Who needs bathrooms? ([email protected])
Mon, 09 Nov 1998 21:01:23 -0600
>From CMJ:
The Edge
On The Best Of U2 And College Radio
story by Colin Helms
"The college stations were crucial to U2 becoming known in the American radio
world. We
were really delighted to discover that there was this network of underground
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. You
have some of the
most progressive, most interesting radio in the world in the form of college and
public stations.
To see it as a commercial world is only to see one side of it." -- The Edge
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 non-commercial 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?
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
time in 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 day
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.
-- Prarit....[email protected] U2 news: http://www.members.home.net/u2-news/u2.html
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