Alex Ebert is often described as a cult leader, which makes sense in so far as his happy-clappy indie band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (he’s Edward, sort of) dress in robes, have long hair and sing about such cult-y subjects as peace, harmony and universal love.

From another perspective, however, the designation is kind of fucking nuts because Edward Sharpe is the least insane thing Ebert (35) has ever been involved with. In a previous life he fronted the electro-pop outfit Ima Robot, took shitloads of drugs and, by his own admission, was a miserable excuse for a human being. The Magnetic Zeroes are his redemption, a point he presses home with force on the group’s maniacally exuberant new LP.
“I don’t romanticize self-destruction these days,” he says. “I used to. It’s behind me, thank God. I’m not running away from life or towards death. That part of who I was is over for me.”
How dark did it get? Bleaker than you can possibly imagine. The more drugs Ebert took, the less like a person he felt. Ima Robot was appropriately named – in the project’s later stages, Ebert started to think of himself as a machine intelligence. He shut down his emotions and tried to turn off the voices in his head – apart, that is, from the one that told him he wanted to die.
“I had totally forgotten anything spiritual or childlike,” he says. “I had become a robotic caricature of an adult. I was very intellectual – intensely rational. My main problem since the age of five has been the reality of death. It had consumed my thoughts and turned off my emotions.”
Hearing him speak in such apocalyptic terms, you wonder if Ebert is really as completely together as he insists. He shrugs and tells you that, while he still has dark episodes, he no longer suffers the violent swings that prompted his substance abuse.
“If I have depressive urges or suicidal inklings, which can happen if I’m very tired…well, they come and they go, you know? I don’t romanticize self-destruction the way I used to. As soon as I confronted death in my own way, it made life easier. I would veer back and forth. Now it’s all cooking together – one big stew [of emotion] for me.”
He doesn’t freak out at the ‘cult’ designation, though there are circumstances in which it strikes him as horrifically lazy. “If people say ‘cult’ just because I have a beard, then it is one of the most idiotic comments I have heard. When we are described as having a ‘cult following’, I appreciate it a little better. The word ‘cult’ comes from ‘culture’ and ‘cultivate’. I do think that our audiences approach us with an extremely open heart and positive attitude, which shocks me sometimes.”
Ebert is a charismatic figure. He understand this and suspects it is because he rejects rock and roll’s tradition of rebelliousness and confrontation and instead tries to be as open a person of possible.
“I have easy access to my ability to throw away my inhibitions and allow my instincts and rawness come through. Plus I would not say I am a very well-adjusted human being. That combination of qualities leads to a particular dynamic. On stage, I let my courage lead me.
“During a performance, there are two ways to go. One is to try to demonstrate that you don’t care – that you can survive the spotlight, survive thousands of people looking at you. You don’t smile, you sneer - that is the rock and roll way. The other approach is to be a child. I try to be a child. Of course, there is all this other shit I’m working through as well. It’s an interesting mix.”
Is Edward Sharpe an alter-ego? Ebert isn’t sure.
“What the fuck is Edward Sharpe? Why isn’t it Alex Ebert and the Magnetic Zeroes? I understand that response. I guess the name has a cinematic quality in my mind. It inspires me in a visual way. The identification of a single name as representing you is an institution – why not shed that institution? Why not take another name? “
Ebert and the Zeroes have just rounded off a massive worldwide tour with Mumford and Sons, including a stop at Phoenix Park, where the group joined the Mumfords for an encore of ‘Galway Girl’. It is unclear how much of the evening has stayed with him.
“‘Galway Girl’? Yeah, it sounded familiar to me. I couldn’t fully place it,” he says, as if recalling a dream rather than a real-life event that occurred literally five days previously. “It was fantastic touring with them. We are essentially reaching towards the same thing. With the Mumfords, you can feel they are going for it every occasion they play. We certainly have that in common.”