Neil Storey: The album - how difficult has it been?

Adam: Well, the album has been no more difficult than any other album to make - it's taken slightly longer this time. It's obviously not the right time for post-mortems at this point, as we haven't even finished yet, but certainly a lot of the reason why the album has taken slightly longer is the nature in which we did it. We started with a new producer for our fourth studio album, so it was a big change.

What were the reasons for choosing Eno as opposed to any of the other people that were mentioned at one point - the Jimmy Iovines of this world and people like that?

I think they were all good ideas at the time, and we considered them, but it came closer and closer to making a decision and none of them felt spot-on. I think the band basically has a very personal attitude to the way it works, and people around us who are close are important, and I think if we'd gone for somebody American it would have been very alien to our world and way of working. And there wasn't really anybody English who was available or right, that we felt 100% right about, until Brian came along.

Where did the original idea of using Brian come from?

I don't remember. It's one of those ideas that crop up - somebody says, "What about using Brian Eno?" and people say, "Yeah, that's interesting." I think it had been around for a while, I think we couldnt have done it if he had still been working with Talking Heads, and at the time when it had cropped up, he had been working with Talking Heads, and it wouldn't have been right to have used him then. We wanted him to actually come to this project with something of a period to move away from Talking Heads and be prepared to start with a rock band again. And he was certainly interested and excited by that idea.

How surprised do you think he was by being approached by basically a rock 'n' roll band like yourselves?

I don't think he was surprised by us. I think some of the other people who approach him are the ones that surprise him - like Whitesnake, or whatever. He said he gets two or three requests a week, and most of them are fairly normal, but he said the odd time when he gets metal bands approaching him, he finds that very odd. Mind you, it's probably the next thing he'd do, knowing the way he thinks [laughs].

So therefore as soon as he was confirmed you took the decision to move to Slane Castle?

Well, Slane had been an integral part of it long before he'd been committed to it, because Iovine had seen it with a view to recording there as well.

The ambience of actually recording out of Windmill Lane, and in somewhere like Slane, means that you can actually live there and almost record in your dining room

There were three essential reasons, I think. First of all Windmill isn't conducive to live recording, they don't have a live room, it's very much a controlled studio atmosphere. And our plan has been progressively over the albums that we've done, that we want to get back to doing live takes rather than the usual way of recording from the bass drum up. So we needed a place where we could do that, we needed a place that sounded good - now Slane we could play live and the rooms sounded good, and also we've done three records here (Windmill Lane) and to be perfectly honest it was nice to have a different environment.

Coupled with the fact that when I was up there I saw you had a rehearsal room, so that meant you were rehearsing the songs prior to going in and putting down the basics?

We spent a month or two writing up there anyway, so we had a good technique, so if we had a problem we could work it out in the rehearsal room, and then go into the main room to record.

So therefore down in Windmill the finishing off process has happened?

Yes, we saved a lot of overdubs for down here because the desk that we'd basically recorded the backing tracks on is a very simple desk, and you couldn't do that much special treatment and that sort of thing with what you were doing, so we did more of that here.

And for the first time you've used a Fairlight?

Only out of convenience really. We had done some demos in a studio with a Fairlight, we had Brian who obviously knows about synthesizers, and we've just filled out the textures of the songs with instruments and sounds. In fact we've only really used the Fairlight on one track, and in fact we've even added to that with real orchestration. We used the Fairlight just for convenience to put down some string ideas, and came back to it later with an arranger and put down real strings as well. So I think the Fairlight was only really used as a means to an end, to see if an idea worked.

The extra instrumentation - Edge is presumably using various keyboards and so on?

In a funny way we haven't ended up using as much keyboards as we thought we might. In that I mean none of the keyboards at any point are ever highlighted. In the past, because we didn't have keyboards a lot of the overdubs would end up being guitar or bass - to fill out all the extra textures. Now that weve got keyboards it's a lot quicker and easier to find a sound on a keyboard and put a part down that doesn't necessarily have to be highlighted in a stage situation.

How much do you think the playing has changed or shall we say matured? I remember Bono saying as the album was beginning to be conceived, that it was the giant leap forward. Do you think it has been that great leap forward for U2? Was it really the end of U2 Mach I and the beginning of Mach II?

I think so, but its not something that you put the record on and say instantly, "Wow, haven't they changed, haven't they matured, it's completely different." It's not that - it's a small step. Larry's playing is amazing - well it always has been, but it's developed even more on this record. I think in a way Edge and I probably do much the same as we've always done, except just better. Bono's singing and structuring of songs has improved, it's more mature.

Don't you think that's a direct result of having someone like Eno working as obviously closely as he is? In the sense that this time round you're using a producer with an engineer as opposed to an engineer turned producer. I think that's the crux of it.

That's right. I think the effect that Eno's had is because he hasn't known how we've worked in the past. He's forced us up avenues we wouldn't naturally have gone in the confines of our comfortable relationship with Steve Lillywhite - and that's what's changed it. I think also the whole feel of the record is deeper emotionally. We still have the hard songs that we've always had, but I think they're treated in a less hard way. I don't think that takes away from the excitement of them, I just think it gives them more depth overall. And it means you can go back to them more and more.

How was the title of the album reached - because that has connotations which go beyond just a name on a record sleeve?

Well on the last American tour the Chicago Peace Museum contacted us, and they were putting on an exhibition basically of various peace-type statements - not so much in a Sixties way - it was more various people in the public's eye contribution to peace in a general sense rather than the peace movement or anything, and of course Yoko Ono was seriously involved and was donating bits and pieces of John's, bits and pieces that were no longer of any use to her [laughs]. And they contacted us and we in fact exhibited the stage set of the War tour, but the mainstay of the exhibition was a series of paintings - Japanese paintings - called the Unforgettable Fire paintings. Now they are in fact Japanese national treasures, and what they are - they are scribblings and paintings and sketches by the victims of the two A-bombs, and they're basically firsthand information on what those people saw. They didn't necessarily have any technical background, they just had the fact that they'd gone through this horrible experience and this was the only way they could communicate what it was like. So, essentially theyre crude, but I think they display the message.

Presumably that had a fairly profound effect on you...

Yeah, not in a particular gory way, because that wasn't the feeling that comes over in these things. What it interesting in what comes over in these pictures that actually can be explicit at times, is the utter sadness that mankind has actually got to this point where it can inflict this sort of suffering on each other for a crazy ideal, or perhaps not so crazy if one is trying to defend peace, but it certainly seems an extreme to go to.

Do you think that the theme of the album will come very much to the fore in the live show?

I dont think that by calling the album after that exhibition the similarity necessarily goes any further than just endorsing that. I dont think it's an album of songs about peace. I think just the feelings and the textures and the colours of those paintings, and the emotions, are the things that are transcending themselves onto the album, rather than any special message.

This is one mighty tour, isn't it?! It's New Zealand and Australia for the first time...

Well I actually feel good that on the eve of our fourth album release there's actually somewhere in the world that we haven't been [laughs]! It certainly makes it easier to get back out there and tour, because you know over the years we've done a hell of a lot of touring, and there's only so many hotels in New York that you can see, and you do get to the point where you feel as if you've been there forever.

Do you ever get fed up with it?

Yeah, but it's an occupational hazard. I think everyone assumes that if you have an interesting job that it must be marvelous 24 hours of the day. Of course it's not, but as long as you believe in it enough to get through the times that are tough, then it's the right job for you.

The other thing is that you are now moving to the stage that inevitably there's weird criticisms being leveled at you in the sense that you're no longer playing the Marquee and the Hope & Anchor and the Moonlight Club, you're now moving on to the stage where you're actually going to be playing Wembley.

I think largely it answers itself...

I think it does as well, but there are obviously people out there who are going to think, "U2 have sold out, theyre going to play Wembley - why? Why do our band have to go out and play places like Styx and that kind of group play?"

There are several answers to that. Firstly, if people want to come to a stand up show, there's two shows at the Brixton Academy, that's their choice - and we've done that with that in mind. One of the Wembley shows, we're donating the proceeds to Amnesty. Then the next show, if there're that many people that want to buy tickets, it's pointless putting the show on in the Marquee because it turns it into the elitist gig then - it means the price of the tickets for everyone ends up being around £250 and the only people making money out of it are the ticket touts.

Coupled with the fact that the production for this tour is obviously going to be more major than for the last tour.

There is the alternative that we could play seven nights in the Hammersmith Odeon, but that in a way diffuses the whole point of a U2 show, which is that we do the definitive show, and that's it - it moves on. If we did seven nights in the same place I don't think it would be doing justice to us. Obviously people are going to say, "well, why don't you do 10 days at the Hammersmith Odeon," but that's a bit like doing a run at the Old Vic and just diffuses any energy out of the situation.

In retrospect, how do you feel to the other albums? How do you feel now to having made this one to Boy? Do you actually look back on Boy with affection or...

Yeah - I think you always remember the first child with affection. Not necessarily favoritism.

Was October therefore the problem child?

It was the problem child at the time, but when I listen to all the records I really cant fault them an awful lot. What's nice about them is that there's no ambiguity in terms of what it is at that time. They do for me sum up that year's work and there's no loose ends on those records, they seem to tie it up nicely. All the way through Under A Blood Red Sky even, and this record in a will I'll only realise the full potential in a year's time. When I've had the chance to play the songs live, listen to it, go back to it, and I don't think it'll disappoint me in a year's time or even 10 years' time.

Are there any parts of any albums that you'd like to redo?

There's probably certainly things that I'd like to redo in terms of how, say, a song has developed live - but I would never do it because I think it would be disrespectful to the actual time and period.

I was thinking of the way something like "The Ocean" developed when you were doing that live.

Yeah - it developed, but it still has its own charm on the record and I stand over that charm in a way.

Do you actually have a favourite U2 song?

I think "Drowning Man" is my favourite. It's got so much emotion and poise in it. And I think it's quite odd sounding as well. I mean, the vocals are terrific and I think the backing track is just a lovely swell, and feel of water almost, to it. It's like a waterfall.