U2 with unshakable belief in the future!

"We finished the Elevation tour with a strong belief in the future" says U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr (40) in this exclusive interview with VG and reveals that a new record with original music will be released next fall.

First of all U2 will release the second half of their "Best Of" history, this time 1990-2000. Two new songs have made their way onto this compilation too, The Hands That Built America (which will be found on the soundtrack to Scorsese's film The Gangs Of New York) and the single Electrical Storm. In the Anton Corbijn directed video to the last mentioned song we see Larry Mullen Jr in an intimate cooperation with the beautiful Samantha Morton, last seen opposite Tom Cruise in Minority Report.

"Oh, it was very hard. Perhaps the hardest day of work in my life" laughs Mullen Jr. on the phone from Dublin.

Back to the studio

"She's a beautiful woman and a great actor. For me it was a new experience I've never done anything like it before" says Mullen who can tell us that U2 have not been lazy since the intimate, yet very successful Elevation tour was finished last December.

"We went to a studio in Monaco straight after to start working on new ideas. It turned out very good. We found the guitar riff for Electrical Storm and the piano theme for The Hands That Built America down there. They just HAD TO turn into new songs" he says.

"So there might be more songs ready, or ideas at least?"

"Loads! We wrote down 16-17 good ideas for new songs. We return to the studio in December. Our plan is to release a new album towards the end of 2003".

He is very happy looking back on the Elevation tour which peeled away all pompous decorations on the stage which has been the trademark of U2's 3 last tours. (Attitudettes note: They are talking about Zoo TV, Zooropa and PopMart. Some journalists talk of Zoo TV and Zooropa as two different tours as there was an album released in between the two).

Useful knowledge

"The idea was to deconstruct everything people thought U2 were about and find out what U2 was about our selves. U2 are about four guys in a room focusing on good songs. We stripped it all down and I think we did it well".

"Would you say you regret U2's previous 'larger than life' concepts?"

"Not at all. We did what we felt was natural at the time we wanted to reflect what was going on around us at the time, amongst other things we used DJ's and technology. What we learned then, we could use to our own advantage. Just listen to the intro to the first single off our last album, Beautiful Day, it actually starts out with a drum machine".

"About Beautiful Day, you've heard of the Norwegian band A-HAand their song The Sun Always Shines On TV..."

"Never heard of it!" says Mullen Jr. and laughs. "I'm kidding of course. Yes we were told parts of the song resembled something else, but I swear it was never meant to be a copy of anything...believe me!"

"Technology wasn't on U2's side during the PopMart gig on Valle Hovin Stadion in Oslo 1997 either..."

"I remember that well! The lemon didn't open and we were stuck inside it. Oslo was the only place where that happened. I guess it just HAD to happen once and regrettably it happened in Oslo" says a laughing superstar who obviously has no problem talking to a journalist from the mini nation rock wise that is Norway, while the main guy himself, Bono, is traveling around the world talking to powerful people from the Pope and down.

Admires Bono

"I have much respect and admiration for Bono, and you must remember that all of us in U2 are behind his political work what is important to him is also important to us. There aren't that many people who understand what consequences this has for his privacy what he really is sacrificing. There's an enormous pressure on him when it comes to his family, friends and also U2 who all wish he'd spend more time at home or in the studio. On the inside of U2 there's a great gratitude that Bono is willing to do this. But I don't envy him" says Larry Mullen Jr.

"Will U2 be making any appearances on the concert stage before the release of the next album in 2003?"

"I doubt it very much. U2 is not the kind of band that can do three or four performances like that we need time to warm up and build a show" Mullen Jr.explains and ends things with the following standard phrase "I wish that were true" line:

"But we're looking forward to meeting you and the rest of Norway some time in...summer 2004 I guess".

[Note: This was an interview printed in Norwegian that I translated myself. I.E the journalist translated things into norwegian and I translated it back to english. This means that what is written here are not necessarily Larry's exact words.

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