatively to conjure up new soundworlds
SONIC INNOVATOR ED O’BRIEN SHOWS US HIS NEW STRAT!
Guitarist Ed O’Brien is a founding member of one of the UK’s most beloved art-rock mainstays. Originally conceived in Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1985, the band performed for several years under the moniker On A Friday, before changing their name to Radiohead. Following a 25-year career that kicked off into the limelight with the single Creep (from their debut album Pablo Honey), last year’s A Moon Shaped Pool is their ninth full length release to date and the sixth to reach the number one spot in the UK’s LP charts.
Along with the rest of his bandmates over the years, Ed has consistently strived to experiment and evolve his sound by pushing the envelope into further uncharted territory. In doing so, he has played a major role in shifting the sonic landscape of the guitar world, with Radiohead often being quoted as a major influence amongst contemporary guitarists. His noteworthy contribution to the technique and approach of the electric guitar has recently been acknowledged by Fender in the form of the EOB Sustainer Stratocaster – a signature instrument that bears testament to his highly personalised style.
How was the EOB Sustainer Stratocaster originally developed? “It’s been a journey. I started playing with an EBow around the time of The Bends and I used it a lot. I love the EBow – playing with the swell when you’re near the pickup – but the sustainer can do it over all the strings simultaneously. Plank [Radiohead’s tech] modded my Eric Clapton Stratocaster with a sustainer around the time of Kid A; he built the original ‘Frankenstrat’ and the EOB Sustainer Stratocaster with the Fernandes Sustainer is the natural successor to that. The Fernandes Sustainer works in conjunction with the Seymour Duncan JB Junior bridge pickup – it has to be a humbucker; it cannot be a single coil. We tried a few different humbuckers out at Fender and that was the one. I wanted higher output pickups, like the Gold Lace Sensors in my old Eric Clapton guitar, because they work so well with effects – especially distortion – and have a little bit more poke and midrange. Last year, when we were in rehearsals for the tour, we tried out a load of different pickups for the middle position; I had no preconceptions about Texas Special pickups and that was what we ended up using.”
It represents something of an evolution for such a classic guitar… “I didn’t want the [EOB Sustainer Stratocaster] to be a like a classic Strat; I know there’s an argument that says low output Strats are the way to go – maybe that’s somewhere I’ll go to in the future – but I love those Lace Sensor pickups. I really love the clarity of them and distortion wise they’re brilliant – the Texas Special pickup is very similar in that way.
“I don’t like that really top-y bridge pickup sound on Strats but I like the attack from the bridge and I wanted the sound to be more middle-y, so Alex Perez, who built the prototypes in the [Fender] Custom Shop, came up with the idea of using the Seymour Duncan JB Junior. The whole thing was a collaboration with Fender. I know what I like and will respond to it, but I needed their help. Alex was very good at interpreting what I needed.”
The neck is nice and chunky, too. “That’s really cool isn’t it? Everyone says they love the neck. It’s a ’56 profile, which
“I know there’s an argument for low output Strats, but I really love the clarity of Lace Sensor pickups and distortion wise they’re brilliant”
is something you can normally only get from the Fender Custom Shop. I wanted a neck that was big enough for my hands – because I’ve got big hands – but not too big for somebody else. It’s all been about getting something that feels right. I wanted something that was chunky, but not too big or too much of a struggle. The satin finish was a really important thing; you know when you get a new neck and sand it down to get it feeling better? Fender saidwe didn’t have to do that – we could have it satin.
“I knew what I didn’t like about new guitars, but I was also excited about doing something that was a new concept. When I was putting it together I didn’t know what neck I wanted so I went to the Custom Shop in Corona, which was amazing because I never had the knowledge or the inclination to find out before. I’d go into somewhere like Vintage ‘n’ Rare Guitars and feel a load of necks and go ‘Oh that Casino feels great,’ or ‘That sounds great,’ but I’ve never been a student of that kind of thing. In fact Radiohead was a kind of anti-gear, antivintage stuff sort of band, although we’ve got some nice equipment now. Lots of people venerated guitars like a ’59 Les Paul, but we didn’t know about any of this stuff until about 10 years ago.”
You seem open-minded to vintage and modern gear – the EOB Sustainer Stratocaster appears to combine both. “Yeah, exactly – merging it all together and not being precious and not being a snob about anything, old or new. There’s amazing stuff being made now and there’s amazing stuff that was made years ago. I think people who are always searching for sounds would love it. I know what it’s like as a musician; you want to be inspired by a sound – that’s what you’re after. Somebody could be as dramatic and anarchic with this guitar as they want to be, but also approach it in a more Enoesque, atmospheric way, which is where I come from.
“It’s got the potential for lots of different sounds. It’s got all the normal things, but if you engage the sustainer you’ve got a whole other world. [Ed demonstrates the Fernandes Sustainer] You know the controls? There’s a two-way on/off switch and a three-way switch: pulled to you it’s unison, in the middle setting it’s a fifth (that often fades in) and the other setting is an octave up that’s super hot, but you can wind it down.” There must be a lot of potential for using it in different ways, stylistically? “Yeah, I didn’t want it just to be a great sustainer, I wanted it to be a great guitar all round and I wanted it to feel great. I wanted it to be white and look great. I wanted it to be a complete no-brainer! It’s different and it’s a bit left of centre, but it’s all about the attitude – you bring your character to it. You bring your mood to it. It’s the way you approach it and that, for me, is really important. I always make the music that I want to hear and with this guitar we’ve designed something that I want to play.
“It was really important that it was priced decently because I wanted it to be like somebody’s ‘first proper guitar’. You know, like when you were younger? My first guitar was a Westone Spectrum DX: Colin [Greenwood] had a matching bass in black and we’d just formed the band in 1985, but it wasn’t cool enough! The first guitar I bought that was more on a level was a Squier Strat and that was important for me, because it was a ‘proper’ guitar. It was a black, maple neck Japanese Strat with a white scratchplate, but it got stolen with all of our gear in 1995. I played it on The Bends – I had it right up until then.”
Have you found the guitar to be a useful addition to the Radiohead rig? “I was taking 12 guitars out on tour with me; although I didn’t use a guitar per song I’d change guitars a lot and I was getting fed
“I used 12 guitars on tour but now 70 per cent of the set is with the EOB Sustainer Stratocaster”
up with it. I played a prototype on tour all last year and the difference now is that 60-70 per cent of the set is played on [the EOB Sustainer Stratocaster], which is great.
“I didn’t want to just have a sustainer guitar; I wanted a guitar that could do all of the things that I wanted to do on a normal guitar – arpeggios and that kind of thing. I wanted something that was versatile. You’ve got your character guitars, but in the band I needed to have a guitar that can make many different sounds and has the potential to go into lots of different areas. If there’s a certain part of a song I’m playing that needs a guitar change, then I will, but I wanted to have something that can do a lot more than the rest.”
Do you think the new Strat will enable you to experiment further and enhance your own creativity? “Massively. I’ve already started experimenting. I’ve been experimenting with strings in a similar way to how Sonic Youth used to, like taking two strings off and having two B strings and two bottom-E strings. I remember going to see Sonic Youth and seeing their racks of guitars – the things they would do with the guitars and the tunings: that combination with a sustainer is a whole new world! I love the guitar.
“I’ve a couple of keyboards that I love, but I really love guitar, I love gear and delays and old pedals and the combination of them, y’know? For me, the guitar feels a lot more natural than a keyboard. The whole approach. It feels a lot more intuitive. It gets me to stop thinking and start responding intuitively.”
There’s all the in-between notes and nuances with a guitar – and you can’t bend notes on a keyboard so easily. “That’s what Elton John said: ‘You can’t bend notes on a piano.’ It’s all the in-between stuff that I like. That’s a big thing: if you look at music across the world, there’s more than 12 notes. I love things being slightly flat and slightly sharp. And the guitar is an old instrument – it’s in our DNA. It goes back to the lyre and the lute. It’s been around a long, long time. I just love guitar. I love, love, love the sound of the guitar – the potential of the sounds that you can play.” What are your essential effects? “Three pedals which are really important to me are a good distortion pedal (probably the Kingsley Page – Daniel Steinhardt from The GigRig built my pedalboard and he got me into that one), an Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man and a DigiTech Whammy. With the three of those and a sustainer guitar I can do a whole load of classic Radiohead things.
“I use a lot of feedback sounds in Radiohead and the Deluxe Memory Man is really good for crossfading one note into the other as it reaches the tipping point. I feel like it’s a really important part of what I do – sending notes into oscillation and then bringing it back under control so it’s musical. It becomes intuitive.”
How would you advise other guitarists to go about finding their own sound? “I think you’ve got to follow what your heart says. Your heart is your intuition and it’ll tell you when you’re bored – it’ll tell you when you’ve done enough, or if you need a change. I always listen to my heart to find out where I want to go.
“It’s better to feel your way through it, rather than try to intellectualise it. I’ve done both and the trouble with intellectualising stuff and trying to think where you should go is you don’t feel it. If you don’t feel it you’re not going to be inspired and if you’re not inspired you can’t play. It’s about trying different stuff and feeling your way through.”
“I love the sound of the guitar and the potential of the sounds that you can play”