Ed O'Brien Quotes
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Everyone who's serious about what they're doing must be in constant motion forward.
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It was the first time she'd seen us in four years. Before the doors opened, I went round looking at the V.I.P. section, and I saw that Madonna had the best table in the house and my mum's table was way in the back. I thought, 'I'm not having this,' so I swapped the signs on the tables around. So, Madonna was at the back, and my mum had the best table in the house, between U2 and R.E.M. And that's exactly how it should be.
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I hope I'm not sort of blowing our own trumpet, but I think Thom is probably the finest lyricist in the UK of his generation at the moment and hes always trying to progress, as we as musicians try to do ourselves. Theres this nice relationship between the lyrics and the music.
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In 1994 we taped everything on video, in 1995 we bought Powerbooks. Our next step on the techno-superhighway is 'the polaroid'. If we go on like this, we'll be painting up our tourbus with charcoal next year.
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We're not spokespeople, we're musicians.
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A drunken evening that spawned probably my favourite track. Thom's one-take vocal crouching in the corner was particularly memorable, he may have been unable to stand. Love colin's bass groove thing on this.
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When we first recorded Fake Plastic Trees it was terrible! It sounded like Guns 'n' Roses. It was awful! It was like loud guitars... you could envisage one of these dreadful hilltop, Grand Canyon-esque videos. It was long hair flowing.
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The last thing my girlfriend would want to do is spend six months going around America, on a bus. With an idiot.
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He's an amazing musician. He's from a totally musical background, not what I've come from at all; I'm completely self-taught. It probably shows in Jonny, he knows all the theory. But what's great about him is he's got that feel. I've never been interested in lead guitarists. He must be the only lead guitarist I like. I don't get Clapton. I don't get any of that stuff. But he's got an amazing feel, an amazing musicality.
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It would've made more sense had we brought another record out between this one and the last one. If you paid close attention, the b-sides, like "Lucky" and "Talk Show Host" have documented that passage.
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When someone in the band behaved like an asshole, one of the others always said: "The Karma Police is gonna get you". I suppose it's all rubbish that your destiny depends on your deeds in a previous life, but you have to trust on something.
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Thom comes in with lots of lyrics, a melody and chords, and usually he strums it on acoustic guitar. we then take it from there and beat it up and arrange it. sometimes they need a lot of arrangement. sometimes they need absolutely nothing. sometimes thom will present a song and it's so obvious how it should be done. those are actually the hardest to do - the ones where we have free scope and it can go in any direction are the easiest ones to do.
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Probably our biggest criticism of ourselves is we think too much. We all went to university and have never thought there was anything wrong with thinking too much.
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I think the third album will be celebratory and maybe not so inward-looking; that would be great. I think thinking is a good thing but there are times when you just say 'fuck it'. We're allowed to make mistakes.
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I don't think we're individually amazing musicians, but what we do collectively is pretty good.
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If we get the music across, then that's the most important thing. If you can still make it intimate.
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The trouble with a lot of music in this country is the radio stations. Modern rock - it's SUCH a stale format. As far as I can work out, and as far as we can work out as a band, the music put on these stations... It's not for the people. It's to satisfy the advertisers. It's completely reactive as opposed to proactive.
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The vocal parts are really interesting because it's the first album that we - as a band - haven't been aware of what Thom's singing about. He didn't talk about his lyrics.
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It's about the lack of control. You feel more sad than angry. But why Thom sings 'crushed like a bug in the ground', I don't know. "I hope I'm not sort of blowing our own trumpet, but I think Thom is probably the finest lyricist in the UK of his generation at the moment and hes always trying to progress, as we as musicians try to do ourselves. Theres this nice relationship between the lyrics and the music.
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Thom's a really great guitarist. He plays terrific rhythm, but he doesn't like to talk about it because he thinks he sounds like Brian May. He grew up with Queen. There were times when we've been competitive, but we've got this really nice situation where if one guitarist doesn't play in a song, we're okay with it. We can really chill out and enjoy it.
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It's an understanding. We don't talk about it. There's no bullshit that goes on. We've been fortunate enough to play for 12 years and learn as a band, learn our instruments, and we've stuck and we've worked really hard at it.
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The only song that I've ever played on when I was not allowed to hear the backing track. 'Just make whooping oodle noises for three minutes', was the cry from the control room. 'Bastards', I thought at the time.
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With British bands, there was this whole thing about having something to say. But, maybe naively, we said, 'It's about music.' And that's what it's about.
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We call him Shabba. You know, Shabba Ranks, Mr. Loverman. He likes the ladiez." "When Thom starts singing, you can’t hold back the tears.