0:01
as a fan and I'm just going to be super earnest myself because I believe the setting deserves it and the kind of subject we're going to we're going to talk into deserves it.
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0:07
Thank you for for breathing some some new life into these songs which have traveled with us, you know, throughout our lives, you know, and it's been such a stone cold classic album and we appreciate you stepping outside of what is probably maybe against your instincts and deciding to do that initially at least and it's been a beautiful moment for us.
0:20
How's it felt from the stage seeing that kind of celebration, you know, around Joshua Tree?
0:25
We weren't really sure uh before the first show how it was going to work out.
0:29
And um after the Vancouver show, we all got back to the dressing room and looked at each other and we I think this is going to work.
0:36
It's like right we we came off feeling that everything that we thought might connect and add up um between the imagery and the music to something greater than the sum of its parts seemed to actually be doing what we'd hoped it would do and more.
0:53
So we are in denial though the edge we are in a kind of denial.
0:58
You are in which particular denial?
1:00
I think the denial is is that we're our stance you see is is that we've just put out the Joshua Tree last week.
1:10
That's the way you know we're not approaching it as a sort of nostalgia thing. Yeah.
1:14
And and so we're you know and there's no references to the past and it seems like the world around us now is is not too dissimilar.
1:24
um to the world around it us then. Um but it is denial.
1:27
We're in a this is a kind of communal denial.
1:29
We think we've just put out the Joshua Tree.
1:32
That's our that's our angle.
1:34
Well, here's the good news.
1:35
Um in order to further establish the denial that you're talking about, it sounds like you just put out the Joshua Tree on that stage.
1:42
The way you're playing those songs, um you know, the the standard musicianship that obviously has developed over time.
1:48
Um, the way those songs have been given life by fans in the 30 years since you put that record out and the way they sing them back to you now.
1:56
Um, same sense of of of urgency, really intense emotion and you must really recognize that.
2:03
I think the band were always a great band and and they've played but they're playing e even better now if you don't mind me saying so. Uh, well, why would you? It's a compliment.
2:15
I don't feel the same uh about my singing on the Joshua Tree.
2:18
I don't I don't It It wigs me out a little bit to listen to it.
2:24
So, I haven't listened to it, but I feel much better about it now.
2:29
So, I would say I've caught up with the bands in terms of um their musicianship.
2:35
I feel like now I can sing those songs.
2:37
You know, we can't talk about Joshua Tree, I don't think, and without paying respects to the Unforgettable Fire album. Um, which I love.
2:46
Um, and it's so funny, you know, today was the first time that I'd remembered in a long time about the the artistic connection between the two, you know, with the gold trim, the black and white photo.
2:58
Um, they are to me in many respects brother and sister.
3:01
They were supposed to be. Yeah. Yeah.
3:02
And yet a lot of people looked at Joshua Tree as this huge leap on from Unforgettable Fire.
3:07
And that that's intriguing now thinking about it because really so many of the decisions you made when you made Unforgettable Fire and formed that record. Yeah.
3:14
I think after the war album, everyone assumed that we would um try and kind of double down on the success of New Year's Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday and just make a hard-hitting rock and roll record.
3:24
But we realized that it was becoming a little bit of a too tight a box to work within.
3:30
So, we wanted to do something a bit more broad, a little bit more innovative.
3:36
And so, we managed to persuade Brian to come and work with us.
3:42
And it was really a campaign, you know, because he at that point was not fair doing his own thing.
3:46
I don't think he even knew who we were.
3:47
even knew who we were. That was the funny he but we invited him got him to come to Dublin whined and dined him and played him some demos and Bono gave him the Irish charm and he actually told us afterwards he said he said you know that time I came to Dublin I really had come
4:05
along to to tell you very nicely that I just wasn't interested at the end of the meeting he just was so intrigued um not only by what we were talking about the songs we were playing but also what we were trying to do where we were trying
4:19
to go and our spirit of experimentation uh I think intrigued him and Brian's a great kind of teacher really I mean he has actually been an a lecturer in art so he I think he saw us as just really eager to learn and wanting to go places with him as our kind of almost mentor
4:38
the beautiful thing you've always been very good collaborators um in terms of opening up your music to others and looking for that extra that extra greatness you know to make your music really thrive um But there's a time when you have to step on stage. You have to
4:48
You have to own that yourselves.
4:49
And I think that there was a moment um I mean obviously you played played Croak Park.
4:52
That was a huge gig for you.
4:54
You knew you're on to something good with Unforgettable Fire.
4:56
But as far as the rest of the world outside of your own country knew it was Live Aid that changed that.
5:01
Um, and you know, the the importance of that show leading into Joshua Tree, I think, shouldn't be undermined because the confidence that it it gave you perhaps later once the dust settle seemed to kind of inform at least from a fans point of view.
5:17
But I need to clear something up because to the world and I remember exactly where I was when I watched that concert, you completely and utterly stole whatever show there was to steal.
5:24
But the rumor was always that you were never happy with the performance.
5:28
Yeah, we didn't feel like that.
5:30
particularly I uh felt that I'd let down the band because I we were supposed to play three songs.
5:36
It was the biggest, you know, telecast in the history of telecast and people watching from all over the globe.
5:43
This moment in time and I went into one um during the song bad and disappeared into the crowd with a very bad hairdo, I might add. That's terrible.
5:50
And uh to have such a great moment to always be attached to a mullet is not really one of the great moments for me going forward.
6:01
I mean it but it was a fullbodied mullet.
6:02
I mean it wasn't like you were apologizing.
6:03
It was you were going for it.
6:05
A man should not look like his hair has been ironed.
6:07
But I mean there was a lot going on in the 80s.
6:11
There was a lot of there was a lot of leather.
6:12
There was a lot of high-waisted trousers and a lot of mullet.
6:14
But there was also an opportunity that you took that day to connect with the crowd.
6:17
Was that not part of the YouTube experience at that point?
6:24
The thing is is at a YouTube show, we want the bare seat to be the back of the house.
6:28
Everything's designed for that.
6:31
So whether we're climbing into the audience, um that I think they call it the fourth wall.
6:37
We're always trying to smash that.
6:37
And my idea of a performer is not one that's comfortable with the distance between the stage and the audience.
6:48
My idea of a performer is one that might leave the stage and and you might find them in your life on your lap following you home, mugging you in the alley, making you tea, whatever it is.
7:00
But that comfortable distance we've always tried to attack as a band and between an audience and and the stage, we tried to smash that.
7:13
We do with technology now, but back then we just did it physically.
7:17
We went into the audience and with live aid. Yeah.
7:19
We were look I'm always looking as all performers are for a symbolic moment, something that represents the day and I found this girl who um uh who was getting crushed and I just went into her and grabbed her and sort of danced with her.
7:33
Now strange thing I haven't told you this she was there last night. No. So 30 years later. Really? Yeah.
7:40
So just looking for that moment but I because we we missed playing Pride which is our big song and band were not very happy.
7:48
I wasn't very happy and I remember being very very depressed about it and I took a drive in the country when we got back to Dublin um and I met this sculptor um and just in Wexford little town in Ireland and he was working on a piece and it was a guy jumping and he said it's called the leap and he said it's you and and it was one of those beautiful moments.
8:18
He said that was the most inspiring.
8:20
He said you were trying to leap across.
8:21
You wanted to make the connection.
8:23
Making that leap is you know it's a step of faith.
8:26
It's you know you you jump from knowing into unknowing.
8:32
You don't know where you're going to go to which is a metaphor I suppose for any kind of music really for composing music.
8:40
When you improvise the way we songwrite a lot of the time is we're we improvise.
8:46
We don't know where we're going.
8:47
And that's that's how we've made some of our best music.
8:50
The experimental thing, the improvisational thing which we were learning with Brianino and Daniel on the unforgettable fire came up with some great songs.
9:00
Um like sort of homecoming or pride in the name of love, unforgettable fire, MLK. MLK.
9:09
But it also got into some wild territory where on this song Elvis Presley in America, there are no words. It's wordless language.
9:18
It's just a a sonic painting. And I love the track. Yeah, me too.
9:22
And I just wish I'd finished the song.
9:25
And that's what And I feel the same way about Bad.
9:29
And so going into He's mad. He's mad.
9:33
Going going into the Joshua Tree, we were determined Yeah.
9:38
to finish the songs and I still didn't get to finish a lot of the songs and myself and Larry went Wait, which ones do you feel you didn't get to finish on Joshua Tree?
9:48
Uh um Oh, this is going to hurt. Uh I have no name.
9:56
Where the streets are no name musically? Okay. No, no, no.
10:02
Musically, but it musically it's great and an edge and the band deserve credit for that.
10:09
But lyrically, it was just a sketch and I was I was going to go back and write it out.
10:14
What it what's powerful about it is it's an invocation, right?
10:16
Where you say to a crowd of people, whether there's a hundred or 100 thousand, you say, "Do you want to go to that place, that other place, the place of imagination, the place of soul?
10:26
Do you want to go there?"
10:28
Because right now we can go there. Do you want to?
10:30
And when you say that to this day, when I say that, the hairs go up on the back of my neck and on a lot of people there because you're going to that other place.
10:42
And how can you ask a question of an audience with a complete thought?
10:46
Surely it has to be incomplete in order to get the reaction from them.
10:48
See, I love that lyric and and that's interesting that you should say that.
10:53
Aren't you waiting for us to answer the question for you?
10:54
Yeah, but but it's well what what it is is and again I shouldn't really say this but just as a you develop vanity as a songwriter.
11:01
He's very hard on himself.
11:03
No, no, you develop vanity as a songwriter.
11:04
I'm sure it's the same for drums, the same for these like you go and it's just I knew I could I could write that better and and I and Brian was saying um and were saying delete delete that.
11:20
No, no, ano did try to wipe.
11:23
I'm going to get to that.
11:24
Properly tried to wipe it.
11:24
But, but um anyway, I think what you just said was something really important there.
11:30
And incomplete thoughts are generous because they allow the listener to finish them.
11:38
Yeah, that's what you're on about.
11:41
I think I will have to be as a songwriter forever realize that the most powerful invitation, this invocation were the streets of none. Mhm.
11:50
will always be not a great lyric.
11:54
Are you out of your mind? You're out of your mind. Yeah.
11:56
I think he You're out of your mind.
11:59
That song, the way it starts, the lyrics, the idea, you know, the imagery last night when people were singing I want to run. I want to hide.
12:06
I knew they meant it and they felt it and they felt it as I had felt it.
12:10
Um, I just wouldn't have rhymed um hide with inside.
12:21
I just wouldn't nowadays.
12:21
You know, there was there's stories about you you spending time with the Stones and spending time with Bob Dylan and those having quite impactful experiences for you as a writer and as and as a band in terms of having the confidence to tackle some of those musical those instruments, those sounds.
12:35
M part of the sort of biblical uh way is the the passing of a of a blessing, the laying on of hands, you know.
12:48
Uh so you think of, you know, um Abraham laying on his hands on Isaac, you know, so this bestowing of ancient wisdom as it were.
13:03
And uh we always had a reverence for for older um wiser um trouidors.
13:14
Johnny Cash is eternally cool.
13:18
But in the 80s he hit a moment where people didn't really recognize him for the genius he was.
13:25
But we went after him and we wanted to learn from Johnny Cash.
13:31
um that's more believable and Bob Dylan going after Bob although Bob is, you know, will always turn everything on its head and I met my hero at Slain Castle.
13:46
I was standing waiting for him and to to meet him and he came from behind and he knocked this guy knocked me on the on the shoulder.
13:54
I turned around and went, "Can I have your autograph?" Which is just genius.
13:56
It's just totally Bob Dylan. Did you go to him? Um, no.
14:01
I I couldn't speak or think or talk, you know.
14:04
Um, but you know, whether it was Sinatra, Willie Nelson, um, you know, we we go, Roy Orbison, we go after these people in order to learn.
14:16
So, we went off on this journey of discovery into American music and folk music.
14:21
And that we had in one hand as we went into the Joshua tree and in the other hand we had let's make music the likes of which no one has ever heard before. So ancient and modern. That was the dialectic.
14:34
Amazing you achieved so much in such a short amount of time.
14:36
Was it only 9 months I think you recorded that record.
14:39
We found this house which was next door to the school that Adam had been expelled from and uh this a sort of posh boarding school and and there was no hardly any furniture in it.
14:51
Um it was you know it was it was owned by a playright called Tom Murphy.
14:57
Very basic but a big old I guess noble house.
15:02
Uh um and and for us to be in this room was high ceilings and and walls and we were we just set up and fell in love with the music, fell in love with each other in a certain sense, but the people who were making the music.
15:20
We would go out there was a pub called the Blue Light.
15:22
We would go out um drinking in the in the blue light and sometimes I'd come home and uh I was painting with Goggy and Charlie Whisker and a people.
15:33
So I was a painting at nights.
15:36
Uh it it was just it was a very um high time.
15:39
Uh there were no uh drugs involved but magic mushrooms. Oh really?
15:46
It used to grow in the field. Okay.
15:48
There was magic mushrooms.
15:50
Did that influence any of the songs on the record?
15:53
Is there are there moments on Josh? You you might explain.
15:56
It was sort of a little later but I had one funny moment with the mushrooms.
15:58
Um, this was a metaphysical experiment. You understand? Very spiritual.
16:06
So, I uh I happened to come late to a party that was happening at Adam's house and um some lads were offering me some to try.
16:14
So, I said, "I'd never done it before. I might as well."
16:17
So, took a few waited 40 minutes. Nothing had happened. You didn't double down.
16:23
So, I double double down. Treble down.
16:25
That is what I can't understand you.
16:27
What are you talking about?
16:27
Well, it's even worse cuz I I actually went to bed. Yeah.
16:30
So, I'm in That's rule number two on the mushrooms.
16:33
You never put yourself in a dark room of a dark room watching fire fireworks displays that are happening in my imagination.
16:41
And then I started to understand the secrets of the universe.
16:49
I had this moment of of insight and I was thinking to myself, I will never remember these tomorrow.
16:54
I have to record these insights.
16:56
So I crawled across the floor, which took me about 25 minutes, got to my Walkman, my recording Walkman, got back to bed, hit play, and then the red light came on.
17:10
So it was another 25 minutes looking at the red light.
17:12
Oh no, the secrets of the universe.
17:16
So I recorded both sides of C90.
17:16
All of the important insights into the secrets of the universe.
17:22
Tell me you have that title. Next day, woke up.
17:28
And it was about 8:00 the following night when I finally realized, oh my god, I made a recording of the secrets of the universe.
17:36
Better go and listen to what that was.
17:39
So I went up and the it was still in record, you know, batteries all run down, but so put new batteries in, turn the tape over, hit play.
17:50
I was like, all I could hear was because I've been talking into the battery compartment the whole night. Lost.
17:59
Not a single audible word. Lost.
17:59
I just think the secrets of the universe that close.
18:07
It's heartbreaking, but it's kind of bittersweet as well. Yeah, I suppose.
18:10
Um, the album Joshua Tree became something that was cherished and appreciated by by America, you know, and America really embraced that record as being more than just an album.
18:20
It became a spiritual and emotional experience live and to listen to.
18:25
And um, it's interesting because there's so much subject matter on that record that goes beyond America.
18:30
There's you're drawing inspiration from all sorts of different things, but just felt like as a whole it really opened up.
18:34
And I wondered, you know, with 30 years of hindsight, why think that is?
18:39
Why do you think it connected in such a a meaningful way?
18:43
Um, I think we got away with it be partly because we're Irish and because um the Irish more than most, but along with others um see America as a kind of promised land.
19:01
So, a mythic America cuz there's two Americas.
19:05
There's the actual America and there's the myth of the right two. Yeah.
19:08
And we're open to this idea of a mythic America, you know, that it's not just a country, that it is an idea.
19:15
And Ireland is is is great country and New Zealand is a great country and you know, but they're not ideas.
19:23
And so we started to explore this uh as this idea of America.
19:30
I felt I personally became like an annoying fan of this mythic America where the liner notes, you know, of the country like the Declaration of Independence, whatever, I would follow America into the bathroom and quote the liner notes saying, you know, what's happened to you? This is who you are.
19:46
You're not you're not you're not living up to who you are.
19:48
And for whatever reason, I think because of just love and respect for the idea of America, we've gotten away with uh with with being such a pain in the ass critic.
20:00
Um and you know, there were times it was difficult. Um we had death threats. We've had um from who?
20:11
Uh anonymous anonymous death threats. Yeah.
20:13
I mean, we've we've had many of them. Yeah.
20:15
I think in Arizona, we campaigned for Martin Luther King Day um when it was being uh rejected and uh and the the FBI came down and said, "Look, we we're worried about the show tonight and we've been told that if you sing this song in the name of love, you will be executed and we're taking it seriously because a lot of people it's hard to to pat everyone down and all of that."
20:40
But um I remember going ahead with that.
20:44
Of course, we're not going to be intimidated, but I do remember having a moment, the verse in the middle where it talks about the assassination.
20:49
I thought, well, it's going to happen, it's going to happen here.
20:51
So, I I kind of got down on my knee and I closed my eyes and when I looked up, he was standing in front of me giving it all the giving it a bit of uh amazing of of chin and love that.
21:02
But but you know, America was a um and is a uh tacetern place.
21:12
it it it can um it can turn on itself.
21:15
We've all got a lot of stake in the American idea.
21:18
We want it to succeed and it's it's it's a beautiful idea and and that's why we get worked up about it and that's why we're passionate about it.
21:30
You know, it's something that's obviously it's still you're right so prevalent because I mean you wrote a great great lyric um you know great moment on the Kendrick Lamar album.
21:39
you know, it's it's not a place.
21:40
This country is to me a song drum and bass.
21:42
You close your eyes and look around and to look around and um you know, it just feels like that that's an extension of what you were saying on Joshua Tree.
21:49
Even 30 years on, it's still that striving.
21:50
It's a letter to America.
21:52
Um it's a song called American Soul coming up on song songs of experience.
21:59
A lot of the songs on Songs of Experience are letters and uh there's a letter to our audience about performers not trusting them.
22:08
It's called The Showman and u the Return of the Fly.
22:12
Uh it's it's it's much more good.
22:15
Well, the Fly was pretty good humored. Pretty good.
22:17
Um it's uh it's like a Beatles song.
22:20
It's like a it's really simple pop song, but Defiant, but American Soul is a letter to America.
22:27
And um yeah, it's an it is it's not a country. It's an it's an idea.
22:31
It's uh the other verse goes um um it's not a place.
22:36
This country is to me a thought that offers grace for every welcome that is sought.
22:41
So the idea that it's it's it's an open um country.
22:44
So now you have talk of walls, you know, uh President Trump who's I don't know what party he's from.
22:55
I don't think he's from any party, but um Ronald Reagan spoke about America's a shining city on a hill, famous speech, and he said, you know, if there has to be walls, those walls will have doors and those doors will be open.
23:12
So, you couldn't get further from, you know, there's a Republican view, a very traditional view of America.
23:19
You couldn't get further from that to now where we are with this u this uh fella which is to me it's not even like a presidency.
23:29
It's a very different America we're in now.
23:31
It's not it's not the um it's not the one that any of the founding fathers uh in but it's not the first time we've seen it.
23:39
There's been instances where you've had that kind of thing.
23:42
that kind of thing. There was the nivists back around the famine time who objected to all the Irish coming that you know there's been waves of immigration that have have been resisted but the thing is to it's always gone
23:55
back you know to those principles and uh that's that's the great thing about America the principles are best expressed on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty that those beautiful lines by Emma Lazarus give me your tired you're poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. That's what America is and
24:12
That's what America is and that's why we love it.
24:16
I wondered how you felt at that time looking back on it when you when you become the biggest band in America that quickly on the cover of Time magazine what the gift and the curses with that.
24:25
You're in the center of that storm.
24:27
We are certainly running very fast and we'd agreed to make a movie which was probably very smart in a certain way but also not planning it very well put us under even more pressure.
24:38
Yeah, I think that kind of success in in America is so overwhelming if you come from, you know, an island on the edge of the Atlantic cuz the scale of it is is enormous.
24:48
I think all the experiences were different for all of us. Yeah.
24:57
You know, I think, you know, for myself and Adam, you know, the job is kind of supporting what's going on around us.
25:05
And I think both musically and and in all the other ways, that's our job.
25:10
Our job is to support what's going on.
25:11
I do remember um during the Joshua Tree tour when we ended up on the cover of Time magazine.
25:20
It was kind of the moment where everything changed.
25:22
It was just it was everything was different. We walked differently. We we felt different.
25:30
And we went on to make um Rattle at Home.
25:33
And I remember, you know, being encouraged to explore American music and explore the blues and have a look at all those things.
25:44
And um eyes wide open and uh and then you get to Bakdu baby, which is now we're chopping down Yeah. the Joshua tree.
25:52
It was like the juxosition.
25:54
There was some guil was it guilt?
25:57
I I I'm trying to think because I I relate to the angst.
25:59
I think I had more of it than than the rest of you.
26:04
But I think we we didn't feel we deserved to be that band.
26:13
Well, that's what your speech at the 88 Grammys would have suggested.
26:14
I watched that for the album of the year.
26:18
It it doesn't get more celebratory in terms of trinkets, you know, in the in the music industry.
26:21
And your whole speech was sort of kind of Yeah.
26:26
You couldn't you just one foot in one room and one foot in the other and it was it was in we we had gone away on holidays um with our partners Larry and myself.
26:35
We went away to the Bahamas or somewhere and we sat up at the park every night commiserating when at what point in the time as soon as the judge was finished the day after we left before it came out. Yeah. Yeah.
26:49
So we mastered it's done. We were It was done.
26:50
There was nothing we can do about it.
26:51
And we were just a it's a shame that so that's probably a clue into the mindset.
26:57
I mean miserable and and I remember Paul McInness saying um you know cuz we Anton used to do the stonyfaced men look and he did it brilliantly but Paul McInness our manager uh um said said to us you know don't be the band that looks too stupid to enjoy being at number one. Amazing.
27:18
And I mean we had to work at it. Yeah.
27:20
But I mean but What was that?
27:20
But that I mean, you know, the the story of the Anton photo shoots is that he only took the photographs when we looked serious in between all those times. There were lots.
27:30
There were a lot of laughs.
27:30
I mean, that's what's kind of funny.
27:32
It wasn't always intense.
27:33
It was intense for periods of time.
27:35
You know what was was great from that time was it felt like it was the fifth member of the band and your manager, Paul McInness.
27:40
What is it you miss the most about having him actively working with the band because you're still out here making records, touring, there's things to do.
27:47
He was a real student of the music business which complemented what we were trying to do.
27:55
So he would always think of what would be a better way of getting the music to more people whether it was through gigs or through meeting people or introducing us to people and and I think that was really important at the time.
28:08
So and and also the name of of his company principal management you know that that was by design.
28:16
That's not that's not by accident.
28:19
And I think it is amazing that, you know, we we sit here as one of the few bands ever not to have been ripped off or taken advantage of.
28:26
And Paul took care of all that stuff.
28:29
And he did it with principle and honor.
28:33
And um so you know it's not that it's not that that's happening now but having that steady hand and knowing that you got this character cuz he was such a larger than life character.
28:49
Um it is different and um I certainly miss that larger than life character there cuz when the hit the fan and when it hits the fan Paul was always able to step in.
29:00
Well that was when he became Guinness. Yes. That was his thing.
29:01
What is it like being the biggest band in America at that time? In the world. In the world. Shocking at that time.
29:07
At that time it meant maybe a few thousand people outside your hotel. So it's different now. And you were a shy guy.
29:16
But as you can imagine and I think I mean he kind of was came across that way at least.
29:22
Well no you're what you're doing is you're you're trying to you're creating a persona to protect yourself, right?
29:30
and and then not being able to live up to your persona.
29:33
So what happened was for a while fame mattered.
29:40
You started and it started to make you self-conscious and self-consciousness makes even the prettiest face ugly.
29:45
Just find a friend that you really love and just put a camera in front of watch their face change.
29:52
That's what happens to you with fame.
29:54
to you with fame. And so the next years became a journey out of self-consciousness and acting baby was okay fame we want to be at famous let's come up with a properly famous let's let's develop now the proper rock star and have some fun with this and that was
30:12
the sound uh that just referred to of chopping down the jud Oh yeah and then we just went into it and we might have gone into it a little no too gonggho there cuz we really those uh those uh those plastic pants were hard Get all real leather PVC. Oh yeah. What's up Oh yeah. What's up with that? Oh yeah.
30:29
I look good under the lights. Yeah. Yeah. Boil in the bag. Boil in the bag.
30:37
But but but but that's what it was.
30:38
That's what fame brought was a self-consciousness which is not really helpful for for uh for making art.
30:42
I mean with or without you.
30:46
We just I've got to say the name because fans will be like I can't believe you didn't even talk about with or without you.
30:51
But we can all agree that Without You remains one of the great moments in your in your catalog for the audience as much as anything else. Odd song. Odd.
30:57
Don't The thing about Without You to remember is how odd it sounded when it came out.
31:05
Weird, oddest, rumbling bass, kind of just a really amazing vibe.
31:09
just a really amazing vibe. whispering guitar and there's mumbling voice and then you get to this big chorus and but it it's it's we were students of this Roy Orbison tortured love song thing the slightly off color love song and uh we've written a few but that's uh that
31:28
was probably the start of it you had no idea at the time that that was going to become what it was it almost ended up in the bin because we couldn't get an arrangement that worked there was an experiment with uh um this infinite guitar that I just received from a friend. He basically made in his garage,
31:44
He basically made in his garage, which is a guitar that when you depress the string, the note keeps going like it was a a synthesizer key.
31:52
And so I literally unpacked the thing, plugged it in, and was just playing in the other room.
32:00
And I think Bono and and Gavin were listening through the door, and they happened to put on with you track.
32:09
I said, "What's what's that?"
32:09
So I just said, "It's this infinite guitar thing." He said, "That's it.
32:12
Let's put that on this track." So saved it. Couple of takes.
32:19
And by just stripping out everything or just the bass, it just cast this spell.
32:24
It was just this tension immediately introduced.
32:28
And that was kind of the the moment where it it came back out of the bin because we couldn't get it.
32:34
We were like, you know, I was playing regular guitar and it was just sounding so immediately too big cuz it has so much uh opera in it.
32:45
So this was like bring it the opposite way like right down to its essence.
32:49
Where were you when you came up with the guitar on bullet the blue sky?
32:54
Um again in that big room in Danes mode.
32:57
Um well actually the very first demo was in a tiny little demo studio in Dublin.
33:00
It's a fun story cuz I was um listening to the fall on on the way in.
33:07
There's this one track that had this amazing rhythm part, but it was an uptempo song. So, I was in the studio.
33:12
I was trying this guitar part and then Larry came out and started playing drums but playing half time.
33:20
And then Adams chimes in with the bass and I'm like, "What are they doing?
33:24
That's the wrong beat alto together."
33:26
So I was playing, we played for about 5 minutes and I was slightly slightly peeved, you know, they don't they don't get it.
33:35
It was what I was going on in my head.
33:37
I walked into the control room and everyone was like, "Whoa, what was that?"
33:40
And I was like, "No, no, but you don't understand.
33:42
They were playing it wrong."
33:44
So it was supposed to be double time and then I listened back and I just went, "Oh my god, oh, that beat's ridiculous."
33:49
The these guys, the stars, the bass, the bass and the drums.
33:53
Oh, that's that double snare is like that's the hook. That's the hook.
33:58
That's the moment, right?
34:00
But that guitar when you made that it sound like the jet. That was later.
34:04
That was after Bonnet came back from from the Central America.
34:05
We were working on the the tune with Dino and Lenoir.
34:10
And um it was an attempt to kind of try and find a a sonic response to some of the lyrics Bono was was writing at the time.
34:19
And um you know a bit of a nod to Jimmy Paige. Let's be honest.
34:22
But it was you know this is let's be honest. That's good. That's good.
34:32
The Dark Lord is always welcome at this table. Yeah.
34:34
He's he's a he's a mench. He's a great guy.
34:37
That bass part is it's great.
34:39
Is is really a work of genius.
34:42
I remember when Eno first heard the demo which was from the demo studio.
34:47
He was like, "I never ever want to hear that bass guitar soloed because it's so brilliant, but he said, I never really want to know what what it's doing." Right. Right.
34:56
I just want to hear it in this context because it's so brilliant and so unorthodox.
35:03
So, please never solo it.
35:03
Has this been a good experience for you overall connecting with your audience again in this way?
35:09
Because whenever I've gone to a YouTube show and I've been to every tour, you take me somewhere else.
35:12
You're like, "Glad you liked us over here.
35:16
Come over here and see how we feel.
35:18
Get in a car and come with us over here."
35:20
And we all went with you, but you've come back just as glorify the past when the future dries up. That's not true. Who wrote that? Okay, that was me.
35:29
But um the this is a very unusual moment of time.
35:34
Um and we've allowed oursel to honor this work that we all feel lucky to have been a part of.
35:44
I'm so surprised um that we've enjoyed it as much as we have.
35:50
But it's like setting the record straight for me as a singer.
35:53
I get the chance now to sing the songs.
35:55
I get the chance to fix the lyrics I didn't like. So it's revisionism.
36:01
What other songs are you fixing lyrics on that I'm not hearing in the glory of Twickenham? I don't understand. Like you don't. It's a fine.
36:06
But how many songs are you changing on the night here?
36:08
Cuz I'm still singing my original stage.
36:09
I'm not hearing what you're saying.
36:11
I don't give a what you're singing. That's right.
36:13
At least you at least you know the lyrics.
36:15
Edge says no one listens to them.
36:16
But um so so we we are enjoying this because we we are now the band that can play these songs, right?
36:27
That's an amazing feeling.
36:27
Yeah, that is an amazing feeling to be that band.
36:31
We we we we just about made that up and it happens.
36:39
Just lucky, you know, just the way the way it all worked out.
36:44
Now we can play those songs and enjoy those songs and feel those songs, sing those songs, and I'm really surprised, but it's going to make for a ridiculous new YouTube app.
36:56
I wondered what going back means for your future.
36:58
only reason and you know glorifying the past cuz uh cuz when the future dries up that's a tattoo to just write across your head and we better be good going forward cuz uh there's no interest here.
37:17
We don't need it um um to be a heritage act.
37:20
We're all doing very well. Thank you very much.
37:22
We're doing this because we want to do it and and because the songs make sense now in a way that they haven't for a a lot of years. That's very true.
37:31
It's like this moment is like an echo of the 80s in terms of what's going on politically and so the songs just fit in.
37:39
I mean they don't sound rage and out of place defiance and you know desert sky dream beneath the desert sky.
37:51
The rivers run but soon run dry.
37:53
We need new dreams tonight.
37:55
That's the moment we're in.
37:55
Everybody knows whether you're living in London or New York or Los Angeles or Phoenix, Arizona.
38:03
People are looking for new ideas and so even just speaking that into the air is good.
38:09
Um and and and and maybe just by asking the question, you have to answer it. Okay, bring it in.
38:19
Ask when's the next record coming? Do we have an idea?
38:20
Or is it coming this year? That's Gage. Is it coming?
38:21
I I think it's going to be this year.
38:24
It's going to be this year. Song is experience.
38:25
Is it finished or is it done?
38:26
It's like is it a slight tweak for you? Could take three years.
38:30
I mean, how close are we talking?
38:32
Just have to re-record everything.
38:35
Once we do that, okay, now the most important question. Is the drummer happy?
38:37
Are you happy with the new record? Are you good?
38:38
I you know, I think it's it's get we're getting there.
38:42
That's a resounding success from point of view. It's incredible.
38:44
So, new record hopefully coming this year.
38:47
This tour has been phenomenal for us as fans to be able to experience these songs again and for me as a lifelong fan to have an opportunity to sit down and dive deep into these stories has been really special and I really appreciate it.
39:01
Thanks for the first time. I know I feel terrible.
39:03
You know how many fans are going to hate me for not talking about running or in God's country? I'm in trouble. Thanks. Thank you, man.