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Sunday March 12 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
How do I address him? The Edge? Mr The Edge?
“Everyone calls me Edge.”
The guitar-toting boffin, who is as much responsible as anyone for the astonishing success of U2 — record sales north of 150 million, more tours than Thomas Cook could have dreamt of — doesn’t require much more of an introduction than that. They’re resurfacing with a new album and a residency in Vegas. And that’s not to mention a Disney+ special: Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, with Dave Letterman. When U2 break cover, they smash it with a big hammer. By way of an explanation, The Edge wrote in a letter to select fans that “what started as an experiment quickly became a personal obsession”.
“This idea that we might rerecord some songs has been knocking around for a while. Our early records were a live act trying to reach the back of the hall. These are recordings with intimacy as the new idea, but there was no expectation. We just wanted to see where experiment might take us. There have been artists who’ve rerecorded their work, Taylor Swift being the most recent example, but that was driven by contractual legal reasons. In our case it was an artistic project at our discretion. That’s why we did it.”
Although we hear The Edge’s voice on several songs — “That was a musical decision more than a thematic one. Bono would say, ‘I love your voice on this one, Edge, I think we should keep it’” — it’s Bono’s admirable pipes that were the yardstick.
“I was trying to serve the voice and the song,” he continues. “As I got arrangement ideas together, Bono would start to sing and I’d know immediately if the approach was working. Certain arrangements took huge liberties; changing keys, tempos and chords. I’m drawn to minimalism, so I was looking for the simplest arrangement to support the vocal.”
That letter also explained how the band had to “surrender their reverence for the original versions”, but some people may, for example, hear a much-altered With or Without You and howl about it being perfect as it was, although they should remember that there are currently no plans to delete any previous U2 albums. It does take a few spins to get your bearings, though. More recent songs that are perhaps not as deeply ingrained in the public consciousness, such as The Miracle (of Joey Ramone), fare better.
“I’m sure there will be people who feel that way. Approach it like you don’t know the songs. That helps!” he says with a smile. “As long as we were staying true to the essence of the song, we’re happy to suffer the slings and arrows of fans who aren’t as … enthusiastic. I wouldn’t make direct comparisons between the recordings because they’re so different, and I think some of the new arrangements are actually better. The fun was to find a song and realise it’s better than you thought it was.”
Bono’s Surrender memoir has 40 chapters with song titles as headings, so which came first, the album or the book?
“That number 40 kept coming up. We have a song called One and we have a song called 40…”
I admit, with embarrassment, that it hadn’t occurred to me how those songs bookend the collection. The Edge gives me that look my mother uses when she’s not angry just disappointed, before continuing. “Bono’s decision to have the 40 chapters was a little bit of opportunism, but we’re always looking for those kind of connections. It’s also four ten-track albums in the collection, so that number seemed to make sense.”
“I love the book,” he proclaims, when I ask. “I know Bono so well and I was also there for a lot of it, so I’m probably the most sensitive to what’s coming across.
It wasn’t always easy to read, but it’s his perspective, his memory and his insights. Once I took a step back and pretended I’d no knowledge of this person or the backstory I loved it. It’s very self-effacing, but when you look at the stuff that he has been at the centre of — not just U2, but all the other stuff — it’s an amazing odyssey, and he has been incredibly forthright and honest.”
He guffaws with mock offence at the notion of writing his own one. “I’m far too young to be thinking about that! I’m still wondering what I’m going to do when I grow up.”
I ask because we don’t really know The Edge the way that we “know” Bono.
“One of the most interesting aspects of our band are the totally different personalities, “ he says. “I’m not a natural extrovert and have no real need to find the spotlight and reluctantly find myself in that position. We’ve very different roles to play.”
That doesn’t stop elements of his private life, such as his planning permission woes over building a compound in Malibu, entering the public domain. “It comes with the territory, you’re a moving target, you’ve got to accept that. As long as you’re true to your own values what people write about you is kind of immaterial.”
As admirable as Bono’s work outside U2 is, the band must have howled “Christ, will you get back to the day job!” at least once or twice.
“At different times you would feel mild frustration at how stretched he was,” he admits. “I think he was as or even more aware of that and worked very hard to make sure that it never had a negative impact on U2. The only times where there was a very obvious conflict was when he ‘crossed the aisle’ to work with certain politicians. The staunch conservative Jesse Helms was probably the best example. Bono managed to persuade him to change his position on the Aids pandemic. That cost him in terms of people’s sense of who he was. It was uncomfortable for a while but you can’t argue with the results.”
Bono bashing, in this country in particular, is a national pastime. I’d be upset if he was my mate. The Edge laughs again before answering.
“At times I have found it upsetting, not just the fact my mate’s coming in for abuse he doesn’t deserve but also what it says about Ireland. That’s what’s upsetting, this inability to celebrate our successes. I don’t understand that…” Begrudgery? “I don’t know. It’s just part and parcel of Ireland. It’s probably a throwback to an era where success was intertwined with collaboration with the colonial power. To answer your question, yeah, it’s annoying but there’s huge benefits to our deep connection with our homeland. Again, it comes with the territory.”
I suspect he’s only being half-serious. We decide we’re probably not the best men to put the national psyche on the couch and return to the music. Listening to Songs of Surrender, you’re reminded of just how many marvellous tunes U2 have been responsible for, but are they able to stand back and say, ‘Jaysus, we’ve written some great songs’?”
“It’s always hard to be objective about your own work, but over the years it’s hard to deny what a great song is and what a song that’s an also-ran is. I don’t think it’s that much of an argument. There’s something empirical about tunes and songs.”
There was a quote from Bob Dylan a long time ago where Bono had told him that his songs would live for ever and he replied: “So will yours, but nobody will be able to play them!” These new arrangements put the lie to that.
“He actually said that to me,” The Edge exclaims, putting me straight. “I think Bob was being complimentary to the fact that our style of playing was so different to what people were used to. People were baffled by what we were doing, particularly on the guitar front. What we’ve discovered through this process is that a great song is kind of indestructible and allows different approaches and arrangement styles, but it still retains its essence. That was something we figured out pretty early on with this project, that we didn’t need to be so concerned with taking it too far. The songs could deal with it.”
Bono said in The New York Times that the band had “almost finished this album called Songs of Ascent, which we’re not putting out.” He then spoke of an “unreasonable guitar album” that was on the way first.
“These are all ongoing, creative projects and just to reassure you, or anyone reading this, U2 are still extremely creative, vital, and working on a lot of new stuff.”
He says that, but some unkind critics might argue that rerecording old songs points to creative stagnation. The Edge isn’t having it. He smiles again before answering, probably relieved he can get back to whatever he was doing before I started pulling at his sleeve.
“Nah,” he answers succinctly and, in U2’s case at least, quite correctly.
Songs of Surrender is released on Friday