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"Everyone Realized That the Record Had Stalled"
By ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
As U2's current single would have it, sometimes you can't make it on your own. That's when you call in another producer, as the Irish band did when it had reached a dead end on its latest album.
"Everyone realized that the record had stalled, and that we needed to go back and think about it again," said bassist Adam Clayton, during a break in the band's concert tour that brings U2 to Vancouver's GM Place tonight and tomorrow. "That wasn't a depressing moment. It was good to know that that had happened and been recognized."
It was a little over a year ago when a rescue call went out to Steve Lillywhite, a frequent collaborator who had worked on early albums, such as War, the 1983 disc that still ranks among U2's best. The band had already been toiling for months with Chris Thomas, best known for his work with the Pretenders and Roxy Music.
"I think Steve was a catalyst," Clayton said. "He came in and said: 'I think you're short a few songs, and you need to recut a few, because you can do better.' "
Among the songs marked for heavy surgery were both of the eventual singles from the disc, which came out last fall. The song that became Vertigo, which won three Grammy Awards, had been struggling along with a different tune and different lyrics, under the title Native Son.
"There was a period when we thought Native Son would be the first single," Clayton said. "But there was never a mix that was strong enough."
With Bono away on one of his humanitarian ventures, Lillywhite and the remaining three members of U2 redid the instrumental tracks, with the Edge's original chords and guitar riff, but with less overdubbing.
It was different enough that when Bono returned, he could see his way to a new tune and lyrics.
Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own had been recorded and rejected for U2's 2001 album All That You Can't Leave Behind. Clayton's description of the original song indicates how much it had to change to become the farewell ballad of the album version. "It was at a different tempo. There were different chords. It didn't have an identity of its own. It sounded like some weird kind of Motown thing."
Love and Peace or Else was also unresolved in 2001, and tweaked anew (with help from Daniel Lanois) for the new release. City of Blinding Light was left over from the sessions for Pop, the 1997 album that many fans found head-scratchingly strange.
"You never really throw anything away," Clayton said. "Bits of melody, bits of beat, bits of lyric come back again in one way or another." Another song in progress, Mercy, was put aside because it had no obvious place on the album that was coming into view.
"It wasn't quite finished and didn't quite fit the mood," Clayton said. "It was just a bit darker. I think a lot of the material on Bomb is pretty optimistic. . . . The arc of the record is that it starts in a place of fear in Vertigo, and then it reaches a place of safety in Yahweh."
That might describe the whole process of making a new record when you're perceived to have regained your best form following a long decline, as many critics and fans believed after the success of All That You Can't Leave Behind, which sold more than 10 million copies.
But U2 is famous for its bluster (Bono said in 2001 that it was time to reapply for "the best-band-in-the-world job"), and Clayton won't hear about how the group may have lost its shine during much of the nineties.
"I realize that many people may have been confused by the music of that period, but we weren't losing our way by any stretch," he said. "We've gotten better in every way, in the playing and in the writing. We're a much better band than when we finished Joshua Tree [1987]. . . . Those records in the nineties are definitely among my favourites. I think Achtung Baby [1991] is an astonishing record and I'm proud to have been a part of it."
Clayton got better, he feels, just by playing with the same group and especially the same drummer (Larry Mullen Jr.) for so many years. He also got new gear for Bomb: a vintage jazz bass from 1964, and new amplification equipment from a British manufacturer called Ashdown, which has allowed him to maintain a tough, grainy rock sound even at low volumes (the effect is most obvious during the subdued verse accompaniments in Vertigo).
Preparing the album's songs for a live stadium setting was "nerve-wracking," especially since the first concerts in San Diego were so close to Los Angeles, the West Coast music capital. The current tour is a bit flashier than the Elevation tour of 2001, with more lighting effects and video sequences, although still more modest than the spectacle of its Zoo TV tour of a decade ago.
"We always start out trying to recreate the album," Clayton said. "But inevitably you make choices, because you want to connect, and because the Edge can only play one guitar at a time."
As for the next album, it will very likely be a palimpsest like the last, with a mixture of reworked older songs and new items. But don't expect another Bomb, Clayton said.
"I'm not sure we'd want to make another album from that place," he said, referring to the back-to-basics tone of the past two albums. "I think, naturally, we'll be restless to do something different."
By ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
As U2's current single would have it, sometimes you can't make it on your own. That's when you call in another producer, as the Irish band did when it had reached a dead end on its latest album.
"Everyone realized that the record had stalled, and that we needed to go back and think about it again," said bassist Adam Clayton, during a break in the band's concert tour that brings U2 to Vancouver's GM Place tonight and tomorrow. "That wasn't a depressing moment. It was good to know that that had happened and been recognized."
It was a little over a year ago when a rescue call went out to Steve Lillywhite, a frequent collaborator who had worked on early albums, such as War, the 1983 disc that still ranks among U2's best. The band had already been toiling for months with Chris Thomas, best known for his work with the Pretenders and Roxy Music.
"I think Steve was a catalyst," Clayton said. "He came in and said: 'I think you're short a few songs, and you need to recut a few, because you can do better.' "
Among the songs marked for heavy surgery were both of the eventual singles from the disc, which came out last fall. The song that became Vertigo, which won three Grammy Awards, had been struggling along with a different tune and different lyrics, under the title Native Son.
"There was a period when we thought Native Son would be the first single," Clayton said. "But there was never a mix that was strong enough."
With Bono away on one of his humanitarian ventures, Lillywhite and the remaining three members of U2 redid the instrumental tracks, with the Edge's original chords and guitar riff, but with less overdubbing.
It was different enough that when Bono returned, he could see his way to a new tune and lyrics.
Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own had been recorded and rejected for U2's 2001 album All That You Can't Leave Behind. Clayton's description of the original song indicates how much it had to change to become the farewell ballad of the album version. "It was at a different tempo. There were different chords. It didn't have an identity of its own. It sounded like some weird kind of Motown thing."
Love and Peace or Else was also unresolved in 2001, and tweaked anew (with help from Daniel Lanois) for the new release. City of Blinding Light was left over from the sessions for Pop, the 1997 album that many fans found head-scratchingly strange.
"You never really throw anything away," Clayton said. "Bits of melody, bits of beat, bits of lyric come back again in one way or another." Another song in progress, Mercy, was put aside because it had no obvious place on the album that was coming into view.
"It wasn't quite finished and didn't quite fit the mood," Clayton said. "It was just a bit darker. I think a lot of the material on Bomb is pretty optimistic. . . . The arc of the record is that it starts in a place of fear in Vertigo, and then it reaches a place of safety in Yahweh."
That might describe the whole process of making a new record when you're perceived to have regained your best form following a long decline, as many critics and fans believed after the success of All That You Can't Leave Behind, which sold more than 10 million copies.
But U2 is famous for its bluster (Bono said in 2001 that it was time to reapply for "the best-band-in-the-world job"), and Clayton won't hear about how the group may have lost its shine during much of the nineties.
"I realize that many people may have been confused by the music of that period, but we weren't losing our way by any stretch," he said. "We've gotten better in every way, in the playing and in the writing. We're a much better band than when we finished Joshua Tree [1987]. . . . Those records in the nineties are definitely among my favourites. I think Achtung Baby [1991] is an astonishing record and I'm proud to have been a part of it."
Clayton got better, he feels, just by playing with the same group and especially the same drummer (Larry Mullen Jr.) for so many years. He also got new gear for Bomb: a vintage jazz bass from 1964, and new amplification equipment from a British manufacturer called Ashdown, which has allowed him to maintain a tough, grainy rock sound even at low volumes (the effect is most obvious during the subdued verse accompaniments in Vertigo).
Preparing the album's songs for a live stadium setting was "nerve-wracking," especially since the first concerts in San Diego were so close to Los Angeles, the West Coast music capital. The current tour is a bit flashier than the Elevation tour of 2001, with more lighting effects and video sequences, although still more modest than the spectacle of its Zoo TV tour of a decade ago.
"We always start out trying to recreate the album," Clayton said. "But inevitably you make choices, because you want to connect, and because the Edge can only play one guitar at a time."
As for the next album, it will very likely be a palimpsest like the last, with a mixture of reworked older songs and new items. But don't expect another Bomb, Clayton said.
"I'm not sure we'd want to make another album from that place," he said, referring to the back-to-basics tone of the past two albums. "I think, naturally, we'll be restless to do something different."
