Musician, May 1987, page 80
By Bill Graham and Niall Stokes, photos by Anton Corbijn

Concerned as it is with great matters, The Joshua Tree does not ignore the bleak or the personal. "Success had a hollow head," said Bono, and 1986 reminded U2 that every triumph has a dark side. The group's personal assistant, a young New
Zealand Maori named Greg Carroll, was killed in an Irish motorcycle accident. The group dedicated the album to his memory, and wrote a song called "One Tree Hill" about him.
On a more mundane level, U2 were attacked for their part in Self-Aid, a program to raise money for the Irish unemployed that also featured Elvis Costello, Van Morrison and the Boom-town Rats. Self-Aid raised a million Irish pounds, but U2 were singled out for a front-page attack by In Dublin, the Irish equivalent of New York's Village Voice. To the leftists at the paper, U2 were just liberal hypocrites.
From there the band embarked on Amnesty International's Conspiracy of Hope tour, a summer extravaganza that brought awareness of human rights abuses to stadium audiences across the U.S. That tour also gave U2 a chance to travel, make music and spend time with older peers like Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed and the Police. It continued two parallel trends: U2 became more socially active and U2 moved into ever bigger venues.
The Irish can be possessive. If The Joshua Tree puts U2 into the pop stratosphere, how will Ireland react? Their history makes the Irish suspect of sweet dreams and happy endings. In a fatalistic country, the urge to celebrate becomes subversive.
The new album is both U2's most ambitious and their most troubled. With a new emphasis on the poetic power of language, they place less reliance on faith. This new celebration is less buoyant. With The Joshua Tree U2 are asking tough questions of themselves and their audience. They know there are no easy answers.

MUSICIAN: Can you explain the motivations behind the album?
EDGE: As with much U2 work, it's reactionary in a sense. Whereas War was a reaction to the weak, placid music we saw everywhere, I think this was, in a funny way, our reaction to The Unforgettable Fire, in that while it was our best record up to then, we had experimented a lot in its making and done things quite revolutionary for us- like "Elvis Presley In America" and "4th Of July." Well, we felt on this record that maybe options were not such a good thing. That limitation might be very positive and conducive. So we decided to work within the limitations of the song as a starting-point. Let's actually write songs. We wanted the record to be less vague, open-ended, atmospheric and impressionistic. Make it more straightforward, focused and concise.
ADAM: Also we were away from the big production number of doing tours and were off the road, hanging around town, going to local gigs. I think there was a need for clarity in what we were doing. It is just eight notes. It shouldn't be difficult or complicated. We wanted to simplify what we were thinking.

MUSICIAN: Were Eno and Lanois the necessary referees?
EDGE: The funny thing about Brian is, having been responsible for the European textural sense in music which came in through the back door with Bowie, his passion is folk and gospel music with a spiritual aspect. So he was much more radical than we were.
BONO: Brian's two favorite songs were "Red Hill Mining Town" and "I Still Haven't Found In a funny way, he's very unacademic. He's a real song man. Brian's one of those guys who gets up at six o'clock. He drove us mad in the morning, singing "Where Were You When They Crucified My Lord" at top volume when everyone had just gone to bed.
EDGE: A producer for U2 is very important because we are self-contained so, every so often, we arrive at decisions that are very contentious and split. With a producer, it's easy to cast him as the devil's advocate you rely on to help you out of it.
BONO: Brian always puts his cards straight down on the table. Dan's bias is towards songs, He thought what makes a rock 'n'roll group is the songs they play. He's also the finest musician I've ever met. I've kept myself ignorant in the studio. I was listening to the vocals of "Red Hill Mining Town" coming back in the mix and I was asking, "Why does the singer sound like a rich man with pound notes stuffed in his pockets when it's a song about unemployment?" And the engineer was scratching his head. Dan Lanois walks in and says, "God almighty, stereo plate echo! I keep telling these people. They've been using it since they invented it not because it's right but because it's available." So he said, "Turn it off. Put it in mono and edge it to the left," and there it was again.
He's often in the room when we're playing. He plays tambourine with Larry. I think the reason this record is more rhythmically adept has a lot to do with Dan Lanois.

MUSICIAN: Bono, before you went to New York for the Sun City sessions, had you any prior notion of what the new record would be like?
BONO: The album I had in the back of my head is the album we ye yet to make. It has been put aside for this. You see, I was then writing songs U2 almost can't do. U2 can't do blues or gospel. So I thought, "Why can't U2 do these things?" I started to see U2 in some straitjacket we should break out. from.

MUSICIAN: How did the other three respond to these new angles?
BONO: Adam has always been the roots man in the operation. On tour, it'll always be reggae, Aswad or Black Uhuru blasting out of his hotel room. Larry's more interested in songs and simple structures. It's speak up or shut up, write a song, three chords, say what you have to say. So he liked the directness of blues and something like "Trip Through Your Wires."

MUSICIAN: And The Edge?
BONO: [pause]... How can I put this?... [further pause}... Early on, Edge was less taken up with it but later, he really came through when he saw that the songs were good. Put it this way,
Edge didn't own a copy of Blood On The Tracks. Edge's collection started in '76 at the New Beginning. His interest was in European groups like Can and music back to Eno. So this was opening a new world or [laughs] a new can of worms. And yet the spontaneity of this new kind of music really excited him.

MUSICIAN: To what extent did writing a bleaker album reflect personal experiences?
EDGE: Well, there's still hope. I think this record's bleak because that's what we're seeing, but there's a positive side.
BONO: You could say this is forbidden ground for U2 because we're the optimistic group. But to be an optimist, you mustn't be blind or deaf to the world around you. "Running To Stand Still" is based on a real story. I don't even know what the act is in "Exit." Some see it as a murder, others a suicide, and I don't mind. The rhythm of the words is nearly as important in conveying the state of mind. The album's real strength is that though you travel through these deep tunnels and bleak landscapes, there's a joy at the heart of it, and I can't explain it.
We were afraid of it. Something special about U2 was that we were holding our heads up, when everybody else had their heads between their legs. I found this last year a time of reassessment in my own life. I think Dylan said: "When you reach the top, you're at the bottom."

MUSICIAN: Greg Carroll's death confronted you with something completely outside the band's control. How did that affect you?
ADAM: It showed me that there are more important things than rock 'n' roll, that rock 'n' roll is important in the picture of those things, that you don't know how much time you've got with your family, your friends and, indeed, the other members of the band. I'd rather go home early than stay up all night mixing a track.
BONO: I feel the same.
ADAM: For a long time, we did deny those simple things that give you pleasure- seeing your brothers, sisters, wives, children- to keep the band going.
BONO: The emphasis among family and friends when we had a number one record and were a big band was how much you've got- I'm not talking about money- not how much you've lost. The sense of loss came through losing Greg Carroll. But the sense of loss has continued. I feel it even now, having made a record and not seen friends and family for the last three months, and now not being able to see them again because of the tour and everything. Because U2 work on everything. Larry is working his butt off on the merchandising, making sure the T-shirts- and this might sound insignificant- are made out of cotton and at an affordable price, So we're sitting on all these things. For the first time, I begin to see the value of being irresponsible, of not giving a shit. Because giving a shit costs a lot. That's serious.

MUSICIAN: How did Greg, somebody from New Zealand, get involved with an Irish band?
BONO: We met Greg in Auckland. There are five volcanic islands which make up Auckland and the tallest is One Tree Hill. And my first night in New Zealand, Greg took me to One Tree Hill. He'd worked around the music and media scene and [manager] Paul McGuinness thought this guy's so smart, we can't leave him here, let's take him with us to Australia.
Greg Carroll's funeral was beyond belief. He was buried in his tribal homeland as a Maori by the chiefs and elders. There was a three day and three night wake, and your head could be completely turned around and ours were again and again.

MUSICIAN: "With Or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" remind me there was a time when U2 wouldn't have been remotely considered a dance band. EDGE: We never thought about that side. They used to say about U2 that we had an anti-dance stance, music to fall over, which I thought was funny. I remember in an American club on an early tour, Bono, after a few bevvies, was persuaded to go on the floor and the DJ put on "Out Of Control." Not only did everybody leave the floor but he couldn't dance to it either.

MUSICIAN: How do you think a heavy metal fan will take "Bullet The Blue Sky"?
EDGE: It's in an idiom reminiscent of an earlier era of rock, but I don't think it's metal. Bono had this thing about fear and exorcism by guitar. I'm not ashamed of how it sounds. It's the spirit and creative motivation that counts.

MUSICIAN: Recapturing the spirit guitar rock used to express?
EDGE: I think the sonic reference points are there. When Jimi Hendrix was playing, it meant so much more than the post-blues yawn when guitar players rehashed something that once was potent and it became a total clichŽ. My background is much more Tom Verlaine and John McGeoch but, in this case, I thought there should be no limitations. I wasn't going to hem myself in because it might be controversial.

MUSICIAN: Bono, have your attitudes toward singing changed?
BONO: For three years, I didn't really know if there was a place in rock for U2 or whether I wanted a place in U2. I think I was quite uptight. Sometimes people saw in the songs, a self-righteousness- because I was like the scared rat in the corner who attacks. As I worked out where we wanted to be, I loosened up, and loosening up discovered other voices. I became interested in singing. Whereas before if it was in tune and the right time, that was enough. And this is the same guy who was thrown out of U2 in 1977 because he couldn't sing. I find it hard to listen to the first three records because of my singing.

MUSICIAN: There's now a greater sensuality.
BONO: Yeah, you just stretch it out and realize a whisper c~n be louder than a scream. You learn that there's a time for letting go and a time for holding back.

MUSICIAN: To what extent does that come from being more at home with yourself?
BONO: I suppose I'm happy to be unhappy. Anyone who really knows me knows that, as they say, I'm never going to be at peace with my pipe [laughs].

MUSICIAN: How does this process of personal maturation relate to the artistic vision of U2?
BONO: We grew up in an odd way as people. From eighteen or nineteen, we were pushing the van to Killamey and then on a bus in America and then it's a plane to Australia and Japan. And we were completely occupied with things spiritual. After Boy, the next two albums were almost made in our spare time. We weren't even sure we wanted to be in a band. So we were interested in growing on spiritual levels, but we were actually quite retarded on other levels. And even musically. Our musical life began again with Unforgettable Fire. It wasn't even a priority. I think we must own up to that. For two years, we were writing songs and going to the studio for October and War, but that wasn't where we were at, it only reflected where we were at. We came through that and realized we are musicians and we want to be in this band, U2.
EDGE: And after this album, I'm more interested in playing guitar than I have been for the last three years. I'm having to learn again because I've forgotten how a bit, honestly.

MUSICIAN: Why is it that you've become more closely linked with figures from the previous rock era than other bands from your generation?
BONO: Well, this boy from Ballymun was actually on tour with Lou Reed, and be used to stand every night on the side of the stage and watch U2. He seems to care so much about U2 and I learned so much from him. One night, I said to him [whispers], "Berlin's my favorite album," and he said, "It's mine too." He thinks it's the only one he got right. He says so much and he has a perspective on rock 'n' roll. We find that also in our business life. We're attracted to people like Frank Barsalona who brought the Beatles .and the Who to the States, and Chris Blackwell who. I was there with Bob Marley. Our record collection began in 1976. We weren't there when rock 'n' roll began. We are attracted to people who have the perspective we don't have. Like Pete Townshend is a guy you can ring up.

MUSICIAN: On a personal level, do you get annoyed by newspaper gossip? The local Irish papers seem to be searching for you in every night-club in town.
BONO: My father, who I love very much, is one of these guys who believes what he reads. He'll say to me, "I hear you were throwing your weight around in some record store when they hadn't what you wanted and you were telling them you were Bono and they'd better have it." And I was laughing, wondering where this one had come from. So I sort of told him off and said, "Da, you cannot believe what you read." Then one night he said, "Some fella's going around saying you own a hearse and you were driving around Donegal in it." Fact and fiction just get blurred in a city like this.
I live in Bray but the people in Bray are protective about myself and Allie. They don't bother us. The people we get hassled by are those from abroad calling the house. Some of it is okay but it's a place where, as Allie likes to put it, she lives also. She says, "I don't want you watching me put some washing on the line." I've got to back her up. I don't mind inviting people in the ,house but I've got to honor her. But we get some amazing things. I remember a whole party of French people who applauded me outside the door. I'd just got out of bed and I said, "No thank you. I'm the wrong guy."
I don't know how this will sound but there was this one girl in the bushes. She was Italian, eighteen, very beautiful, sitting there in the flowers. And she said, "I just wanted to come to Dublin and meet U2 before I died." And I thought, "They always come up with an angle but this is a good one." I didn't know whether to laugh, just in case. So I talked to her, didn't take it too seriously and went off. The next day, two BMWs came along and out came all these Italian men in designer suits with flowers and flowers, presenting them to me because we had looked after their sister and daughter.
That was almost shocking. How could I live up to that responsibility? God Almighty! I just can't come to terms with that. The. bottom line is that music means a lot but they haven't separated the music from the musician. The musicians are only ordinary people. It's the music which is extraordinary.
ADAM: There's a weird process which I've just begun to understand. Particularly when you get the letters from fifteen-year olds. They ask questions as if you're the second line of defense for their heads. They've become disillusioned with their parents and they think their teachers are assholes.
BONO: And they haven't yet found out we're assholes.
ADAM: They're trying to contact you to see if you can enlighten them or be responsible for them and, of course, you can't. But when you read a letter, you.think, can I reply? Do I shatter this person's illusions? Do I say, I'm just a normal guy? That's what life's about. You've got to get on with it.

MUSICIAN: At Live Aid, when Bono jumped off the stage, you must have thought, "Jaysus, what's he up to?"
ADAM: If you don't like it, you put down your instrument and walk offstage, that's your choice [laughter].
BONO: Live Aid could have been a classic shooting in the head. I was as high as a kite after Live Aid because Linda 'McCartney kissed me. And later, I was sharing a microphone with Paul McCartney. But when I got home and watched a video of Live Aid, I was so desperate and depressed. I really believed I had made a big mistake. I couldn't sleep. And I drove down the Southeast and I met a sculptor who was making a bronze piece which was meant to be the spirit of Live Aid, a naked figure called "The Leap." He called it "The Leap" because I had left the stage and this image connected with him. The figure wasn't me. It was meant to be the whole spirit of it. I felt he understood what I was trying to do. And he was a man in his late fifties. But there's no question about it, I'm not 'doing that again. And I still don't understand why I did it.
ADAM: I think if those things were done in an ego way, the audience and the public would pick up on it.

MUSICIAN: What did you feel onstage at Self Aid?
ADAM: Humble, I guess.
BONO: The people who believe in U2 are very ordinary people, working-class people. The only flak we get for being in a privileged position is from the middle classes. I felt, "How can I write a song about being unemployed when in fact, I am fully employed? How can I stand onstage at an unemployment benefit when I know U2 are not short of cash?"
But one guy came up to me afterwards and said, "I'm really pissed off about what you said onstage. You said you don't know what it's like to be unemployed. We didn't need to hear that, because we know you know what it's like even if you don't." It was the last thing I expected to hear. And then I heard about people singing "Maggie's Farm" on the dole queue the next Monday morning, which I found funny. I don't know whether they were slagging us off or just enjoying the song.

MUSICIAN: There was a blackness to that performance which set it apart from the rest of your live work.
BONO: It didn't seem the right time. There's a side to U2 in Ireland where the Mammies and Daddies are proud that U2 are an Irish group doing well in America. And there was a sense, too, that maybe some politicians had pigeonholed us: "There's U2 now, a good example of young people playing their music and getting off their lazy backsides." I knew there'd be certain politicians watching the program and I didn't want to let them off the hook. Because the truth of it was that a lot of people were on the hook because of their policies. I allowed that anger to be a part of the performance. Plus I probably overreacted to In Dublin magazine's story. They said, "How can U2 be part of the solution when they're part of the problem?"

MUSICIAN: What was the practical impact of the Amnesty international "Conspiracy of Hope" tour?
BONO: Well, Amnesty doubled their membership in America. But the best news I had all year was a letter from one of the U2 fanzines telling me that all over America now, they're setting up these U2 clubs. They're not exclusive to U2. They're also an appreciation of Peter Gabriel, the Waterboys and groups for whatever reason. I was looking at this U2 fan club poster and it had an entrance fee of three dollars. At first I felt, "What's this about? Charging to hear U2 records?" But then I discovered this money was going to Third World concerns. And that all over America, they had set up these clubs where they listen to U2 records and actually write cards for Amnesty. If you can inspire something on that small scale, that's everything I could ever ask for. All, in fact, I would ask for.

MUSICIAN: Is "Running To Stand Still" about heroin?
BONO: I heard of a family, both of whom were addicted. And such was their addiction that they had no money, no rent. The guy risked it all on a run. All of it. He went and smuggled into Dublin a serious quantity of heroin strapped to his body so that there was on one hand life imprisonment, and on the other hand riches. Apart from the morality of that, what interested me was what put him in that place. "You know I took the poison from the poison stream! Then I floated out of here." For a lot of people, there are no physical doors open anymore. So if you can't change the world you're living in, seeing through different eyes is the only alternative. Heroin gives you heroin eyes to see the world with. And the thing about heroin is that you think that's the way it really is. That the old you who worries about paying the rent is not the real you.

MUSICIAN: Sexually, U2 has a very clean image. How have you reacted to gender-bending pop and glam rock games?
BONO: I am interested in that aspect of sexuality. When I look at my lyrics, I'm obsessed with borders, be they political, sexual or' spiritual. It's not a subject I've broached yet but I wouldn't rule it out. I'm interested in the new Victorian era because of AIDS. I know a lot of homosexual men and most of them I get on with. Some overtly camp men I don't get on with.
To be blatant, how can anyone attack love? That doesn't condemn or condone homosexuality or any kind of sexuality. I could never attack love.

MUSICIAN: Sexuality is traditionally associated with rock and rebellion. But how does it relate to U2's ideas of subversion?
BONO: I think there's nothing more radical or revolutionary than two people loving each other. Because it's so hard to do it and keep those feelings going. In a sense, U2 are owning up to those feelings and emotions that have been swept under the carpet of rock 'n' roll in favor of cartoon things.
EDGE: In America, gay rights and gay liberation have suddenly been put back ten years. AIDS has suddenly become an excuse for anti-gay feelings.

MUSICIAN: Where would you be now if U2 weren't formed?
BONO: Hmmm, that's an interesting one. God Almighty. Whoo, get me another beer..
ADAM: I think Dublin wouldn't have contained you. I think, you would have been off somewhere.
BONO: I don't know. To be honest, U2 saved my life because I am literally unemployable. There's nothing else I can do. I think I would have imploded, as distinct from exploding in my musical life. I mean, I worked as a petrol pump attendant. Can you imagine me as a petrol pump attendant?

MUSICIAN: Are you worried about playing football stadiums in America?
BONO: I admit I believe in U2 in up to 20,000-seat arenas. Our music is a big music. It can get through in a way a lot of other musics can't. I'm uptight about playing outdoors in football stadiums. The argument brought against me is that the concert we did in Dublin at Croke Park was one of our best. It was 55,000 people and it felt like a small club. The other argument is that the alternative is to be elitist and play in small places where the scalpers' ticket price goes through the roof. We attempted this at Radio City in New York and people were paying 100,150 dollars. Also certain fans were sitting on the shoulders of somebody, blocking the view. It's very easy for frenzy, violence to break out.
So we have some responsibility to cater to the demand for tickets, yet I don't want to go all the way with that. This is a real question. The other thing is to play a small venue for two weeks. More than anything, that can kill off a good group. Ask the Clash about Bonds in New York. It can be a lot like going to work. There's a kinetic energy about being on the road. Part of the trance, the momentum, is going city to city.

MUSICIAN: How's your stage presentation evolving?
BONO: U2 will be much looser. We'll take a risk of falling on our face doing a new song. We want to be relaxed enough to make mistakes because sometimes making mistakes is the most interesting part live, discovering something new in a song.

MUSICIAN: Is there some hope of denting American political apathy?
BONO: Well, your first reason for being onstage is not to effect change in the political climate of a country. I like to think that U2 have already contributed to a turn around in thinking.
EDGE: And if we have, it's not even the point, is it really? You don't write a song because you think it's going to change somebody. You write a song because that's the way you feel.
ADAM: You write a song because something hurts. Look at social change within America; that came from the Delta areas, the plantations. A lot of the change in America is rooted in just blues music. That was what people listened to and it was the protest music of the time.
BONO: You see, I don't think it's up to I bands to have their politics and point of view worked out. I don't think it's up to me as a singer to have answers. I just I think it's important to put questions. I don't know of a rock 'n' roll band that ever offered up answers and I think it's wrong for pop stars to be politicians. I like the idea of Jim Morrison calling the Doors "erotic politicians." I thought that was kind of funny because you're put in a position where because you have made music that means something to people, your politics or point of view is given far too much importance. What comes to mind is Elvis Presley who meets with Nixon and is made an anti-drug marshall and the man is loaded out of his brains with the badge on.
I'm more interested in the man as opposed to men, one man as opposed to a crowd of men. That mainly explains the spiritual side of my writing. I think in a funny way the country almost gets the political party it deserves, that it has choices. I had a row with Paul Weller about this at Band Aid, about the old argument that it's the system. I just don't go, "It's the system." I think men choose the system the live under in our age.
I'm more interested in what you might call- if you were that way inclined- a revolution of love. I believe that if you want to start a revolution you better start a revolution in your own home and your own way of thinking and of relating to the men and women around you. I'm trying to come to terms with global ideas like Live Aid, Artists Against Apartheid and Amnesty International. These ideas are great ideas. We believe and belong to them. Yet for me, the future lies in small-scale activity. For instance, commitment to a community, like U2 are committed to Dublin, commitment to the people in your place of work, commitment to relationships and the ones you love.
I told you in a night-club about a year ago I was sick of being reasonable. I learned to come out as an unreasonable man. "Red Hill Mining Town" is a song about the miners' strike and the only reference to Ian MacGregor [the coal board chairman] is "through hand of steel and heart of stone! Our labour day is come and gone." People beat me with a stick for that, but while you see in the newspapers and on the television that another thousand people have lost their jobs, what you don't read about is that those people go home and they have families. They were trying to bring up children and those relationships broke up under the pressure of the miners' strike. Those men and women lost pride in themselves, and that affected their sex life; "The glass is cut, the bottle run dry, our love runs cold in the cabins in the night! We're wounded by fear, injured in doubt/I can lose myself but you I can't live without! 'Cause you keep me holding on." I'm more interested in the relationship at this point because I feel other people are more qualified to comment on the miners' strike. It enraged me, but I feel more qualified to write about relationships. Because I understand relationships more than what it's like to work in a pit.

MUSICIAN: Townshend said you take too much on your shoulders.
BONO: Oh, "Leave the social work to older people like myself." Yeah, I don't think we make very good social workers. We're much better writing songs and singing them. We make mistakes but then I'm one of those fools who believes anything is possible. It's probably a real innocence or stupidity on my part. I think, "Make a movie. Yeah, I'll make a movie! Write a screenplay! Save the world. Oh good, I'll save the world." I wouldn't go that far. Hold on a second. But with U2, I suppose we're dreamers and so far, our dreams have come true. This can give you a false perspective that the impossible is always possible. I'm just understanding the value of being limited.

MUSICIAN: When you get to U2's level, do you get isolated? Is that possible in Dublin?
BONO: It was awkward coming down to earth in dirty old Dublin with the people we know and love looking at us with a look we hadn't seen in their eyes before. Like, "Have you grown two heads since you've been away?" And us realizing we had! [laughs] Of course we have changed and I want to change. The real question is, is it change for the better or the worse? It's taken us a year to come down from the high of the last tour. Probably this week. But now we're about to step on another up escalator.

U2 CAN PLAY

Bono sings and plays his Hohner and ProHarp harmonicas into a Shure SM 58 microphone. He plays his custom-made Fender Telecaster into a MESA/Boogie amp and also plays a Washburn acoustic.

Edge also has a Washburn acoustic in addition to a Fender Stratocaster, a Gibson Les Paul Custom and a Fender Telecaster. His onstage keyboard is a Yamaha CP 70B. His offstage set-up includes a Yamaha QX1, a Yamaha QX7 sequencer, a Yamaha DX7 and an E-Max Sampling Keyboard. Amps include a Vox AC30 and a MESA/Boogie. Effects include a t. c. 2290 digital delay, Yamaha REV7, SPX 90 and Korg digital delay. All of this is controlled with a Boss Sound Center Control and a Photon MIDI converter.

Larry Mullen's Yamaha drum kit includes a 24-inch bass drum, 14-inch rack tom, 2 floor toms and a 14-inch piccolo snare. Add two Latin Percussion timbales, Rude and Paiste cymbals, and Pro-mark 5A sticks, and you have it.