Adam Clayton on What’s Coming Next

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2021-06-14)

To celebrate Record Store Day, SiriusXM aired a Record Store Day Special with Rocky O’Riordan on U2 X-Radio. Rocky’s second guest pn the special was none other than Adam Clayton, and Rocky spent time discussing the Record Store Day release, “Fire” with Adam, including that well discussed photo from 1979 that appeared on the back cover. But we got some news about the future projects of the band, when Rocky took the time to ask the question what’s coming next for U2. Thank you Rocky for asking!

Adam’s response was to talk about some of the work they are doing rearranging songs currently, possibly for a Fall release. We’ll present Adam’s answer below:

“Well, you know we are playing around with rearranging some of the songs that we have and setting them in a more acoustic environment. Edge got a bit of a bee in his bonnet and said you know, no pun intended, said lets look at these songs and imagine them in a different context. So we are playing around with that.

He’s putting a lot of work into changing the keys, and moving them onto piano and that sort of thing. And hopefully we will have something towards the end of the year that will show a different light on U2.

I think it’s an opportunity to explore different versions of the band in a way. Because it’s very much the early days, it’s embryonic, it could go somewhere between Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash – very stripped down and bare – towards something that is very lush. Very hard to say where it will end up or if it will all end up with the same tone across it, or if each song will be treated differently. I’m excited to see how the songs could exist in a different universe.”

Adam didn’t reveal what songs from the band’s catalog they were working on rearranging, or in what format the music might see the light of day. It is also not clear if he’s referring to working on older songs from the bands catalog or if they are reworking new songs we haven’t heard. It does sound like a different project than what has been discussed more recently as a next album.

The Edge, appearing on Ciara’s Pink Sparkle Pod, recorded recently, also spoke about what the band were working at more recently, “We just finished five years of touring together. We’ve all been enjoying a little bit of a break to pursue our own personal projects and just recharge our own batteries, so that when we come back together we’re fully enthusiastic about working with U2.” It sounds like they may have started the process to get back together based on Adam’s recent comments.

The band was in studio in May in London to record. On May 31, 2021, Steve Lillywhite revealed he had been speaking with the band about the material they were working on. Lillywhite said the band was quite excited about that material, especially Bono.

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