50 Years In, What's the Point of U2? Bono and the Edge Have Answers.

People have said of you two that we're the bands that people who don't know that they believe in God like So I think there's an element of it's it's it's what they say that personally is true, but I'm David Marcazi from the New York Times here in the streets of Dublin for a YouTube performance and tomorrow I'll be talking with Bono and the edge from the band. I Travel to Ireland to watch you to take the city by storm. They performed at the school where they all first met Then they gave a surprise free concert on the streets of the city drawing a massive crowd It's all to celebrate not just you two's 50th anniversary But the release of their first album in eight years called Carnival Delus Bono and the edge are the band's creative engine and they've always been an intriguing pair to me Bono the out there outspoken frontman Edge the low-key guitarist and musical mastermind. Here's my conversation with Bono and the edge But first a quick message if you're not a subscriber we have some news for you You can now explore the times for free without paywalls during your first month in the New York Times app Just download the app and we hope you enjoy it. Okay onto the interview. Well, it's you want to check won't you? You you guys know we're taking the whole ride in this conversation, right? Yeah, okay, good good. All right, okay, but thank you very much. You snow flakes. Yeah Come and get me if you're heart. No, so I want to ask you guys about sort of what you two is now 50 years after you started and so I I think of the band has at various times you know wanting to be the best band in the world and wanting to be you know the biggest band in the world and sometimes those two are the same things Maybe sometimes those those two art, but you know, it probably shouldn't be the case that the best and biggest rock and roll band in the world is a band that's been around for 50 years comprised of guys in their 60s. You know, I was thinking about like if they would be like if in 1976 Al Jolson Stopping around But but what fair? I heard full about fairs what I go for But what like what do you what do you guys think? The purpose of you two is right now like what should be what should you to be trying to be We genuinely think that we Might just write the best song we've ever written next week or do the best show we've ever done next tour and When we talk about the best we're not thinking about Rock and roll in its in its kind of Just the song we're thinking about our Favorite bands and I always think when I'm in the audience at a show what would I want to see in here? So it's it's it's like where rock and roll collides with Activism where rock and roll collides with Ideas from fine arts and I suppose a transcendent aspect as well the we've never thought it was necessary to Hold back our own kind of spiritual quests and questionings from our work. They are all expressed and when When we hit a song That I think has as as a transcendent quality. That's that's the peak for me and I can relate to it another work in other music from other bands So I I recognize it and it's not always the obvious person. It might be a van Morrison or you know gospel songs whatever So I really think we're in with a shout of Of the best songs we've ever written the best tours we've ever done still so that's why I'm still in this band and therefore the shot of the best songs anyone's ever in and That's where you to get really annoying because that grandiosity is by that it's in every Artists who you probably not in every arts, but in all the artists that wanted go there the Beatles or Nirvana or I'm jealous when suddenly We're left out of the pop charts. That's a personality flaw because 66 once a month to storm the pop charts Somebody should somebody should throw some cold water over this but but actually deep down is because I Don't want those ideas to be left out of the mainstream because my favorite artists stormed the mainstream so I think even of David Bowie, you know, I think of his best work as being both Experimental and innovative So the stuff you do, but you know, but also he was he wanted he just we wanted to make sense and and even into his 40s 50s he could just throw out a perfect pop song and Then maybe that goes back to the Beatles does it by paying the white album. You could do deer proofs Yes, and how to scale to the same and number nine, but the Beatles existed for eight years That's a big difference. That's a big difference. Well, we Somebody broke up the Beatles Well, you say there are there are ideas that you want To be in the mainstream ideas that you have that you want to interact with people What what are some of those ideas now? Well, how about just our collective approach? That'd be interesting and And that there's nowhere we won't go as artists in terms of our intellectual curiosity and I've you know, they're sort of the Metaphysical thing, you know the gospel side of of you - that was only allowed if you were black in rock'n'roll You can't be like white people talking about God because generally white people who talk about God make our audience very nervous You know, but not in the black church say in America. You knew imagine coming to the United States And we just seen those tell you evangelists, so we're like wow these people are really in deep trouble And then you walk into a black church and you hear that the first of all the sort of abandonment of the singing and the That feeling, you know, and it's fervor, but it's not freaky fervor So that was That was a real joy. So we've been able to sing songs of faith and devotion and Sing songs of doubt, you know to put The gospel with the blues which is rock'n'roll, you know that they all cliche the gospel So the blues is the shouting a guard part of this, you know and goes back to the Psalms of David goes back to those books of wisdom and then you just want to listen to my girl and It took us a while by the way just to get to the girl bit We started with God and then ended up a girl's But I would just say yeah, there's no way you can't go Including the pop charts my constant arguments is okay. I don't know if you feel the same way It's just don't see them to just those Those pop mechanics don't it's like get those get those I hip-hop did it and Got kind of revolutionary ideas on the radio, but a lot of indie stuff just gave up. They weren't even bothering So just yeah, you know, we'll give that but that's over that the chance of that argument. Yeah, exactly you said that maybe you know sort of religiousness or or God in the music can be a little uncomfortable for your audience sometimes and I Maybe some segment of your audience, but I would actually argue that the religious impulse behind your music is hugely Important to your audience and it's a big part of why You're as a as popular as you are and why people feel so closely connected to the band you guys Famously for years would close your concerts with 40, which is an adaptation of a psalm and the crowd would Sing along with it you you you must have known that there was sort of a that was rooted in religious feeling right or no, I mean yes we were Aware of that, but we we weren't seeing it as as a selling point we we were seeing it as just The thing we have to speak about because it's where we're coming from as as people so it would have been hugely dishonest to to try and sort of not Have that be presented in our work, but be People have said of you two that were the band, the people who don't know that they believe in God like. So I think there's an element of it's. - It's what they say that personally is true, but. - Right, so it's like in the work in such a natural way, there's no polemic there. It's just it is our search, our inquiry. And what people don't understand, well certainly I can speak personally about this, because we're not part of any religious movement, doctrine, sect, it's the same journey, it's the same quest. And it involves so much doubt, and it has to, I think, because if it's not dogma, then it's constantly in flux, up for grabs. So I would say I'm sort of agnostic about half of the week, and then the rest of the week. I've got an incredible strong faith, and but it's always changing, it's always ready to be upgraded. - Well, I want to ask about failure and success. So obviously you two had enormous successes. I would probably, you know, war is an early high point, and then Joshua Tree, and oxygen baby, and this Europa Tour, and all you can't leave behind it. And also there have been, I don't know, probably not just as many ambitious failures, but there have been failures too, which, but I don't have to, you know what they are, I have to. - There's a lot, you wouldn't even have seen or heard of. - But in terms of, if we're talking about success in failure, what does success or failure for the new album look like? - I feel as already a success myself. And because I think, because of the degree of time and effort and dedication to the work, and I can stand over it in a way that I don't really care that much what happens now, because I know it's really great. - I could say that, but I wouldn't. - You wouldn't mean it. - He actually does, but yeah, it's a bit like, you know, you're a comedian, and you tell, you've got a routine, you get to, you know, and the punch line arrives, and if no one laughs, it's just not quite the same. - Right. - I mean, it's still funny on the page, except if no one laughs, it's kind of the same. And some of the songs, I just would love to see even another artist take them somewhere. You know, 'cause I know it'll be tricky. So there's a song we were just talking about, gospel music a minute ago. This is a song called "Glorify" on the album. And we really end up putting what's like a demo on the album. It's really minimal expression of the song. That's a screaming dance floor hit. And if it owes to anyone, it's probably normal cook, fat boys slim, praise you. That's how I always just imagine that. And it's a nice twist on the gospel songs. Some from the divine point of view, and it's like, you're nothing but bad news. The kind I can't refuse. It's you I choose to glorify. So you can sing it to your mate on the dance floor, your lover, whatever. And I must admit, there's a part of me that goes, fuck, I just wish I want to do that version. I'm not sure we can or somebody else to do that. I think it's almost exactly 50 years ago today. Maybe give or take a day that you guys, I believe practiced for the first time in drummer Larry Mullin Jr.'s kitchen. And you guys have talked about that moment before. He posted a note and asking for musicians to play with. And then you went into his kitchen. I think he sprayed some people who are watching with a hose. But I want to know some girls who are watching. I don't know if you know this, but in Bono's memoir, Surrender, he writes about when you guys were teenagers that you and your brother Dick had a reputation as well, he put it was weirdos, pleasant weirdos, but weirdos nonetheless. I think this is maybe in reference to you and your brother blowing up your family's garden shed likely. But what was, do you remember having any sort of sense of Bono's reputation? What did you think of him before you all started playing together? - Well, yeah, first of all, I think that was absolutely valid. Comment from Bono, my son, my brother, definitely, there is some neurodivergence there of some sort. ADHD, I don't know, autism, whatever. So socially speaking, we were always a little bit, a little bit on the fringe. But yeah, fascinating with explosives. So we did experiments a lot. And I know way too much about how to blow things up than I ought to. But Bono, his reputation, he unproceeded him in my life because one of my best friends growing up, Shane Fogarty, went to my temple a year ahead of me. So I kind of quizzed him about school, like what's it like? And he says, it's all right, it's okay. You don't have to wear uniforms. People are very nice. And there's some fun heads there, you know? I said, like who? He said, just mad fucking head called Paul Houston. He's mental, but he's good fun. So I was like, even before I went, I'd heard about this character. And I guess Bono's always been that, you know, extroverts, exhibitionists, performer. And he certainly had that age 13 already. You guys have, you've documented your career together in a bunch of different ways in documentary films and in the YouTube, by YouTube book, you know, obviously in countless interviews. And to, are there ways in which your memories and understanding of, you know, the story of how you came together has been superseded by like the legend and the lore. - You're suggesting we are not superheroes. - Yeah, I do. - Is that what you are suggesting? - I always, the source in some sort of mythological sense, if I'm honest, but the names, think about it. It's just, we wish to escape suburbia and discover this, you know, these other selves, really. And we gave those other selves names. And, you know, that's, you know, the Ramones were the sort of key for us. And they are indeed just really well drawn characters, the Ramones. - Wow. - But were you, you just said about coming up with the fictional names? This always killed me about the band. Is that, you know, Bono, Edge, and then Adam and Larry. - Well, you know why? - Was there any discussion that they should have names too? - Well, first of all, we need to explain the whole name thing. I mean, what was true of us at that age was that we laughed a lot. And we would laugh at each other and ourselves. And that was the deal. You could laugh at others if you were prepared to allow them to laugh at you. So the names were not necessarily designed for their sort of heroic aspect. So Bono's very first name was, in fact, Steinrich Van Haishen, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang. And then I was in Shakur for a while before I became the Edge. Adam, for a while, was known as Mrs. Burns. And Larry, for some reason, was known as the Jamja, for a while. And so this is all like, because we just loved to laugh, we were borrowing a lot from, like, Monty Python and various. It's about inventing who you want to be rather than who you were given when you were born at a certain point, place and time. - When you and I spoke last, in a setting similar to this, around the time of your book, it was a real pub. It was Jimmy's corner pub, the boxing bar. You've been there many times, great jukebox. This can be a real pub, but the New York Times won't let us have a drink. - When we spoke at that time, you had told me that you had been working on songs of a cent, but then thought, "Well, we need an album of sort of rude guitar music." And then, on reason about guitar music, and then I saw somewhere, maybe it was you, as you said, that you guys had then been working on an album of, I think it was called Sci-Fi Irish Folk with Brian Eno. And of course, we've arrived at Carnival Delus. So in just a, like in a practical way, can you describe like when the concept changes? Does Bono just show up one day, says, "Guys, we're scrapping sci-fi Irish folk, we're doing Carnival." How does it actually work? I think it's really music tells you, and as we were working on those projects, it was pure creative experimentation and exploration. There was no deadline, there was no nothing booked or committed to, it was like we were exploring in a really fun way with some of the people that we love to work with Brian, Eno, we did some stuff with Johnny McDade, Ed Sheeran, we did some stuff with Martin Garrix. I had also spent the whole pandemic lockdown just working on music, so we had this beautiful opportunity to just create with no agenda and then just kind of see where it took us. If you look at the Carnival Deluce 12 track record, then you look at the two EPs, and they naturally seemed to coincide with some of these other moments in the ecclesiastical sort of calendar, the days of ash, a time of crisis, of reflection, and so the political songs seemed to make perfect sense there, and then Easter lily, these reflective attempts are dealing with the bigger questions these other songs felt like they were part of that. But what we had decided is that the album should be a counter-vailing mood to the times, which the times are an anxious, I would say, despondent time. People are really a bit lost, and we were like, "What is that we can help here with?" And we thought, "Well, an album that's a party, a celebration, a sort of bringing people together, a gathering around our common aspirations would be the thing to do." That seemed to us, Carnival Delusors, the perfect way to describe that. There's a defiance to this too, there's a quote, "I hope I put it in the line of notes. I meant to." Is it the dance average quote that you're talking about? Yeah, which is, you know, he was an AIDS activist in San Francisco, right, in the middle of that crisis, and he said, "In the morning, we would bury our friends in the afternoon, we would go out to protest," you know, so we'd have less people to bury than in the night, in the evenings. We would go out to dance because the dance was what we were fighting for. I loved that so much. That is not surrendering to the melancholy. That's the defiance. And if you go, again, sorry to do this, it's a nourished person, but go to the black church during civil rights, they're up, slying the family stone. No minor chords, it's like, you know, wow, dance to the music. That's Carnival. And it's defiant joy, the thing we were looking for. Where's the line between defiance of the kind that you're describing, and, you know, fiddling while we're on burns? What do you think? Nero? Well, I think one is actually to be in denial, and one is to be aware, fully aware, to stare darkness in the face and to still choose joy. That's the difference. The other is to pretend everything's fine and hide in your cave. I think technology is a big problem right now. In the media, people are in their heads, too much, they're in their part of the echo chamber of their own algorithm too much. I think what's really important is the reset, and it could be, I think, rock 'n' roll concerts are a great example of that, festivals. But I think, you know, we are so much more capable than we are led to believe. And I think by being isolated and by allowing the way of negativity to go on and challenge, people are feeling disempowered and dejected, they don't understand that they can be part of something great. And I think that's what's really positive about rock 'n' roll shows and festivals, gives people that sense of agency again. Rage is kind of just a rage as part of this, rage is part of the right response, you know, rage anger is okay. I was actually, the parade on which I'm trying to reign is the melancholy, the surrendering to melancholy. We do, in our bands, have those songs. The keening is the call at Nile and it's the wailing, you know, we do. And there's a place for them. But it's so much better, the punk rock of it was turning rage into a beautiful 45 rock 'n' roll single, wow. But to surrender to the melancholy, so we're trying to avoid it. We talk about the album as sort of being rooted in a kind of defiance in a way and I think in that sense that you could, one could almost think of it as like a protest album. But it's a protest album where, you know, there are like no proper nouns, you know, you're not saying who you're protesting against or naming anyone explicitly. And I'm thinking of this in the context of just some of your peers at the top of the rock and roll pyramid where Bruce Springsteen, for example, this year was out on the road where he would literally give speeches railing against Trump and his administration and its policies. And on the other side, I spoke to Mick Jagger earlier this year and I asked him a question about the function of rock stars and he wasn't talking about Springsteen in particular. But he basically said, "Hey, I'm here to help you have a good time. Nobody wants to be lectured." And I kind of wondered if making an album of defiant joy, protest music, sort of, which is politically galvanizing, without actually mentioning politics ever, was your way of trying to walk a middle path there? You know, it's picking the fight with the author of all of this mess that we. Which is. Who's the author? I mean, it's the big guy. So, you know, I found believing in God or that God is love or love is God. I found that quite unusually easy in my life. But the concept of evil, that was very tricky for me. It wasn't as easy to digest. And so, in, I think it's in, it is in, if the world is at war, we better not be just one of the sounds for the new album. Yeah. Yeah, I think the line goes, "I want to speak to the spirit." Um, you can feel it, but you can't fear it. The kings or queens or emperors of despair, we're not arguing the toss. We've got some words for your boss. We're speaking to, who speaks through you, to the prince of the power of the air. All these shimmers and these glimmers mirrors that must crack. All the neon fizzing flickers were grateful for some of that. The fiction of a nation, the stories we don't tell, we need the light of illumination so you can go right back to hell. If the world is at war, we better not be. So I just felt that's what this album's about. Evil is, we should be grateful, it's out in the open. And, um, on Days of Ash, we name names and, um, I think I, well, I don't know if we've spoken about this publicly, but I spoke to, um, Renee Good, her family. He spoke to her family. Yeah, I spoke to her, to her family, killed by ice in Minnesota. Yeah. And we wrote a song about her week later, Bruce, um, the same week. Before us. And, and in it, we said, we had this line, America will rise, uh, up against the people of the line, America will rise against the people of the line. And edge, and give me this book, 30 years ago by M. Scott Peck, called The People of the Lie. And, and it's about the nature of evil and study of, of milling and narcissism. Anyway, I was explaining to the family, they, before we used the lyric about their, their daughter had been murdered. by ice agents, you know, asking them for permission. They're on Zoom. And the father says, "When I get to the bed about a miracle arising against the people of the lie," he said, "I have the book People of the Lie here." I said, book that age gave me 30 years ago. He says, "Yeah, it's right here just a month ago. I took it out to explain some of what's going on to my son." So with those songs in days of ash, we did go to names in Iran, in Iran, but for the carnival to lose, we didn't want to go down, and we didn't want to. There's a line in I mean, I sunshine, which goes catastrophizing as the glamorizing of the world's pain. If you don't want to make a devil bigger, stop repeating his name. So we just didn't want to talk about certain stuff. And can I go on here for just a second? You've never stopped before. I know. I'm so sorry about that, but you know, if you can separate a discussion about this administration from a discussion about the left and the right and conservatives and liberals, then I'm fine to go ahead with it, because I think this is this is the most extraordinary moment. I mean, I think this is the greatest heist in the history of the world, stealing America, and it's not a caper movie. It's real, and it's happening. And and I can, you know, I just don't want to want to put off good people who vote conservative, who vote republic, and I, you know, their, their party's been hijacked, and it's an aggressive takeover of the GOP. I want to invite them back. I want them to return. I want to make that they, you know, because people vote conservative for all kinds of reasons that are okay. So we can talk about it without getting to the usual log as we can say, but this is a serious problem and I have serious personal dealings with this, because 25 years of work in development. If you're talking about evil in the world, right? Let's put that in the context of what you were just about to bring up with your, you know, the, the aid work that you and your organization has done over the years with you get us just a whole movement across the world. But this, this work has, has been decimated by, the work of Doge and, you know, by proxy Elon Musk, by the Trump administration. Do you see evil in that? And one of the general clues on evil look of the abuse of children, I would say. And that's always a clue, wherever you see that. I don't know how many fatalities will eventually be attributed to the Doge cuts. There are many different estimates. There's modeling. If you go to, say, the Lancet British Medical Journal, most respected medical journal, one of the most, they, they suggest, I think up to 2030, maybe five million children under five. And let's say they're half wrong. Let's say it's, let's say the, let's say the 20%. Let's say it's only 20% of what? Christian households, what Catholic households, what Jewish religious, what is anyone, anyone of faith, in fact, anyone of conscience would allow the, the hemorrhaging of human life. That is going to happen as a result of these Doge cuts. I mean, it's just, it's, it is unconscionable. Well, here's the test of faith question. And then I'll move on. I was listening just this morning again to this, to glorify from the new album. There's a line in this in the song, you spit in my eye, you're a bald faced, bare faced lie, and there's nothing you can do to keep me from loving you. You know, it's the idea of having love for the ones who are your enemies or your opposites. Do, do, do you, do you have love for the people who are doing the things that you're calling unconscionable? Yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I love these people because I believe God loves them. And Christianity calls us not only to, to love our neighbor, but to love our enemies, but what's going on with the, the man whose, whose name shall not be mentioned is something way bigger than the man. It's going on all over the world. It's a crisis in the left. And it's not, by the way, the heist, this raised heist in the history of the world, it's, it's the crown jewels, it's freedom, it's democracy, it's like the fucking enlightenment, you know, science, you know, and that's it. So you have obviously had the experience many times of being in situations like this and having Bono field questions like the kind that I'm asking, what is it like for, for you to be in that situation? Like, are you sitting there thing? I, you know, I'd really rather he asked about the guitar tones on. I mean, look, we don't mind getting deep and serious, but, you know, you want to keep, keep some balance as well. I mean, that is why you two pivoted so heavily after the Joshua Tree in Rathlin Hanoi, two actor, maybe, yeah, is because we realized we were being robbed of aspects of who we were. You know, it just wasn't reflected in, in the work. And therefore, people's understanding and perception of us. So the thing to remember about us is, yes, we can, we can go there, we can get very heavy and very deep, but actually, we've a lot of fun. And what, when we're together working, we laugh a lot. And we laugh a lot at each other and ourselves. And we, we've, we've failed a lot. And we're happy with the fact that we're comfortable with failing. Because to us, it's like it's a, you don't, you don't get to somewhere great unless you're prepared to fail. So, yeah, look, I share a lot of fun as views on these things. And, you know, we, we, we feel a little bit of a responsibility, I suppose, to, to address what we see going wrong with the world, but you can't do it infestantly. So on our album, we touch on it lightly. And then, you know, as you say, we're not mentioning names because we don't want to get into finger wagging. What we want to do is actually draw attention to something that's a kind of antidote, something that's better. And I think that's the way people operate. You tell somebody they shouldn't do something. It's gonna be a struggle. You should have said that to him about 35 years ago. Are you laughing at us? So when, when you're in the studio with, with Adam and Larry, and you guys have known each other 50 years, you've been creative partners, business partners, you know, in each other's lives for, for decades, there's got to be things that the rhythm section just looks at the front line guys, it goes, they do this stuff that drives me nuts. What are the things that you do that drive Adam and Larry nuts? Both of you. Hmm. Well, you know, bands are weird things. Yes, be honest. Very weird. They're kind of like we are brothers and arms, for sure. But we don't agree on anything, on everything by any means. And, and there's no, we end up making decisions by consensus because we've learned over the years that if, if we're arguing about something, there's a problem. When everybody just goes, that's it. We know we're onto it. So we do argue, but generally speaking, it's when something's not quite right. And then it's just a difference of opinion, like what road we take. So I would say, yeah, I'm sure I'm, I'm very annoying at times, but maybe you should. I don't think it is. And that's annoying, by the way. No, because he's a person of great reason. And, you know, clearly this extraordinary influential guitar player who, you know, is the only person in the world is not talking about that. I would have the annoying gene, I think, probably the most. I'm guilty or wrong, take me away. I've got it. But it's it's a it's a thing that about performers, you know, the same portal that you open up to fit a whole stadium inside it, you know, is not maybe a portal you can close enough in time to protect yourself from what's in the outside world. And you know, you think about stadium size egos like myself. And you think about them, you think about self-agrandism and then and and much worse. But what happens is the opposite. Actually, it's the collapse of the ego. It's singing itself is a vulnerability if you're any good. So in order to protect yourself, sometimes you put up the fist. So my voice is rather most vulnerable. Edge, can I ask? So so you know, when I do like the reductive analysis of what drives your bandmate here, you know, it's probably too simplistic, but there's probably some truth in it to say like, you know, you you lost your mother, young, your father, you and he were at loggerheads. And then you have, you know, you've found the attention of the rest of the world that you did not have from your parents. Thank you, doc. I'm going to lie down. I just want my head. I just want my head. I need to. You know, it's a 50 minute hour. But is it if you're willing to get a similarly psychologically simplistic with me, I mean, you you don't fall into what you've become by accident. What what are the things that you think in your deepest core drive you to me? I have driven you to achieve what you've achieved. Where does it come from? I think if if ballers drug of choice might be recognition, I think my drug of choice is probably engagement and inclusion. So so I always loved being part of this, you know, and so that in a way was was enough in some ways. And also the other thing I absolutely have to an annoying degree is a kind of problem solver gene. So I want to do stuff myself. I'm not a good delegator. I'm not somebody who naturally looks for others to to weigh in. And that's to my detriment. You want to get a good yourself. I want to do it. And I see I see songwriting in some ways as, you know, you've got the clue. Now what's the next clue? And it's iterative in that sense for for us, I think more than most songwriters, we will start with a version of a song, we'll tear it apart, we'll rebuild it's most the time. It's it's it's iterative. It's it's a it's a tough process. But I kind of love love it and and being part of the band. That's those two things really are things I I'm not sure, you know, I could imagine a more rewarding place to be personally than as as member of this band. I bought a you have to stay inside man mode for a second because I have another. Just in terms of your guitar playing, I I really think of you as someone who for a long time. This is as as a fan and as a guitar player like part of the fun of hearing you play was hearing you come up with ways to make the guitar sound not like a guitar or sound like make the car sound in new ways than we'd heard it before. And I think my sense is that you were very consciously wanting to resist the cliches of rock and roll music and rock and roll guitar playing. But now at at a moment where you know I wouldn't say the guitar and rock and roll cliches are you know at the forefront of any music listener's attention in any serious way. Do you still think about your guitar playing as as sort of being an opposition to expected sounds? You're absolutely right that I've always made it a point to try and find a way to make the guitar sound different and to play the guitar in a different way. I think that was born of the fact that we emerged as a band in that moment after punk rock punk rock kind of pulled everything down and started from grand zero again. So we were like we took advantage of that opportunity to just start something new. If you want the cycle is order disorder reorder and we we arrive just at the beginning of that reorder phase. But that demanded that you you did abandon the past. We were looking for what's next in this in the story of contemporary music. Where does this story go now? So from a guitarist pointed you I was always trying to do something fresh and still still do. I think that we're almost back in that moment again. I don't mean necessarily just a music culture but in terms of global geopolitics all of the things that were affecting culture in the mid to late 70s post Vietnam it's like that we're there again. So I think music has to do a similar thing of reinvention and I think that's that's an exciting moment. I think from music to to find some a new narrative to to to follow. Are there artists now who you think are pushing that reinvention forward? I think there are. I mean Geese for instance I think that's a very compelling new thing. Fountains DC, another great group that are really taking things in a different direction and there's more you know when it when it starts to feel too comfortable and too predictable I start to to twitch I'm looking for a shocking new thing always. I saw you know I was reading the trades as I do and I saw an item not that long or probably I don't know earlier this year something like that where you guys had hired a woman named Selena on as part of your Selena on as part of your management team she had previously been at Spotify doing I think global curation and and I think Jeff Aesoff is one of your managers now he manages Harry Styles. When you two starts working with new managers presumably those people pitch something to you or say to you make an argument to you guys presumably for you know how what their value to is what they're worth is so what what did they tell you that you didn't know about how you two can find new listeners or move forward at at this point in the band's career and and in this particular musical world we live in. We've just heard this just in the last couple of weeks we've been sitting around listening to people tell us to do things suggest that we do things that we hadn't thought of like what what are they telling you and one of the things that was explained to us and Selena was great at this she said it is almost impossible the way people live now and listen now in their separate communities to to to do something that everyone will be aware of the the amount of advertising you would have to spend the amount of concerts you'd have to play in in every college town or you know around the world you just people still might know that you put out a new album so you should turn up in unexpected places and and and they were suggesting some of them and some of them were just not things that we would have considered and and I just we were laughing before of us and going what you know we still going to have to break into the charts it's nothing's changed since we were kids and it's hard and we were sitting around with Larry who doesn't like normally to do this kind of thing and it was saying you know are we ready to go out and meet people they you know they know know who we are I'm used to it as an activist but are we as a band and I was surprised that all four of us were like okay let's give me another suggestion give me another suggestion including including Larry was like yeah I'm listening I'm suspicious but I'm listening and and I I thought that was good that we still for us it's still So, you know, something we have to prove. But maybe it's, it feels ghost to get into the specifics or something, but like, are they suggesting licensing a song in a show you hadn't thought of? Are they suggesting, you know, you play a pop of it raising canes? Yeah. You know, chicken restaurant. Like, what do they say? No, no. That's a great idea. You have to. How long have you been interested in writing that one? How long have you been working with the Smithers? You're going to get on very well at the corporation. You had some very good ideas during the interview interview. Yeah. There was some of that, but I'm in places that we hadn't expected. I think this, also this album and where we're going to take the tour, lends itself to some almost data like opportunities to play around with the absurd, like, why, you know, you to do some crazy stuff known as expecting, I think that's fun. I'm looking forward to that. So it's not necessarily playing the game as it is played, but it's like taking a new angle on the opportunities that are there and finding a different way to approach things, because it is hard to surprise yourselves as much as your audience, having done it so many times before. I have always been deeply curious about what Paul McGinnis said to you guys after the whole iTunes mess, where you put the then new album on people's, it was in their iTunes without asking for it and turned into kind of a debacle that people were pretty mad about. Paul must have had something to say about that after, right? Yeah. He said pretty much the same thing that Tim Koch says when we pitched him the idea, I pitched him the idea, which is, you spent your whole life getting people to pay for music, why would you want to give something away free? And I, I mean, we were experimenting, we wanted to see if we could get Apple or another company to pay for our music, and then they distributed it. It was just like the way you use a record label. And look, you know, it takes, it's going to take some experimentation to fix the music. I mean, it's astonishing how little other musicians are paid, and it's frightening. I see it in my son's band and in hailer, and they're a really successful outfit. And yeah, I agree, it's all, it's fine for us, but for young artists coming up, it's very, very hard to imagine how a band of like a, like you too would have been surviving. But yeah, that was all on me. And do you think it was really good about it, by the way? They took all the bunches, and for them, it's just a rounding error at some point. But I was a reputational error for them. But do you think it was a reputational error for you guys? Do you think about it too far on the band's standing? That's another one, I went a little too far, the experiment. But we take risks. We take the lab again. We do. And we have to, you know, so you fail, you fall on your face at times. That's part of the gig, you know, if you were never going to take any major risks, then it wouldn't be what it is, you know. So we just take that as like one of the things that we have to acknowledge, we're not always going to get it right. Then you had mentioned a second ago, or just briefly alluded to taking the music to new people and playing live, so there are plans to go on tour next year. And do you have a, can you share that, I mean, the tours are always conceptual in some way. What is the concept for how they bring this new music to people? Well, the album title is a clue. But I think we can't go too much into, because actually the plans are still forming, but we are interested in, as usual, this intersection between shamanism and show business. I was wondering, would he go there? I thought I would, and then I thought, no, they won't like it if I do it. You know, so it's gone there himself. It's a fascinating place. All of the great shaman, you know, have to, to some extent, pull off a magic trick, which gets into, you know, a mysterious place. And it works both ways. Here's the thing, the great politicians of this moment who, unfortunately, in a lot of cases, I think are supremely dangerous, are very shamanistic. When you say shamanistic, what do you mean? I mean that they are dazzling people, dazzling people with a kind of an act of some sort. It's the snake oil salesman aspect. And we're living in a post-truth era because, unfortunately, there are so many opportunities to put out narratives there that are fake narratives. And I think that is being taken advantage of, and our buttons can easily be pushed, particularly in fear is the weapon that you're taking advantage of. So for us, it's like we're both exploring these things in a good way and a bad way. And it's, you know, Silencio, the lyric of Silencio encapsulates those two extremes right there, the two types of silence, one contemplative, meditative, reflective silence is a beautiful thing when you're appreciating the beauty and joy of the world. So the other kind of silence is when you're cowed and you're afraid to speak because if you say the wrong thing, you will be punished, you might go to jail, you'll be ostracized, and that's super dangerous. That is very. Thank you for saying that, can I just. Oh, yes, please. to poem by Michael Lurnik. There are only two feelings, love and fear. There are only two languages, love and fear. There are only two activities, love and fear. There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results. Love and fear, love and fear. We will. There'll be at our shows and we've been to them. There's a lot of love and that's not a. Up with people type, love, let's all give each other a hug and all the rest of it. It's at a, I think, a level of depth at a U2 show where people genuinely who don't normally agree with each other's politics feel safe at our shows. And I'm very proud of that. And you know, you'd make Jaguar on and throwing stones, just untouchable, extraordinary acts, and he's just one of the great from and whoever was and or will be. And Bob Hilbrin was another great writer about the L.A. Times, yep. And Los Angeles Times, he said something along the lines of if you go to a rolling stone, show no matter what you've been through and your life or your day or your month or your week, you feel good about yourself and that's no mean feat. If you go to a U2 show, he says, "An art thing happens." You feel really good about the person you're standing next to. There's something in that, both are really important and we just, as we want. We want these shows to, if they're in America, we want people to feel really good about the choice to pay a ticket and probably pay too much for it, to see us and what we are going to challenge them, but not on the obvious. Yeah. Presumably you have some say, the ticket prices, right? Well, the whole problem with the live businesses, very little. What we do in our band is we take the best seats now as we've done this all our life and make sure that they're often the most affordable. The ones up front, the ones within the heart or within the circle, we've done this. We always find a way to do this and we also have no problem separating people, rich people from their money, as we say, rich people of feelings too, the edge. Let us, if they want to pay very high prices, we've no problem. Let me just try and wrap up with a holistic question. Even just in the course of this conversation, it's deeply obvious that U2 thinks about the story that we're all living in and what the band can offer to that story. But like, you know, you're middle age, you've been around for 50 years. You know? Like a middle age. But not middle of the road. You can call us middle age, don't stone, ever call us middle of the road. But where is, you know, I can tell you. go on forever. Where is you too in the story of the band right now? And do you have some sense of how you will want that story to end? We're still creatively, extremely inspired and active, and there are lots of songs that have yet to be released and yet to be finished. Yeah. So I can't see that ending anytime soon. I think they might be interested in your speech to the band, the other day, about if you had to find another band, I thought that was funny. Well, that's the other thing about why I'm still in you too, is occasionally early on, I would. This is too difficult. You know, I should really get out of this band and I would sort of start the inner dialogue as well. So what do you want to do with your life? Well, I'm just a creative person, I'm music is kind of my main thing. So I'd stay in music. So okay, you're going to stay in music, great. Do you want to sing? And I'm like, "Oh, beautiful thing, I really want to be the singer, I'm really happy being a guitar player." So who's the singer you most like to work with? And I'd be like, "Well, clearly Bono." So okay, I'll be doing a solo thing, but Bono will be the singer. So then okay, we need a rhythm section, obviously. What's the best rhythm section for you guys that you know of? I'd be like, "Well, that's kind of Adam and Larry, isn't it really?" Okay, it's going to be solo band, it's going to be Bono and vocals, I'll be guitar player, Adam and Larry, the rhythm section. I basically redesigned you too. So yeah, that's the no doubt about it, this is where I belong. More likely, I think that people tire of you and that we tire of going the distance to meet them, resulting in them tiring, if you think if we kept playing live, there's always, till we dropped, there'll be people, but we have one problem in this regard, which is we pledge to each other when we were 18, 17, 16, whatever, that we would never, ever walk onto a stage without it being, you know, without it being everything. And we haven't betrayed that yet. We've had physical, you know, fist fights on stage, we've had the backstage, we've had madness, but we've never betrayed that. Yeah, it never was entertainment to us ever. It was always something with a lot more importance and meaning and the some of the early shows we saw were like the clash on their first tour, the buzz cocks, I saw them, the jam, and then talking heads, we went on the road with talking heads. So when you're around that kind of sense of urgency and political, you know, I suppose the idea, ideological aspect, it's like you can't take this stuff lightly, it's like it's way more than just entertainment. It's the thing that they said about, you know, football, they can say about music, which it's not a matter of life and death, it's something much more serious than that. But it has been truly such a pleasure for me to come to Dublin and to see you guys play and go to your high school and talk to you here today. So thank you very, very much. I really appreciate it. I really enjoyed the tour. Next time, make it a real pub. I'm in a pub where we can actually drink. That's Bono and the Edge of U2. The band's new album, Carnival Delus, will be released on November 13th. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@symboltheinterviewpodcast. His conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. He was edited by John Woo, mixing by Sophia Lannman, original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemistow, and Marion Luzano. Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, Paola Newdorf, Maya Teppler, Eddie Costas, Jeremy Rocklin, Gavry Contreras, Catalina Bryan, and Brooke Mentors. Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. I'm David Marquesi and this is the interview from The New York Times. [BLANK_AUDIO]