Some bands coast. U2, somehow, still believes in the grind. After 40 years, they still operate like there’s something to prove—probably because, despite being one of the biggest bands in the world, there’s always been someone telling them they’re doing it wrong.
“If you don’t like U2, you’re just not trying hard enough,” Adam Clayton says, sitting backstage at Chicago’s United Center.
“I guess it means we must be irritating someone, somewhere,” Edge says. “Maybe that’s a good thing. The worst thing to be is unobjectionable.”
Objectionable, in their case, means continuing to reinvent themselves at every turn, even if it means frustrating critics, alienating fans, or, in at least one case, breaking the internet. Their latest project, Songs of Innocence, was a nostalgic dive into their formative years, a reflection on their youth and early influences. Given the way it was received (cue endless discourse about forced iTunes downloads), it’s fair to wonder if that experience has affected their approach to Songs of Experience, the next chapter in what they’ve been calling a two-album cycle.
“We’re very happy with what this record is,” Clayton says of Innocence. “And Songs of Experience will obviously be from a different perspective.”
A different perspective seems to be the default setting for U2. Even when they’re looking backward, they’re still moving forward.
“Songs take on different meanings the longer you live with them,” Edge explains. “Like I Will Follow—that started as a very abstract lyric. No one really knew what it was about. And now, looking back, it’s clear—it’s about Bono losing his mother. That was the moment he became an artist. That sense of having to use music to make sense of the world and define himself.”
Being in U2, Edge says, is like having a “living diary.” Every song, every tour, every reexamination of their own catalog forces them to reckon with where they’ve been and where they’re going.
“And now when you go back to those songs, you play those songs with a different perspective,” Clayton adds. “You say, ‘Ah, okay, now I know why I’m here. Now I know what it’s all about.’ And in some ways, we’re playing those songs better now than when we first wrote them.”
They know their longevity is a rare thing. Few bands get this kind of career arc, where they still command arenas, still push themselves creatively, still release new music that, for better or worse, forces a reaction.
“There’s something in us that always wants to seek out things that feel new and fresh,” Edge says. “It’s almost the only time we really start to get excited in the studio or live—when we feel like we’re doing something unique.”
Of course, when you’ve been around as long as they have, there’s always the looming threat of repeating yourself. U2 has spent the last four decades outrunning their own mythology.
“We actually mostly do the opposite,” Edge insists when I bring up the sonic callbacks on Songs of Innocence. “We try and avoid direct references. But it’s the same four guys, and the music that turned us on was so formative that we’re always going to move in a particular direction.”
That direction, no matter how much the terrain shifts, has always been forward. Even when they were young, they weren’t looking back.
“When I listen back to Boy, I hear these nuances in the composition—where did that come from? It’s really not… I can’t think of a reference for it,” Edge says. “And I remember at the time, a lot of it was just trial and error. We knew so little about music composition that we would try a lot of experiments, and through that, we’d hit on new ideas that were coming from some completely different world.”
U2 has never been a band content with the obvious. They’ve built an entire career out of reinvention, of taking risks, of challenging their audience and themselves. That’s how you last.
And even now, 30-plus years in, they’re still chasing that next moment of discovery. “We think we can find another note in there amongst all of them,” Clayton says. “And I think we can.”
Listen to the full interview above and then check out the video below.
