Adam & the Edge Interview

Rip It Up, Issue 149, 1 December 1989, Page 20

Adam & the Edge Interview

The Edge ponders the position of a band called U2. “We've gone through the mediablender,” he says, “and the mediais about headlines, and I think we've been caricatured a little bit. Attimesit’s alittle tiresome, apaininthe arsetobe honest, because it's not what we'reabout.” - U2andthe mediaimage of U2 are inseparable subjects these days. After huge world tours their When Love Comes To Towndouble headline-format of U2: BB King is something of a holiday for them, a fun gig, buteven in afaraway isle like New Zealand they're struggling under the yolk of headlines like “the greatestrock n’ roll band in the world.” In part thattitle is a round of applause from the masses who have embraced the band's anthemic songwriting and rousing, do-good sentiments, butit's also as good as a death-knell for many who see such “greatest band” accolades as a maijor step towards the posturing, dinosaur blandness associated with stadiumrock. Asusual, meeting people face to face serves only to highlight the distance between media musings andthe band themselves. It's quiet backstage at Western Springs after the concert and midnight before | find my way to a dressing room for the interview. I'm directed towards a table and chairs especially stacked with flowers, Dame Edna style, for the purpose of doing interviews; the offer of more flowersis made “in

case you want fo take photographs.” Declining the offer of more foliage, | sitdown ata corner table covered with food and drinks for the band and crew— a preferable interior decoration, in my late-night, after-show, opinion — and start rewriting my questions. When Adam Clayton and the Edge arrive, they also skip the Dame Edna experience inthe centre of the room and come and sitwith their white wine atmy side-table.

U2 held a press-conference at Auckland Airport when they arrived inthe country to start this tour and it was obvious right from the start that they share the legendary Irish charm. The Edge is slower and more thoughtfulin his answers to questions, butno less affable. Adam Clayton is known for aquicker witand more all-round sense of humour— which is good, considering his history of tangles with the Irish MOT and, more infamously, his local drug

enforcement agency. He was charged with possession of a small amount of cannibis earlier this year, found guilty by a Dublin court and fined 21,000 pounds. In the same week Shane McGowan was also found guilty of possessing cannabis and charged 150 pounds. ' “Yeah, thatwas hilarious,” Adam says of the contrasting fines. “The way | look atitisthat| don’thave a problem with drugs, | have a problem with the police.” You've been getting more press for drunk driving than your bass-playing lately. “[The press] have to find some hookto hang it on. The reason my driving is being scrutinised is because I'minaband. If you can’t do anything in private, then you have to accept thatit's @ public act. | don't agree with drunk driving, | think that's bad. | wasn't particularly drunk but | got pulled over for it and that's the law. | think | was one drink over but being who | was attracted aftention. It doesn’t bother me, because what | like doing is playing bass. | can give up driving!” Idealism Bono has grabbed headlines with some of the things he's said on stage — does he ever surprise you with what he's said? Adam: “Suprised, no. We live with him” Edge: “I'm surprised sometimes, really blown away.” “I'msurprised when people call him Bone-o,” Adam cackles.

+ (Henceforth | pronounce it their way: Bonn-o.) Bono's very concise and clear on what he says on ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ in Rattle And Hum, when he attacksthe IRA. Edge: “Nobody knew what he was going to do— I don'tthink he knew. Ina funny way, when we were putting the film together, we wished — well, he wished he'd never said what he said. That's the way he felt at thetime.” - Adam: "l sthe way we all felt. We - were sickened. These things happen too often. We're constantly arriving in places two hours after the news of some atrocity being committed. | * rememberwe arrived in London ~ afterthe Harrod's bomb, and okay it'sall well and grand when you're sittingin you're house and you're cosy in Dublin and something like that happens, butyou really feel fucking exposed when you're halfway around the world and there are people dragging your name and your nation through the dirt and * murdering people. lthurtsand you haveto say something.” ==+ Youhave retained youridealism — do you have to work against ~ cynicism within your own organisation? Edge: “That's a very good question. I'd say that in the Greek sense, I'm cynical — realistic, not negative about everything. | don't think U2 are naive anymore but| think we refuse to knuckle down and accept the life that, unfortunately, a lot of people are forced to accept. Just going with the flow is what a lot of people have to do o survive.” Adam: “They're working for their mortgage.” ‘ Edge: “I really think we are lucky to bein a position to call the shots. We're notfools, we see what's going onaround us and notall of it's good butthat doesn't mean that we roll overand die. Often people say to us, “What's this thing, what are you trying to do with your music? You think you can write asong like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and solve the Northern Irish problem, you think because you write a song like ‘Pride’ you can dealwith racism?” , “Butit's much more than that. You don't write a song because you think you can solve the problem; you write asong because it's worth writing, it's worth saying something.” Adam: “The media has treated us bit harshly. The media has labelled us Serious Young Men rather than saying, okay, these are people who “areinvolved and they want to stay involved.” : Don'tyou think they've picked on you because of your very idealism? Adam: “l think they've idealised ouridealism.” :

Oneßrain - You're a band of four different people — do you often have four different views on one matter? “There is only one brain between us,” Adam quips. : “There has been some tension,” the Edge admifs, “but | think that sort oftension has been very creative and positive. Joshua Tree was born fromthe tension of two very different

directions and two different opinions and Bono was very clearly trying to make an album thatwas rooted musically and lyrically in America — very obviously in the lyrics.” “Edge was taking the other side,” explains Adam. “Ifelt that was all very well,” says the Edge, "but | was aware that fundamentally our root was in Europe, and that on Joshua Tree that we had a chance of making a real

statement, of really putting on record what we were and what our whole thing as a band was. With [producer Brian] Eno; hisinterest was with the atmospheric side of the band, so that tension between directionsand opinionsresultedinanalbumof greatvariety and contrasts, and greatdepths.” Would the need to reconcile those differences take much time? “We would spend a lot of time

talking,” says Adam. “We'd getto rehearsal, spend six hours talking and rehearse fortwo.”

Edge: “Eno and [co-producer Daniel] Lanois are too well able to enterinto these debates. ltwas probably the most talked-about record during its making.” “Greattalkers, lousy players,” laughs Adam. _ America , The Edge’s statement that Bono wanted to write music based in America touches on their most recent album Rattle And Hum, a scrapbook of songs that reach for the spark of American rock, blues, folk and even soul. ltwas a contentious enterprise forthe band. Some found it fawning and adulatory, the work of tourists; others saw it cementing some kind of bond between, say, U2's Irish heritage and those of the Irish-American immigrants. “When we went o the States the firsttime we didn'tlike it much,” the Edge reveals, alittle surprisingly. “America had spawned all this great music but we couldn'tfind any of it when we first went. But over the last four or five years we've discovered this other side of America. Maybe it's just our own mythical America, and it doesn'texistat all, but it's been something we've been drawing from alof” = .. . Adam: “I think what people also failto respond to is that rock n’ roll, which is what we're into, was inventedin Americain 1956 by a fella called Elvis, so inevitably if you're interested in rock n’ roll, you do find your way to America, there's no two ways about it— no matter how hard you try and resist it.” - Was Rattle And Hum a personal pilgrimage? Adam: “There was an element of that.” Edge: “I think alot of people misunderstood the content of the - album and film. ltwas U2 working it outfor ourselves, going to Memphis. Wewere wide'-e)_ggo;déqris havinga good time. What would you do if you werein aband2 Wouldn'tyou goto Sun Studios and record some songs if you had the chance? For me that was such a kick. And finding that gospel choirtosing ‘Still Haven't Found

What 'm Looking For’, that was such acomplement.” “They really opened themselves up,” agrees Adam. “Wherever we wentin America, whether Memphis orNashville or New Orleans or New York, there was this great i brotherhood of music, there was greatcommunication. To have this relationship with people who are interested in music is great because when you become aband that s as successful as we are, suddenly you're talking to business people all the fime and you lose touch with the music, and the musicis whatit's all about. So itwas us frying to hold on to our. identity.” , : stravelling part of the whole music process¢ - : :

“There's a strong argument for t,” says the Edge. “The alternative is seftling down in a middle-class suburb, so atleast if you're still on the road you're keeping moving, you're in contact with the street. You find - your own level and the people you wantto be with. | think music s arisk, s 0 you've gotto be onthe road, you've got to be moving—you've gotto be singing from the heart.”

The King Did youincorporate BB King into the show because you needed a change in the band's live format? Adam: “We wanted o have fun. We've had enough of these serious long tours where you're kind of beating your head against the wall. We needed this to lighten up. We didn’twantto come down here and be serious young men." Edge: “BB s the living link to the music fradition we're exploring at the moment, so it made perfect sense fo have him on the tour.” Adam: “The blues started with Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, then 88, and the rest of itis Chicago blues. BB is the last of the Delta

bluesmen.” Edge: “He tours all the time, too — 300 shows a year! That guy is incredible — the more Hind out about him, the more | admire about him as a musician and an arfist.” ‘When Love Comes To Town' is one of his few successful modern songs... 27 Adam: “lhaven't heard his version.” L Edge: "I played it with him — that was brilliant. He played Dublin about eight weeks before we came outon the road. Beno and | went down fo cheer him on and went backstage affer the show justto say hello and he said, come on, we'll do ‘Love Comes To Town' forthe encore! So | said, have you got another guitar, and he said no but he'd sort something out. “Halfway through the song, BB beckons me out, takes off Lucille and handsitto me!” Adam: “Then you dropped it.” Edge: "It was like someone handing me their baby. So | played the rest of the song with Lucille. Elvis Costellowasin the audience and | met him later and he just said, 'You're avery brave man.’ [ knew what he meant!” Does U2's live set vary much? It was different for the two nights you played Western Springs. Adam: “That's about as much as it varies. Like completely different every night..." \ Edge: “We'vebeen experimenting on this tour with different running orders, especially when we've been playing lots of shows in Sydney. We decided a few years ago that we wouldn’t do more than five shows in any one town purely because our show is pretty much the same every night. But for this tour we wanted to work different shows— I'm glad to say thatin Melbourne and Sydney we did different shows every night.” Adam: “Itis very experimental for us. We're here for musical reasons. In the past we've been out there promoting an album or whatever, so you put the set together the best you canandtryto create the same energy every night. Butwe're not on that treadmill anymore. We wanted to stretch the band and | think we've succeeded and we're not going to let go ofthat. Thisis an atfitude that we wantto take into the 90s with us, of just playing the way we feel and believing in the strength of the music.” One For The Road : Have you found a favourite NZ beer, or are you wine drinkers? Adam: “We're not really beer drinkers on tour— wine is more reliable.” Edge: “Speak for yourself. The old Steinlagerisn'tbad.” Adam: “You can'tbeat a good pint of Guiness.” Edge: “Guinessis like aliving, breathing thing. It doesn'ttravel well and really, to get the best pint of Guiness, you have fo be in Ireland. Some would say, preferably the West Coast. _ Not even ontapin London? Adam: “That's waytoo far away from Dublin.” Canitbe ontap ordoesithave to beinabottle? Adam: “It doesn't travel at all.” Edge: “In fact there's a particular establishment....|mean, the thing about Guiness is that real Guiness drinkers will travel milesto a particular pub for theirpint. Adam: “You'd never expect the Guiness to travel, butthe punter would travel." Do you drink it atroom temperature? : Edge: “Stilltoday in Ireland you would find your 60 year-old Guinness drinker who will find a pub that serves it warm but generally | feelthatit should be chilled.” Adam: “That's the malten Guiness. Real Guiness doesn't need to be chilled.” : What do you have in Ireland in place of Irishjokes2 Adom: “We make jokes about everyone.”

MURRAY CAMMICK