U2 presented a new sound

Elvis’s song was just a hint of the unorthodox chemistry between Eno, known for his experimental art-rock intellect, and U2, the politically fiery, spiritually passionate Irish quartet whose calls for social unity have made them the conscience of today’s biggest touring bands. . Their current tour will take them – Bono, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullin – to the Worcester Centrum for a sold-out concert this Sunday.

“I think the atmosphere during those sessions was particularly conducive to developing new ideas and challenging a lot of things we took for granted,” U2’s The Edge said during a recent phone interview from England. “And I think that was one of the things that Eno suggested in the sessions. He really became the devil’s advocate and challenged our preconceptions about how things should go.”

For example, in the Elvis song, Bono regularly asked to take a tape of him singing home to finish it later, but Eno had other plans.

“What does it mean to finish this?” — Edge remembers Ino’s words. “It’s over. Look, Bono, you have a unique talent for this, and no one has ever heard it in such a raw form. What’s wrong with presenting real improvised vocals to the audience?”

“It was a very adventurous move,” The Edge says of Eno’s decision, “and I have to say we were nervous about it. But I think it’s the most innovative thing that’s been done in a while, in terms of recording something live and raw, without any pretension. And I believe it works. We left out various sections that were a bit wordy (you could call them self-indulgent), but as a piece they carried me through, and that’s what matters. I never stopped twirling my fingers or thinking that I could go and make a cup of tea. There’s a certain urgency to performing that keeps you there.”

However, not all U2 fans accepted the band’s new approach. The band’s patented jangly guitars are still present alongside Bono’s emotionally charged vocals, but the mood and production are decidedly more oblique. Although the album features the runaway hit “Pride (In the Name of Love),” which The Edge sees as a bridge between the band’s former rock style and recent experimentation, the record still presents a great challenge for fans of the band’s latest album.” War” is a more powerful, stunning effort that is much easier to understand.

“We feel that the new album is probably the most accurate representation of where we are going and what we want to achieve as a band,” says The Edge. “War” was a special project that had a special idea and motivation. It was a reaction to pop music’s trend toward slush, which had no real commitment and made no attempt to create anything other than disposable entertainment.

“We thought that by creating War we would provide an alternative—a slap in the face—that would contrast with what seemed to be the trend of the time. And with this new album, I don’t think we’re on the same page. We just started writing songs, and only after we had at least a few songs did we decide on a producer. I think if it had been a slightly different collection of material, we wouldn’t have asked Brian to produce it. But the songs we had reflected a certain European sensibility and we felt Brian would be a good fit to work on them,” says The Edge.

“So we’re not surprised that as a record it was destined to be understood more by the European press than by the American press, because it’s much more European in sound and approach.”

Having recorded three albums with producer Steve Lillywhite, the members of U2 were ready for a change. However, the four bandmates, who had been friends since their early school days in Dublin, where the Edge got his nickname, had no idea how unconventional these changes would be thanks to Eno.

The first part was easy. Seeking a change from Dublin’s Windmill Lane Studios, where they had recorded their past albums, U2 rented Sloane Castle, a country castle, in whose grand ballroom they installed recording equipment in the hope of achieving an edgy live sound. Then came Eno and his bag of tricks. Besides the aforementioned sleight of hand in the Elvis tribute, he took the rest of the band by surprise on “4th of July,” a wistful instrumental song celebrating not only America’s Independence Day, but also the birth of The Edge’s first daughter last summer. and the fact that Eno himself had just bought a house in his childhood region of East Anglia, England.

“Me and Adam were just jamming together, and unbeknownst to us, Brian wasn’t turning on a multi-track machine, he was just turning on a quarter-inch stereo,” The Edge recalls. “And he had some nice guitar edits, and he recorded five or six minutes of what we did, and that was essentially what you heard. So not only was it improvised, but we didn’t even know it was being recorded.”

However, although Eno was cunning and inventive throughout, he never dominated the sessions, according to The Edge. “There was never any bad blood between Brian and the band. The pressure he put on it was always very positive,” he notes. “If we really felt strongly about something and disagreed with him, we needed to really make our voices heard while still bringing the best of the group’s work.”

U2, as it turned out, offered their tricks in free form. For example, “Pride (In the Name of Love)” arose from an improvisation during sound check and from a guitar part that The Edge suddenly heard by chance at Bono’s house. Another song, “MLK,” a lullaby tribute to Martin Luther King, was the result of Bono coming up with the melody while a vacuum cleaner was running.

“He has a vacuum cleaner that makes musical notes,” says The Edge. (In England, the word “vacuum cleaner” means vacuum cleaner.) “So one day he wrote lyrics for a vacuum cleaner. We then failed to create a musical arrangement that fully represented the melody. Whenever we started, it always sounded too traditional and never captured the true essence of the melody. So when it came time to tackle this piece, we decided we should start with the melody and the buzz and see where it took us. And it sounded so full that we decided it had to be that way.”

Regardless of whether they are unusual or not, all this experimentation was necessary to avoid feeling outdated, The Edge insists.

“We were very conscious of maintaining a creative, inspiring atmosphere in the studio, and one of the ways we achieved this was to eliminate any sense that this was a production line or a treadmill project,” he concludes, understatement. “So it was kind of freeform in a lot of ways, but it was great. This sustained us through a rather difficult and long session. If we had approached this in a more business-like, technical way, I’m sure we would all probably have had a nervous breakdown.”