RADIOHEAD’S SELWAY AND O’BRIEN DISCUSS 7 WORLDS COLLIDE PROJ

Radiohead’s Phil Selway and Ed O’Brien talk about working with Crowded House’s Neil Finn on his 7 Worlds Collide Project benefiting Oxfam

Singer songwriter Neil Finn of Crowded House recently completed his latest release from his 7 Worlds Collide Project titled “The Sun Came Out” and all the proceeds from the album will benefit the Oxfam organization. For the recording sessions of “The Sun Came Out” Finn assembled quite a star studded ensemble of musicians ranging from Wilco to KT Tunstall to members of Radiohead who each contributed their time and talent to the cause. The double album, which was recorded at Neil Finn’s Roundhouse Studios in Auckland, New Zealand, was completed in an amazingly quick three weeks. In one of the most suprising musical moments of the project definitely has to be Radiohead’s drummer Phil Selway getting out from behind the kit to write a few songs on the record as well as sing and play guitar.

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, who also took part in the project, talked about Phil Selway coming to 7 Worlds Collide as a drummer but leaving as a songwriter and lead vocalist.

“If there’s one person who I’d single out really it would be Phil and he came essentially as a drummer and people expected him to be a drummer and he came here and he wrote two beautiful songs from the heart.”

Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway also talked about how much it meant to them to have all the proceeds go to the Oxfam Organization, which is a very effective organization at the front end of disaster relief, sharing developmental aid and fighting good political battles for fair trade and now for global warming.

“(O’Brien) Giving away the publishing, all of that, any profits that are made go to Oxfam again it’s good stuff for the whole project.” “(Selway) I think it was a really great idea of Neils to make that (Oxfam) the whole focus of the project.”

“The Sun Came Out” was released on September 29th and also featured New Zealand songwriters Don McGlashan and Bic Runga, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Soul Coughing bassist Sebastian Steinberg, Augie March guitarist Glenn Richards and even Neil Finn’s family members Sharon, Elroy and Liam Finn. It was also recently reported that Radiohead are currently in the studio working on material for a new album that will be released in 2010.