‘We need to make the sound of the longer term’

It’s official. U2 are again within the studio making new music, after a spot of eight years.

The four-piece had been on an prolonged break, as drummer Larry Mullen Jr recovered from neck surgical procedure.

Pompted by years of onstage injury to his “elbows, knees and neck”, it stopped him recording new materials (2023’s Atomic City apart), and noticed U2 hiring Dutch musician Bram van den Berg for final yr’s Las Vegas residency.

“It was troublesome being away due to harm,” says Mullen Jr, “so I’m thrilled to be again in a artistic atmosphere, even when I’m not 100% there and I’ve obtained some bits falling off.”

“It’s simply probably the most extraordinary factor,” he provides. “When I used to be away from the band, I missed it, however I did not realise how a lot I missed it.”

The band are talking backstage on the Ivor Novello Awards, the place they’ve simply change into the primary Irish Group to be given fellowship of the Ivors’ songwriting academy.

It’s the physique’s highest accolade, putting them alongside former recipients like Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Kate Bush and Joan Armatrading.

Bono, perennially laid again and loquacious, immediately turns into energised when he talks about U2’s latest writing periods.

“It was simply the 4 of us in a room, making an attempt a brand new music and going, ‘What’s that feeling? Oh proper, that is chemistry’.

“We had it after we had been 17. We’ve had it through the years however you lose it generally, [especially because] the best way music is assembled nowadays just isn’t pleasant to that chemistry.

“But is not it unusual that it is simply obtained to the second when simply bass, drums, guitar and a loudmouth singer feels like an unique thought.

“That’s the place we’re at in 2025.”

The band have been in reflective mode for the final half-decade.

In 2019, they set off on a stadium tour celebrating their career-defining Joshua Tree album. Bono spent the pandemic writing his memoir, Surrender, prompting the band to revisit and re-record a few of their largest hits on the largely acoustic Songs Of Surrender album.

Last yr’s Vegas reveals recreated their Nineteen Nineties Berlin reinvention on Achtung Baby they usually capped that off with an archival album of unreleased materials from 2004’s How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

“We spent a second fascinated about the previous – however you do this as a result of you might want to perceive the place that need to be heard got here from,” says Bono.

“And then you may get to the current and to the longer term – as a result of the sound of the longer term is what we’re most enthusiastic about.

“It would not exist but. It’s ours to make, and that is what we now have the possibility to do.”

Attending the Ivor Novellos offers the band one other alternative to retrace their story, for an viewers that features Bruce Springsteen, Charli XCX, Ed Sheeran, Brian Eno and Lola Young.

“When we gathered in Larry Mullen’s kitchen in 1976, this was unimaginable,” says bassist Adam Clayton.

“We by no means thought the band may very well be this previous!”

Mullen Jr remembers the report firm government who suggested the remainder of the group to ditch his companies, whereas guitar legend The Edge sings a modified model of My Way, for instance how he at all times will get the final phrase.

Bono is not impressed.

“I’d wish to remind the room that The Edge the primary one to interrupt up this band,” he deadpans.

“We’ve all had it go since however in 1982, aged 21, that man there determined that he had sufficient of the music enterprise with its infected egos and pumped up character.

“I requested him, ‘Will you make an exception for me?'”

Presumably, the reply was sure.

Backstage, they speak about their beginnings in Dublin’s punk scene and the way it gave 4 untrained, untested musicians permission to pursue their goals.

“We do not come from a practice of nice songwriters,” says Mullen Jr. “We did not have any of these blues chops, so we had been ranging from scratch, all of us.”

“Quite a lot of early influences for us had been bands like The Ramones, who had been doing these three-minute pop songs, and Patti Smith, who was a bit extra poetic, and had a bit extra of a social conscience,” says bassist Adam Clayton.

“We knew that the bar was excessive, however we had been simply getting in on the backside stage.”

“Punk rock was like yr zero for us,” picks up Bono.

“We did not actually need to know, or be beholden to, the previous. So we began with a clean web page, actually, which was simply as properly as a result of we could not play anybody else’s songs. We simply began writing our personal.”

Over the years, the honed and finessed these abilities. Inspired by Bob Marley – their label-mate on Island Records – they realised that rock music may very well be greater than intercourse and perspective.

“Bob may sing about something he wished to,” says Bono.

“He’d sing to God, he’d sing to his lovers, he’d sing to the individuals on the road. There had been no guidelines for Bob Marley – in order that was precisely the best affect for us, as a result of that is the place we wished to go.”

“Any songwriter is aware of that they’ve to write down about issues that they care about,” agrees The Edge.

“That’s when it connects and when it means one thing. Otherwise, it is artifice.”

Throughout the Ivors ceremony, U2’s decades-long friendship is clear – albeit via relentless, good-natured taunting.

They attempt to goad The Edge into dancing for the BBC’s TV crew. Mullen reminds his bandmates of their Nineteen Nineties penchant for cross-dressing. Bono dredges up Paul Weller’s scathing critique of their band.

“When requested, ‘Why do not you want U2′, he mentioned, “Because they put on cowboy boots.’

“‘I relaxation my case.'”

Thankfully, the cowboy boot period is historical historical past (tonight Bono wears Cuban heels) and, Weller’s opprobrium apart, U2 grew to become considered one of rock’s largest bands, promoting greater than 175 milllion albums worldwide.

There had been missteps alongside the best way – Clayton famously disappeared on a consuming bender through the New Zealand leg of the colossal two-year Zoo TV tour (he is now sober and appearing on Gardener’s World), whereas the band have repeatedly apologised for the misguided resolution to pre-load their 2014 album, Songs of Innocence, on to individuals’s iPhones.

“The free U2 album is overpriced,” wrote one disgruntled consumer.

In his autobiography, Bono mentioned he took “full duty” for the stunt.

“I’d thought if we may simply put our music inside attain of individuals, they could select to achieve out towards it,” he wrote.

“Not fairly.”

But as they enter their fifth decade, the band are able to “re-apply for the job of finest band on the earth”, as they memorably put it in 2001.

A yr in the past, Bono expressed his need to launch “a loud, uncompromising, unreasonable guitar album”, citing AC/DC as an affect.

At the Ivors, I by accident misquote this again to him as “an unassailable guitar report”.

“I’m actually happy with that adjective – unassailable,” he says, making an attempt it on for measurement.

“I believe he mentioned, ‘un-sellable’,” shoots again Mullen Jr.

“But hear,” says Bono. “We have a guitar genius in our band, and the one one who would not know it’s him.

“We inform him day by day, however he insists on enjoying the piano… and generally the spoons.”

“It’s blackmail,” insists The Edge, the famously unflappable guitarist seeming quickly flapped.

“The fellas are all on about this guitar album we’re making, and I’m at residence, going, ‘Okay, I’d higher get on with it'”

The clock is ticking…