thrillme
Refugee
than just laying down the bass.
Well with all the re-issue talk, an older interview from the mid 80's, might actually fit in. Plus I just read some new insights into U2 as a band.
Full article here
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Guitar Player: The instrumental "4th of July" is unusual.
Edge: Unbeknownst to myself and Adam -- we were playing away inside, just working on a little improvisation -- Brian Eno was next door recording what we were doing through a series of treatments that he had set up for the vocals of the previous song. He thought it was so nice that he didn't bother even putting it onto multi-track. He put it straight onto 1/4" and that was it, the final product. We just snipped out a three-minute section that we thought was the best and stuck it on the front of side two.
GP: Could you detail what's going on in that track?
Edge: I don't remember all the details. I was a little tired of playing normal finger stuff, so I used a bottleneck. I was probably working with an echo in triplets with what Adam was playing, and he was in a very unusual time signature -- something like 13/8. Adam finds 4/4 not only boring, but extremely difficult to maintain. He moves in these natural rhythms that to everyone else seem totally weird and experimental. Playing against that time signature, I started working with the bottleneck and some harmonics. I may have detuned one of the strings, but it's a kind of instinctive thing. Immediately when Adam started playing his line, I knew there was something there that we could work with. Everything went on in that split second. It's a mixture of serendipity and intuition.
GP: What was your approach on "Pride?"
Edge: Well, I wanted something very percussive, because the whole rhythm of that song hinged on the guitar's 16-to-the-bar beat. It just made it skip along in a certain way. So, that was the main consideration for that piece. We started with a bass guitar chord sequence with some drum lines to it. Once we had the chord sequence and that guitar line….
GP: What is the chord sequence?
Edge: [Laughs] Adam's in charge of chord sequences, because I haven't a proper chord in years. It's B to E to A to F#. It's quite a traditional sequence in a funny way, but it just works well against what Adam is playing.
GP: You don't seem to play standard guitar chords very often.
Edge: No. I don't play proper guitar [laughs]. For a start, I avoid the major third like the plague. I like the ambiguity between the major and minor chords, so I tread a very fine line sometimes between the two. I tend to isolate the chords down to two or three notes and then octaves of the notes. Like for an E chord, I play just Bs and Es, including my big E string. With "Pride," for example, it's really just a couple of strings. The critical thing is the echo. I'm playing sixteenth-notes, and the echo device supplies the triplet, so it's a very fast thing.
GP: Why do you play bass onstage during "40"?
Edge: As that song was recorded in the studio, I played the bass. It seemed like a more interesting approach to make Adam learn the guitar than to make him learn my bass parts, and it's worked out very well. He's come up with his own approach to the guitar parts that I did in the studio. I think it's an interesting visual thing to see us changing instruments.
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Oh, and apparently Edge and Adam switch on "40" live because it's more interesting that way.
I look forward to "Unforgettable Fire" being remastered.
Well at least it wasn't about U23D.
Well with all the re-issue talk, an older interview from the mid 80's, might actually fit in. Plus I just read some new insights into U2 as a band.
Full article here
////////
Guitar Player: The instrumental "4th of July" is unusual.
Edge: Unbeknownst to myself and Adam -- we were playing away inside, just working on a little improvisation -- Brian Eno was next door recording what we were doing through a series of treatments that he had set up for the vocals of the previous song. He thought it was so nice that he didn't bother even putting it onto multi-track. He put it straight onto 1/4" and that was it, the final product. We just snipped out a three-minute section that we thought was the best and stuck it on the front of side two.
GP: Could you detail what's going on in that track?
Edge: I don't remember all the details. I was a little tired of playing normal finger stuff, so I used a bottleneck. I was probably working with an echo in triplets with what Adam was playing, and he was in a very unusual time signature -- something like 13/8. Adam finds 4/4 not only boring, but extremely difficult to maintain. He moves in these natural rhythms that to everyone else seem totally weird and experimental. Playing against that time signature, I started working with the bottleneck and some harmonics. I may have detuned one of the strings, but it's a kind of instinctive thing. Immediately when Adam started playing his line, I knew there was something there that we could work with. Everything went on in that split second. It's a mixture of serendipity and intuition.
GP: What was your approach on "Pride?"
Edge: Well, I wanted something very percussive, because the whole rhythm of that song hinged on the guitar's 16-to-the-bar beat. It just made it skip along in a certain way. So, that was the main consideration for that piece. We started with a bass guitar chord sequence with some drum lines to it. Once we had the chord sequence and that guitar line….
GP: What is the chord sequence?
Edge: [Laughs] Adam's in charge of chord sequences, because I haven't a proper chord in years. It's B to E to A to F#. It's quite a traditional sequence in a funny way, but it just works well against what Adam is playing.
GP: You don't seem to play standard guitar chords very often.
Edge: No. I don't play proper guitar [laughs]. For a start, I avoid the major third like the plague. I like the ambiguity between the major and minor chords, so I tread a very fine line sometimes between the two. I tend to isolate the chords down to two or three notes and then octaves of the notes. Like for an E chord, I play just Bs and Es, including my big E string. With "Pride," for example, it's really just a couple of strings. The critical thing is the echo. I'm playing sixteenth-notes, and the echo device supplies the triplet, so it's a very fast thing.
GP: Why do you play bass onstage during "40"?
Edge: As that song was recorded in the studio, I played the bass. It seemed like a more interesting approach to make Adam learn the guitar than to make him learn my bass parts, and it's worked out very well. He's come up with his own approach to the guitar parts that I did in the studio. I think it's an interesting visual thing to see us changing instruments.
////////
Oh, and apparently Edge and Adam switch on "40" live because it's more interesting that way.
I look forward to "Unforgettable Fire" being remastered.
Well at least it wasn't about U23D.
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