U2‘s The Edge says the band have “a lot of great material in the pipeline” as they gear up to release new material.
The Irish rockers shared new album ‘Songs Of Surrender’ this year, with 40 of the band’s biggest songs given a “21st-century reimagining”.
Another LP called ‘Songs Of Ascent’ has also been heavily teased by the band, though is now seemingly on the backburner after Bono said he first wants to release “a noisy, uncompromising, unreasonable guitar album”.
Now, The Edge has shared the frontman’s excitement over a return to guitar-based material, telling Guitar Player magazine: “I know the answer to that. [laughs] I’ve been working a lot on new guitar music, and I’m very excited about it. It’s at that prototype stage where … who knows? But the answer to the question is ‘yes.’
“I’m finding myself for the first time in a little while getting very excited about the electric guitar again. Maybe it’s something to do with the lockdown, having the time to not do very much.”
Of how lockdown changed their new material plans, the guitarist added: “We were due for some time off. We finished our last show in India in December of 2019. We came home, and almost immediately the world was turned upside down. That time would have been spent working on ideas and early-stage new songs.
“And we are,” he added. “We have a lot of great material in the pipeline.”
Reflecting on the songs the band had made in recent years with what they want to make in the future, Bono explained: “We all make mistakes. The progressive-rock virus gets in, and we needed a vaccine. The discipline of our songwriting, the thing that made U2 — top-line melody, clear thoughts — had gone.
“With the band, I was like, this is not what we do, and we can only do that experimental stuff if we have the songwriting chops. So we went to songwriting school, and we’re back and we’re good! Over those two albums, ‘Songs Of Innocence and Experience’, our songwriting returned. Now we need to put the firepower of rock ‘n’ roll back.
“I don’t know who is going to make our fuck-off rock ‘n’ roll album. You almost want an AC/DC, you want Mutt Lange. The approach. The discipline. The songwriting discipline. That’s what we want.”
Later this year, U2 will host a Las Vegas residency at the new Sphere performance venue, where they will perform ‘Achtung Baby’ in full.
Bigging up the shows in a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Bono said: “There’s nothing else like it in the world and won’t be for many, many years.”
The Edge went on to explain how the building will redefine immersive sound and live performances moving forward: “So what this has been designed to achieve is completely immersive sound. So you’ve got the main array of speakers is above our heads, but throughout the entire building are speakers that are focused so that you have the capability of placing the audience inside a whole 360 degree sonic spectrum.”