\n\t\ts of this afternoon, precisely 49 years and 342 days have passed since the four members of U2<\/a> first hung out together, and they still haven\u2019t gotten sick of each other. Or maybe they have. \u201cLook, it\u2019s been 50 years of hell,\u201d says Larry Mullen Jr., sitting with his three bandmates at an outdoor lunch table just a few feet from the Mediterranean\u2019s pointillist pastels. He\u2019s looking sleek, as usual, in a black polo and Wayfarers, his hair in its perpetual pompadour, shorn at the sides. \u201cI mean, honestly, having to round these guys up, get them to go and do the songs \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s been hard. And then when it comes to touring, OK, the stage sets and all that stuff, but sweet Jesus, the haircuts. And then having to watch them from behind. Honestly, it\u2019s been hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe mullet phase must have been terrible,\u201d the Edge<\/a> says, once they all catch their breath from laughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe only got the party at the back!\u201d adds Bono<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tIt\u2019s a beautiful day, inevitably, here in early September on the French Riviera, a mere 900 miles or so from the band\u2019s birthplace, Mullen\u2019s childhood kitchen in Dublin. In three weeks, these four guys will celebrate U2\u2019s 50th anniversary in the least retrospective manner possible, announcing their first album of new material in nine years, Carnaval De Luz<\/a>, due Nov. 13. Its first single, \u201cStreet of Dreams,\u201d turns out to have been something of a head fake, a soothing, status-quo-U2 moment on an album more inclined toward risk, ambition, and jagged energy. Its guiding theme is what the Edge calls \u201cdefiant joy\u201d in dark times, hence the carnival setting, which brings with it way more Spanish-language lyrics than anyone might expect from a thoroughly Irish foursome.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe record was made through, probably, the most disturbed period any of us have lived through,\u201d says Bono, who\u2019s begun to see the actual devil at work in the world these days. \u201cNot personally, but globally.\u201d He notes that a new documentary about Ukraine, Black Sunflowers, begins with a rave amid war\u2019s devastation, and brings up the writer Dan Savage\u2019s words on queer life during the AIDS crisis: \u201cWe buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night\u2026. It was the dance we were fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not putting your head in the sand,\u201d Bono continues. \u201cIt\u2019s just saying, \u2018These people can\u2019t control our mood.\u2019 We don\u2019t even have to name them, because everyone has their own version of who that is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSummoning the spirit to make a great U2 album at this late date comes with its own brand of defiance. \u201cThe past and me have got to break up,\u201d Bono sings on the opening track, the pleasantly jarring, Suicide-inspired, Brian Eno-assisted \u201cGo (Carnaval De Luz),\u201d offering a mission statement that echoes \u201cI\u2019m ready for what\u2019s next\u201d from \u201cZoo Station.\u201d \u201cMore importantly,\u201d the frontman adds at the table, piggybacking Bono-ishly onto his own line, \u201cevery time a band like U2 goes into the studio, you sort of have to break up and make up. It\u2019s a hard thing to say, but I think part of it\u2019s true. Or certainly there are pivotal albums where you know you have to start again.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tStop him if you\u2019ve heard that one before. At a Dublin concert the night before New Year\u2019s Eve in 1989, he stood onstage in a black cowboy hat and told the crowd, \u201cWe have to go away and dream it all up again.\u201d The band embarked on a spectacular leather-and-neon run in the decade that followed, only to fear they had drowned themselves out with electronics on 1997\u2019s Pop (even if tracks like \u201cMofo\u201d hold up). They returned to musicians-in-the-room basics with All That You Can\u2019t Leave Behind, but not quite, because they had never before written songs quite so simple and soulful. Twenty-six years later, Carnaval De Luz feels like yet another starting point, at a moment when anyone not named Mick or Keith might reasonably be eyeing the finish line.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\tTheir wellspring hasn\u2019t changed. \u201cFaith is at the very heart of this story called U2,\u201d says Bono. Today\u2019s hat, which he\u2019s removed at the table, is a rustic straw model; today\u2019s sunglasses are orange, reflective, and round-lensed, John Lennon-style. He\u2019s wearing dark-gray linen from his head to his toes, which poke out of black leather sandals. Behind him, against the restaurant\u2019s white fence, is a vaguely biblical lime tree. \u201cFaith in each other, I suppose. Faith in ourselves, faith in our community that got us here. Faith that something bigger than us had a wind at our back.\u201d <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tThe Edge, Larry Mullen Jr, Bono and Adam Clayton (from left) in 1978<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPatrick Brocklebank<\/p>\n \n\tStill, the Edge went into the process with questions. He\u2019s sitting to Bono\u2019s right, and could almost pass for his bodyguard, his black baseball cap pulled low, gold chain draped over a black T-shirt. \u201c\u2018Are we still relevant?’\u201d the guitarist recalls asking. \u201c\u2018Do we have anything to say that\u2019s of interest to anybody?\u2019 Whether we\u2019re relevant or not is not up to us. But we can choose to try and be relevant, and that\u2019s what we decided.\u201d It wasn\u2019t, he adds, \u201ca burdensome thought. It was just more of a quickening. Like, gotta make this matter. And first to ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCarnaval De Luz is of a piece with the two EPs the band released earlier this year, Days of Ash<\/a> and Easter Lily<\/a>. As an upcoming deluxe edition makes clear, the whole thing is essentially a double album built around the liturgical calendar, and meant to be listened to that way: Carnival, Lent, Easter. You could also hear it as an eternal cycle, since the final sounds on the Easter EP turn out to be the first notes of Carnaval. \u201cTrying to ask a wearied world to follow the liturgical calendar might be a lot to ask,\u201d Bono says with a smile, \u201ceven of our most fervent fans. But maybe not. It\u2019s an art project.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOn a lyric from the second EP, Bono borrows the first half of the title of a book he loves, The Death and Resurrection Show: From Shaman to Superstar, which unearths the mythic roots of show business. If you\u2019re in U2, of course, that\u2019s the nature of the gig, complete with your own liturgical calendar. You keep re-creating yourself, sometimes wandering so far that you get lost. You may swing off to write songs about Spider-Man. But you always find your way home, never quite unchanged. You waver in and out of fashion, try to save a world that doesn\u2019t seem to want to be saved, perhaps show up unbidden on a few hundred million phones, all while continually achieving transcendence and elevation in football stadiums. And you may need to learn the same lessons over and over again.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt took us a long time to realize that the less you put into a recording, the better it sounds,\u201d says Adam Clayton, who\u2019s grown a rather dashing silver mustache. To match the carnival vibe, he\u2019s chosen a tropical shirt by Casablanca, decorated with colorful graphics of boxers. \u201cAnd actually, the sound of the band is good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFaith is at the very heart of this story called U2,\u201d says Bono. \u201cFaith in each other. Faith in ourselves, faith in our community that got us here.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re slow learners,\u201d says Mullen, who went through his own slow, private resurrection for this album, after suffering a neck injury that had doctors advising him to retire. \u201cVery slow learners.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIN EARLY JUNE, less than three months before her death, an ailing Dolly Parton<\/a> made her way to a microphone and recorded the final vocal of her 70-year career. \u201cNothing hurts a mother more,\u201d she sang, in a voice all the more commanding for its slight quaver, \u201cthan a family at war.\u201d The song was \u201cTorn,\u201d a duet with Bono that became the final track on Carnaval De Luz. \u201cWhen she got ill, she got out of her bed to sing this song,\u201d says Bono. \u201cAnd you can hear that. And I can\u2019t even listen to it now.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn the song\u2019s closing moments, the Edge hears something older than country music in Parton\u2019s voice. \u201cIt\u2019s like keening at the end,\u201d he says, \u201cthe Irish keening at the funeral. And she\u2019s got that in her blood.\u201d Her last words: \u201cEvery heart is torn.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBono had been pursuing Parton for months, initially for a still-in-progress Irish-roots side project. \u201cThere\u2019s a courtship involved,\u201d says Bono, who sent Parton bagpipes for her birthday. \u201cThere\u2019s a chase. Dolly Parton is a sassy lady \u2026 Flirtation is part of her persona, and she doesn\u2019t wanna grow out of it. And that\u2019s one of the reasons I so admire her.\u201d He played her a couple of sketches over the phone, including something called \u201cLifelong.\u201d \u201cShe said, \u2018That\u2019s a little too Irish,’\u201d he recalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cShe wasn\u2019t having any of it,\u201d adds the album\u2019s producer, Garret \u201cJacknife\u201d Lee, who\u2019s been working with U2 on and off since 2004\u2019s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. \u201cUnderstandably, because the songs weren\u2019t right.\u201d He remembers Parton telling U2, in essence, \u201cYeah, I want to do a song. You just haven\u2019t given me one that I can sing.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tClass photo from Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, 1978. Bono is in the front row, third from left; his future wife, then Ali Stewart, is to his left. The Edge is in the back row, center, in jacket and tie.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of U2<\/p>\n \n\tSo she sent one of her own, \u201cTorn,\u201d a tale of a woman trying to decide between two men. Bono heard potential in it, but he and Snow Patrol\u2019s Johnny McDaid, a collaborator on the folk project, rewrote the lyrics around a mother agonizing over a divide between two sons. Bono considered retitling it \u201cCivil War.\u201d With his voice in the mix, he knows the song evokes divisions in Ireland, but it could be about Parton\u2019s nation, or any number of other troubled lands. \u201cYou name the location,\u201d Bono says, \u201cbut everyone knows what it is \u2026 People say in the U.S. now, people are scared to go into Thanksgiving.\u201d At first, Bono wanted the track to veer toward \u201csci-fi folk,\u201d a description that recalls Johnny Cash\u2019s appearance on Zooropa, but Lee pulled him back toward a more grounded approach. \u201cIt\u2019s Dolly Parton, and you don\u2019t want to not have the people who love Dolly Parton listen to it,\u201d the producer says. Daniel Lanois added pedal steel, and Mullen finished it off with an evocative, echoing drum track inspired by one of Lanois\u2019 greatest productions, Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cMost of the Time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt wasn\u2019t easy for Bono to figure out how to sing alongside Parton\u2019s performance, so he kept it understated. As he wrote to Parton, \u201c\u2018I just got out of your way\u2019\u2026. I said, \u2018What am I gonna do? I\u2019m just gonna have to just talk, basically, and just let her do what she does.\u2019 She sang her heart out, and I cannot believe that\u2019s an 80-year-old woman.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMuch to the band\u2019s relief, Parton approved the final mix. \u201cDolly loved it,\u201d says Lee. \u201cShe was so proud of her vocal \u2026We were very nervous that she would be uncomfortable with it, but she loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe Edge sees Parton representing \u201cthe radical center, which is becoming like a no-man\u2019s-land right now \u2026 We have aspirations in that area ourselves, but things have got so polarized, it\u2019s very, very hard to not be taken down by both sides \u2026 But she managed<\/a> to get accepted by both sides and beloved by everyone. That\u2019s an amazing thing. And she did it, as Bono pointed out today, with humor. Humor was her secret weapon. And no tyrant has a defense against humor, turns out.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAnother, very much living, female spirit presides over track four of Carnaval De Luz. It\u2019s called \u201cThe Mirror Maker (Rosal\u00eda),\u201d and it is, in fact, about the Spanish singer. \u201cWe normally just write songs about people in jail or dead people,\u201d Bono says. \u201cYou know, dead heroes, or trying to get them out of jail. This is just celebrating somebody just because they\u2019re an extraordinary artist.\u201d Like most serious music fans, Bono is obsessed with Rosal\u00eda and her 2025 masterpiece, Lux<\/a>, which beat him to many of the themes he was hoping to explore, down to the Lux\/Luz\/light title. \u201cShe\u2019s arrived at the same point just before us, which is annoying and also really inspiring,\u201d says Bono, who believes she shares a goal of \u201cthe re-enchantment of the world\u201d via art.<\/p>\n \n\tThe song, which kicks off with a massive, Pete Townshend-worthy acoustic guitar riff, began around 2017 as an Edge demo called \u201cKuti Rocker,\u201d denoting a Fela Kuti influence. At various points it was also called \u201cDelilah\u201d and \u201cChild of the Age.\u201d \u201cThe version that we\u2019re using on the album is the 196th version,\u201d says Lee. \u201cWith completely different lyrics. That was a very difficult one to do, because it started off as a rock & roll song with electric guitars, and we just kept on trying to bring it back to Ziggy Stardust or something, the acoustic guitars\u2026. Rock & roll can be quite masculine, and it\u2019s off-putting when it\u2019s too masculine. So you gotta have a bit of femininity, which is why I think Bowie works and T. Rex works \u2026 It\u2019s just not cock rock.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mirror Maker (Rosal\u00eda)\u201d is a departure for U2. \u201cWe normally just write songs about people in jail or dead heroes,\u201d Bono says.<\/p>\n \n\tAbout halfway through those 196 versions, by Lee\u2019s reckoning, the song acquired its subject. \u201cWhy are we singing about Rosal\u00eda?\u201d Lee remembers the band asking. \u201cHow is it relevant?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBono\u2019s answer goes back to The Death and Resurrection Show, which he first read in the Nineties. (\u201cThe \u2018magic\u2019 of showbiz is real magic,\u201d author Rogan P. Taylor argues, linking performers to shamanism. \u201cIt draws its power from an immensely well-stocked religious bank.\u201d The book also states that ancient shamans tended to lose a parent at a young age, which surely raised Bono\u2019s eyebrows.) \u201cWe all have some narcissism to contend with,\u201d Bono says. \u201cJust the act of writing, or thinking somebody should be interested in your ideas \u2014 it\u2019s very easy to get lost in the mirror there. Or just what\u2019s reflected behind you as you look in the mirror, the world that\u2019s behind you.\u201d As he speaks, I catch a glimpse of myself in his sunglasses. \u201cBut there are artists who want to go through the mirror and see what\u2019s on the other side of the mirror. Patti Smith was one for me when I was growing up. There\u2019s many. Not enough \u2026 Certainly Rosal\u00eda is one of them. And it\u2019s this idea that we\u2019re body, soul, and spirit. This rather old-fashioned, quaint idea. And she approaches it with great courage and great self-effacing humor \u2026 There\u2019s not just physics, there\u2019s metaphysics.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s just a little embarrassing that she became so popular before we put out the song,\u201d he adds. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t matter to me. Everyone knew about Martin Luther King too.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe didn\u2019t feel remotely comfortable releasing the song without the artist\u2019s permission, so he reached out to a mutual friend, Pen\u00e9lope Cruz, in something of a panic. \u201cI called Pen\u00e9lope: \u2018What am I gonna do?’\u201d he says. \u201c\u2018Just call her\u2019 \u2026 I\u2019m like, \u2018I look like a stalker.’\u201d Rosal\u00eda, he says, was playful about it, and has \u201cbeen really encouraging, and made me laugh a lot\u201d; they\u2019ve texted, and talked about their mutual fandom for the poet Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca. He still hasn\u2019t met her. \u201cI sort of don\u2019t think I could meet her now. I\u2019m just working up courage to send her the final mix.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe song starts out with Bono\u2019s falsetto, \u201cimpersonating her soprano,\u201d as he puts it. \u201cThe idea was to try and convince Rosal\u00eda to do it,\u201d says Lee. \u201cAnd then we realized, why would somebody sing on a song about them? Doesn\u2019t make any sense. \u2018Listen to me sing how great I am!\u2019 I thought he sounded great doing it, so I thought, why would we replace it?\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tU2 in Berlin circa Achtung Baby<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnton Corbijn<\/p>\n \n\tIN MARCH 2024, Larry Mullen Jr. attended his first U2 concert as a member of the audience. It was, at that point, entirely unclear whether he would ever be able to play again. For their 40-date run at the Sphere in Las Vegas, his bandmates recruited a substitute drummer, Bram van den Berg. Mullen waited until the 39th show to see them. \u201cI just didn\u2019t want to draw attention,\u201d he says, but that wasn\u2019t his only hesitation.<\/p>\n \n\tMullen\u2019s personality is as intense as his drumming; even when he\u2019s cracking jokes, the sheer force of his eye contact can be intimidating. Lee admits he was once \u201cafraid of Larry as an individual,\u201d wondering if Mullen might punch him for some errant remark. That all changed this time around, with the two men staying late in the studio together for hours, trying out different percussive approaches on their own, something Mullen had never done before for any other album.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn his infirmity, Mullen turned all of that energy inward. \u201cThere\u2019s a certain amount of humiliation when you get injured and you can\u2019t get over it, and I felt humiliated,\u201d he says, sitting at the same beachside lunch table the following afternoon, ready to talk in depth for the first time about his journey back to U2. \u201cAnd it\u2019s my own \u2014\u00a0that\u2019s my own shit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe idea of suddenly standing outside a collective you had always been at the heart of seems nightmarish, but \u201cit wasn\u2019t as bad as you\u2019d think,\u201d says Mullen. \u201c\u200aThe band were doing what the band needed to do. Those drum parts are mine, those parts that I played when I was a kid, a lot of them not really knowing what I was doing. And I was hearing those parts played very well by Bram, and I was grateful for that. It\u2019s an odd thing to say, but I was. \u2018Cause I had no sense of having been left behind. All those feelings were my own \u2014 they were personal feelings of humiliation. But they weren\u2019t to do with the band. They were directed at myself.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFor years, Mullen was all too aware of a problem with his neck, a congenital fusion in a facet joint. He would\u2019ve been fine if he wasn\u2019t continually aggravating it by hitting things, hard, for a living. \u201cIf you don\u2019t do my job, you wouldn\u2019t really notice,\u201d he says, \u201cand I got away with it for years.\u201d By the 2019 leg of U2\u2019s Joshua Tree tour, that was starting to change. He was in pain, and the medical treatment he needed each night to be able to play was harming him in the long run. \u201cBy the time I came off the road, I was really in a bad way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe was exhausted after relentless years of touring, but still assumed he\u2019d recover. \u201cI just thought I always bounce back,\u201d he says. \u201cI always make it back\u2026. I did need time away. I just would\u2019ve preferred to have booked a flight somewhere as opposed to booking the trolley in the hospital.\u201d When Covid arrived, Mullen stopped playing altogether. \u201cI wasn\u2019t playing drums in the bunker, \u2019cause it was too sore. It was through COVID that I realized that I was physically damaged beyond repair\u2026 I shut down, everybody had, and my body just went, \u2018You\u2019ve had enough.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t know if Larry was gonna come back,\u201d Clayton says. \u201cCould we keep going? Would we wanna keep going? That\u2019s still an open question.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tEven so, Mullen initially agreed to the Sphere residency when it first came up, circa 2022. \u201c\u200aI signed up to do it,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then a couple of weeks later my physio said to me, \u2018You won\u2019t make it through rehearsals. So you need to undo that,\u2019 which was very difficult, very complicated to undo it, \u2019cause I\u2019d made a commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe had no issue with his bandmates continuing without him. \u201cI absolutely understood,\u201d he says. \u201cBusiness is business, and nothing can get in the way of the process, and I accept that 100 percent. So the unspoken rule\u201d \u2014\u00a0that a band member could be replaced onstage \u2014 \u201capplied to me in that case. It could apply to somebody else in another case. And that\u2019s the cost of doing business. It is complicated being friends, being friendly, being in business. So yeah, we all have feelings. So I\u2019m not gonna lie that it wasn\u2019t difficult, but nobody imposed it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWatching U2 play without him, he did think about musicians who\u2019d been swapped out of bands \u201cat a singer\u2019s whim.\u201d \u201cI thought about \u2026 how that must feel,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t have that feeling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAround the start of the Sphere run, Mullen joined his bandmates in the studio to record the one-off single \u201cAtomic City\u201d and appear in a music video. \u201cWe were at that point of not knowing if this was the last time he would play with us,\u201d says Clayton. Bassists and drummers share a unique link, and Clayton sees his relationship with Mullen almost as a marriage. Playing with a different drummer \u201cfelt very promiscuous,\u201d he says, as much as he admired van den Berg\u2019s musicianship.<\/p>\n \n\tThe band\u2019s future felt uncertain. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know if Larry was gonna come back,\u201d Clayton says. \u201cCould we keep going? Would we wanna keep going? That\u2019s still an open question.\u201d But the Edge says Carnaval De Luz only exists because Mullen did return. \u201cI don\u2019t think we would\u2019ve made an album if Larry hadn\u2019t been able to play,\u201d he says. \u201cWe would\u2019ve just gone, \u2018Why? Why make an album without Larry Mullen on it? Doesn\u2019t feel right.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBACK AT THE LUNCH TABLE, the members of U2 are sharing some of the whole grilled fish Clayton ordered, and talking, at startling length, about progressive rock. Bono has for years presented prog-rock, or a vague caricature of it, as a musical boogeyman that represents everything U2 were trying to avoid. In his mind, it was less an actual genre that veers from greatness (King Crimson, Rush) to ridiculousness (Tales From Topographic Oceans, Rick Wakeman\u2019s infamous Camelot-on-ice thing) than a shorthand: atmosphere, pretension, and self-indulgence over hooks and immediacy.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAnton Corbijn<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe grew up on the rock & roll 45,\u201d he told <\/a>me in 2009. \u201cIt is by far the most difficult thing to pull off, and it is the very life force of rock & roll: vitality, succinctness, and catchiness, whether it\u2019s the Sex Pistols, Nirvana, the Pixies, the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones \u2026 And when rock music forgets about the 45, it tends toward progressive rock, which is like a mold that grows on old, burnt-out artists who\u2019ve run out of ideas. We have a soundtrack\/Pink Floyd side of our band, and it has to be balanced by fine songwriting.\u201d Later, Bono decided that the very album U2 were making while we had that discussion, No Line on the Horizon<\/a>, suffered from a prog infestation. He sent the band back to what he\u2019s described as \u201csongwriting school\u201d for its next two albums, 2014\u2019s Songs of Innocence and 2017\u2019s Songs of Experience.<\/p>\n \n\tThe Edge, as it turns out, actually likes prog, particularly Yes, a band he worshipped to the point of writing their name on his jeans in high school. And Bono has something to tell him. He\u2019s talking about how much U2 owe their producers, which brings him to Brian Eno. During the making of The Unforgettable Fire, Eno insisted the band listen to Donna Summer\u2019s masterful, Quincy Jones-produced \u201cState of Independence\u201d on repeat until it \u201cturned into a prayer, which is what it really is,\u201d Bono says. The song took up residence in the singer\u2019s head for the next 40 years, but he only recently went online and learned that former Yes lead singer Jon Anderson co-wrote it. <\/p>\n \n\tSo Bono listened to some Yes songs, for the first time in his life. In Steve Howe\u2019s chiming guitar harmonics, he recognized a kindred spirit to the Edge, another player determined to avoid rock\u2019s blues cliches. Then Bono was reminded of the title of the band\u2019s fifth album. \u201cIt\u2019s Close to the Edge,\u201d he says. \u201cThe Edge\u2019s name comes out of this moment that I\u2019ve been fighting with!\u201d (At the table, the Edge doesn\u2019t dispute this assertion, but he\u2019s previously cast doubt on this version of his nickname\u2019s origin story.)<\/p>\n \n\tBono turns to the Edge. \u201cI owed you an apology,\u201d he says, citing \u201cmy long-held, and probably hurtful, campaign to accuse you and others of suffering from a lurgy\u201d \u2014 a Britishism for malady \u2014 \u201ccalled progressive rock on your worst moments.\u201d<\/p>\n The Edge grins, his neat, dark goatee crinkling. \u201cI just wanted to point out that Bono is totally pro prog-rock when it suits him,\u201d he says, citing the chords and arrangement of \u201cThe Tears of Things,\u201d from Days of Ash, as \u201cprogressive rock in its best iteration.\u201d He also reveals that Bono wrote an alternate intro to the new album\u2019s opening track that\u2019s \u201cheavily influenced by Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t(Mullen, for what it\u2019s worth, sees all his roots in glam rock, and the closest he\u2019ll come to prog is Blind Faith\u2019s only album. As for Clayton: \u201cI didn\u2019t seek out music played by men in tights,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew there was nothing there for me.\u201d That said, he is a Tool fan.)<\/p>\n \n\tThe whole discussion was less of a wild digression than it seemed. Part of the excitement of U2\u2019s newest music is that it\u2019s slipped the bonds of the 45. Easter Lily ends with the striking, hypnotic track \u201cCoexist (I Will Bless the Lord at All Times?),\u201d which happens to be nearly seven minutes long. It began as some gently pulsing synth chords from Eno in a file he\u2019d labeled \u201cMelancholic Space Grandeur.\u201d Bono improvised over it, taking some inspiration from \u201cState of Independence.\u201d This song, too, is a prayer. The original version ran for 17 minutes, and Bono seriously considered putting it out that way. Lee convinced him to pull back: \u201cI was going, \u2018It\u2019s very good, but people will only ever listen to it once.’\u201d<\/p>\n Mullen\u2019s neck surgery was risky. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got the head and the heart, I\u2019m a head guy,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll do the calculation, the logic. But my desire to play again overwrote that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThere are plenty of pop hooks on the new album, from the downright sexy \u201cGlorify\u201d (\u201cAs the heavens fall\/Baby don\u2019t we all?\u201d) to the rollicking \u201cLa Reina\u201d (\u201cLet\u2019s hear it one more time\/For the face of the future\u201d) to the falsetto earworm of \u201cSuperficiality\u201d (\u201cFreedom is a feeling\/It\u2019s a feeling that I have around you\u201d). But Bono acknowledges that after Songs of Experience, he\u2019s finally let go of the idea that U2 could still have a chart-dominating smash. \u201cI guess when the pop charts get fed up with you, you defend yourself by saying, \u2018Oh, I wasn\u2019t really interested in them in the first place,’\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you know that\u2019s not true \u2026 I wanted to hear our songs on the radio. Nothing still thrills me more \u2026 When there was a shot at that, I really wanted to carve a perfect pop song. I really did. Nearly got there, but didn\u2019t quite get there. Met some incredible people, learned from them but could not distill it into that one song. The one. Just couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cNow,\u201d he says, \u201cthe song is its own reward.\u201d Whatever happens with the new album, he adds, \u201cI\u2019m not holding it against the songs. It\u2019s just the moment we\u2019re in \u2026 It\u2019s just for the few, not for the many.\u201d He remembers reading a late-period Bob Dylan interview where the bard accepted that his music wasn\u2019t for the masses anymore, and said he\u2019d simply double down on being himself. \u201cNo one\u2019s better at being Bob Dylan than Bob Dylan,\u201d Bono says. \u201cNo one\u2019s better at being in U2 than Edge, Adam, Larry, and me. They might want to be in U2, but we\u2019re actually not bad at it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAll that said, the band is trying to come up with a radio edit of Bono\u2019s favorite new track, the five-and-a-half-minute \u201cThe Greatest Show on Earth.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s maybe our greatest song in a very long time,\u201d he says. \u201cThat was a reason to stay in the band.\u201d The slow-burning, IMAX-sized epic takes on a shattered love affair, with some shots at Christian nationalism along the way (\u201cIs this a church of love or fear?\/Have we made God feel like a stranger here?\u201d). It aims to capture some of the ecstatic, crooning heartbreak of \u201cYou\u2019ve Lost That Lovin\u2019 Feelin\u2019,\u201d with a hint of Bertolt Brecht: \u201cLove is a business that works at night\/I sold myself for less than was right.\u201d Bono had the title for a long time, but catching Elvis Presley sing \u201cLovin\u2019 Feelin’\u201d in his friend Baz Luhrmann\u2019s recent concert film helped him crack the elegiac concept for the song: \u201cWe were once the greatest show on earth.\u201d \u201cThere may be,\u201d he says, unable to help himself, \u201ca version of it that we can get on the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMullen and Clayton are just glad that the band changed its ways from the Innocence\/Experience period, when they would ping-pong songs between wildly different producers and co-writers. \u201cIt was very hard when we had so many producers involved,\u201d Mullen says. \u201cSo what is the band? What does the band do? How does it function? \u2026 I didn\u2019t know what I was meant to be doing. So the studio environment was sit back and watch. I\u2019m not used to sitting back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tDuring that period, Clayton adds, \u201cthe sound of the band got very cloudy, got very muddy.\u200aYou know, keyboard overdubs and what have you. And this was very definitely a record based on wanting the band to sound like they\u2019re in a room playing together.\u201d It\u2019s also full of huge, song-propelling bass lines. Clayton is quick to credit the Edge with composing some of them, but the guitarist throws the praise back at him. \u201cThe thing I always know is when Adam plays, it\u2019s a different thing altogether,\u201d says the Edge. \u201cSo I might throw an idea at him, but it\u2019s amazing how, when Adam and Larry play, everything goes up 50 percent just in terms of the depth and intensity and personality.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tBono, the Edge, and Clayton perform at the Sphere in Las Vegas in 2023, with Bram van den Berg filling in for Mullen on drums<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Mazur\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tLee, who worked on the last two albums, watched songs get passed among far-flung collaborators until \u201cyou end up with these kind of Frankenstein monsters, and bits of things, and they don\u2019t add up to much.\u201d He doesn\u2019t exempt himself. \u201cI, shamefully, didn\u2019t understand the power of Larry and Adam,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n \n\tThe Edge thinks the band overcorrected twice. No Line, he argues, is where the band \u201clost sight of songwriting as a discipline.\u201d On the next two albums, they \u201calmost came the exact amount off the path in the opposite direction,\u201d ending up \u201ca little too technical \u2026 a little too precise.\u201d This time around, \u201cnothing was sacred. Nothing was finished till it was finished.\u201d But he still loves the last two albums. \u201cI think it came at a moment where U2 were maybe not as in vogue as we had been, so some of the work possibly has been slightly overlooked,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\tMullen now realizes that all of that creative struggle, however frustrating, had a purpose. \u201cThe contrarian in me would go, \u2018Told you, we don\u2019t have to work that hard,’\u201d he says. \u201cThe problem is that\u2019s not correct. The correct thing is you have to push and take the risk to get to the other side.\u201d The lesson, as he sees it, is less about songcraft than about identity. \u201cU2 can\u2019t be like everybody else. We just can\u2019t. We don\u2019t have the skills to do that. We always will be and have to be outliers \u2026 The circuitous route to this record is just that. It\u2019s the recognition that the band is not malleable in the way that maybe we would have hoped \u2026 It took a lot to get to this place. And it\u2019s a recognition of 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAT ONE POINT DURING the sessions, Barack Obama came around, and why wouldn\u2019t he? \u201cWe were having a good time, just talking about music and Kendrick Lamar and lots of films,\u201d says Lee. \u201cHe\u2019s got good taste.\u201d Bono played the former president an in-progress song, \u201cThe Tears of Things.\u201d \u201cA lot of times he\u2019s not looking for somebody\u2019s take on it,\u201d Lee adds. \u201cHe\u2019s looking at how they feel when it\u2019s being played, and you can tell when a line doesn\u2019t land.\u201d Obama had more than a take; he had notes. \u201cHe pointed something out to Bono about the halfway pivot,\u201d Lee says. \u201cHe had an observation that was valid. He\u2019s very good.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe song is, to say the least, a big swing, Bono\u2019s elliptical take on the thousands of years that led up to Gaza, with an empathetic look at the history of the Jewish people, all narrated simultaneously by the biblical David and the statue Michelangelo made of him. By the end, he\u2019s pleading, \u201cEverybody is my people\/Let my people go,\u201d and wondering, \u201cWho would choose to be chosen?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s an attempt to try and grasp what\u2019s going on in a world where we never needed the moral force of Judaism more than now,\u201d Bono says. \u201cAnd yet, what is happening?\u201d Not for the first time, he condemns Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack, calling it \u201can unholy offense.\u201d But he\u2019s particularly horrified by the words of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel\u2019s far-right minister of national security, comparing his rhetoric about Gaza \u2014\u00a0\u201cthere are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn\u2019t live. They\u2019re not even people\u201d \u2014\u00a0to Himmler.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAs a person who has stood by Israel,\u201d Bono says, \u201cand standing by Israel \u2014 as I stand with the Palestinian people, by the way, that they have a Palestine \u2014 there\u2019s all this semantic back and forth over genocide, and it\u2019s a legal term, and the ICC and the ICJ will rule on it eventually. But here\u2019s a guy, a minister in the government, and he\u2019s not being locked up \u2026 and this guy Netanyahu says, \u2018Well, I need him to keep my majority.’\u201d He shakes his head. \u201cSo many of the people that have expanded my mind, changed my consciousness, made me laugh, broken my heart with their songs, lifted my spirits, are Jewish. And this guy\u2019s putting their religion in the shade \u2026 It\u2019s just outrageous.\u201d Israel, he adds, has \u201cto fix the situation. They have to put what happened at the Nakba right, by making some compromise that some of these people don\u2019t wanna make, and do the just thing. Justice is at the heart of Judaism.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe quietness of \u2018Tears of Things\u2019 is boiling rage,\u201d Bono concludes. It was also a powerful song that didn\u2019t seem to belong on the album they wanted to make, and it wasn\u2019t alone. U2 had, by Clayton\u2019s count, \u201c25, 30, 35, 40 pieces that were being worked on, that were being considered, and it just seemed like an awful lot to fit through the gate.\u201d The band members were targeting the Carnival-Lent-Easter cycle early on, but initially thought of it as somehow all working on the same album.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tEarly this year, they changed their minds. \u201cAmongst the body of work we had was stuff that really just didn\u2019t fit in the countervailing, joyful, carnival, celebration-of-the-physical-self idea,\u201d says the Edge. \u201cSo I said, \u2018Let\u2019s just put out a few songs now. We\u2019ve got these songs finished that probably won\u2019t see the light of day, and they make sense.\u2019 Then Bono says, \u2018Yeah, they make sense around this part of the calendar.’\u201d Ash Wednesday was weeks away. \u201cIt makes perfect sense. Let\u2019s do it. I thought one or two songs. He\u2019s like, \u2018No, let\u2019s do, like, six.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnce we got Larry in the room, it really all started to make sense,\u201d says the Edge. \u201cAll my questions and insecurities, everything started to just fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLee was about to go home to his family for some time off. Instead, he and the band began working with nearly crazed intensity. \u201cYou think, \u2018Oh, this could be a terrible idea.\u2019 Because it\u2019s so disruptive, and we only have a few days to get this done, and we haven\u2019t written two songs. So this is a lot of jeopardy here, and we really have to start doing 18-hour days, seven days a week, for the next two weeks to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n The Edge started the music for \u201cAmerican Obituary,\u201d which mourns the death of Ren\u00e9e Good at the hands of an ICE agent, only four weeks before it came out. Before Bono finished the lyrics, he arranged a Zoom call with three generations of Good\u2019s family, \u201cthe best people you could ever meet.\u201d \u201cAs chief lyricist, I just wanted to make sure people were OK with it,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the father, when I got to the bit about \u2018America will rise against the people of the lie,\u2019 he asked me where that came from. I said, \u2018It\u2019s a book that Edge gave me, by M. Scott Peck, back in the Eighties.’\u201d Good\u2019s dad pointed to the same book on his shelf. \u201cAnd what was so extraordinary about these people was they were trying to make me feel at ease.\u201d Good\u2019s partner told Bono she prays for the ICE officer who shot Good, which inspired his lyric \u201cI love you more than hate loves war.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThey released the Days of Ash EP with no advance word and zero fuss, essentially just slipping it onto streaming services. It was the precise opposite of dropping an album onto every iPhone in the world. \u200a\u201dWe\u2019d had a very big accident a few years ago,\u201d Clayton says with a smile. \u201cAnd we didn\u2019t wanna repeat that mistake. We liked the idea of putting them out in a way that didn\u2019t make people think that this was a substitute album.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re hiding our new album,\u201d Bono says. \u201cI was surprised everyone went with it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThey had barely recovered when the frontman suggested a second EP for Easter. The scramble began anew. \u201cAnother kind of emergency happens,\u201d says Lee. \u201cAnd then we go, \u2018We can\u2019t do it again.\u2019 But I think we did, and I think potentially better. When everyone\u2019s pulling in the same direction, it can be a very powerful thing, especially with U2, because Bono\u2019s like a juggernaut when he gets this energy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tLately, more than ever, Bono\u2019s been thinking about evil. He was struck by Simon McBurney\u2019s recent stage adaptation of The Master and Margarita (the book that inspired Mick Jagger to write \u201cSympathy for the Devil\u201d), where Satan thrives in a Moscow where no one believes in his existence. \u201cWhatever it is, you call it whatever you want. I don\u2019t know what it is,\u201d Bono says. \u201cBut something entered the air. Everything that you and I hold sacred \u2014 because we probably would\u2019ve gone to the same concerts, we might have argued over Rush, but not really \u2014 most of what you hold sacred is under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tU2 shooting the \u201cStreet of Dreams\u201d video in Mexico City in May<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEloisa Sanchez<\/p>\n \n\tThe devil, \u201ca thief at large in a carnival of souls,\u201d is also a character in the album\u2019s fiercest song, which just dropped as a single. After the EPs, the band members suddenly realized that they had used up some album tracks and needed more. One of the final tracks they created was \u201cSilencio.\u201d Lee was worried that the album was \u201cpotentially a little low-key,\u201d and the Edge dug out a nasty, fire-breathing guitar riff he had left over from the Songs of Innocence era. \u201cWe genuinely were like, \u2018We need something of that energy,’\u201d the Edge says. \u201cAnd everyone just went, \u2018Wow, let\u2019s work on it.\u2019 And it came through really quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIn the silence,\u201d Bono sings, \u201cthe devil rock and rolls.\u201d But the lyrics distinguish between two kinds of silence. \u201cThere\u2019s a beautiful silence, which is, you know, when you\u2019re in that reflective place \u2014 nothing wrong with that,\u201d says the Edge. \u201cBut there\u2019s the other form of silence, which is a kind of censorship, self-censorship, which is where things can get very dangerous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYou would know the essay by Hannah Arendt on the banality of evil,\u201d Bono says. \u201cSo in the silence, that is it. That\u2019s literally what that\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tONCE HE BACKED OUT of the Sphere, Mullen became determined to pursue surgery on his neck. But doctors wouldn\u2019t even discuss it with him, let alone agree to perform it. There was no guarantee the surgery would work, but that was the least of it. There was a small but real chance that it could leave Mullen paralyzed. \u201cPeople don\u2019t want to take a risk,\u201d he says. \u201cMost people were, \u2018You know what? You\u2019ve done incredibly well. Just retire. Sail off into the sunset. Why would you do this to yourself?’\u201d Mullen\u2019s family was against the idea, as well. I ask how he responded to them, and he shrugs: \u201cOverride it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tCall it heroic, or foolish, or the most extreme of the band\u2019s many leaps of faith, but Larry Mullen Jr. was willing to take the chance. That\u2019s how much U2 means to him. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a moment that I questioned, bizarrely,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is somebody who thinks things through. If you\u2019ve got the head and the heart, I\u2019m a head guy. I\u2019ll do the calculation, the logic. But my desire to play again overwrote that\u2026. It\u2019s only when you are faced with the possibility that you may not be able to do the thing that you love, that you\u2019ve done for most of your life\u2026 It\u2019s funny what your brain will do, and your body. It goes into a different mode.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tEventually, a young neurosurgeon in Dublin agreed to perform the operation. Mullen was grateful, though taken aback when she told him she\u2019d take the risk on the grounds that he was \u201ca national treasure.\u201d \u201cI thought, \u2018Shit, OK. It\u2019s really all going wrong now,’\u201d he says. \u201c\u2018Might be an out-of-work national treasure.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe surgery went well, and after three or four months, Mullen sat down at a drum kit. \u201cAnd I realized that I was playing differently,\u201d he says. \u201cEverything was different. My body didn\u2019t work the same way as it used to.\u201d He knew drummers like Max Weinberg had sought out lessons after injuries to reshape their technique, but couldn\u2019t imagine taking that path. His only drum teacher, a Dublin jazz player, briefly tried to show a young Mullen how to play like the virtuoso Steve Gadd. It didn\u2019t work. \u201cI think I broke the man,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m unteachable.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tInstead, he went back to basics, returning to the \u201cmost efficient\u201d way of playing everything. \u201cOver the years, you get ahead of yourself,\u201d he says. \u201cAll you need is a neck injury to bring you back to that place. Because now you don\u2019t have all those things you learned, all those little flicky-dee-dos, all the little skills. You now can\u2019t rely on those.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhen he felt ready, he texted his bandmates. (Oddly, there\u2019s no full-band U2 group chat. \u201c\u200aWe haven\u2019t done that yet,\u201d Mullen says. \u201cDefinitely should get one of them.\u201d) They gathered for a session in their friend Julian Lennon\u2019s studio, not far from the vacation house Bono and the Edge own here in the South of France. \u201cI sat behind the drum kit,\u201d Mullen recalls. \u201cLiterally, it was like I got into a car, and I just put it in first gear. And I just started to drive \u2026 I haven\u2019t played for a few years. I don\u2019t know if it still happens, that creative thing. Has that died in me? I didn\u2019t know.\u201d He threw everything he had at the track. \u201cAnd I looked into the studio, and I could see the band kind of going, \u2018OK, that\u2019s not what we expected.\u2019 And I\u2019m going, \u2018Not for me either.’\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA second session there yielded \u201cStreet of Dreams,\u201d with the version on the album ending up as \u201cpretty much what we played together,\u201d according to Clayton. \u201cSo it was a very positive first step,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the dangerous thing about this band,\u201d says The Edge. \u201cOur next song, our next album could be our best ever, and we sense that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t \u201cOnce we got Larry in the room, it really all started to make sense,\u201d says the Edge. \u201cAll my questions and insecurities, everything started to just fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI certainly was very aware from the first sessions with Larry back that he was playing differently,\u201d Bono says. \u201cWith more authority, if that makes sense to you. But it was playful. Very playful.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOn Days of Ash, a drum performance or two was swapped out for a drum machine. \u201cIn the past, I might have said, \u2018Shit,’\u201d Mullen says. \u201cThis time I went, \u2018That really worked. That was the right thing to do.\u2019 \u2026 I don\u2019t need to be on everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cOld Larry would\u2019ve been more of a veto merchant,\u201d says Clayton. \u201cThis new Larry \u2026 he\u2019s much softer. He\u2019s much gentler. He\u2019s much more respectful of other people\u2019s commitment to something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m working on the positive \u2018no,’\u201d Mullen jokes, but he knows the old role had its risks. \u201cThe contrarian can get miscast as a villain, and I felt that. I felt I was always walking the plank. I think people have roles \u2026 You\u2019re the guy, the Bono character, who wants to push it: \u2018This is how it\u2019s going to be.\u2019 You need some of that. And I recognize that now. That without that, there\u2019s no need for a contrarian or a peacemaker or an aesthetic guy.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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