It seems inevitable that a devout Irish band like U2 should confront the realities of their war-torn homeland. They now have with their new LP War. But in this exclusive interview, the group reveal that it is also an LP of hope, love and peace…
Some will probably claim it was an epitaph for the new pop. Some will even herald the start of a rock revival, although the rockers’ revenge seems more appropriate. But whatever it signaled, something strange happened to the nation’s singles chart last month.
First came “The Story of the Blues”; next it was “The Cutter”; then the haunting hues of “New Year’s Day” took their place in the Top Ten, and suddenly the singles charts was beginning to resemble an NME Reader’s Poll.
The Class of ’70 were suddenly coming good commercially.
Bono Vox, the lyrical lead voice of U2, wisely refuses to be drawn into any sweeping generalisations, but permits himself a wry smile at this slightly unlikely turn of the tide.
“It would be stupid to start drawing up battle lines, but I think the fact that ‘New Year’s Day’ made the Top Ten indicated a disillusionment among record buyers.
“I don’t think ‘New Year’s Day’ was a pop single, certainly not in the way that Mickie Most might define a pop single as something that lasts three minutes and three weeks in the chart. I don’t think we could have written that kind of song.
“People are growing disillusioned with pap, with the wallpaper music and the gloss. It’s as if someone has eaten too many Smarties over the last couple of years, and they’re beginning to feel ill as they look at all the wrapping paper strewn around the room.”
Distanced from the bustle of British pop by the Irish Sea and by their own purity of purpose, U2 have just released their third album, War. Produced, like the last two, by Steve Lillywhite and recorded in the isolation of Windmill Lane studios in their native Dublin, the LP is a vital watershed in their growth.
Bono describes it as “a slap in the face,” and regards it as the most important move they have ever made. The songs on their two previous albums, Boy and October, showed a young band coming to terms with themselves — with the journey from adolescence to a fragile manhood.
The new LP is different in that U2 are now facing out rather than inwards; they are now coming to terms with the outside world, and that means coming to terms with the horror of the Falklands, Beirut, Central America, the nuclear threat and the strife of their own battle-torn backyard in Ulster — coming to terms with war.
Not all the songs are directly about war but those that are rank among the most powerful the band have yet recorded.
There is a plaintive scream for compassion in Ulster (“Sunday Bloody Sunday”), and acknowledgement of the struggle of Solidarity (“New Year’s Day”) and the black humour of a song about the bomb (“Seconds”), which features fragmented excerpts from last year’s chilling television documentary Soldier Girls. Even the love songs on War are fierce and direct, largely shunning the more delicate lyricism of the earlier albums.
Just as the words have become more incisive, so the music is now much more robust. U2 are a rock rarity — a band who have actually become tougher with maturity rather than blanding out as most of their contemporaries have done.
War is the group at their most rhythmic. Their sound is rooted in drummer Larry Mullen’s shuddering tub-thumping and bassist Adam Clayton’s bewildering percussive patterns. Guitarist the Edge is less dominant than before, the traditional solos of the axe hero superceded by intuitive excursions in tonality and harmonics that put an eerie veneer over the rock solid foundations.
The new material is not always successful, the band occasionally tripping over their own blustery intensity, but one or two songs are quite devastating in their ferocity. The bittersweet “Like a Song,” for example, is probably the finest realisation of the thrash ethic since Wah’s epic “Seven Minutes to Midnight” single.
Another significant trait on War is the manner in which U2 have extended their musical base to include some outside assistance in the shape of electric violinist Steve Wickham, Coconuts Cheryl Poirier, Adriana Kaegi and Taryn Hagey, and Kid Creole trumpet player Kenny Fradley on a couple of tracks. There are plans, too, to have the entire album remixed by New York studio whiz Francois Kevorkian, the man behind the console on the D Train singles and the successful American remix of Yazoo’s “Situation.”
Further proof of U2’s emergence from their cocoon will come later in the year when they begin work on a ballet score for a Dublin theatre.
For now, though, the spotlight is on U2 as one of the country’s top live bands — they start a U.K. tour shortly — and on the near vocational passion of their new LP.
U2 have always been romantics. They are one of the few bands to retain the idealism of 1976, looking on rock music as a great quest rather than a career. Bono’s punk-inspired ideals might appear quaint in the colder musical climate of 1983, but they remain essential to any understanding of U2.
“People see us as four guys who are uprooted from their city of Dublin and thrown across the world,” he says. “And we are winning. We are beating the businessmen at their own game by conquering the USA on our own terms. We might not be this week’s thing, but that will never bother us.”
The following interview took place at various locations one Sunday afternoon in Dublin. Bono — the aggressive pacifist — practically jumps out of his skin when he talks, his spirit and fire a sharp contrast with the softer approach of the Edge, the suave assurance of Adam and the watchful demeanour of Larry.
Bono will talk of “credibility” and “commitment” and make it ring true, his confidence never crossing over into conceit — his belief in the U2 way is total, but it doesn’t deny the value of some of the other options.
Being among the last of the rock idealists sometimes seems a good place to be.
Why War?
Bono: “War seemed to be the motif for 1982. Everywhere you looked, from the Falklands to the Middle East and South Africa, there was war. By calling the album War we’re giving people a slap in the face and at the same time getting away from the cosy image a lot of people have of U2.”
Edge: “It’s a heavy title. It’s blunt. It’s not something that’s safe, so it could backfire. It’s the sort of subject matter that people can really take a dislike to. But we wanted to take a more dangerous course, fly a bit closer to the wind, so I think the title is appropriate.
“October and Boy both had a key to the songs in the title and this one is no different. Not all the songs are about war, but it’s a good general heading.”
The images conjured up by the songs are a far cry from what people might expect from U2. On Boy and October the imagery possessed an almost spiritual purity, whereas the songs on War seem far more gruesome and horrific.
Bono: “A lot of the songs on our last album were quite abstract, but War is intentionally more direct, more specific. But you can still take the title on a lot of different levels. We’re not only interested in the physical aspects of war. The emotional effects are just as important, ‘the trenches dug within our hearts.’
“People have become numb to violence. Watching the television, it’s hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction. One minute you see something being shot on The Professionals, and the next you see someone falling through a window after being shot on the news. One is fiction and one is real life, but we’re becoming so used to the fiction that we become numb to the real thing.
“War could be the story of a broken home, a family at war. Instead of putting tanks and guns on the cover, we’ve put a child’s face. War can also be a mental thing, an emotional thing between loves. It doesn’t have to be a physical thing.”
The most obvious context at the moment is the nuclear threat. You deal with that on “Seconds,” but you’d also touched on it before on last year’s “A Celebration” single: “I believe in the Third World War/I believe in the atomic bomb.” Was that a pointer of sorts to some of the songs on the LP?
Bono: “All I was saying was that the realities of the bomb must be faced: ‘I believe in the powers that be/But they won’t overpower me’. ”
Edge: “People are starting to ask more questions about the bomb. In the past, people have been more apathetic. They have become so caught up with their own lives that they haven’t looked outside. Now they are asking what the hell is going on.”
Adam: “I think people are ready to take a more militant stance to protect their future as the rise of the CND movement shows.”
Bono: “Before we can overcome these things we have to face them. There is a line in ‘Seconds’ about a fanatic assembling a nuclear device in an apartment in Times Square, New York, but it could be anywhere. We are now entering the age of nuclear terrorism where a group of fanatics could have the capabilities of bringing a bomb into a city and holding millions of people for ransom.”
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” — the obvious assumption is that it is about the troubles in Ulster.
Adam: “It isn’t so much about the troubles in the physical sense, but about the human carnage of families being wrecked.”
Edge: “We all had a hand in that song, because it’s probably the heaviest thing we’ve ever done, lyrically. It’s hard for us to justify a title like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday,’ and we are aware of that. We realise the potential for division in a song like that, so all we can say is that we’re trying to confront the subject rather than sweep it under the carpet.
“We thought a lot about the song before we played it in Belfast and Bono told the audience that if they didn’t like it then we’d never play it again. Out of the 3,000 people in the hall about three walked out. I think that says a lot about the audience’s trust in us.”
Adam: “It’s not a comment on the situation, questioned about a lot, being based in Dublin, and we decided that it was morally wrong that we weren’t coming to terms with it ourselves. Before ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday,’ it was something that we ourselves had been sweeping under the carpet.”
It’s the same dilemma that the Undertones had to face before they wrote songs like “Crisis of Mind” and “It’s Gonna Happen” — coming to terms with something on your own doorstep. But what about “New Year’s Day,” which is about Poland? What qualified U2 to make pronouncements about something like that?
Adam: “It’s not a comment on the situation, more an acknowledgement of Solidarity. At the time we wrote the song, we didn’t know that martial law was going to be lifted on New Year’s Day. We were just saying that no matter how much people try to change the situation, things are always more or less the same at the start of every new year.”
A lot of people have grown tired of rock bands wearing their social conscience on their sleeve. Isn’t it all a bit self-righteous?
Edge: “The position of any band talking about the topics of their day is always a very delicate one. The only justification I can give is that we are expressing our convictions. I can see how it can appear patronising, but it depends on one’s motivations. There are a lot of things we could get pulled up on. If people don’t like it, then that is understandable, but we will be standing by what we’ve done.”
A lot of the songs on War are interrelated. Are witnessing the return of the dreaded concept album?
Edge: “No, definitely not. That would imply that every song on the album is part of a jigsaw, which isn’t the case. The title is a key to some of the songs, but not all of them are about war: ‘Surrender’ is inspired by New York; ‘Two Hearts’ is a love song; and ‘Drowning Man’ is a very restful, peaceful song.”
Considering the seriousness of some of its subject matter, War could have been a very grim and pessimistic LP, but you also hold out a certain amount of hope.
Bono: “You have to have hope. Rock music can be a very powerful medium and if you use that to offer something positive then it can be very uplifting. If you use your songs to convey bitterness and hate, a blackness seems to descend over everything.
“I don’t like music unless it has a healing effect. I don’t like it when people leave concerts still feeling edgy. I want people to leave our concerts feeling positive, a bit more free.
“Things might look very gloomy, but there is always hope. I think there is a need to develop a new political language to get over what is happening. Unemployment will not decrease. The new computer technology will eventually wipe out the clerical classes, and office workers will be a thing of the past. Millions of people are already on the dole with a lot of leisure time. They are going to have to be re-educated in order to make better use of that time.
“A lot of people can’t handle these times and they are turning to things like heavy drug use. In the area of Dublin where I live there are 15-year-old kids using heroin. They can buy little ten-packs for �10. A lot of people just can’t handle this age.”
Are you afraid?
Bono: “I’m frightened, yes, but I’m not cynical or pessimistic about the future and a lot of that must come down to my beliefs. It is my belief in God that enables me to get up in the morning and face the world. I believe that there is a reason and a logic to everything. If I didn’t believe that and thought that everything was simply down to chance, then I’d be really afraid. I wouldn’t cross the road for fear of being run over.”
You say you are sustained by your Christian beliefs. What about human nature? Do you have any faith in that?
Bono: “I don’t know. It’s fine to think that everyone is nice, man, and people are really swell, but there is still this capacity in man for terrible violence. I see that aggression in myself sometimes, and I see it in other people. The secret is to come to terms with it.
“The century that we are living in is the most barbaric ever. In the past men committed atrocities without being fully aware of what they were doing. Now man has been educated, but the atrocities are still going on. But I still have my beliefs, not so much in people, but in what lies behind people. That comes across in the music.
“War is not a negative LP. I mean, I’m in love and there is a lot of love on the album. A song like ‘New Year’s Day’ might be about war and struggle, but it is also about love. It is about having the faith to break through and survive against all odds. Love is a very powerful thing. There’s nothing more radical than two people loving each other.
“When I talk about love I’m thinking of an unselfish love. Emotions can be bought and sold just like anything else, but I think real love is about giving and not expecting anything in return.”
So the album could just as easily have been called Love — love as a weapon against repression. You seem to be saying that one can’t appreciate the true value of love until it is set against the hatred and lunacy of the outside world.
Bono: “I think that love stands out when set against struggle. That’s probably the power of the record in a nutshell. The album is about the struggle for love, not about war in the negative sense. I would be failing in this interview if I made War sound like a gloomy album, because it’s not. I hope it’s an uplifting record.
“Some love songs devalue the meaning of the word. Disco bands turn it into a clich� by tearing it down until it means nothing. The power of love is always more striking when set against realism than when set against escapism.”
There are those who will seize on the fact that U2, Wah and the Bunnymen were all in the Top Ten a few weeks ago as a signal that “rock” is back; worthy old rock as 1983’s alternative to the disposable pop thrash that dominated the singles chart in ’82. Do you see U2 as a “rock” group?
Adam: “If you were to file us under anything in a record shop, I suppose it would have to be under ‘rock. But I think it is a very false divide. ‘Rock’ and ‘pop’ cross over in so many places that I don’t think you can start putting bands in neat little boxes like that. Look at a group like the Doors in the ’60s: they were very much a rock group, but they were also having pop hits like ‘Light My Fire’.”
U2 exist within a traditional rock format in that your sound is basically guitar, bass and drums. How would you counter the currently fashionable claims that the format is redundant after 25 years or so? There was a letter in Gasbag a fortnight ago alleging that U2 were no more than a “chugging” progressive rock band with their hearts in the early ’70s.
Edge: “I think that anyone who can react in such a superficial, instinctive way would miss the point of what we’re doing anyway, even if they liked it. They’re the sort of people who base their taste on fashion and whim. I don’t think the people who go to our concerts are particularly interested in what is trendy. They appreciate us on a far more gut level. They’re not bothered that we’re just playing guitar, bass and drums.”
Bono: “We’ve chosen to work within that format, even though a lot of people threw it out the window a couple of years ago. It suits what we want to do. We want a joust. The guitar, bass and drum setup is good for giving people a good slap in the face.”
Your instruments are only lumps of wood anyway. They’re hardly the best criteria to judge the worth of a band.
Bono: “We believe that passion is more important than technique. 1975 was all about style and technique. Herbie Hancock and jazz-rock, and 1982 was pretty much the same with groups like Level 42. I believe we need that slap in the face once more. The sort of thing that we got in 1976. The elitist thing has got to be smashed down again. It’s like Orwell’s Animal Farm: the pigs have all become farmers! The bands that were our contemporaries, the garage bands of 1976, are back on the big star trip. They’re playing the part of the people that they pulled down. It’s either intellectual crap or patronising gloss.”
Adam: “To be candid, I would have liked to have been part of the fashion scene that was going on in London two years ago. It would have been nice to dress up and go to Club For Heroes. Being the weakest member of the band emotionally, I wanted to do that, but I couldn’t. It was the forbidden fruit.
“In retrospect, there’s a strength through having turned it all down. If I’d gone to London, it would have trivialised what I was doing in U2. At the time, though, there was a certain conflict because what was happening in London did look exciting.”
But it was exciting. There was excitement in the way that London clubs were confronting the drabness of rock. What they offered as an alternative might have lacked substance, but that conflict in itself did produce a certain tension.
Adam: “There was nothing in it in retrospect, but at the time it did seem exciting. Watching from the sidelines, I felt that I wanted to be a part of it, but somehow I just couldn’t.”
Bono: “We see London as outsiders and probably have more objectivity through that. It’s good to be able to go to London and then escape from it, never letting it become a trap.”
Come on, it’s not that bad! You can’t write off a city like that.
Bono: “No, I’m not saying that. I love London, but that fact that we are based in Dublin, away from all the activity, does give us our own perspective.”
Prior to War, U2 grew up in almost total isolation, oblivious to outside trends and influences. Now you seem to be broadening your scope, enlisting the likes of the Coconuts, Kenny Fradley and Francois Kevorkian to embellish your sound. There’s even a 12-inch dance mix of “Two Hearts” due for single release!
Edge: “Up to now, we’re defined our own terms, and if we’re branching out into new areas it’s because we need to. We’re not pandering to any outside demands. We are always aware of what is happening musically, but we’re not prepared to let it dictate our style.”
Is being on Island an advantage? They seem to be a label who will always allow a band to develop rather than expect some immediate commercial return.
Edge: “The criterion with Island is quality, whereas with other labels it is purely sales. They always hang onto a good act, even if that act is not selling records. Sometimes they have shied away from signing an act that would have made them money simply because Chris Blackwell wants a label that he can be proud of, perhaps more than he wants the money. Island is more or less an extension of his own musical taste, so he is always keen to prolong the longevity of his acts.
“Perhaps he would have liked us to have a hit earlier on, but he must be happy now that we’re having hits without losing our dignity.”
How did the liaison with Kevorkian come about?
Bono: “It came about through Chris Blackwell. Kevorkian’s biggest ambition is to remix Jimi Hendrix, so Chris Blackwell gave him what he considered the next best thing, the Edge! The good thing about Kevorkian is that he won’t just do the usual dance mix clich�. He just takes the master tapes and plays around with the sounds already on them. Kevorkian is Martin Hannett part two. He’s got the same Dr. Who features and he leads you into his garden of weeds in the same way that Hannett does.”
Another direction in which you are extending your interests is the forthcoming ballet soundtrack. What inspired that?
Edge: “It originally came from the proprietor of the Royal Dublin Ballet. He had this idea of using contemporary music with his company. He got in touch with us and also with Arlene Phillips, who is the kind of choreographer who has an understanding of working with rock music.
“Things are at an early stage at the moment, but we have done some stuff for it, using synths and drum machines. We’re not scared to broaden our musical base. Maybe at one stage we’ll get sick of guitars, but at the moment they are the best vehicle for what we want to say with U2. They convey our emotions best.”
Do you ever worry about appearing too earnest? Sometimes, particularly onstage, you almost fall over your own two feet in the rush to project your own passion.
Bono: “Sometimes we fail and I’ll be the first to admit that. Sometimes we go over the top and miss the point altogether, but I know that our music means a hell of a lot to our audience from the letters that we receive; not the fan letters but letters that actually go into the music and take it seriously. I think part of the fun of being a U2 fan is seeing us fall flat on our feet and then get back up again.”
Have you ever got to the stage of not wanting to go on?
Bono: “Yeah, about once a week! When we were making War we went practically to the brink of breaking the band. When we go into the studio we draw totally on our deepest resources and stretch them to the limit. If the band is going to be honest they’ve got to bring out everything, even the things that might frighten them.”
Edge: “I want U2 to be a band that takes risks. I hate this idea of U2 as a nice safe band. Maybe it’s because we don’t play the rock ‘n’ roll game. We don’t do drugs or get arrested in America or smash up hotels or get our willies out on stage. All that is just conforming to rock tradition. The rock rebel thing is very phony.”
Adam: “I don’t think it’s very likely that we’ll give in now. The longer we go on, the more interesting things become. I can see us going through an awful lot of changes that I would never have imagined when we first got going.
At first it was just a simple case of playing for fun. Now it’s very different. Perhaps it’s maturity, perhaps it’s down to Bono getting married last year and the Edge getting married this year, but as we mature the frantic teenage issues that we were concerned with early on are changing into something else, something more complex.”
So, the quest goes on.
Bono: “Yeah, and I feel that we’re winning at the moment. In some ways, U2 are only really being born now. Right now, it feels good.
“I think there is a certain insight in this group, a certain ability to see human emotions and expose them honestly. There are a lot of clich�d songs around in the chart. The fiction factory loves churning out superficial songs about the same old subjects. That’s just something we refuse to do. This might sound egotistical, but I think we’ll always retain our honesty.”
Adam: “Basically, I think we’re all nutters, but somehow it works. It always comes out in the wash.”
© NME, 1983.