Here’s what Edge had to say: (Sorry about the formatting. You'll just have to figure out who's saying what.)
The first night of the tour featured two tracks (In A Little While and Fast Cars) making their live debut in Vertigo ’05.
It’s always a good thing to mix things up on a first night: we put loads of new things in there for the first time, it was an experiment and even if they didn’t all come off, it was worth the experiment. We have a lot of new ideas we’re planning to put into the set which we’re still rehearsing, we’re working on three or four other songs. The problem is what songs are going to make way for a new song because we are really enjoying the songs that we are playing, they flow together so well. I don’t want to say what the songs are because that would spoil the surprise!
Fast Cars Was a pretty left-field choice! Apart from the limited edition deluxe version of ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’, it only features on the UK and Japanese releases. Where did that idea come from ?
Actually we’ve been talking about the song for a while and thinking about doing it and then a couple of nights ago someone on the street outside suggested it to Bono as he was signing autographs. So he mentioned this and I thought it was a great idea and we had a go. It’s one of those songs that is so rough and ready on the album that it is not difficult to reproduce live. In fact it only took us about two hours to record that version on the album.
You said something the other day about the tension between theatre and rock’n’roll in a live show and that you wanted to avoid becoming too theatrical?
Great rock’n’roll shows have always had an element of theatre, people go to rock’n’roll shows to see the drama played out on the stage – the show is more than just a band playing their album. But if it becomes too tightly scripted and well-crafted it loses the element of jeopardy and spontaneity. Its rock’n’roll which brings the jeopardy and why we differ from theatre, but there is a balance there. You want to try and do the best shows you can and that means that while you rehearse ideas through till they work, you also have to allow things to be not together and to be not perfect. You have to allow that openness and fluidity, you almost have to make sure you are not over-rehearsed - which is a bit of a joke when it comes to us because we are so far from being over-rehearsed! But as the tour progresses you start to get really good, almost slick and that is the enemy of rock’n’roll.
And one reason why it’s good to put new songs in?
I think it particularly works playing indoors as you are close enough to the crowd for them to see the process, for them to see when you are leaving the rails, going off into new territory and trying something different. The whole concept has a different energy when that happens. Outdoors in the big arenas where we were in Europe this summer, bigger gestures are more crucial and its more difficult to include everyone in something (experimental) like a rather crap version of a new song! You are concentrating on things in a different way when you know exactly what you are doing, a different part of the brain is engaged and there is something really exhilarating about going into the unknown. So we are constantly developing ideas, we don’t want it to be static.
You’ve written and recorded a new song, Don’t Come Knocking, for Wim Wenders’ new film of the same name. You’ve worked with Wim many times, how did this latest collaboration work out?
Originally Wim got in touch with Bono about the movie and asked if we could do a song for it. T Bone Burnett, another old friend of ours, was producing the soundtrack and score and so we wanted to try and come up with something. Bono and I sat down and Bono hummed a few lines of a melody idea into my walkman. I took those ideas off and worked on my computer using GarageBand and started to pull the track together.
The movie is set in the American heartland but I didn’t want it to be too much of a straightforward country song as I thought that would be too much of a cliché, so I went back to really early country - the early forties and fifties - and listened to the beats they used and drew inspiration from there.
We got Andrea Corr in to work on the song with Bono and we developed it into a duet but we were so busy with the tour that it was hard to know if we were actually going to make it in time for the release of the film. It was really last minute stuff to finish it in time. But then Garret Lee came in, took away my demo and vocal tracks and came up with a really amazing version. T Bone took away the same demo with vocals and used his band to play a version and that mix is also pretty special and quite a different interpretation of the song. I think that very little of what I originally did has ended up in the final pieces, both have gone in different directions but they are both amazing tracks. T Bone’s is on the film soundtrack but we’ll probably put them both out to radio although there is nothing finally decided at the moment.
The film is only out in Germany at present but we’re posting the track on U2.Com any day. What’s the song about?
Like the best love songs it is a kind of twisted and convoluted little piece, ostensibly about two people who obviously have a history and the chorus is ‘Don’t Come Knocking, Don’t Come Knocking At My Door, Don’t Come Knocking No More.’ But it’s funny how while that is what the lyric says the feeling you get is the opposite. It is on kind of interesting ground where everything that the lyric would seem to be saying is the opposite of the feeling you get…
This week saw the premiere at the Toronto Film Festival of ‘Leonard Cohen I’m Your Man’, another side-project that you managed to find time for.
Yes, that was also a touch and go situation and sort of a rash thing to take on given everything else that’s been happening, but we decided to go for it! The initial idea was that we were going to do a version with Leonard of ‘First We Take Manhattan’ but in discussion with Lian (Lunson, director of the film), we realised that Tower of Song would be the one, as we had had this idea of us playing with him in a bar. It was obvious but it was very late in the day and very touch and go as to whether we would pull it off - but it worked out great.
To be able to do that with Leonard meant so much to us. If there is anyone who has not been celebrated enough in our business it is Leonard, he gets the gets the respect from certain quarters, but it was wonderful to be able to do this collaboration with him. And obviously knowing Lian as well we really wanted to support this project.
So, are you writing new material on Garageband for U2 as well ?
We are writing all the time. I sort of write music for recreational purposes, that is my fun! Unfortunately it doesn’t necesarily mean that it is all good but some of this stuff I’m happy with. There are some things I’m very excited about.
I’m already starting to think about the next record, I love being at the beginnings of getting something going, all the possibilities. And I think it is a very exciting time in rock n roll. Hip-Hop had its way in terms of breaking new ground and for a while there it dominated the creative zeitgeist but now I feel that bands and rock’n’roll ideas are back with a vengeance. There are so many great bands, so many new ideas in rock n roll, in guitar-based music. It’s wonderful to see, like some of the bands we have had on the road with us, and I am very inspired by all that.
Indicate an email, and I'll send you the new song.
) if he has a recording attachment on it. I dunno. 
