By Bert van de Kamp
U2 delivered their tenth studio album All That You Cant Leave Behind, a warm and organic record containing a lot of passionate ballads, upon which the bands seems to have a patent. The four band members are very proud of the record, on which they worked for two years. For the first time we were able to realise all our ideas. They seem to be anxious to talk about it. We join the band and set our recorder. From left to right: The Edge, Larry, Bono and Adam.
Im not afraid of anything in this world
Theres nothing you can throw at me that I havent already heard
Im just trying to find a decent melody
A song that I can sing in my own company
[Stuck in a moment you cant get out of]
Somewhere on the French Southern coast, somewhere between Nice and Monaco, lies a small hotel. This is the location Bono pulled back to in 1985, to work on the lyrics of the top selling The Joshua Tree. Its this location where he wrote With or without you and Where the streets have no name and everyone who sees the view over the Mediterranean understands how he came to the latter title. Not far from the hotel, hed later buy a stretch of land and two run down mansions. Actually, I couldnt really afford it back then, he states. I talked Edge into paying the second half. Larry and Adam thought it was nuts, but now we live here for four months a year, they visit us on a regular basis. This spot saved our lives after ZooTV. We can safely pull back here with our families, listen to music and detach from the pressure. We can safely walk around here, cause the French are so pleased with themselves, they dont even see you!
The late Michael Hutchence has stayed here, like many other friends from the music business. This evening, Robbie Robertson and Michael Stipe are to be expected. Bono: Oui, je suis a rock star. Some clichés are perfect to hide away in.
On this location part of the album was created as well, using a portable mixing desk and a multi track recorder. One of the mansions has completely been renovated, while the other one still needs some fixing. Did you know that Mahatma Ghandi used to live here for a while? Bono leads us through the house and shows us the room where the Indian leader and peace maker used to pull back to pray. Apart from the impressive location, the summer hide-out of the two U2 front men doesnt seem to be over luxurious. Between the two mansions they did build a swimming pool for their children though, while the parents relax on the terraces, enjoying the local red wine, while the sounds of the new album, All That You Cant Leave Behind stand out of the breakers. On this warm August after noon Larry and Adam are also present. Today they have got to decide on the definitive track order of the new album and approve the final mix of the record. Bono, especially, is very enthusiastic and sings along to the songs out loud. The Edge does a little dance with his daughter. U2 sur mer [trans: U2 at the beach].
Bert: I cant escape from the impression that youre very satisfied with the new album.
Bono: Its the first time that weve made a record to which we keep on listening to, without thinking like This could have been better. We took time to let songs grow and develop.
Larry: If we had more time to finish certain songs from Pop or to play them live a few times, Pop would have been a better record. Theres a few gems on it. You can compare it with the October album. We were under time pressure at that time too. This time, Im under the impression that this represents the best we can do and thats a nice feeling. For the first time, we could realise all our ideas.
Bert: You seriously took your time to complete it.
Adam: In fact, we finished it faster than it seems. Two years ago, we started to make some demo recordings and with the help of the modern digital technology we are able to use certain elements from those first sessions for the new album.
Edge: A few takes from the first or second sessions made it to the album.
Adam: Even though we worked around with them a lot, we remained faithful to our demos.
Edge: It was the longest demo session in the history of pop music. At a given time, we had 24 songs on which serious work was done. One song per month, so thats not too bad.
Bert: Theres less experimentation on this record. A conscious return to the songs?
Adam: When we were recording the Pop album, we were constantly swinging between more programmed computer loops on one side and what were good at the other side. We broke through that dilemma this time by choosing (siding with) for the band.
Bert: Thats nice for Larry.
Larry: I didnt have any problem with those computer loops. The drums never sounded so good!
Bono: It wasnt the time to experiment. Theres a time for Passengers or Zooropa, but this is not the time for art. This is the time for songs. A good song takes you on its back, instead of the other way around. A good song causes you to get eager to stand and play on a stage and sing. These songs sing me!
Edge: For me its good that the guitar conquered back the central role over the keyboards. The challenge was not to repeat yourself. Its become a very contemporary record without consciously take current trends by the hands.
Bono: Right now, rock music is drifting away. The love for the first single has gone away, which was the most vital form of transportation for rock music. From the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, from the Clash to Nirvana. Todays pop music I love children I got a few of my own -, but the idea that children decide whos big in pop business is beyond me.
Bert: On Beautiful Day, The Edge sounds the way he did on I will follow.
Bono: Very strange.. when Edge played that riff in the studio, it caused the hairs in out necks to stand up straight and we wanted to erase the recording immediately because it sounded too much like U2. For the first time in a long while, I saw Edge getting angry. He said: Fuck it! We are U2!.
Edge: You can see it as a return to the core of who we are, a return to our primary colours. That song is as equally good, if not even better, than our old songs.
Bert: The title of the album; All That You Cant Leave Behind.
Bono: Like Larry said: Not a title to put on T-shirts! Rather a title for a movie.
Bert: I noticed it occurs in the lyrics of Walk On.
Bono: We had two versions of Walk On. We chose the most simple version. And love is not the easy thing / the only baggage you can bring / is all that you cant leave behind. Those sentences refer to the most essential thing of any love-relationship, even those relations within a rock band. Theres just things you just cant shake off of you. Your demons, for instance. Weve dedicated this song to Aung San Suu Kyi, a very brave woman. [red. Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese/Myanmar peace activist who won the Nobel price for peace in 1991]
Bert: Titles like Beautiful Day and Elevation sound very uplifting. U2 always gave a voice to feelings of hope and never of hopelessness.
Bono: Hopelessness is too easy, hope is much more difficult. Beautiful Day is a song about someone whos lost everything, his TV, his car, his wife, his children, but hes never felt as good! Its kind of a Zen-principle that losing everything is a good starting point to make a new start.
Bert: The guitar work is very remarkable on this new record. The solo in When I look at the world, but also the more subtle work in Grace.
Edge: I took the opportunity to play notes I never get to play. I love the guitar work on those old Al Green albums and on early reggae albums.
Bert: You use a minimum of effects.
Edge: Effects are only beneficial if they fit in the song. For instance, in Elevation. That guitar part I never could have played without its effects. But if you put a song like Stuck in a moment aside to it, then you hear a very dry, effectless sound.
Adam: That part you developed on the piano.
Edge: Yes, thats right. I do that sometimes, but doesnt always work out.
Adam: We sat in a circle when we recorded that song an idea of Dan [Lanois] and we hit it on the second take.
Edge: This is an intimate, revealing and personal record. The songs are less suitable to be played in big sport stadiums. Thats why we will start the next tour in smaller venues and well see how it goes from there.
Adam: Were not particularly anxious to play in stadiums.
Bert: The Popmart tour wasnt a smashing success in America.
Edge: I think that they didnt understand exactly what we were up to at that time. That was our own fault. The showbiz side overshadowed too much the more subtle sides. Very frustrating.
Adam: It was pre-Britney. There lies the heart of the problem.
Bert: Pardon me?
Adam: It was before America rediscovered pop music and before they took pop music in their arms again.
Edge: There were a lot of modern ideas in that show. It was rather a pop art-statement than a pop music statement, but apparently not everyone got that idea.
Bert: One of the paradoxes of U2 is that the songs on the record make serious artistic statements, while the emphasis lies upon entertainment during live shows.. the audio visual uproar.
Bono: The songs are private thoughts which get broadcast through a gigantic amplifier. That contradiction lies within our music. When songs become too much a personal matter, too coded without any effort to communicate, I lose my interest. I love all the music that challenges that contradiction. I love the raw, personal and sometimes almost embarrassing thoughts on the morning radio shows.
Bert: But the other extreme is to hear them from the inside of a gigantic melon.
Bono: No! Every rock band should have one! I love that contradiction. Just lately, I visited a Beck concert here in the South of France, and saw to my great amusement how he was inspired by the black funk show of Parliament and Funkadelic, while he threw in a few personal songs once in a while. Thats what we did during Popmart on a much larger scale. Its an old conception of music as a show. In the Seventies, youd only see that in disco, which was looked down upon by serious bands and the press. A lot of that music you hear nowadays in dance music. Take the Bee Gees, for instance; those hair cuts were unforgivable, but the music was exceptional.
Bert: Those satellite links with Sarajevo during the Zooropa tour are again another extreme. You cant keep up calling that entertainment.
Bono: Exactly. We got a lot of heat for that. It indeed was very difficult after that to pick up the show again. It was very much TV though; you switch from one channel to another. I recently went to Sarajevo for a film festival and talked to a few youngsters who I talked to during those satellite link-ups. Those people were very thankful for putting them in the spot light for a minute. The uncomfortability that you can feel during a U2 concert, from great to not great at all forms an important part of who we are.
Bert: You used Lou Reeds Satellite Of Love to pick up the thread of the show again. I sense him in the new record as well.
Bono: I imitate him in New York where I sing: I got a place in New York. He mentioned my name on his New York album, during Beginning of a new adventure, and now I pay him back. Were fans of Lous. Half of the songs we make are a failure in an attempt to make a Lou Reed or Velvet Underground song. From Bad to Running to stand still, you name it.
Bert: You are a better singer though.
Bono: But I can always learn!
Bert: Like The Edge showed during Numb
Bono: Exactly!
Adam: Those pop melodies Lou excels at, are so great just because he cant sing!
Edge: Hes the coolest alt rock master. His and the Velvets music have influenced thousands of band, and us too.
Bert: In what way?
Adam: Those pop melodies compared to that sonic overload. Within U2, Bono is always busy coming up with catchy melodies and thats what drives him. At the other end you have the Edge with his treatment and sometimes abuse of his guitar.
Edge: Within the handicap lies the master. In that respect we have been very lucky [laughs]. Were good at certain things, but in a lot of other things, were not good at all. That did count for Lou Reed and the Velvets too, as well for those punk bands who were inspired by them. When music is too perfect, it shuts people out. All of my favourite music is full of imperfections and battles.
Bert: In New York, theres also a brief Sinatra imitation.
Bono: Originally, the song had a spoken ending, during which I tell that I met him and that he took a blue napkin from a table and said I remember my eyes being as blue. In the end, we left that out, partly because the songs not autobiographical. I sing from a persons point of view.
Bert: So you dont have a house in New York?
Bono: I do! [laughs] The song more or less originated from the wonderful feeling to have a house there. The main character of the song is an older man whos always lived a protected life and who wants to expose himself in New York. Its the other way around for me. I exposed myself a little too much and can use a little protection.
Bert: Lets talk about Peace On Earth
Bono: When you call a song Peace On Earth, you build a scaffold for yourself and you know youre history if it aint a great song.
Bert: [quote] Hear it every Christmastime / But hope and history wont rhyme / So whats it worth[end quote], I found that to be a beautiful line.
Bono: That one comes from a Seamus Heavy translation of Philoctetes from Sophocles. After the Omagh bombing, just after the Good Friday peace agreement there was a lot of dismay. When the names of the victims were being read on the radio, people were crying in their cars. Maybe hard to understand for non-Irish.
Theyre reading the names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us wont get to know
Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda
Their lives are bigger than any big ideas.
[Peace On Earth]
Bert: In the song In a little while Bono sings with a hoarse voice, which I find exceptional.
Edge: Hed gone out the evening before.
Bono: Yeah, drank and smoked a little too much. Especially the latter Ive got to quit when I still have to sing. I gotta pay more attention to my voice. That version was done for fun, actually, and not meant to be on the record but the studio technician ran a tape and recorded it. I just wrote the lyrics, which start as an apology to your lover because youve been down and out too much again. At the end of the song, its about an astronaut in space and the song turns into a kind of science fiction gospel. In Beautiful Day, theres also a verse about an astronaut whos looking down and the things he sees: See the canyons broken by clouds etc. I love that shift of perspective and use that technique more times on this record.
Bert: You look back upon your childhood a lot, for instance at the start of Beautiful Day and Peace On Earth, and especially during Wild Honey.
Bono: What counts for me is a certain notion of timelessness, as well in the music as in the lyrics. I tried that on Pop too. You know that when you return to memories from the past, you actually return to the essence of who you are. Its a way of staying faithful to yourself and not being faithful to who you would have want to be.
Bert: What was the Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois part.
Edge: Those two have been part of it all ever since the beginning. They especially paid attention to the sound. A few songs from that early stage ended up on the Million Dollar Hotel Soundtrack, like The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Stateless
Adam: Falling At Your Feet
Edge: After that, we send them off to rest for two months, and worked on songs ourselves.
Bert: Brian has worked with you from the time when you were young and innocent, while hed build up a reputation himself in the avant-garde.
Bono: Other bands went to art school, we went to Brian. He had enough of that celebrate music, listened to a lot of gospel and woo-wop at that time. The ecstatic music we made in the 80s appealed to him a lot. We didnt try to be cool. Theres bands that had it all; the right looks, the right attitude and the dangerous way of living, but they didnt have it. We only had it and nothing else. We had to learn all the rest, but it you cant learn. You got it, or you dont.
Bert: When you look at where Brian and Daniel are coming from, its very remarkable those two found each other.
Edge: Theyve a different background, but probably listened to the same music when they were young. Music we dont know, music from the 20s and 30s.. a time when they were young! [laughs].
Adam: They love what the other does. They understand each other.
Edge: Danny understands the principle of making record from the artists point of view. Hes very involved, while Brian keeps some distance, but his objectivity is a valuable asset. Hes very intelligent and we take his criticism very seriously.
Bono: Hes also very good at getting things going.. kicking things up.
Edge: He actually doesnt like guitars at all. The thing he would want to do most, is to turn each U2-song into a soundscape. I do know that if I dont come up with some great guitar stuff, Bono and Daniel will be right there to take over.
Bert: Radiohead once started out as a U2-clone, has developed very strongly and now competes with you.
Edge: Coincidently, I listened to OK Computer yesterday. That record keeps on standing up straight. The melancholy pays its toll after a while.. you dont start to feel happy, but thats their power. I think theyre fantastic. That orchestral sound you hardly find anywhere else. Theyve also got two excellent guitar players.
Bert Larry, was this what you were thinking of when you pinned that note on the schools message board, which said you wanted to start a band?
Larry: No, I thought it would be my band.. that Id have control, but it went another direction.
Bert: Can you sing?
Bono: God is honest! [laughs]
Larry: I tried it a few times, but wasnt really encouraged.
Bono: Deep in his heart, Larry wants to be the lead singer. I want to be the guitar player and Edge wants to be the drummer. And deep in his heart, Adam wants to play the bass!
Larry: Actually, I want to be the manager, cause thats really the best job. You dont have to get on stage and shake your butt. Youve endless lunches with big-shots and you gotta memorise a few lines from Shakespeare. And thats all. I dont have all those things yet, but I can learn!
Bert: Youve another band in mind?
Larry: I wanted a glam rock band, a combination of The Sweet and Slade, which would play an Elvis cover once in a while. It went another direction, cause we couldnt play any instruments and thats why we started to write our own songs. Thats the truth.
Bert: Well, you really made it after all. Does it worry you that the mega status made the band less popular by the critics?
Edge: Only what some critics is concerned, who work in the margin and think they know it all. Weve always done things that stood right opposite of the things that were trendy. In the time of Material Girl and Duran Durans savoury videos, we stood in a desert at the Joshua tree.
Adam: As far as us is concerned, we got a whole lot of respect for our fans, because theyve got to try real hard to follow us and they manage. We never make a record that the critics and the fans expect us to make, and I think that its good that way.
Bert: Twenty years together, a big achievement.
Edge: We already were friends when we started. That was the basis. We started just for the fun of it. Im not saying it has always been easy. Theres been tensions, but the respect weve got for each other always kept us together. And the music, of course. We know that when the four of us are playing in a room, something special happens. To experiment with influences of the dance scene can be very stimulating, but you gotta be honest and admit that theres others whore better at that and acknowledge where your own strength lies.
Bert: Adam, youre a bit the prodigal son of the band after your drug bust and didnt show up for a concert.
Adam: Yes, I derailed a few times.
Bert: But thats Rock n Roll too, right?
Adam: Fortunately, it is, yes.
Edge: Our problems mean nothing, compared to other bands problems.
Adam: People have died.
Edge: In Rock n Roll, being successful also makes victims. Theres people who cant take it. We know the names.
Bert: Kurt Cobain
Edge: I never understood why selling a lot of records can make someone unhappy.
Adam: Its a complex thing and every generation deals with it in a different way.
Edge: For us, its no problem. You dont start a rock band because youre shy but because youve got something to say and you want to be on stage to make that statement. Lets be honest; weve always wanted to be a big rock band.
Bert: Are you the Rolling Stones of the second generation?
Edge: I cant say that. Weve got a lot of respect for the Stones. Their music is based on a very simple idea. Apart of the flirt with disco in the 70s, they more or less remained faithful to the style they got when they started.
Bert: Are there any heroes you never were able to meet, but very much would like to meet?
Edge: Pablo Picasso.
Adam: Macy Gray
Bono: The real Slim Shady! Samuel Beckett. Dean Martin. And Thomas of Aquinas because Ive a bunch of difficult questions to ask that man.
Larry: Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich. Elvis, Id have wanted to see perform.
Bono: I recently met Sophia Loren. I was carrying my youngest child on my arm, who was drooling so much that drool slipped right between her two remarkable breasts. When I apologised, she said: Dont apologise.. I got used to it [laughs out loud]
