U2 Discuss New Album Plans And Spider-Man Criticism
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Written by James Conlon
U2 have spoken about their future plans, claiming that a new album will not be ready until mid-2012 at the earliest. Guitarist the Edge and bassist Adam Clayton spoke about recent developments with the band during an interview with Rolling Stone, where both members validated rumours that a new release from the Glastonbury headliners is unlikely before next autumn.
Clayton claimed that singer Bono’s back injury, which forced the band out of their scheduled Glastonbury appearance last year, is the main cause for the delay in new material. Speaking to the magazine, he said: “[Bono’s injury] set the die, and we worked on material in the down time, but we haven't had time to go back to that material and complete it. That's why we don't think we're going to have a record this year, because when we work everything backwards from when this tour finishes, you need to finish a record by September for a release, and we don't do that.”
Clayton went on to claim that the band were “gutted” to not be able to put out an album in 2011, going on to discuss the first steps of recording the new LP which the band began at the beginning of this year. He said: “We did some work on it in January. It was great progress. We worked with Danger Mouse in New York. After that, we had to have a bit of a meeting and look at the schedule for the rest of the year and see if we could pick up any extra time to work on it. We just realized that we couldn't.”
“To be honest, everyone was a bit gutted, because I think it would have been great to have got to the end of this year and have a new record out. It's not my favorite decision to put it back, but it was the only sensible decision.”
When asked about the criticism following U2’s involvement in the heavily-panned ‘Spider-Man’ musical, guitarist Edge remained firm in his belief that the band were relatively blameless. He said: “I don't really care that much about the negative media. In this instance, we were the junior partners and composers, but not the director and not the producer. We really didn't have that much significant input or control over the way things went. But we did realize there were problems.”
He continued: “The show was actually a good show, it just wasn't great. It didn't quite work as a story. Some aspects of it were amazing. Some journalists called it one of the worst Broadway shows ever, and I think that's complete nonsense. But was it where it needed to be? No, it wasn't. So I didn't have any complaints with the bad reviews. I was furious, mind you, that they all showed up virtually the same day. That raised a few eyebrows.”
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