[email protected]
Tue, 3 Nov 1998 21:13:58 EST
Umm ... Jamy and Glen ... please read the following Edge interview clips from
CMJ ...
>THE EDGE INTERVIEW
>-On The Best Of U2 And College Radio-
>story by Colin Helms
>
>ON NOVEMBER 3, Island Records will release U2: The Best Of 1980-1990,
>the first hits collection from one of the most popular rock 'n' roll
>bands in the world. But before U2 became an international pop
>sensation, the Irish quartet was considered one of the seminal post-
>punk bands of the '80s, establishing a place for itself in the
>history of college radio with such classic recordings as Boy, October,
> War, Under A Blood Red Sky and The Unforgettable Fire. Fueled by the
>group's politically charged ideology and equally incendiary rock
>sound, the band created anthems such as "I Will Follow," "Sunday
>Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" that inarguably
>helped shape the face of modern music. In an exclusive interview,
>U2's guitarist The Edge speaks with CMJ about the new double-disc
>collection, his thoughts on noncommercial radio and his favorite U2
>era so far.
>
>HOW INVOLVED WERE YOU IN SELECTING TRACKS FOR THE "BEST OF" RECORD?
>
>When we first started talking about doing a best-of, really the
>question in our mind was "Should we do one at all?" and that took up
>quite a lot of time. In the end, we realized that a lot of people out
>there probably don't have the early records; we thought that it would
>be a good thing to have a definitive collection of the first 10 years.
> In fact, I think within a half hour we pretty much decided what we
>wanted to put on the record. There were one or two tracks that we
>considered early on that we eventually didn't put on -- a live
>version of "11 O'clock Tick Tock," our first single, and "Bullet The
>Blue Sky." But we just thought [the collection] was starting to get a
>little too long. We wanted to keep it fairly condensed.
>
>WERE YOU INVOLVED IN THE SEQUENCING OF THE TRACKS?
>
>I ended up doing quite a lot of work on that. We decided early on
>that we weren't going to do it in any chronological order because we
>wanted just a great record, we didn't really want it to be any sort
>of history book. We wanted it to be a record that people would just
>enjoy playing at home. So that was our first consideration, and
>that's why also we ended up choosing, in some cases, the original 7"
>edit of some of the songs. We felt that they made more sense in a
>collection like this.
>
>HOW DID YOU CHOOSE THE B-SIDE TRACKS FOR THE COLLECTION?
>
>We had quite a few to choose from, but we thought we chose the best B-
>sides from the '80s. There were at least another 10 that we could
>have put on that we felt were not quite up to it. That was more
>difficult than the A-sides really, because the B-sides are quite
>diverse and the variation in the sound quality is vast. Some of them
>are very lo-fi, and some of them could have made the album they were
>recorded during. I was actually quite blown away by some of them.
>Just the freshness of them was something that I really found
>appealing. In most cases, these tunes were produced and recorded very
>quickly, [so] there's no sense of them being belabored, there's no
>double-thinking.
>
>WHY WAS SWEETEST THING NEVER CHOSEN AS A SINGLE (BEFORE)?
>
>It was a combination of not having time to finish it and also because
>when that was first written, it was a tune that Bono wrote as a gift
>for [his wife] Ali. I think it was her birthday, since he couldn't
>think of something or hadn't had time to buy her something. [He
>decided] he would just give her 24 hours of his inspiration and he
>wrote this song. When we decided that we'd try it as a B-side, even
>at that stage, it was like, "Well, can we do that? Is Ali into that?"
>It's her song in a way. When we had finished it and had a chance to
>think about it we realized that we had actually turned in a really
>good version of it. What's nice is that it's now getting the
>recognition that it could have had at that time. Ali still owns that
>song, and I wouldn't be surprised if [the money generated by it]
>doesn't go towards some very good causes.
>
>WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO RE-DO "SWEETEST THING FOR A 1998 SINGLE?
>
>We'd always wanted to have another go at it, and this opportunity
>presented itself. When we were thinking about what we were going to
>put on the collection, this seemed liked the obvious time to try and
>finish it off [and] give Bono a chance to re-sing it, because he was
>always upset about his vocal. The day he originally sang it he had
>lost his voice and it was quite an unusual vocal. Listening back to
>parts and sounds that you used in the mid-'80s there was a bit of
>nostalgia in hearing what we were doing then. I think having a bit of
>distance and some objectivity gave us a fresh insight as to where to
>go with the song that we may not have had at the time.
>
>DID YOU CONSIDER DOING A KIND OF "GREATEST HITS" TOUR TO SUPPORT THE
>ALBUM?
>
>No, that never actually came up. I don't think we would want to put
>so much time right now into the best-of record, when we're, at the
>moment, starting to write some songs and consider going into the
>studio for our next studio album.
>
>WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE NEW SONGS? ANY NEW DIRECTION OR SOUND
>YOU'RE TRYING OUT?
>
>Well, I don't know yet, because a lot of our records take shape
>during the recording process. It's kind of impossible to crystal ball
>gaze at this point as to how it's going to sound. But I do know that
>going into the last record we unfortunately didn't have Larry [Mullen,
> Jr.] there at the beginning, because he was out of action with a bit
>of a back problem. Thankfully, at the beginning of this record,
>everyone is fighting fit. We're not going to be writing songs and
>then trying to do band arrangements, we're going to be writing all
>together and working in a kind of rehearsal room approach. So
>hopefully the songs will come out of band performances as opposed to
>the other way around. I think we're going to be using Brian Eno and
>Daniel Lanois as producers. It's fun for us to work with them again.
>It'll be our fourth record with them as a team and the other three
>records have been really successful creatively for us, we've really
>enjoyed the process.
>
>IS THERE ANY U2 ERA OR RECORD THAT STANDS OUT AS YOUR FAVORITE?
>
>I'm very proud of the whole collection, but if I were to single out
>any one era, I'd have to say [that] The Unforgettable Fire through
>The Joshua Tree was the most creatively satisfying for us. We really
>had set our sights on achieving certain goals as a band, creatively
>in terms of songwriting, in terms of production and sonic
>experimentation, and took quite a few risks. People at the time of
>The Unforgettable Fire really thought that we had made a major
>commercial mistake. Everybody was telling us that we were poised,
>ready to conquer the world with the U2 sound of the War album. What
>on earth are we doing running off with Brian Eno, this sort of art-
>terrorist who was going to ruin our sound? We put up with a lot of
>flak at the time, and I remember when the album came out it was not
>reviewed very well. Looking back on it now, we really managed to
>create a sort of special record with Brian and Danny. That same sort
>of spirit carried through to The Joshua Tree, by which time I think
>people were starting to give us a little more respect for knowing
>what might be right for us as a band, so I think The Joshua Tree was
>given a bit more initial credit and the reviews were more favorable.
>Rattle And Hum, weirdly enough, I think there are more songs from
>that album than any other on this collection. As odd a record as it
>is, being a mix of studio and live and hi-fi and lo-fi recordings.
>The new songs that we wrote and recorded for that album have really
>stood up very well. Even in some ways, as they're U2 experimenting
>with roots music forms, I still feel like we've kind of made them our
>own. I don't think we've lost our identity completely [by]
>experimenting with forms like the blues and more folk styles.
>
>LOOKING BACK OVER THAT PERIOD, WAS THERE ANYTHING EMBARRASSING?
>
>I think allowing Paramount Pictures to airbrush my stubble out of the
>promotional pictures for Rattle And Hum. That was actually the moment
>when I realized things might be going a little too far [laughs].
>
>TALK ABOUT THE EARLY DAYS, EXPERIENCING AMERICAN COLLEGE RADIO FOR
>THE FIRST TIMEIN 1980. WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS DURING THAT FIRST
>TOUR?
>
>Coming from Dublin there was no commercial radio [in Ireland], so
>there was really only one station that was playing rock 'n' roll. It
>was a national station, so everybody could get it. But that meant
>that if you got your song on the prime time show, you got the entire
>nation tuning into you. Cut to us taking a look across the water to
>America and how daunting that was, realizing what a vast country it
>was. And radio in America at that point seemed completely
>impenetrable to a young band [that] had never toured in America and
>were really just starting out. So when we did manage to get over and
>start to do our first-ever shows, they were in these tiny clubs and
>bars around the East Coast -- some of them, in fact, were support
>gigs for other groups. So, when we got there, we were astonished to
>find that in some towns, people knew about us. We were really
>delighted to discover that there was this network of underground and
>college stations that had been playing a lot of music from the U.K.
>and from Ireland, and that people knew about our records through
>college stations. I think that was a turning point for us. That gave
>us the foothold and the will to really put our shoulders to the door
>and persevere. The college stations were crucial to U2 becoming known
>in the American radio world and in general. We could actually look up
>the cities that had a college radio station that was playing our
>album and be able to predict what it would be like in that town. We
>could really make a distinction between those venues in those towns
>and the other ones where, for whatever reason, there was no college
>station or we weren't getting played.
>
>WHEN YOU WERE TOURING ACROSS THE STATES, DID YOU HAVE ANY OPPORTUNITY
>TO LISTEN TO COLLEGE RADIO?
>
>We did whenever we could, which was a fair amount of the time. I was
>blown away by college radio, having heard that American radio was
>very commercially driven and that to get on American radio you had to
>sound like REO Speedwagon, at that time. To discover that this whole
>other subculture existed was very exciting and gratifying, and was
>probably the insight that we got that a lot of other English groups
>never got. I remember at the time talking to bands like Echo & The
>Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes, and their attitude about the
>States was really negative and I think they had missed this whole
>thing, the fact that America does operate on different levels. You
>might get the ultra commercial level, but that you also have, albeit
>on an underground level, some of the most progressive, most
>interesting radio in the world in the form of college stations and
>the public stations. To see it as a commercial world is only to see
>one side of it.
>
>WERE YOU AWARE AT THAT TIME HOW POPULAR YOU WERE ON COLLEGE STATIONS
>AND HOW MUCH THAT HELPED BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE DURING THE EARLY DAYS?
>
>We certainly weren't aware of it until we went to America, but when
>we did go there for the first time we loved the college stations and
>were really delighted that they were so into our record. I think we
>developed a close alliance with a lot of the stations and particular
>DJs that we got to know. I remember that we used to call ourselves
>"the biggest cult group in the world," and that's because we've never
>really been in step with the mainstream, we've never really -- except
>for maybe that one moment when The Joshua Tree had two number one
>singles in America -- apart from that time, we've never really been
>in the commercial mainstream either. We've never sounded like any
>other band at the top of the charts, and we've always done our own
>thing. The success of the group and the size of our following is
>because we've had that kind of grassroots support, which is what
>college radio was all about. It wasn't about playing the commercial
>records, it was about playing things that were of interest, but not
>necessarily the obvious things. We fit very well into that frame and
>our audience grew from a very grassroots level out of that kind of
>support.
>
>YOU THANKED COLLEGE RADIO WHEN YOU WON THE GRAMMY FOR THE JOSHUA TREE.
> WHY?
>
>It was really to acknowledge the importance of college radio, on our
>own success and on the success of many bands. We came to realize that
>the engine of change, and the new music coming through America is
>college radio, and to that extent a very vital part of the
>regeneration of music. In that sense college radio is 10 steps ahead
>of commercial radio in introducing really important new things to the
>country and we benefitted greatly from it, and long may it continue.
>I think, without college radio stations doing what they're doing,
>American radio would be in deep shit, because I don't think
>commercial stations are interested in searching out new acts and new
>music. So there would be a big problem in terms of where those new
>bands would come from and how they would make any impression.
>
>� 1998 College Media, Inc.
Well, looks like U2 missed their own boat again. Good, maybe they will put
out Joshua Tree Part 2.
Trying to be nice.
Shannon Carey-Thorpe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Tue Nov 03 1998 - 18:16:38 PST