Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien revealed in a new interview that the British art-rock band will tour again in 2027. After a globally acclaimed 20-date reunion tour in Europe last fall, Radiohead will repeat the strategy in other continents.
“It’s definitely happening,” O’Brien told Rolling Stone without hesitation in an interview about his solo album, Blue Morpho. “What we’re going to do is, every year we’re going to do a different continent, and we’re going to do 20 shows each year. No more, no less.”
O’Brien—who co-founded Radiohead in 1985 with Thom Yorke, Colin and Jonny Greenwood, and Philip Selway—said the band will take 2026 off from touring and return next year. After playing 20 shows across Europe in Spain, Italy, Denmark, Germany, and England, O’Brien said Radiohead is eyeing similar tours in North America, South America, and Asia/Oceania. The 2025 tour featured residency-style four-night runs in five cities, with varying setlists of about 70 unique songs, performed in the round.
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Until last year, Radiohead hadn’t toured since 2018, so demand for tickets is considerably higher than just 20 shows. Regardless, O’Brien said the band is committed to that modest number.
“We want to give absolutely everything each night,” he said. “We do not ever want it to be like we’re going through the motions or we’re having to run on empty. We’ve got to be able to do it. And you know what? We’re not spring chickens anymore.”
That hesitancy was informed by experience, as O’Brien recalled, “I was done with Radiohead” at the end of the band’s 2018 tour. “It had got to a place where I just wasn’t enjoying it. I just didn’t resonate with it anymore, and I wanted to do my own thing… I think we’d run out of road. We’d run out of inspiration.”
Per the guitarist, the sessions for Radiohead’s last album to date—2016’s A Moon-Shaped Pool—were arduous, and he was reluctant to tour behind it. Though he’s glad he ultimately did, after two years of playing around the globe, the band was spent. Fast forward to 2024, as the members reunited for some rehearsal sessions, Ed was trepidatious whether they’d be able to recapture that same spark that kept them burning virtually nonstop from 1985 to 2018.
“We hadn’t played together for six years,” he said. “We’re like, ‘How do we know if we’re going to be any good?’ And the chemistry was there from the very beginning. I think we always knew that if we got the love between us right, then it all flows from there.”
Read the full interview with Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, including discussion of a 2027 tour, here.
