Edge speaks to Q magazine

An excerpt from Q magazine, September 01, 2008

As if to spotlight the pace with which U2 are close to completing their as-yet-untitled 12th album, Q‘s phone call to Edge is delayed by half an hour while he lays down an acoustic guitar overdub at the quartet’s Dublin studio on a new song called “Get On Your Boots.”

“Then we can put the mix to bed,” the guitarist sighs with satisfaction. So this album is being completed as we speak? “Yeah. It’s happening live in real time. It’s totally frantic.”

Having effectively abandoned their initial plan to work with Rick Rubin (although some material has survived), U2 took the unusual move of bringing in their long-time producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois as co-writers early on. “We thought, If we’re all writing together we’ll get more stuff and it’ll be a more fruitful use of time,” Edge says.

Experimental writing sessions held last year in Fez, Morocca, yielded numerous new songs. Some — with the introduction of local musicians — bear a distinctly North African flavour. A visit to the World Sacred Music Festival enhanced what Edge calls the “religious-sounding” tone of a few of the tracks. “But we don’t want to be musical tourists,” the guitarist states. “We came back with a certain flavour and influence of that trip and a sense of freedom.”

As time went on, the music grew ever more diverse and spontaneous. “We wanted to give it some variety,” Edge says. “There is some dark, heavy stuff but there are also some lighter things. Some we’ve really had to sweat to get and some just came so easily.” Work-in-progress highlights include “f–k-off live rocker” “Breathe”; “For Your Love,” which Edge says is one of his best-ever riffs; and the aforementioned “Get On Your Boots” (“Eddie Cochran with barbershop harmonies”).

Other notable tracks include the eight-minute-long “Moment of Surrender” and “No Line on the Horizon,” inspired by a distortion box called Death By Audio recommended by ex-Secret Machines guitarist Ben Curtis.

Opinion is currently divided as to whether the album will make a pre- or post-Christmas release. Anticipation couldn’t be higher, however, with mixer Steve Lillywhite having already proclaimed the record “their best yet.”

“Trying to weave it all together into a coherent collection is the challenge,” Edge admits. “But, yeah, it has the potential to be our best.”

© Q magazine, 2008.

U2 new album pushed back to 2009

As is usually the case, the band are keeping us waiting just a little while longer than we hoped.

Talking just yesterday on U2.com, Bono said that while he is “itching to get the music out” he says “it’s going to be early 2009 when we first get to hear the songs.”

‘I’m always the one who underestimates how easy it is to simply ‘put out the songs now’, if it was just up to me they’d be out already! But early next year people will be able to start hearing what we’ve been doing. We want 2009 to be our year, so we’re going to start making an impression very early on …’

“We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein”

While we might all be a little disappointed at he delay, the way the band are talking it sounds like the album will be well worth the wait (if we didn’t already know that).

‘We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein,’ Bono explains. ‘It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we’ve found diamonds not coal. I thought a while back we might have the album wrapped by now, but why come up above ground now if there’s more priceless stuff to be found?

‘We know we have to emerge soon but we also know that people don’t want another U2 album unless it is our best ever album. It has to be our most innovative, our most challenging … or what’s the point ?’

Another departure

The Boys have no doubts that it will be as important a release for U2 as any. ‘It’s a brand new chapter for us, and everyone we’ve played the tracks to has said that musically it feels like another departure.

‘The last two records were very personal, with a kind of three piece at their heart, the primary colours of rock – bass, guitars and drum. But what we’re about now is of the same order as the transition that took us from The Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby.’

U2 – Details of New Album

Great news for U2 fans; according to sources their eagerly anticipated new album (their first original work since How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in November 2004) will be called No Line On The Horizon and will be on sale in music stores on November 14.

The band’s record company Universal has already registered the internet domain name nolineonthehorizon.com 

And among the songs to be released on what many music insiders are calling the band’s best work to date are the title track “No Line On The Horizon” plus;

• For Your Love
• Love Is All We Have Left
• One Bird
• If I Could Live My Life Again
• The Cedars of Lebanon

Earlier this week an insider said the U2 machine is gearing up for the release of one of the most keenly-awaited albums in recent years.

“The album is more or less all in the bag except for a few minor details,” the source revealed. A lot of people have been waiting a long time for this album as they do with every U2 album.

“But the word coming out is that the band is very, very happy with the end product and when U2 are happy it should be quite a piece of work. They’re not easy to please.”

The album will be available at the U2 store here when released – along with loads of other U2 music, books and merchandise.