Here’s part two.
U2.Com: And the recording went off without further hitches?
U2 albums are famous for their last-minute curveballs – it’s almost like Bono has to do something at the end just to freak everyone out. We thought we’d pretty well finished the album, and at midnight on the last day, Bono goes, ‘Let’s re-cut ‘Xanax and Wine’.’ They’d probably spent more time on this one song in the Chris Thomas sessions than any other - perhaps a couple of months.
U2.Com: Two months on one song?
It seems ridiculous, but remember it’s like a day job for them - it’s their own studio, they’re only doing 5-day weeks, and they’re not always all there; they’ve got kids, they’ve got to go to the school play… So anyway, we set the mikes up at one in the morning - it’s crazy - and they started playing. It was done by 4 or 5am, and ended up as ‘Fast Cars’. Fantastic! That’s Bono’s way: he drives the madness at the end.
U2.Com: Were you working to a firm deadline?
We have a big calendar and we plot our days. Bono, because of his life outside of U2, is very structured. Everything revolves around the school holidays, too. Their wives won’t let them overrun…
U2.Com: And as you got close to the end, curveballs aside, were you sensing that it was coming together?
Once ‘Vertigo’ was nailed, we knew we had a good chance. We had the single. And at the end, we knew we had a good album. At that point, everyone was so fried, and so dizzy with love for each other…
U2.Com: You’ve talked about encouraging the band’s joyfulness. Do you try, consciously, to nurture their spirituality on the record, too?
It comes through by osmosis, actually. I’d say this is their second most spiritual album - behind October. Yahweh is a gorgeous song. They’re extremely spiritual, and maybe getting more so as they try to remain faithful to their beliefs.
U2.Com: How much pressure do you feel when you’re producing U2?
I’m self-confident, but also scared shitless. I don’t want to be complacent, having grown up with them. In the early days, I was the big producer and they were the little band. And there’s still a bit of that in my subconscious. I remember being in the studio, and the four of them were laughing, so I turned round to join in the joke and they stopped. I suddenly thought, ‘Oh no, I’m considered the grown-up here!’
U2.Com: How do you rate their musicianship these days?
They’re great musicians now. They’re not great improvisers, but when they know what they’re doing, it’s as good as it gets. They are great as U2. No cover band can play U2 better.
U2.Com: What are you most proud of, personally, on this album?
‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own’ has been around for five years. And in all that time, no one said to the band what I said, which was the simplest thing: ‘You don’t have a chorus.’
Bono looked at me as if to say, ‘Who are you to say we haven’t written a chorus?’ Straight away he said, ‘Give me a guitar, Edge!’ and he started singing. He wrote the tune right there; the lyrics came later.
That bit of that song affects everybody when they hear it. I didn’t write it, obviously, but I was the catalyst, and that humbles me.
U2.Com: What sets this album apart from the others?
It’s got no bad songs, and that’s virtually unique. There’s nothing you’d want to fast-forward over. That said, I read the fan-sites and there are two songs that people either love or hate. ‘A Man and a Woman’ splits fans by gender. The men hate it… I think it’s a great song. And the ‘sorbet track’, as Edge calls it, because it changes the pallet – ‘One Step Closer’. That’s an intermission song.
But it’s strong all the way to the end, with ‘Yahweh’ and ‘Crumbs…’ and ‘Original of the Species’. ‘Original’ has been around a long time. It’s interesting how U2 incubate songs. There are a few great songs incubating that will be on the next album. One is called ‘North Star’, about Johnny Cash.
U2.Com: How long do you think we’ll have to wait for that?
I’ve read that Bono’s saying there’s another album coming in 2006, but I doubt it very much. He’s driven, and wants to get as much done as he can in this life. Not many people think like that. I don’t. I just want to watch football.
U2.Com: How much can you remember about the early days?
It’s a bit like when people talk about the war being the best times of their lives, when really they weren’t. It was very bleak: Dublin in the late Seventies was not the vibrant, multicultural city that we have now.
I used to hang out with Adam a lot. We were the party boys. Larry and Bono and Edge were into their own thing. These very strange guys with make-up would come into the studio and never say ‘hi’. They weren’t from the side of the street where you were taught the social niceties of life. I was scared stiff of Gavin Friday, and still am.
U2.Com: What were they like to work with, back then?
There was a lot of heartache and a lot of pulling your hair out while Bono was writing his lyrics. In those days he would write them as a poem, and then he’d come in and read it. I’d say, ‘Very nice, Bono, but now go and sing it!’ And he’d go and sing it and it was shit – it didn’t work at all with the music.
He now has this ‘Bongalese’, as he calls it - the language of Bono, which he sings, then makes into words. The words come from an almost primal chant. He’s not a Shane McGowan, a poet in the traditional Irish way. But he has a talent, and his voice is to die for.
U2.Com: Did you sense, back then, that something special was emerging?
Not really. Their first hit single was ‘New Year’s Day’, but we never thought it was any different from any of the other songs on ‘War’. They’re like your children – you like them all in different ways, but you give them all as much love as you can. So you don’t always see the ones that will become classics. At the time, there was a song called ‘Surrender’ which, in my head, was just as good as ‘New Year’s Day’. And now, Surrender’s disappeared into the annals…
U2.Com: Along with some other favourites. What else do you think was under-rated? ‘Celebration’? ‘A Day Without Me’ ?
Celebration - that was rewritten out of their history. It happened not to be on the Greatest Hits…
U2.Com: Why?
[Singing] “Shout! Shout!” It’s a terrible song! Well, they didn’t go for it, anyway. ‘A Day Without Me’ was the first song I ever did with U2. That was my test period to see how it would go. And then I went in and did ‘Boy’. I loved that song. And I loved ‘11 O’Clock Tick Tock’.
U2.Com: Would any U2 songs make your desert island disc?
I don’t love music enough. I mean, I love my job, don’t get me wrong. But I would take Sky Plus, to watch Chelsea…
U2.Com: You wouldn’t take a compilation of your greatest work?
No. I never listen to anything I’ve done.
U2.Com: Seriously?
If you listen back to what you’ve done, there are only two responses you can have. If you like it, there’s a possibility you’ll become complacent. If you don’t like it, you can become uncertain. So there’s no point.
U2.Com: You haven’t sat and listened to ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’?
Oooh, no! Why would I? Actually, that’s a bit of a lie. We were at a dinner party the other night and the host thought it would be a good idea to put it on. I was squirming.
We were recently in France with U2. We went to a restaurant, and the owner thought that the band would love to hear their ‘Greatest Hits’. Bono was going ‘Oh no!’ - as you would. You don’t want to be reminded of your mullet. ..
