LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD

Rip It Up, Issue 86, 1 September 1984, Page 18

LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD

BY DUNCAN CAMPBELL

INTERVIEW PART 1

U2

There’s nothing like the sight of a rock group to bring out the inherent snobbery in hotels, though in fairness to Auckland’s plush Sheraton, it’s the other guests, not the staff, who cast sideways glances at the members of U2. The younger staffers, who are in the know, are ail smiles. The word is around that these are not only stars, these are nice guys. U2 are small town boys made good. This comes through not only in their unpretentious dress and manner, but in

their natural warmth. They are also selfconscious and shy, not wishing to be photographed while doing interviews.

The overriding feeling, though, is one of apprehension. The band has only just finished recording a new album and apart from three days' rehearsal, has not played live for more than six months. The opening dates of a world tour can be real killers. “These performances will be very interesting," says Bono, “it’ll be like coming along to a rehearsal. That is exciting for us, hopefully it’ll be the same for the people.

“You know, there’s a lot said about the music in general terms, but when we're on stage, things start to fit into place. We really are just four jerks making forward steps in our music. We’re as much fans of the music as anybody and we're as interested in how it’s made as anybody. That's probably why we do interviews, to find out how it’s done (laughter).’’ “We’re actually starting this tour earlier than we intended to,” says the Edge, “but the reason we agreed to play here was because we hadn’t done so before, and the emphasis on new material wasn’t quite so important. People had never seen us play the old material, so no matter

what we did, it was still going to be new and there was going to be interest in what we were doing. We didn’t feel embarrassed about not coming out with a totally new set of live material. I don’t know what these performances are going to be like, but they will be totally committed.” Commitment is a word which looms large on U2’s horizon. It was that desire to give the best which led to their pulling out of Sweetwaters, a major'disappointment. But Bono says the disappointment would have been bigger, had they played. "We’ve never walked onto a stage without wanting to. We didn’t want to do Sweetwaters because we knew we were empty and we had no energy. You take flak for that, but now we want to tour again, even though I don’t know what the hell is going to happen.” "The one thing, though, is that we never go through the motions,” adds the Edge. “I think an audience can sense that. It may not ultimately take away from their sense of enjoyment, but if a band is committed to doing something, there’s another level of appreciation that comes in. We’ve had concerts where it’s almost as if the band and the audience have combined to create something that’s even bigger than both the halves, where the full excitement and atmosphere of that concert is just so uplifting and incredible. I think that’s down to just going out there and giving everything.” The new album, Unforgettable Fire, was produced by Brian Eno and should be out in time for next month’s RIU, where it will be discussed in more detail. What sets U2 apart is their sense of tradition, coupled with truly Celtic romanticism and a gritty determination to succeed. The Dublin boys are quick to acknowledge the influence of their environment. The Edge: "Music, when it’s really working, has that ability to draw the listener in, it invites the listener inside the artist’s emotions and heart. Coming from Dublin, from a community that is a tenth the size of New York or London, I think we are far more in touch with those basic human relations. What happens when you’re in one of these huge cities is that you become very conscious of yourself and how small you are, and your ability to communicate becomes less. You tend to know lots of people not very well, rather than say, for instance, us: we know a limited circle of friends extremely well. I’ve noticed that other bands which come from outlying areas, like Simple Minds, from Scotland, there’s a quality to them which bands from the larger cities don’t have. I think it’s the ability to communicate emotionally. “The bands which come from London and New York, it’s all very conceptual, it’s all kind of flat and intellectual. Don’t attempt to try and get anything personal from the artist, because the artist is so steeped in his own self-image and the kind of concept he’s trying to present, that he’s almost lost.” New Zealanders, being landed refugees, are greatly envious of those who can draw on centuries of indigenous heritage, such as the Irish. Bono, having grown up with it, is more matter-of-fact, but readily admits its importance. “It think it’s an unconscious heritage, with the group. My familiarity with Joyce and Yeats is quite a recent one, and yet the way in which I approach the microphone to sing is, in hindsight, quite in keeping with that Irish tradition, the stream of consciousness, the inside resolving all the conflicts, rather than just your head. Also in the playing, in the notes chosen, there is again the lyrical music rather than just the voice. I don’t know why it’s there, it’s just there.” Despite the youthful exuberance of their music, these men have old heads on their shoulders, although only in their mid-20s. Bono and the Edge are both married, the latter also being the very proud father of a six-week-old girl, Holly. That sort of stability is unusual in musicians so young, and to the Edge, it’s another source of strength: "Dublin, the family, our circle of friends, they give us something we can rely on. What happens to a lot of groups is they create something

special and unique, suddenly it’s successful, they go to London, Sydney, New York and I think groups then lose whatever unique quality they had originally, because they’ve changed the very source of those ideas and feelings that made them unique. So for us, we’re always aware that coming from Dublin gave us the strange objectivity to the music business, this ability to throw away all the bullshit and yet keep all the positive and good things that were coming out. We could still retain that ability to relate to people and our sense of human relationships, which is important when you're playing music, when you’re expressing emotions and trying to create something that people can latch onto and understand, in an emotional and intuitive way.” The Celtic outlook also has a way of cutting people down to size when they appear to be getting a bit up themselves. Bono relates the delightful story of the night Jim Kerr’s dad went to see Simple Minds in concert. Kerr, as usual, was in full flight. His father, a dour Glaswegian, commented: "Look at him. He thinks he’s God. What he needs is a good kick up the arse.” Bono and the Edge are both highly critical of what they call ‘mush music’, mainly originating from the south of England, all style and no content. Fashion music. Both express admiration for bands like the Waterboys, REM and even the Alarm, whom the Edge thinks have been misunderstood and dealt with harshly by the British music press. U2 have come in for similar treatment.

"I really hate myself for reading those pieces of trash,” he says. "I don’t respect them at all. I respect the individuals that bust their arses to write for them and get paid very little, and a lot of them are real fans of music. But the actual editorial concept behind them, the general ternd within those papers, is just sickening. I think they’re important for a band when they’re just starting, they expose the apathetic radio and TV audience to something new. I think they’ve been responsible for the strength of youth culture, their awareness of bands and style and those sort of things, which since the 70s has just exploded in Britain. While that’s got its negative side, it can be extremely tribal and anti-individual, I think it’s probably overall a positive force because it develops the creative side of people and gives them something they consider worthwhile getting interested in. That can only be good, with the kind of apathetic mood the world is in at the moment. "I’m not sure if it’s right to say they can create or destroy things, because when something is in the air, it’ll happen regardless. They tend to be quite accurate in their assessment of things from time to time, but they are also very unjournalistic in their attitudes. They never attempt to talk about the act in a general sense. All they’re doing is presenting their opinion in a kind of way that is final, you know: ‘This band is awful’. Instead of documenting what is happening or describing the act, it’s just a series of personal, random feelings and ideas about that band.

Really, it tells you more about the journalist than the band, in a lot of cases. ‘‘One of the qualities I despise about so much of today’s music is that it’s so disposable. If it’s not listened to in that precise geographical location, at that point in time, it’s meaningless. If you listen to it six months later, or play it to people in another country, it means nothing. Art, if it has any qualities, has to transcend barriers like that. It has to be timeless. "I feel our music has that quality. It’s not important to catch the subtle nuances of the lyrics, it’s not important that you discover everything about the band that are performing this music. You’ll transcend that and gain an insight. I think it comes through in the performance, and a lot of these new artists just don’t understand that, it’s a foreign idea to them. But I think all great music has that quality. How else would a white kid of 15 in Sheffield be able to relate to someone like Ray Charles? It’s that quality of soul, that ability to empathise, to present yourself or some sort of emotion through your music. "Commitment and honesty and truth are the things that matter. Take Marvin Gaye. There was a man who had no illusions about himself, he was not idealistic to any extent, yet he had this ability to be honest and committed to his work. There was a pain involved in that. John Lennon had the same thing, there was pain in his work. That’s what it’s about, it’s whether the artist has

the guts or even the ability to present himself in any honest way. “I’m sick of music that is just facade, you put it on and you know exactly what is happening, the guy is just writing off the top of his head, there's no commitment to his work or the ideas he’s trying to present, it’s just something he thinks is a good lyric, or what have you. It’s just empty music.” Controversy always sells, although in a year when we were all meant to be reassessing our lives, the biggest stink raised has been over Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Sing if you’re glad... “Yeah, they’re at laest different,” says the Edge. “We’ve seen it all before, though, with the Sex Pistols and Bowie. As well as some excellent production, though I may not agree with the ethics of that style of production, basically it’s the same old ‘creating a scandal through challenging the kind-of middle class values of England’. The really amusing thing is to see how successfully they’ve done it, how the same old techniques still work.” The slightly vexed issue of Christianity is not something U2 willingly discuss these days. Their beliefs have been misinterpreted, certain media endowing them with a ‘squeaky clean’ image which is quite inaccurate. But there is no doubting the strength of their faith (three out of four, Adam Clayton being the uncommitted one). Prior to the interview, the Edge questioned me in detail about the state of religion in this country. He is not greatly impressed with the ‘born again’ types, the Bible bashers with their conservative, often bigoted outlook. His religion is more broad-based, not aligned to any particular church. It is a true Christianity that comes from inside, does not need to be shouted from the rooftops, is both understanding and tolerant, and constantly seeks knowledge. The Edge was born in Wales and when his family shifted to Ireland, they found the P r esbyterian church the closest to the Chapel. Bono is from a mixed Catholic-Protestant background. For the record, we also discussed politics and nuclear weapons in some depth. U2 do not refuse to play concerts on Sundays and the Edge says, jokingly, that he hasn’t seen ‘Chariots of Fire'. It’s actually the first time in two years that he's discussed religion with a journalist, because of the way it’s been distorted. “None of us are ashamed of our upbringings, which are actually about as different as you can get. But essentially, our beliefs are very personal, they don’t relate to any organised religion whatsoever. In fact, I don’t think any organised religion is up to it, because our beliefs are that Christianity, if it’s to work at all, must work on two levels. It must work on an absolutely personal basis, but it must also work for everybody, you can’t isolate it for a particular community or geographical location and mould it to suit that. This is what happens in most religions. It becomes small-minded and I just despise that side of church life and religion generally. I think it’s so destructive, it's so untypical of God, Him being such a huge concept.

“It’s something that is really very difficult to discuss through the media generally, because it’s not something that lends itself to being analysed intellectually, or even articulated about, because it’s a feeling, it’s something that is instinctive.

“The one way that we’ve found of communicating this side of our lives is through the music, and I think that is one of the only legitimate ways that I have found of communicating it. This is because our music reflects us as individuals, it’s something we’ve always wanted to do. We’ve never wanted to express ideas or concepts through our music, we’ve always just wanted to express our own beliefs and our own personalities. I think you can tell a lot about our beliefs by getting to know our music. “A lot of people used to hope that they would, in an interview situation, learn about our music by understanding our beliefs, but I believe it’s the other way round.”

The religious references in your music have always seemed rather oblique. “Yeah, I would hope that is the case. Again, we have never, ever felt in a position to tell people how to run their lives. This is one thing we’ve always been sure about. What works for us is great, but the idea of ramming it down other people’s throats is just so anti-everything that we believe in. Yet at the same time we feel no compunction to hide this thing from people who are interested in our music.

“So the two have to be balanced, obviously, commercially speaking. Christianity is not something you want to promote, as everybody knows, and I’m sure Bob Dylan would back me on this. It just doesn’t make good copy in the press. It doesn’t sell your records, in fact it can be extremely damaging to a group. But we’ve never been a group that relies too much on what the press or other people think of our work. It’s an extremely self-reliant thing, this group, we’ve always looked to ourselves for the judgement of whether what we’re doing is working. ‘‘We cater for ourselves first, .artistically, because I think we’re our most ardent critics. We’re always extremely hard on ourselves, and if we think it’s working, we’re pretty accurate. If it’s not happening, we’d be the first to say so.”

Coming up next month: Meeting Brian Eno, recording in a castle, inspirations and influences, plus an encounter with the infamous Paul Morley.

Duncan Campbell