It is summer, U2 are in the middle of some well-earned time off. Ireland is in the midst of World Cup fever and U2's bass player is living anonymously on foreign shores.

Still, for Propaganda Adam was persuaded to wander towards a phone and a crackling, long-distance conversation with your correspondent.

Who's he been working with, what's he been listening to, how do you live life in a post-zoo world, what's the next album called, where have the rest of the band gone, how do you fill a year off...few if any of these questions are answered in what follows but it's all fascinating stuff anyway.

Where are you at the moment Adam?

Adam: I'm in New York. I've been here since April. I've moved here for most of this year because it's much more stimulating than sitting at home in Ireland. There's more going on musically and culturally speaking...it's a much better city for someone like me to be in right now.

In a year off like this, how often do you speak to the other members of the band, how do you keep in touch?

It varies really. I'll speak to them every three or four weeks. If they come through here they'll ring me and we'll have a meal but generally we've all got commitments and perhaps it's a healthy thing for the four of us to see less of each other.

When last heard of, you were finishing up with the Zoo TV in Australia, you must have been exhausted after that tour?

It was a pretty traumatic year, certainly I was pleased when it all came to an end. With that tour, I feel we really pushed ourselves to the limit. I know that we regained a lot of critical credibility, that's nice but to be honest that wasn't something that I really thought about very much. The tour was ambitious and we pulled it off but looking back I can't put it into any kind of perspective.

You've said in the past that there would be no more marathon tours, that you'll tour in a different way...will you do it in smaller blocks next time?

I can't figure this out because we try to change it every time we tour, we always say that we really don't want to get burned out, we want to do what we've got to do and then get back and make some more records. But every time the tour schedule becomes something else and there's no reason to think that this will change. But much as I say this I don't want to do a tour like that again, so we'll have to wait and see...

When the Zoo was on the road, all the talk was of you and Naomi. That seems to have gone quiet. What's the latest?

We're friends but I don't think it'll be anything more than that. I'm pretty comfortable with this and I think she is as well.

In your time off you've also been working with some other musicians.

Larry and I worked on a Nanci Griffiths record together which I think is just about out. We did three tracks here, in Electric Ladyland, Jimi Hendrix's old studio.

Weren't you working with Little Steven as well?

Yes, I did an album with Little Steven and Jason Bonham playing drums. I'm not sure when that will be released. It was nice to get up in the morning and have a day-job for a month. Very normal and regular and calm...nothing like U2.

But apart from that you've been taking time off. What do you do all the time when there's no U2 to be in...is it like a holiday, are you doing research or what?

Well, I've been taking various classes. Like any professional you've got to keep learning your trade and I've been taking classes in bass playing, also some singing lessons and some drawing classes...just generally keeping in shape. I've not been to see much at all in the way of films although one recent rainy Sunday afternoon I made the mistake of going to see The Flintstones which was absolutely unadulterated crap. I've seen bands like US3 and Urban Species recently who were good and I'm listening a lot to Chacka Demus and Pliers at the moment, one of my favorite records. I like that Jah Wobble record a lot as well.

Is it easier being away, that you're less accessible? I remember on one break at home in Ireland you said that the phone was going all the time anyway...

Yes, inaccessibility is one thing but I also think in New York you're less of a freak here, people aren't actually so bothered about who you are. They don't relate to you as a rock star, they tend to relate to you as a real person.

With the band being out of the public eye is it easy enough for you to walk around without getting stopped by fans?

In New York it is no problem, I use public transport all the time, which is really nice. You forget how much time you spend being conscious of being observed - not necessarily in a bad way. To be able to sit on a subway and see people of all types get on board...you just drift off and try and imagine where they are coming from and where they are going...it's brilliant, like theatre.

When you are taking lessons, say on the bass, are you thinking about what comes up next for U2 or is it like a sabbatical, just relaxation?

You've always got it at the back of your mind, you are trying to figure out better ways of doing music in U2, trying to figure out what it is because it always changes. The back of the brain is always full of U2 but at the moment it's mainly an awful lot of questions. I'm not sure that we have an awful lot of confidence that the average 16-year-old is into music in the way that we were growing up.

Does it alarm you to acknowledge that you aren't really in touch with 16 year old...or is it just a fact of life?

It's just a fact of life as people grow older. That doesn't alarm me. It alarms me that I know I feel the generation gap - there is still an emotional connection with the 16 year old but the cultural connection is more difficult, that our generation grew up listening to music on radio stations and reading about it in magazines and going to gigs and in that way building up a profile of the bands you liked. Now it's all much more demystified with MTV and interactive CDs, but I don't ever think that music is at risk from that because music has been around a long time, it's part of the rhythm of life.

But do you ask yourselves where you fit in, (in the future) whether U2 has a role to play and what it is?

Well, there'll always be people who want to hear great music live and I expect that we'll keep just making records that we want to make...and at some point I suppose we'll decide that we don't want to do it anymore. They are the only options.

Zoo TV broke new ground in live concerts and Edge is already experimenting with a U2 Zoo TV CDi. Would you like the band to be one of the first to cross the boundaries between the old age and the new age in music?

Prince and others are already well down the line with things like CDi and I don't think we're going to be the pioneers. But the background work is already being done and I think we will benefit from it.

Edge talked about the possibility of a B-sides album.

Well it's on the back burner, it's a possibility, it's always there...but we haven't got plans for a release at present.

Propaganda: And an album of dance remixes?

There was talk of that too and again, I think the moment has passed for it but the time will come around again. It's nice for the world to have a break from U2...

When will you all re-group?

We thought we might get together again in November. That'll be to talk about what we might want to do and how we might do it and then perhaps begin some writing and recording in February perhaps...it'll take us probably a year to make an album.

Spring '96 then?

Well it depends on how long it all takes, could be spring '96 or maybe Christmas '95 but that's unlikely, that would be a very optimistic prediction.

And optimism and U2 recording schedules don't usually go together.

Right.

So there are no clues about direction of the next record?

Not really until we get together. We're all having vastly different experiences and when we get back together it will really be a case of "Okay, what can each person bring to the project, what can we concentrate on?" We've got quite a few pieces left over from Zooropa so they will be starting points. I'd like to see us trying to incorporate a wider use of rhythm, to see if we can stretch the sound...

But for the moment it's lying low, buying your groceries and washing your own socks?

Adam: Yes, that too...more or less.

© Propaganda, 1994. All rights reserved.