After flirting with pop, techno and dance music, Irish powerhouse U2 is
back to rocking 'n' rolling again
by Suzanne Sng in Dublin

The customs officer behind the counter at Dublin airport is surly.

"What are you here for?" he barks, reading the immigration form which states "Occupation: Journalist".

"Who are you here to interview?" he interrogates.

But the reply - "I'm here to interview U2" - pleases him and erases the
glower on his face.

Thumping a stamp of approval onto the passport, he says with familiar
pride: "So, you're going to speak to Bono and the lads, eh?"

And the none-too-young "lads" - guitarist Edge, drummer Larry Mullen Jr and bassist Adam Clayton - are the other members of what has to be one of the oldest and biggest rock 'n' roll bands in the world.

Despite the phenomenal 120-million-albums-and-still-counting success of U2
- named after a spy plane downed over the former Soviet Union in 1960 -
over the past 20 years, the four down-to-earth rock stars still live and
work in the quaint and quiet city of Dublin.

The studio where their latest album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, was
recorded, is tucked inconspicuously among the warehouses on Hannover Quay.

Known affectionately as HQ, it is where the band chooses to hold its first
interview, in its 24-year history, with the South-east Asian press.

There are few indications that the world's best-selling outfit pieces its
magic here, except for four fuss-free pigeonholes for mail for Bono, Edge,
Larry and Adam. A messy whiteboard, mounted on an easel has the band's
deceptively simple schedule pencilled in for the next two months - "Fly to
Paris", "Play at Man Ray", "Fly to Dublin".

Notebook-and camera-clutching scribes lounge around on the plush couches in the small, cluttered office. They make stilted idle chit-chat, puff on
their Marlboro Lights, leaf through the latest Q mag - aptly, Bono and gang are posturing on the cover as the stoic saviours of rock 'n' roll - and puff more smoke into the already smoke-filled room. All are just marking time, each waiting for their half-hour audience with the band.

Meanwhile, in the dimly-lit room next door, Edge muses about how things
have come full circle.

"This is the studio where we made our record and it is fitting that we do
the interviews right here," he says, leaning so far back into his wooden
folding chair that it is in danger of tipping over.

Even with his wooly black cap seemingly glued onto his (almost bald) scalp, he looks incredibly suave. Dragging on a Silk Cut Extra Mild beside him, Clayton looks equally at home.

Their latest effort is a true-blue rock-'n'-roll offering - no more
dalliances with pop, techno and dance as in Zooropa and Pop - and Edge is
feeling pleased.

"It is the sound of four men trying to make sense of what it means to be a
rock 'n' roll band in the year 2000," he drawls.

Tapping his cigarette carefully with his large bass-player's hand, Clayton
adds: "We started out by focusing on the sound of the band playing in the
room, because it was something we had not done in a while. And we realised
what we really liked about the band was the sound."

As Bono tells music magazine Q: "It is a fight. It's us versus the Obvious
Route For U2 Right Now, which would be mediocrity, cult sales and living
off your past. We're going into this like it's our first album."

Reuniting the band with long-time collaborators Brian Eno and Daniel
Lanois, the 11-track album showcases Bono's gravelly sensual growl, Edge's
evocative guitar riffs, Clayton's heart-thumping bass line, and Mullen's
feet-tapping precision drum beats.

Of course, no U2 album is complete without those weighty socio-political
messages that earned them the "rock band with a conscience" label.

Remember Sunday Bloody Sunday (anti-war anthem), Pride (musical tribute to
Martin Luther King), Bad (sugar-coated punch against heroin) and One (cry
for unity in the whole wide world)? Their latest, Peace On Earth, is
inspired by an incident in the Northern Ireland town on Omagh, in which 29
people were killed and 220 injured when a massive car bomb exploded.

The hymn-like title almost says it all, but Edge adds: "At the time the
bombing occured, it was not just an atrocity against the town of Omagh and
the people who were there that day, but it was also a kind of an attempt to assassinate the whole peace process in this country, so its an extremely destructive and abominable act."

Content to let the more articulate Edge do the talking, the bespectacled
Clayton nods and grinds his nth cigarette into the butt-filled ashtray.

'"Walk On is another song with a political content," Edge offers. The
uplifting call-to-arms - destined to be U2 classic - is "inspired by a
fantastic lady in Burma".

He fumbles before pronouncing the name of Aung San Suu Kyi, the gutsy
freedom fighter from Myanmar who was honoured at the same ceremony in
February that U2 received the Freedom Of Dublin City award.

"It's partly also a kind of universal song, of going against the odds.
We're very inspired by her stance. And we in the West are guilty probably
of taking democracy a bit for granted."

Turning philosophical, he sermonises: "It's really when you hear about
situations like the one she's facing in Burma that you realise that
democracy is an incredible freedom and an incredible privilege."

Not that U2's 10th studio album is full of the rantings of angry
not-so-young men. On the contrary.

"In our early days, there was a certain kind of determination and
desperation to reach out to our audience and to make a connection," Edge
reminisces with a light wince of his razor-sharp features. "But over the
years, finally, it has dawned on us.

"We don't have to fight quite so hard anymore. We can still address the
same issues, but we don't have to be quite so earnest about it."

He chortles before saying earnestly: "Being earnest is important, but you
can be too earnest. When you're overly earnest, you lack humour. It's
important, no matter what you're doing, to maintain a sense of humour.

"We're a rock 'n' roll band. We're a bit of an endangered species these
days, you know," he says, not without his own touch of humour.

With an average age of 40 among them - although still looking in
well-maintained, tip-top condition - Mullen is spot-on in his proclamation
to readers of Q recently: "We're out there fighting for our lives because
we don't want to be written off. We don't want people going, 'Oh, those old guys...' "

"Where it's going to go, we're not really sure and we want to pack a small
suitcase for that kind of journey."

What, exactly, is packed into that small suitcase?

Clayton glances at Edge, who has been doing most of the speaking, and
intones drolly: "Toothbrush?"

Edge collapses into manly giggles and agrees: "Definitely, toothbrush."
Even in a brief face-to-face encounter with the four blokes, the rock-solid (no pun intended) friendship between them, built up over 24 years of
working and touring, is at once discernible.

"We really started off as kids in this band. I suppose it's a strange way
to grow up," Edge laughs and casts his eyes on Clayton, the odd man out
among his clean-living, Bible-toting (well, almost) band mates.

Apart from being busted for a drug offense in 1989 and well-documented
bouts with substance-abuse, he has also locked lips with the bee-stung ones of supermodel Naomi Campbell. He has since cleaned up and stayed sober for the past four years.

"We're all still here. We're pretty much intact," Edge smiles in his
beatific way through his cliiped moustache-goatee. "No one's lost their
mind, no one's been a casualty, and I think we're just very fortunate.

"Rock 'n' roll is full of people who crack under the strain. Maybe because
of so many examples of that out there, we were lucky enough to avoid all
those obvious pitfalls and we've come through."

Using un-rock-star-like terms, like "being there for each other" and "group support", he adds: "Also, because we're very close friends means that we understand what the other members are going through."

Clayton observes: "In many ways, the band hasn't changed a whole lot. It's
the four of us doing the things that we do. In the end, we always go back
to what we came from, what we like, which is the sound of us."

Edge continues: "I don't think any of us though we would come this far.
Bands are like street gangs. You expect them to last a few years and if
you're in a really good one, as we think we are, you want to try and make
them last as long as possible.

"Something about the four of us working with one another does create a
magic. You can call it chemistry, whatever, but it's very special."

On a final note, Clayton says: "This record is probably the most revealing
of any that we've produced. It's more 'us' than anything we've ever produced."

Back in the by-now hazy waiting area, the gaggle of journos are held
captive by the flamboyant charm of the frontman of the group.

Bono, with his goggle-like shades stuck on his slightly pudgy face, is
regaling his audience with a long-drawn tale of his favourite
watering-hole, a working man's bar known as Dockers.

To cut a long story short, he was accosted by the considerate burglar who
used to break into his home and raid his fridge regularly. It is one of
those stories you have to hear for yourself, sort of like a live U2 show.

"It's a happenin' place, but not that kind of happenin', if you know what I mean," he crows.

He is clad, rocker-chic style, in black, as are the other three. Ever the
salesman, he starts a spiel about the stately hotel that U2 owns in Dublin, The Clarence, and insists that everyone must visit their club, The Kitchen, only the most happenin' night spot in Dublin.

Or, as he sells it, "this dreary, dingy little place in the basement of our hotel".

The morning after, the cabbie races to the airport on the outskirts of Dublin.

"Had a late night, eh?" he asks, in an attempt at small talk over the
throbbing techno beat. "Oh, you went down to the Kitchen? It's a great
club, isn't it?"

The Kitchen is an underground cavern packed with Beautiful People and
pulsating house misic. There is a snaking queue even at midnight on weekdays.

"You do know who owns it, don't you?"

Yes, it seems that everyone in Dublin knows something about U2.