Larry's drumstick
Acrobat
Wow - thanks so much for posting! 
HTDAAB - as described by the band!!! (Q magazine)
- Thread starter philod
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Miggy D
War Child
November must come now. Wish I had a Delorean.
brownda7
War Child
Need a
scan
scan
philod
The Fly
Ok guys and gals, here goes:
Bono looks like he is having a seizure. He lurches forwards, head shaking, eyes scrunched tight. He is also singing. "Hello, hello," he mouths, punctuating each word by jabbing a finger at me. "We're at a place called Vertigo."
It is 1 July and we are in the dining room of the Hanover Quays studios in Dublin. Vertigo, the first single from U2's new album, is booming out from a pair of wall-mounted speakers. Bono is not having an epileptic fit but rather he is dancing, albeit without any recourse to rhythm. Like other men of a certain age - Jeremy Clarkson springs to mind - he is dressed head to foot in denim.
The Edge is sitting at the room's long dinner table picking at a plate of salmon salad and nodding along. Seated opposite, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton are watching Greece knock the Czech Republic out of football's European Championship. Neither pays their singer the slightest attention.
Eighteen months after they started wrok, U2 are about to finish their 11th studio album a day ahead of schedule. It will be released in November and is titled How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Not that all has gone according to plan. It wouldn't be a U2 record it if had. Last Christmas the band scrapped a year's work and replaced original producer Chris Thomas (notable credits: Never Mind the Bollocks, Pulp's Different Class) with long-time studio partner Steve Lillywhite ("We didn't gel, for whatever reason," Clayton says of the aborted sessions).
Of more pressing concern now is the need to agree upon the album's running order. Bono and The Edge have each devised a tracklisting. No one can agree on either. Each will sidle up to me during the evening and conspiratorially insist that their version is the better. "I'm not sure Edge's version works," Bono says. "In fact, I've told him it's preposterous. You can't have a slow song second one in."
Does no-one have a scanner yet?
Bono looks like he is having a seizure. He lurches forwards, head shaking, eyes scrunched tight. He is also singing. "Hello, hello," he mouths, punctuating each word by jabbing a finger at me. "We're at a place called Vertigo."
It is 1 July and we are in the dining room of the Hanover Quays studios in Dublin. Vertigo, the first single from U2's new album, is booming out from a pair of wall-mounted speakers. Bono is not having an epileptic fit but rather he is dancing, albeit without any recourse to rhythm. Like other men of a certain age - Jeremy Clarkson springs to mind - he is dressed head to foot in denim.
The Edge is sitting at the room's long dinner table picking at a plate of salmon salad and nodding along. Seated opposite, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton are watching Greece knock the Czech Republic out of football's European Championship. Neither pays their singer the slightest attention.
Eighteen months after they started wrok, U2 are about to finish their 11th studio album a day ahead of schedule. It will be released in November and is titled How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Not that all has gone according to plan. It wouldn't be a U2 record it if had. Last Christmas the band scrapped a year's work and replaced original producer Chris Thomas (notable credits: Never Mind the Bollocks, Pulp's Different Class) with long-time studio partner Steve Lillywhite ("We didn't gel, for whatever reason," Clayton says of the aborted sessions).
Of more pressing concern now is the need to agree upon the album's running order. Bono and The Edge have each devised a tracklisting. No one can agree on either. Each will sidle up to me during the evening and conspiratorially insist that their version is the better. "I'm not sure Edge's version works," Bono says. "In fact, I've told him it's preposterous. You can't have a slow song second one in."
Does no-one have a scanner yet?
Wow, this article sounds awesome. The descriptions of the songs from the band are far more intriguing to me than a track by track critical synopsis ala NME.
God, please make these next 51 days go by quick, I want to hear this album so bad it hurts.
It seems to have so much intensity behind it.
Who's on the cover of the magazine?
Thank you so much for posting.
God, please make these next 51 days go by quick, I want to hear this album so bad it hurts.
It seems to have so much intensity behind it.
Who's on the cover of the magazine?
Thank you so much for posting.
Larry's drumstick
Acrobat
philod
The Fly
Set on the banks of the River Liffey and spread over two floors, Hanover Quays would have the feel of a youth hostel were it not for the acres of expensive electronic equipment. The building is to be demolished next year to make way for a riverside development. U2, courtesy of the Irish government, will be relocated to a Canary Wharf-style tower a mile up river.
Upstairs there is a kitchen, dining room and a lounge equipped with a sofa and a hatstand exclusively given over to Bono's many Stetsons. Floor-to-ceiling windows run the length of one wall. A collection of bedraggled boats is moored outside. The band bought them to stop tour parties from sailing up to the quay and staring in at them. Downstairs is a rehearsal room, TV room and two studios. U2 recorded most of the album in the smaller of the two. It's a dark, pokey space you could cross in four strides.
Last night Bono have two of the handful of fans who keep vigil outside the studio a lift home, the condition being they listen to different mixes of new tracks in his car and nominate their preferences. Lillywhite, a garrulous gent with the air of a used car salesman styled for Miami Vice, recalls Bono doing the same with a postman who wandered into the studio.
"That's one of the things Bono uses," says The Edge. "He'll throw on different things at home and see what gets the best reaction when the hoovering's happening. As a band, famously, we will literally ask anyone."
Tonight I am to be U2's guinea pig. The plan is to have dinner and then listen to five new songs over a bottle of wine.
In the event U2 play the whole of the new album, initially in no particular order. Lillywhite ferries a variety of CDs from downstairs. In addition to jerking spasmodically, Bono provides commentary over each track - a "great bassline" here, a "terrible rhyming couplet" there.
The first impression is of the most U2-sounding album since The Joshua Tree. It has that album's epic scope, while also harking back to early career peaks The Unforgettable Fire and War. Anthems and big themes are very much back in, confirming the trajectory of 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind. That album marked the point at which U2's self-confidence returned and their mid-'90s wobble - the sudden discovery of irony, dance music and giant lemons - was placed firmly behind them. By December 2001 and the end of the $143m-grossing Elevation tour, it was clear that U2 were back on a roll.
When the other have drifted off, Bono suggests we hear the album in the order he would prefer it to run (two faster track, two slower tracks, and so on). He grills throughout: what should the singles be?; is this mix better than that?
"I'm not being disingenuous," he insists. "I want to get another perspective. Because working here is like being marooned on an oil rig. We get cut off."
Thom Yorke, you sense, does not do this. But Radiohead, unlike U2, don't strive to satisfy the Everyman. Equally, Yorke is as likely to announce that his band are re-applying for the job of best band in the world as he is to invade Poland. Such was Bono's mission statement for All That You Can't Leave Behind. What is it to be this time?
"It's never about competing with other bands," he says, lighting a cigarette. "We compete with ourselves, with the idea of not becoming crap like everyone else does. Because the only way you can justify living like this - with your fancy houses and no money problems - is surely not to be crap."
Upstairs there is a kitchen, dining room and a lounge equipped with a sofa and a hatstand exclusively given over to Bono's many Stetsons. Floor-to-ceiling windows run the length of one wall. A collection of bedraggled boats is moored outside. The band bought them to stop tour parties from sailing up to the quay and staring in at them. Downstairs is a rehearsal room, TV room and two studios. U2 recorded most of the album in the smaller of the two. It's a dark, pokey space you could cross in four strides.
Last night Bono have two of the handful of fans who keep vigil outside the studio a lift home, the condition being they listen to different mixes of new tracks in his car and nominate their preferences. Lillywhite, a garrulous gent with the air of a used car salesman styled for Miami Vice, recalls Bono doing the same with a postman who wandered into the studio.
"That's one of the things Bono uses," says The Edge. "He'll throw on different things at home and see what gets the best reaction when the hoovering's happening. As a band, famously, we will literally ask anyone."
Tonight I am to be U2's guinea pig. The plan is to have dinner and then listen to five new songs over a bottle of wine.
In the event U2 play the whole of the new album, initially in no particular order. Lillywhite ferries a variety of CDs from downstairs. In addition to jerking spasmodically, Bono provides commentary over each track - a "great bassline" here, a "terrible rhyming couplet" there.
The first impression is of the most U2-sounding album since The Joshua Tree. It has that album's epic scope, while also harking back to early career peaks The Unforgettable Fire and War. Anthems and big themes are very much back in, confirming the trajectory of 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind. That album marked the point at which U2's self-confidence returned and their mid-'90s wobble - the sudden discovery of irony, dance music and giant lemons - was placed firmly behind them. By December 2001 and the end of the $143m-grossing Elevation tour, it was clear that U2 were back on a roll.
When the other have drifted off, Bono suggests we hear the album in the order he would prefer it to run (two faster track, two slower tracks, and so on). He grills throughout: what should the singles be?; is this mix better than that?
"I'm not being disingenuous," he insists. "I want to get another perspective. Because working here is like being marooned on an oil rig. We get cut off."
Thom Yorke, you sense, does not do this. But Radiohead, unlike U2, don't strive to satisfy the Everyman. Equally, Yorke is as likely to announce that his band are re-applying for the job of best band in the world as he is to invade Poland. Such was Bono's mission statement for All That You Can't Leave Behind. What is it to be this time?
"It's never about competing with other bands," he says, lighting a cigarette. "We compete with ourselves, with the idea of not becoming crap like everyone else does. Because the only way you can justify living like this - with your fancy houses and no money problems - is surely not to be crap."
U2dork
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Well, that puts an end to the debate on whether or not he'll say the word.
and while I try not to be negative when I post,
to AussieU2fanman...
Larry's drumstick
Acrobat
philod said:
Wow, that sounds great to me!!!
Thanks so much for posting this philod!!! I know it's hard work to type out, but it's very much appreciated!
philod
The Fly
As Bono is cueing up his CD for a second time, Adam Clayton and Steve Lillywhite wander back. The latter has come to collect Bono for his final vocal of the record. He eyes Bono smoking, and smiles. "It makes a change for Adam and I to be watching over Bono's bad habits," he says.
"At least my habits are legal," replies Bono archly as he gets up.
Adam Clayton is the black sheep of the U2 family, famous for getting engaged, albeit briefly, to Naomi Campbell in 1993 and missing a gig in Sydney because he was too drunk to play. These days, his idea of a perfect night is one where he is in bed by 11:30pm.
Ask him when he was last chatted up and he says, "By a bloke or a girl?", adding that it hasn't happened in either case for longer than he can recall. "Once you take alcohol out of the equation, there's a lot less sex," he says.
With his greying hair, bookish spectacles and gently lisping Home Counties accent, Clayton is more geography teacher than rock star. There is, too, a vulnerability about him. He says he has no idea what he brings to the band.
"Playing bass has become much simpler during the last two records," he says. "Before it used to be so complicated. I was always trying to come up with the best possible, ever. When you put yourself under that much pressure you don't necessarily get anywhere. The wheels just spin a lot."
Did you feel insecure about your position in the band?
"Yeah. There was a period of not being comfortable. I can't put it down to anything."
"At least my habits are legal," replies Bono archly as he gets up.
Adam Clayton is the black sheep of the U2 family, famous for getting engaged, albeit briefly, to Naomi Campbell in 1993 and missing a gig in Sydney because he was too drunk to play. These days, his idea of a perfect night is one where he is in bed by 11:30pm.
Ask him when he was last chatted up and he says, "By a bloke or a girl?", adding that it hasn't happened in either case for longer than he can recall. "Once you take alcohol out of the equation, there's a lot less sex," he says.
With his greying hair, bookish spectacles and gently lisping Home Counties accent, Clayton is more geography teacher than rock star. There is, too, a vulnerability about him. He says he has no idea what he brings to the band.
"Playing bass has become much simpler during the last two records," he says. "Before it used to be so complicated. I was always trying to come up with the best possible, ever. When you put yourself under that much pressure you don't necessarily get anywhere. The wheels just spin a lot."
Did you feel insecure about your position in the band?
"Yeah. There was a period of not being comfortable. I can't put it down to anything."
philod
The Fly
It is 1am when The Edge invites me to hear his version of the album. He appears to have waited for Bono to make himself scarce. He has, he says, compiled it according to mood. As it's playing, he explains his reasoning for placing each song before or after the next in a soft, lilting voice. Then he pulls this ever-present woollen hat over his eyes and sits nodding to himself. There is much of the mad scientist about The Edge. In last month's issue, Q's newest contributor revealed he had computed 39 million possible running orders for the new U2 album (reflecting on this, Bono notes, "Girls tend to be the best DJs and, let's be honest, The Edge is a girl with a moustache"). He drives a second-hand BMW, which he keeps strictly to the speed limit.
Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out single was the last thing he heard which made him sit up and take notice. He unwinds with a round of golf or the odd game of tennis. He has only every been called "Mr Edge" when checking into hotels.
"This is going to be a great live record," he announces over All Because of You's guitar solo.
Will lemons be involved?
"If memory serves, the lemon is a pretty lousy form of transport. It was on sale on eBay for a while but I don't think there were any takers."
Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out single was the last thing he heard which made him sit up and take notice. He unwinds with a round of golf or the odd game of tennis. He has only every been called "Mr Edge" when checking into hotels.
"This is going to be a great live record," he announces over All Because of You's guitar solo.
Will lemons be involved?
"If memory serves, the lemon is a pretty lousy form of transport. It was on sale on eBay for a while but I don't think there were any takers."
bammo2
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
philod said:
bammo2
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
philod said:
philod
The Fly
Dawn is coming, Larry Mullen is sitting in the TV room idly channel surfing. He appears to have remained ageless for 20 years. Mullen only seems to really relax when the tape is switched off. He says that most of this friends are "builders and plumbers". When, in 1997, U2 released a high-camp video to accompany their Discotheque single, the regulars in Larry Mullen's local pub put the drummer's scene as a disco-dancing cowboy on a tape loop on the video jukebox. He is not mourning the fact that U2 have stopped trying to make us smile.
"I was always concerned that the further we moved from what we knew, the greater the danger that we'd disappear up our own arses," he says. "I couldn't cope with being called a pretentious prat."
Mullen says he is yet to form an objective opinion of the new album. He is surprised the band have come through another one.
"There were some heated debates as usual," he says. "But the party line is, If you don't have a better idea, shut the fuck up. It usually does the trick."
Bono enters to bid us goodnight. It is still dark outside but he is wearing sunglasses. "Did Edge play you his version?" he asks. "Did you prefer his or mine?"
"You see what we have to put up with?" asks Mullen with a long, weary sigh.
"I was always concerned that the further we moved from what we knew, the greater the danger that we'd disappear up our own arses," he says. "I couldn't cope with being called a pretentious prat."
Mullen says he is yet to form an objective opinion of the new album. He is surprised the band have come through another one.
"There were some heated debates as usual," he says. "But the party line is, If you don't have a better idea, shut the fuck up. It usually does the trick."
Bono enters to bid us goodnight. It is still dark outside but he is wearing sunglasses. "Did Edge play you his version?" he asks. "Did you prefer his or mine?"
"You see what we have to put up with?" asks Mullen with a long, weary sigh.
brownda7
War Child
Philod deserves a prize of some sort
AussieU2fanman
Refugee
U2dork said:
Well, that puts an end to the debate on whether or not he'll say the word.
and while I try not to be negative when I post,
haha, I don't recall saying anything offensive, at least recently! Let alone about the forbidden Jewish word for God
Larry's drumstick
Acrobat
philod said:
U2dork
Rock n' Roll Doggie
philod said:
And thank you so much philod, for typing this all out. You rock!
This is a wonderful way to start my day.
U2dork
Rock n' Roll Doggie
AussieU2fanman said:
haha, I don't recall saying anything offensive, at least recently! Let alone about the forbidden Jewish word for God
I was refering to your "too many chicks" comment.
bammo2
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
*edit*: never mind....blue crack is having a spasm 
Last edited:
nurse chrissi
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
EXCELLENT article!!!!!
Why does November have to be so far away?
everytime I read an article like that I basically love U2 a little more
Thank you for transcribing it!
hugs
chrissi
Why does November have to be so far away?
everytime I read an article like that I basically love U2 a little more
Thank you for transcribing it!
hugs
chrissi
AussieU2fanman
Refugee
U2dork said:
Yeh I was meaning to put a smiley there to indicate that I wasn't being serious, but I'll do it now
Larry's drumstick
Acrobat
*waits patiently for the next installment*
Larry's drumstick
Acrobat
Great job philod!
Keep going. You can do it!!!
Keep going. You can do it!!!
philod
The Fly
It's mid-July and U2 are in the South of France for their annual summer break. They have been coming here since finishing The Joshua Tree. Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton each have homes off the coastal road which winds eastwards out of Nice. The Edge and Bono and their families share a villa in the same area.
"Bono wanted us all to share a place," says Mullen. "I told him, I'm happy to come here but I'm not living in the same house as you."
Bono arranges to meet at a seaside restaurant five miles from Nice called the African Queen. The harbour it faces is home to a flotilla of gleaming private yachts. It is pouring with rain but he is still wearing sunglasses, a straw Stetson atop his head. He exchanges greeting in French with the owner.
Bono looks slimmer than he has for some time, having recovered from a back injury he says that prevented him from working out. He admits to being self-conscious about his weight.
"I see pictures of myself and think, Oh God," he groans. "I can look like a rock star. But I can also look like a pudgy politician. Or a darts player. It's always sexy on the inside, though."
He order two glasses of rosé and casually relates how Robert De Niro persuaded him to give a keynote speech at 2003's Tribeca film festival. He goes on to recall meeting the Pope five years ago.
"He was wearing oxblood loafers," says Bono.
"I remember Quincy Jones Turning to me and going, Check...out...the...shoes. The cat is wearing pimp shoes!
"I'm a terrible name-dropper," he offers with a smile. "But then the right to be ridiculous is something I hold very dear." (Larry Mullen claims that whenever he's berated by a stranger in Dublin, it is always about Bono. "I'll walk into a pub," he says, "and some old guy will go, Larry, yer man Bono, he's a fucking eejit.")
Tomorrow Bono will be called by Radio 4's Today programme to pass comment on Gordon Brown's announcement fo a substantial increase in Britain's overseas aid. Bono co-founded the DATA (Debt, Aids, Trade in Africa) organisation in 2002 to lobby the governments of the world's wealthy nations to do just that. He watched Brown's speech live in his villa. It was, he says, "an amazing moment". Two years ago he stood next to George W Bush when the US president outlined an increase in aid to Africa of $5 billion. "My life," he reflects, "is getting more and more surreal."
"Bono wanted us all to share a place," says Mullen. "I told him, I'm happy to come here but I'm not living in the same house as you."
Bono arranges to meet at a seaside restaurant five miles from Nice called the African Queen. The harbour it faces is home to a flotilla of gleaming private yachts. It is pouring with rain but he is still wearing sunglasses, a straw Stetson atop his head. He exchanges greeting in French with the owner.
Bono looks slimmer than he has for some time, having recovered from a back injury he says that prevented him from working out. He admits to being self-conscious about his weight.
"I see pictures of myself and think, Oh God," he groans. "I can look like a rock star. But I can also look like a pudgy politician. Or a darts player. It's always sexy on the inside, though."
He order two glasses of rosé and casually relates how Robert De Niro persuaded him to give a keynote speech at 2003's Tribeca film festival. He goes on to recall meeting the Pope five years ago.
"He was wearing oxblood loafers," says Bono.
"I remember Quincy Jones Turning to me and going, Check...out...the...shoes. The cat is wearing pimp shoes!
"I'm a terrible name-dropper," he offers with a smile. "But then the right to be ridiculous is something I hold very dear." (Larry Mullen claims that whenever he's berated by a stranger in Dublin, it is always about Bono. "I'll walk into a pub," he says, "and some old guy will go, Larry, yer man Bono, he's a fucking eejit.")
Tomorrow Bono will be called by Radio 4's Today programme to pass comment on Gordon Brown's announcement fo a substantial increase in Britain's overseas aid. Bono co-founded the DATA (Debt, Aids, Trade in Africa) organisation in 2002 to lobby the governments of the world's wealthy nations to do just that. He watched Brown's speech live in his villa. It was, he says, "an amazing moment". Two years ago he stood next to George W Bush when the US president outlined an increase in aid to Africa of $5 billion. "My life," he reflects, "is getting more and more surreal."
Larry's drumstick
Acrobat
philod said:
U2dork
Rock n' Roll Doggie
I love how after all of these years, and after all of the ups and downs, these four people have kept their wickedly weird sense of humor.
bammo2
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
philod said:
philod said:
philod said:
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