Latest U2 News & Information

Bono has claimed that U2’s new album is going to be “extraordinary” and that it will sound completely different to anything that has been heard before.

The frontman revealed that the band’s new sound has been inspired by a visit to Morocco last year.

Bono told the Independent: “Normally when you play a U2 tune, it clears the dance floor. And that may not be true of this. There’s some trance influences. But there’s some very hardcore guitar coming out of The Edge. Real molten metal.

“It’s not like anything we’ve ever done before, and we don’t think it sounds like anything anyone else has done either.”

The singer explained that going to a religious music festival in Fez, Morocco helped them write new material. He said: “It was a real humbling thing for a punk rock shouter, listening to these people who just close their eyes for 40 minutes and sing the most sophisticated melodies.”

He added: “We have enough material for two albums but it has to be extraordinary. And I think we’ve got that.”

- Digital Spy

(DotMusic) The Edge has described his feelings of sadness about U2’s hometown studio being demolished to make way for a housing development. The site, on Dublin’s Hanover Quay, is to be demolished to make way for luxury flats. U2 recorded parts of their last album, 2005’s “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb”, in the building.

The band plan to build another studio at the location. Speaking to The Sun newspaper, the guitarist said: “It’s getting demolished as part of a redevelopment of the docklands. It is going to be turned into a tower block and we will make the penthouse into a studio. “It’s very sad, that place felt like home. “I don’t know what it will be like recording in the new studio, we are so used to the other place.”

Meanwhile, he also revealed that U2 have been songwriting in Morocco, although any album plans are still tentative. He added: “We don’t have anything scheduled for a new album. It’s nice not to have that pressure.”

When Daniel Lanois and U2 get together in the studio, magical things usually happen — as was the case with their most-recent effort, 2005’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which picked up a best-album Grammy last year.

This time out, the followup disc is proving no exception, judging from the brief footage of Lanois, co-producer Brian Eno and the Irish band at work in Fez, Morocco, in the new Lanois documentary, Here Is What Is.

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Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois involved again

U2’s new album has been written, according to producer Daniel Lanois.

The LP, due for release in 2008, will be the follow-up to 2004’s ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’.

Speaking about the new record, Lanois said: “We’ve been invited as writers this time. I did three writing sessions with (Brian) Eno and U2- one in Fez Morocco; two in France…the record’s kind of making itself.”

Footage from the band rehearsing songs from the new album are set to be included in the forthcoming Lanois documentary ‘Here Is What Is’.

Speaking about this Lanois told Rolling Stone : “It just seemed to make sense there and I didn’t want to take advantage of those guys. They’re so kind to me.

“They’re saying : ‘Lanois, you’re going to show us recording and we haven’t even put out a record, c’mon’. I said, ‘Aw, please. We’re not going to give away anything and besides we’ve got 25 years together, throw me a biscuit.’”

The new U2 album is “going great”, according to one of the key figures involved in the recordings. Producer Daniel Lanois has been drafted in to work on the Irish rock supergroup’s latest record, having collaborated successfully with the band in the past. Lanois is famed for his contributions, alongside Brian Eno, to landmark U2 albums such as “The Joshua Tree” and “Achtung Baby”. The pair have been enlisted to assist on the follow-up to 2004’s “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb”, with sessions said to be going well. “We’ve been invited as writers this time. I did three writing sessions with Eno and U2 - one in Fez, Morocco; two in France”, explained Lanois. “It’s going great. We’re regrouping in November”, he told Rolling Stone, before explaining that the record was “kind of making itself.” Lanois is due to release a movie documenting his work as a musician and producer entitled “Here Is What Is” shortly, which will feature U2 working in Morocco.

-DotMusic

Producer Daniel Lanois has been speaking about working with U2 on their next studio album.

In an interview with Billboard magazine to publicise his documentary about his work, ‘Here Is What Is’, Lanois said of the new U2 material: “It feels like the ‘Achtung Baby’ period, when everybody was really hungry to do something fresh.”

Lanois, who for the first time is writing with U2 for the album, continued: “They have everything, and they’ve done everything. But the thing they should never assume they still own is the ability to be original and invent something that’s never been heard before.”

He concluded: “I’m not coming in with new flavours of the month or waving a magic wand. I don’t have an abbreviated name. But my eyes are burning a hole through their hearts, and I’m inviting them to come to where I come from.”

- RTE