U2, The Edge talks about the new album: “It won’t be a pure rock record”

If you thought you’d heard everything from U2 after “We are the people” and beyond, you were wrong.

With the new album U2 aim to divide fans again, after the single which saw Bono and The Edge join forces with DJ Martin Garrix for “We are the people”, the official anthem of the 2020 European Championships, between electropop and house music. The Edge himself anticipates it. In an interview granted to the US edition of Rolling Stone, the guitarist spoke about the new album the group is working on. And he anticipated that the ideal successor to “Songs of experience”, the last album of unreleased songs published by U2 in 2017, followed last year by the collection of rereadings of songs from their repertoire “Songs of surrender”, will not be exactly a rock albums:.

I think we’re in that great honeymoon period of experimentation. We are looking at all possible musical themes. I think the guitar will play a big part in the next album, but I don’t think it will be a heavy rock album. I think, rather, that there will be a different use of the guitar and that it won’t be a pure and simple rock thing.

The Edge, speaking specifically about his instrument, then added:

We have always tried to avoid using the instrument in a way that is too mainstream and in a certain sense normal. We’ve always tried to find ways to use the guitar that haven’t been heard before and it seems like that’s a big part of what excites us.

The guitarist’s comments seem to somewhat contradict statements made by Bono last year, when he said that U2’s new album would be “an unreasonable guitar record” and “with great choruses”: “I think we need to give the fans a reason to be interested in a new U2 record. I just want to write great songs, because that’s where U2 started: with big choruses, clear ideas. And let’s go back there, but let’s do it with a little ‘ petrol and some matches”.