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U2 interview – courtesy of Universal Music Your latest album No Line On The Horizon appears to have had a difficult birth, or at least a longer gestation period but I think it may be the better for it. It seems to me like it's a real classic record for you. Bono: We’ve been getting madly, madly good reviews: a five star review at the Rolling Stone and at Q, which is the music magazine of record here, and I think it was worth the effort. We’ve been working on a lot of other songs too. They’re ones we haven’t bought out yet and are part of a different mood which we will get to in the future, so its not just that we just produced those 11 songs in two years, there is some other work. Adam: Yeah and I wouldn’t attach the word ‘difficult’ to it, you know, there was a different spirit on this record and I think there was a lot of support and consideration of how far to push the songs and how far to keep working on them, and when we did say ‘lets postpone the release of the record’, it gave us an opportunity to examine some of the songs that subsequently we took off the record. Larry: Sometimes you choose a deadline, because you figure that that’s probably when you’re gonna be done, but, in this case, we were a bit optimistic and the deadline was looming, and we knew that it wasn’t gonna be possible to finish for that deadline, and so we bought ourselves an extra few months and decided to finish it for the end of last year. Edge: Yeah I think that one of the great things about the record is its originality and the fact that Brian Eno and Daniel were part of the writing process. Inspiration seems to have been with U2 more times than not during these thirty-plus years by the sound of it.. Edge: We never give up on a tune. We just keep banging away until we figure out what needs to happen to it, because in our experience the thing that ultimately we have to arrive at is the quintessential version of the song. When we haven’t finished a song, it just sounds like our fingerprints are all over it, it’s very manmade and contrived relatively. When it’s finished, it just has that sense of, ‘well that’s the way it always should have been anyway’, and that’s what we’re trying to arrive at. Do you read your reviews? Bono: What we’ll do is we’ll read the well written ones, including the bad ones, like there was a review, not a bad review, 3 and a half star review, in Spin. It was really brilliantly written and I love that. Adam: In the end though, reviews tell you about the person that wrote them, so if you read a lot of reviews of other acts and stuff and other records, that’s the person you end up having the relationship with. You've survived longer than many marriages these days. Is there marriage guidance for bands? Adam: I think, and maybe this happens to long marriages, you eventually come to a point where you realize that you are enabled and empowered to do so much more collectively than you could possibly have done singularly and I think that’s the promise of being in a band with great people. You can go further together than you could on your own and I certainly think that’s true with us. Bono: The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. People tell me that, when U2 walks out on stage, even if they don’t like the band – they’ve been dragged along, involuntary hairs go up on their neck and that everyone in the crowd just has this involuntary action. What they don’t know is that so do we, which is quite mad. I don’t understand what that is, but I think that’s called chemistry and we have it between us and it’s a hard thing to live without. Do you think that being in a group helps to maintain vitality in your performances and writing as opposed to being a solo artist such as Elton John? Bono: You know, Elton John is just a genius songwriter, singer and all the rest of it. I’ve talked to him about this and it’s tricky being a solo singer. It’s tricky having people, all of whom are in your employment, to give you a fair read on where you’re at, and its taken an incredible discipline and commitment on his part to still make music that’s relevant. I don’t think it would happen to me. I think I would flout off into the ether. I’ve done work with other people and I enjoy it, but I just look around, ‘where’s Edge, where’s Adam, where’s Larry?’ That’s my dysfunction. Your songs have become a part of people’s lives and the significance of some of your songs to millions of people must really touch you... Adam: That is a gift from them to us, it’s not the other way round. Bono: I think that’s right. You know there’s a roar of a U2 show. It’s like a 747 taking off and people think it’s for the band, but it’s not. It’s for the songs and really it’s for themselves, the lives they have attached to songs. I’m exactly the same – when I hear certain songs, it just brings me to a place when I really held on to that song. It could be a silly riotous way, or it could be in a very weak and vulnerable moment. So I lose it for music. I would go and see The Who and have tears rolling down my face. You know, if The Clash were around now I could hardly stand in the room with them. It’s true, people attach music. I think we are the ultimate weddings, Bar Mitzvah and funerals band. Times of great joy for people, times of great despair and the odd party. Bono, do your children listen to your music? Have they got the music in them? Bono One girl is a real music fascist. Her favourite U2 album is Pop and then I have another girl who’s an actor, who loves hip-hop as well as the indie stuff. She’s into this new album, but you know, it could go at any minute, it’s always come and go. They like U2 live, they will criticize our albums and they will take this track or that track, but they never want to miss a U2 show, which is interesting, though somebody said it’s because of the guest acts, I hope it’s not. For more information on U2, check out www.u2.com |
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