Latest U2 News & Information

From his work on The Joshua Tree to, more recently, that on How To Build An Atomic Bomb, Daniel Lanois and U2 have a strong and unique bond. Lanois says the relationship is almost other-worldly.

“I think we work well together because there’s kind of a premonitional force in the room when I work with these guys,” he says. “We sense that something might be right but we’re not convinced yet and it’s still the unknown. It’s that unknown that keeps us going. We want to do something original. Bono wants to say something that has never been said before. We know we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves, put our thinking caps on and do beautiful work.” Read the rest of this story »

Fans of U2 will soon be able to watch previously unseen film of the band in rehearsal. The footage will be included in a forthcoming documentary by producer Daniel Lanois, titled "Here Is What Is". Lanois has co-produced a number of U2 albums, including "The Unforgettable Fire", "The Joshua Tree", "Achtung Baby" and "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb".

Apparently, the movie will attempt to highlight what goes on behind the closed doors of a recording studio. In a press release, Lanois said: "The mystery of the recording studio is what keeps me coming back. "Many rewards have come to me through this laboratory. It is my temple, my domain, my frustration and my love. 

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LOS ANGELES, CA Wednesday Mar.14.2007 /netmusiccountdown.com/ — Green Day will be covering John Lennon’s "Working Class Hero" on the upcoming album "Instant Karma."

The all-star record will feature 20 Lennon covers by artists including U2, The Black Eyed Peas, Christina Aguilera, The Cure, Yousou N’Dour, Willie Nelson and Regina Spektor, and will benefit Amnesty International’s campaign to end genocide in Darfur.

The CD will cost $19.98 and is due out June 12th.

Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Kaiser Chiefs and Coldplay are amongst the acts who have contributed tracks to a unique compilation album.

‘Rhythms Del Mundo’ is released in the US on November 14 and has been put together by Cuban collective the Buena Vista Social Club.
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POP supergroups U2 and Green Day are heading for No.1 - with a song written 28 years ago by a pair of Scottish punk rockers in a Dunfermline bedsit.

The track - The Saints Are Coming - was recorded to raise cash for Music Rising, a charity set up to aid musicians who were victims of Hurricane Katrina.

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Bands will cover obscure track by ’70s-era Scottish band the Skids.

 Last week, Green Day promised they’d be unveiling a "big announcement" very soon, and they weren’t kidding.

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Bono (and U2) are mentioned in this Phil Joanou article from the LATimes.

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Joanou’s relationship with Bono has also broadened his horizons. He recently spent several weeks in Africa, filming a documentary about Bono’s efforts to fight AIDS through a new project that launches in October with corporations raising money for AIDS relief through consumer purchases. "We were in shantytowns with 80,000 people and no toilets, in clinics where there were five babies to a bed. You just couldn’t imagine people on our planet live like that every day."

Besides Bono, Joanou found one other supporter, Neal Moritz, who’d been at USC when Joanou was there. Now a top producer, Moritz tried to hire him on an earlier film, but the studio, knowing Joanou’s reputation, wanted nothing to do with him. Moritz finally persuaded Sony to hire Joanou for "Gridiron Gang."

"He’s not the arrogant young guy he once was," says Moritz. "No one understood this movie better than Phil. He’s got his head on straight and our movie is lucky enough to be the beneficiary. The film is all about these kids getting a second chance, so we really have the right guy to tell that story."

Joanou doesn’t view his years of struggle as wasted time. "In some ways, I’m lucky I wasn’t such a big success. When you fail, people are a lot more honest with you, so I’ve learned more about myself. When I was young, I was always going after the big guns, like Scorsese. This time I wasn’t trying to emulate my heroes. It was just me, trying to tell a story I cared about."

Joanou recently bought a famous Richard Avedon photo of John Ford, showing the fabled director at the end of his life, a patch over one eye, his face mottled with sagging flesh and liver spots. Joanou put it up right by his front door. "I like seeing it every day when I walk out the door because I think, ‘Now that’s what a real director looks like.’ "

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Hear Bono’s version of ‘Dying Sailor to His Shipmates’ and read our interview with Hal Willner, producer of ‘Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys’.

 ‘Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys’ is released on August 22nd.

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Various Artists

Verve/Universal

Rated: 4 out of 5

This isn’t the first tribute album to Leonard Cohen. It isn’t even the first one to include Nick Cave and Bono. But Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is the one that’s garnered the most attention - chiefly because it’s also the soundtrack to an acclaimed concert documentary.

It’s also the most consistent and reverent Cohen tribute - chiefly because most of these 16 tracks feature the same band and Cohen’s own longtime backup vocalists.

Which is not to suggest the VIP guests - including Cave, The Handsome Family, Beth Orton, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, Teddy Thompson and assorted McGarrigles and Wainwrights - don’t make the songs their own. Not at all.

Martha Wainwright builds Tower of Song atop a vein of Delta blues and turns Traitor into an accordion waltz; brother Rufus gets his tango on for Everybody Knows; Cave dresses up I’m Your Man as a strip-bar bump-and-grind.

Speaking of strip bars, U2 and Cohen even do a reiteration of Tower of Song, taped in a burlesque bar.

That should make this the most popular Cohen film - for any number of reasons.

Washington, August 5(ANI): Actor Johnny Depp, who plays Captain Jack Sparrow in the swashbuckling series "Pirates of the Caribbean", has managed to convince distinguished vocal artists including U2 singer Bono and legendary British musician Bryan Ferry, to collaborate with him on the album of sea shanties, which will appear in the final ‘Pirate’ movie.

Depp had hoped Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards would also be involved, but the rocker, who will play Depp’s father in the last film, injured himself falling from a coconut tree just before recording began.

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