Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / The Edge

Transcript

The Edge · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. I want to let you know that Rick has
0:21
Speaker 1: a new podcast called Tetragrammaton. After about four to five
0:25
Speaker 1: years of recording Broken Record, Rick decided he wanted to
0:28
Speaker 1: talk to more than just musicians, so on his new podcast,
0:31
Speaker 1: he'll be talking to actors, directors, wrestlers, business people, anyone
0:37
Speaker 1: that Rick finds interesting. So make sure to subscribe to
0:40
Speaker 1: Tetragrammaton wherever you listen to podcasts. You Two's The Edge
0:46
Speaker 1: is one of only a handful of guitarists as famous
0:49
Speaker 1: as his band's frontman. The Edge and Bono have been
0:52
Speaker 1: together as You two since their early days as teenagers
0:56
Speaker 1: in Dublin. They started the band in nineteen seventy six,
0:59
Speaker 1: and in the years since they've become one of the
1:02
Speaker 1: biggest rock bands in the world, releasing a consistent stream
1:05
Speaker 1: of hit records decade after decade or decade. Nearing their
1:11
Speaker 1: fifty year anniversary as a band, You two just released
1:14
Speaker 1: another album, Songs of Surrender. It's a forty track collection
1:19
Speaker 1: of reimagined and stripped down songs that span the entirety
1:23
Speaker 1: of You Two's catalog. The band is also preparing for
1:27
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas residency that starts this fall at the
1:30
Speaker 1: Venetians MSG sphere. On today's episode, Rick Rubin talks to
1:35
Speaker 1: the Edge about his theory behind the band's longevity. Plus
1:38
Speaker 1: he shares stories about writing YouTube classics like New Year's
1:42
Speaker 1: Day and Where the Streets Have No Name. The Edge
1:45
Speaker 1: also explains why Bono singing at the top of his
1:48
Speaker 1: range can be a bit much. This is broken record
1:54
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's
1:58
Speaker 1: Rick Ruben's conversation with The Edge. So, how the hell
2:03
Speaker 1: are you, Rick? I'm feeling pretty good. How about you? Yeah,
2:07
Speaker 1: I must say, cannot complain congratulations on the new album,
2:12
Speaker 1: Thank You. It's radical, it's radical. It struck us that
2:18
Speaker 1: there's very few acts you could do this, which is
2:22
Speaker 1: have a serious look back at recorded work from earlier years,
2:28
Speaker 1: because most groups are not around. You know that the
2:32
Speaker 1: full members are not with us. So it was a
2:35
Speaker 1: thrill not only to get to do it, but also
2:37
Speaker 1: feeling like we're doing something, as you say, radical, something
2:40
Speaker 1: that's never been done. Yes, it's beautiful, and it struck
2:45
Speaker 1: me as it had an honesty about it that really
2:50
Speaker 1: was touching. Yeah, and it felt like it was true
2:55
Speaker 1: to you and it felt really refreshing. Yeah. Well, because
3:00
Speaker 1: we had to move so fast and because we were
3:03
Speaker 1: allowing the music to lead us. I think it's got
3:06
Speaker 1: a kind of ease about it, you know. The the
3:09
Speaker 1: songs just are you know, and they're different versions for sure,
3:14
Speaker 1: and we've taken quite a few liberties, but the songs shine,
3:18
Speaker 1: and they shine because we've done a radical thing. We've
3:21
Speaker 1: decided to really serve the voice and the lyrics and
3:26
Speaker 1: get out of the way as much as possible, So
3:28
Speaker 1: the arrangements are really sparse and very simple in most cases.
3:33
Speaker 1: How did the idea come about to do this? It
3:36
Speaker 1: was knocking around for a while because, as people who've
3:40
Speaker 1: been to our shows will know, occasionally we would take
3:43
Speaker 1: a song from an album that was a full band
3:45
Speaker 1: arrangement that we'd strip it down and we'd play it.
3:48
Speaker 1: Often it would just be binding myself and me on
3:51
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar or possibly piano, and those versions sometimes became
3:56
Speaker 1: the most iconic arrangements. I'm thinking of Staring at the
4:01
Speaker 1: Sun or Ordinary Love or Every Breaking Way recently, so
4:07
Speaker 1: there's always this thought, well, why don't we try that
4:09
Speaker 1: with more of our songs to see where it leads us?
4:12
Speaker 1: And then when the pandemic caused this lockdown. I'm one
4:17
Speaker 1: of those people who works on music all the time,
4:20
Speaker 1: but it seemed like the perfect moment to add into
4:24
Speaker 1: what I would normally be doing, which is where coming
4:26
Speaker 1: new stuff. To add in this other project is to
4:30
Speaker 1: explore arrangement ideas for these songs. And so, with no pressure,
4:35
Speaker 1: no expectation at sort of record company that there would
4:39
Speaker 1: be a new YouTube record coming, we just started experimenting
4:42
Speaker 1: and I would try a few arrangement ideas then bring
4:46
Speaker 1: them to Bono and he would saying, see how it sounded,
4:50
Speaker 1: and it just kind of grew, and the whole project
4:53
Speaker 1: then developed its own momentum as we got deeper into
4:58
Speaker 1: the material and the whole collection started to have its
5:01
Speaker 1: own sort of personality. And the one thing that we
5:06
Speaker 1: really wanted to try and do was bring an intimacy
5:08
Speaker 1: to performances because as a young band particularly, we often
5:13
Speaker 1: found ourselves with versions of our songs with Bono's singing
5:16
Speaker 1: at the very top of his range, which is an
5:19
Speaker 1: amazing sound. I mean, you know, the instrument of Bonnah
5:22
Speaker 1: House is powerful, but it can be a little much,
5:26
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're at home and you
5:30
Speaker 1: want to chill. You know, it's like you don't necessarily
5:33
Speaker 1: go to those early YouTube records because they're just so intense.
5:37
Speaker 1: So we were we thought, well, with this distance of
5:42
Speaker 1: experience and time, you know, going back to those early
5:45
Speaker 1: versions and rearranging them so Bono's singing within his range
5:49
Speaker 1: and he's got the dynamic opportunity to kind of add
5:52
Speaker 1: light and shade. We just thought would be interesting, and
5:55
Speaker 1: it turned out to be the kind of secret weapon
5:58
Speaker 1: was intimacy. It became our kind of new punk rock. Yeah. No,
6:03
Speaker 1: it's it's beautiful, and it's a beautiful idea. And I
6:06
Speaker 1: think in some ways the extremes are always what's interesting.
6:11
Speaker 1: So very loud is interesting, and in the same way,
6:16
Speaker 1: very quiet interesting. I can remember when I first discovered
6:20
Speaker 1: Eric Satia, and I was still relatively punk rocker at
6:24
Speaker 1: the time, but something about this music spoke to me
6:27
Speaker 1: in a way that other things didn't. And then I
6:29
Speaker 1: remember visiting Ian McKay in Washington, DC, and I got
6:34
Speaker 1: to his house and there was an Eric Sati album
6:37
Speaker 1: sitting there. It's like something's going on. Something, It's like
6:40
Speaker 1: there's something and it's those it's the edges, it's what's
6:44
Speaker 1: interesting around the edges, and now you're experimenting on the
6:48
Speaker 1: other side. And I love it. I love it, and
6:50
Speaker 1: it feels maybe when I was saying the honesty of
6:53
Speaker 1: it is, this feels more like what I imagine you
6:58
Speaker 1: would put on and actually listen to in real life.
7:02
Speaker 1: Well a lot of the time, that's true. I mean,
7:04
Speaker 1: you know, you got to remember when we were kids,
7:07
Speaker 1: putting on a record was an occasion, you know, because
7:11
Speaker 1: there weren't that many records around, or interesting records, and
7:15
Speaker 1: those that had them, you know, we would get to
7:17
Speaker 1: know them so we could go over to their place
7:19
Speaker 1: and listen. So putting on an album, you wouldn't have
7:24
Speaker 1: music much of the time. You'd only have it when
7:28
Speaker 1: you decided you were going to go and have a
7:30
Speaker 1: record listening session or on radio, I guess. But today,
7:35
Speaker 1: of course, speak up access to music at all times,
7:39
Speaker 1: so music becomes the soundtrack to every part of your day.
7:44
Speaker 1: And I think this is you know, there's a need
7:47
Speaker 1: at times to have this kind of music that is
7:49
Speaker 1: just with you, but in a softer, more intimate way.
7:53
Speaker 1: When you were growing up, was their music playing in
7:56
Speaker 1: your household or not so much? There was we had
8:00
Speaker 1: a record player. My dad's record collection was mostly kind
8:05
Speaker 1: of the classic crooners of the fifties, Franks and and
8:10
Speaker 1: there was her Valpert, those sorts of records, a couple
8:13
Speaker 1: of jazz records. But he was just that little bit
8:17
Speaker 1: too old to really get rock and roll, so he
8:19
Speaker 1: didn't have any not even a Beatles record. So when
8:23
Speaker 1: my brother and I were, you know, young, like eight
8:26
Speaker 1: nine years old, I remember we got a gift of
8:30
Speaker 1: a five pound note for Christmas from one of our grandparents,
8:35
Speaker 1: so we said, let's buy an album together, so we
8:38
Speaker 1: bought Sergeant Peppers. We decided that was going to be
8:41
Speaker 1: our joint purchase, and that was kind of the first
8:45
Speaker 1: rock and roll album in our household. And then subsequently,
8:50
Speaker 1: obviously as we got a little older and got more
8:54
Speaker 1: gifts from our grandparents, those that record collection grew slowly.
8:58
Speaker 1: But I mean, think about that, it was that rare.
9:02
Speaker 1: You know, you find your friends who had these records
9:06
Speaker 1: like led Zeppelin record or Dylan record or a Jimmy
9:10
Speaker 1: Hendricks record, and you'd borrow them if you possibly could.
9:14
Speaker 1: And now it's everywhere, and I don't know there's good
9:17
Speaker 1: and bad to that, but I certainly enjoy having access
9:21
Speaker 1: to everything and eric side to somebody. I love it too,
9:24
Speaker 1: by the way, and I think your streaming numbers are
9:26
Speaker 1: surprisingly high. Interesting. Interesting would you say, did you fall
9:31
Speaker 1: in love with music at that time when when it
9:34
Speaker 1: was shared with your brother and what Sergeant Pepper? Was
9:37
Speaker 1: that sort of the beginning of your connection to music?
9:41
Speaker 1: It was, And you know, we were our family was
9:44
Speaker 1: from Wales, moved to Ireland, so you know, growing up,
9:49
Speaker 1: you know, we all kind of made inroads into the
9:53
Speaker 1: local social scene as kids, but there's always that little
9:56
Speaker 1: sense of being an outsider. And I think music was
9:58
Speaker 1: a great place to kind of go and and just
10:01
Speaker 1: spend time. So yeah, it was a refuge for me definitely.
10:05
Speaker 1: And I would listen to records, particular records that I loved.
10:09
Speaker 1: I'd listen hundreds of times because they were rare and
10:13
Speaker 1: I got to know every single nuance of those records.
10:17
Speaker 1: And this was before you started playing, Is this correct? Yeah?
10:21
Speaker 1: The first instrument I ever tried to play would have
10:23
Speaker 1: been piano one It is probably about ten. Didn't go
10:26
Speaker 1: so great because I had a very good ear, but
10:30
Speaker 1: a kind of music dyslexia, so there's no chance I
10:33
Speaker 1: was ever going to be able to read music nearly
10:37
Speaker 1: as easily as hear it and copy. So my ear
10:41
Speaker 1: kind of has been someways my greatest asset, but definitely
10:45
Speaker 1: early on stopped me from understanding notation or really finding
10:51
Speaker 1: my way into that because I just didn't get us.
10:56
Speaker 1: I didn't like it. I understood then, probably around thirteen,
11:01
Speaker 1: my brother was given a cheap, little acoustic guitar and
11:04
Speaker 1: the two of us learned basic chords just open chords
11:08
Speaker 1: is just so we could sing and play. And that
11:11
Speaker 1: was the beginning of when I got really interested in
11:14
Speaker 1: learning an instrument. And then would you play along with records?
11:17
Speaker 1: At that time? I would, and not just records. I
11:21
Speaker 1: mean it got to the point where I would play
11:23
Speaker 1: along to the TV show that whatever we were. This
11:28
Speaker 1: is a small family house, so we're all, you know,
11:30
Speaker 1: in the TV room, and I can't stop myself picking
11:35
Speaker 1: up the guitar and I'm just playing along, and I
11:37
Speaker 1: remember getting pillows thrown at me to shut up. I
11:42
Speaker 1: was just doing everyone's head in with this incessant guitar line.
11:47
Speaker 1: But again, it's the ADHD whatever. Once I got into
11:53
Speaker 1: the guitar, I really sort of did a deep dive
11:55
Speaker 1: and Luckily early on there was there's a couple of
11:58
Speaker 1: guitar players that I fell in love with, Rory Gallaher
12:02
Speaker 1: very early on, being Irish, being you know, a great
12:07
Speaker 1: guitar player, so I would play along to his records.
12:11
Speaker 1: And then that was when I was probably about fifteen.
12:13
Speaker 1: And then suddenly punk rock happens, and suddenly it's like
12:18
Speaker 1: the Clash, the Jam, all these amazing groups in the
12:23
Speaker 1: UK and Patti Smith and then television. So suddenly, as
12:28
Speaker 1: a young guitar player, I'm getting all this sort of
12:32
Speaker 1: incoming exposure to radically different kinds of guitar approaches, and
12:38
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa. And that was a big inspiration,
12:41
Speaker 1: not just what they were doing, but the sense that
12:43
Speaker 1: they could do something different. You know, I sensed it
12:46
Speaker 1: was not the same set of ideas as the sort
12:49
Speaker 1: of white rock, which you know I found early on.
12:54
Speaker 1: I liked Lizzie, but certain point it just seemed like
12:59
Speaker 1: it didn't have much imagination. But this work, you know,
13:02
Speaker 1: Patti Smith and television particularly, they were like, wow, that
13:06
Speaker 1: is that's different, That's coming from other place. It opened
13:10
Speaker 1: the door to possibilities, whether whether you were going to
13:12
Speaker 1: go down the same path as them or not. It
13:17
Speaker 1: showed there's another way, and there could be many other
13:20
Speaker 1: ways as it turns out. Yeah, I mean I was.
13:23
Speaker 1: I was so fortunate so that you know, people like
13:26
Speaker 1: John Miguel from Magazine and Susan the Banshees, and there
13:30
Speaker 1: was some great guitar players, just so many at that
13:35
Speaker 1: moment that we're doing new things, and I was just
13:41
Speaker 1: lapping it all up at all times. About how old
13:45
Speaker 1: were you at that time? Well, this was seventy seven,
13:50
Speaker 1: so I would have been seventy seven. I would have
13:53
Speaker 1: been sixteen. Yeah, punk rock happened kind of just as
13:59
Speaker 1: I was turning fifteen. Do you remember what the very
14:02
Speaker 1: first punk record you heard was. I think the first
14:06
Speaker 1: punk song I heard was probably the Jazz on Top
14:09
Speaker 1: of the Pumps. The Jam on Top of the Pops
14:12
Speaker 1: was a moment because the sheer energy of it, you know,
14:15
Speaker 1: and the fact that these guys were probably only about
14:18
Speaker 1: three or four years older than us. It really felt
14:20
Speaker 1: suddenly not only was it possible to write your own songs,
14:26
Speaker 1: but actually get some notice. So that was a big
14:29
Speaker 1: encouragement to us at that time because it was music
14:31
Speaker 1: we could play. We love the Ramones for the same reason.
14:34
Speaker 1: They were probably the first cover of something that was
14:39
Speaker 1: from the punk kind of tradition, and we did a
14:42
Speaker 1: bunch of Ramones songs. That was probably all we could
14:45
Speaker 1: play at that point. I love the Ramones. That my
14:49
Speaker 1: first experience of punk rock was the Ramans and it
14:51
Speaker 1: changed my life. Yeah, they were real outliers. If you
14:58
Speaker 1: think of how you connected to music, then how do
15:02
Speaker 1: you say your relationship to music has changed since childhood? Well,
15:07
Speaker 1: I think when you're a kid, you tend to sort
15:10
Speaker 1: of have your real favorites and you you're not maybe
15:13
Speaker 1: as curious about things outside of that genre of that form.
15:18
Speaker 1: So we went through a whole phase where we absolutely
15:21
Speaker 1: had no interest in the blues, no interest in really
15:25
Speaker 1: an African American music, because that to us had been
15:29
Speaker 1: as a sort of form, had been so strongly associated
15:33
Speaker 1: with the music before punk rock. So we we would
15:37
Speaker 1: have real prejudices against us copying any of those ideas
15:42
Speaker 1: of forms. So certain guitar styles we just wouldn't we
15:46
Speaker 1: wouldn't allow them in our music. Bending of notes, you know,
15:51
Speaker 1: something as simple as that, we just weren't into it.
15:54
Speaker 1: The third, which is in musical terms, the note that
15:59
Speaker 1: gives you a major chord or a minor chord. We
16:02
Speaker 1: wouldn't play thirds. We just wanted our music to be
16:05
Speaker 1: very open and hard to pin down, so I would
16:08
Speaker 1: plays that were just made of the root and the fifth,
16:11
Speaker 1: which means it has no sex. It's it's in terms
16:16
Speaker 1: of the chord gender. If you want. Today, I'm much
16:19
Speaker 1: more open, And I suppose where I'm at these days
16:24
Speaker 1: is songs. You know, they seem to be an eternal thing.
16:29
Speaker 1: If you hit on a song that is outside of
16:32
Speaker 1: time in the sense of the moment in culture, you know,
16:36
Speaker 1: if it's timeless, that's the highest goal. I think. So
16:40
Speaker 1: therefore everybody from coal Porter and a bird backreck stuff.
16:44
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have abba, you know, the bee jeans, I wouldn't.
16:48
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have listened to any of that stuff when
16:49
Speaker 1: I was sixteen. But now I feel like there's a
16:52
Speaker 1: lot there for me to learn. It's beautiful. Having a
16:56
Speaker 1: parochial view of style early on can be really helpful
17:00
Speaker 1: in terms of defining your sound, so it can work
17:05
Speaker 1: to your advantage to see, I'm only going to play this,
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm only going to do this. This is our sound,
17:13
Speaker 1: and you define your sound and then when you break
17:15
Speaker 1: free of that. It allows incredible growth and change over time.
17:22
Speaker 1: You're not starting with the palette of everything. You're starting
17:25
Speaker 1: with a limited palette. But it was based on your taste.
17:28
Speaker 1: It It was honest, you know, these are the things
17:30
Speaker 1: I like. We're going to work within this framework, and
17:33
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. And then finding ways now to say, okay,
17:37
Speaker 1: now I like the things that I rejected, Then how
17:40
Speaker 1: can these elements be integrated and still be true to
17:44
Speaker 1: what it is that we do exactly? And limitations can
17:48
Speaker 1: end up being really crucial defining characteristics. Sickly working with Brianino.
17:55
Speaker 1: You know, Brian would have been a person who understood technology,
18:01
Speaker 1: possibly more than he understood music, as in terms of
18:05
Speaker 1: music theory. And we were working with Ryan and we
18:09
Speaker 1: were at one point we were saying, you know, we're
18:12
Speaker 1: not like virtuosos, you know, and he was going, well,
18:15
Speaker 1: that's cool, you know, that's not important to think about
18:18
Speaker 1: the velvet underground. I mean, these guys were they had
18:21
Speaker 1: incredible intelligence and creativity. But you know, mo Tucker was,
18:27
Speaker 1: you know, a drummer who played the songs, but she
18:29
Speaker 1: was not one of the great drummers. And Lou was
18:32
Speaker 1: a really decent guitar play. He's not Jimmy Hendrickson. We realized,
18:37
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you know, those limitations can turn into strengths,
18:41
Speaker 1: and that was a big insight in some ways. That's
18:45
Speaker 1: what the punk rock revolution was about. Was and the
18:48
Speaker 1: hip hop revolution as well, was it was taking the
18:51
Speaker 1: music out of the conservatory and back to the streets,
18:54
Speaker 1: and it was for everybody. Everyone who had a conception
18:58
Speaker 1: or something to say could participate. Yeah, it democratized in
19:03
Speaker 1: a way. That's amazing, because that was the problem with
19:06
Speaker 1: music prior to punk was that it seemed so at
19:08
Speaker 1: least it seemed like, you know, if you weren't a
19:12
Speaker 1: virtuoso musician, then you didn't didn't get a chance to
19:16
Speaker 1: get into playing live and making records. And also there
19:19
Speaker 1: was that sense of the tablets of Stone descending from
19:23
Speaker 1: on High to us mere immortals, and you know, that
19:27
Speaker 1: got very boring and extremely pretentious around that time. And
19:31
Speaker 1: so we were into even then, we were into the
19:34
Speaker 1: bands that could put it together on a single three
19:38
Speaker 1: and a half minute, forty five vinyl record. So the
19:42
Speaker 1: Ramones could do that, the Kinks could do that, Iggy Pop,
19:46
Speaker 1: and the Stones obviously, the Beatles and they were our
19:50
Speaker 1: heroes for that reason. We just loved those rock and
19:54
Speaker 1: roll forty fives. Did you watch The Top of the
19:58
Speaker 1: Pops every week? Yeah, pretty much religiously. And then there
20:02
Speaker 1: was one other show called The Old Grow Whistle Test
20:04
Speaker 1: and that was the same. We would watch it every week.
20:09
Speaker 1: So told the Pops had pistols. On one occasion they
20:13
Speaker 1: played pretty vacant and that was mind blowing. But the
20:16
Speaker 1: Ogo whistle Test had all the touring acts, so the
20:19
Speaker 1: Cramps were playing, you know, all that, so that was
20:24
Speaker 1: a great one to catch and they would do in
20:26
Speaker 1: that case, they do like two or three songs. They
20:28
Speaker 1: wouldn't just do one. Great The Cramps was the first
20:32
Speaker 1: punk rock show I got to see when I was
20:33
Speaker 1: probably it was probably fifteen or sixteen, and it was
20:38
Speaker 1: mind blowing. It changed my life forever. Amazing band. What
20:43
Speaker 1: would have been the music that was playing on the
20:45
Speaker 1: radio back when you're a kid, Well, I mean a
20:48
Speaker 1: lot of it was was the pop music of the day,
20:51
Speaker 1: and some of it was was actually really good, but
20:53
Speaker 1: some of it was terrible. So when I was a
20:55
Speaker 1: really young kid, there was a sort of glam explosion,
20:58
Speaker 1: so it was everything from Bowie to Mark Bowland, Gary Glitter,
21:03
Speaker 1: Alvin Stardust, all these artists from the UK who was
21:08
Speaker 1: sort of right think the wave of this new Glam movement,
21:12
Speaker 1: which I suppose was interesting because it brought androgyny into
21:16
Speaker 1: rock and roll, you know, like I suppose Mick had
21:19
Speaker 1: played around a bit with it, Mick Jagger, but Bowie
21:22
Speaker 1: and Mark Bowland really kind of took it to the
21:25
Speaker 1: next level. And you know, it was eyeliner, but it
21:28
Speaker 1: was the music actually was a lot of it was
21:30
Speaker 1: really good. And then Abbot, I guess would have been
21:34
Speaker 1: huge at that time, but in terms of guitar music,
21:39
Speaker 1: a lot of it didn't reach me, you know, and
21:41
Speaker 1: I was such a Beatles fan. I really didn't like
21:45
Speaker 1: the sort of progressive rock of that time. I quite
21:49
Speaker 1: liked a band called Yes because I think that had
21:51
Speaker 1: some good, good ideas, but a lot of it just
21:53
Speaker 1: left me completely cold. So I was drawn to Alice
21:57
Speaker 1: Cooper and Slade and these guitar bands that had tunes,
22:03
Speaker 1: you know, that had some good songs. That was the
22:06
Speaker 1: thing that was attracted me. Was you two your first band,
22:09
Speaker 1: the first band you were in, Yeah, I mean we
22:13
Speaker 1: were very early days. We called us Feedback and that
22:17
Speaker 1: was when we were doing covers, and you know, we
22:19
Speaker 1: were kids. And then when the punk thing happened, we
22:21
Speaker 1: called ourselves the Hype for a while, and we were
22:23
Speaker 1: starting to write our own songs, but still mostly doing covers.
22:26
Speaker 1: And then you Two, when we really started to get
22:31
Speaker 1: serious about our own songwriting, we called usselves you two
22:34
Speaker 1: and that. Yeah, so, and how old were the members
22:37
Speaker 1: of the band when you all met? We were all
22:39
Speaker 1: in high school together, and so I would have been fifteen,
22:43
Speaker 1: Larry would have been fifteen, Adam sixteen. And really when
22:47
Speaker 1: when we got together, it was it was more about
22:50
Speaker 1: just something fun to do on a Saturday, you know.
22:52
Speaker 1: It wasn't knowing any idea of taking more seriously than that.
22:58
Speaker 1: And we were kids, so the transcision from the hobby
23:03
Speaker 1: to thinking, wow, we have something was a slow one,
23:08
Speaker 1: but fun enough. The spark, that thing that you recognize
23:14
Speaker 1: when you play with somebody else, that spark was there
23:18
Speaker 1: quite early on, even as we were playing other people's material.
23:21
Speaker 1: There was a chemistry there that we all recognized. And
23:25
Speaker 1: the only band I think I've ever been in where
23:29
Speaker 1: except for one, I got a gig with a country
23:32
Speaker 1: band at age sixteen for one night and it was
23:38
Speaker 1: a band called the Drifting Cowboys and we're basically doing
23:42
Speaker 1: country songs and I got paid and that was that's
23:47
Speaker 1: the first time I actually ever got paid to play guitar. Amazing.
23:53
Speaker 1: We'll be back after a quick break with more from
23:55
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin and The Edge. We're back with The Edge.
24:04
Speaker 1: Did you ever feel connection to any traditional Irish music
24:08
Speaker 1: just because such a big part of the Irish culture,
24:11
Speaker 1: the folk songs and the traditional tunes. Was that in
24:14
Speaker 1: your life at all? You know, I knew that it
24:19
Speaker 1: was there, but you know, at that stage, I really
24:22
Speaker 1: didn't find it interesting. I didn't find it engaging. I mean,
24:26
Speaker 1: I suppose for us as kids in Dublin was in
24:30
Speaker 1: those days and the sort of late seventies was quite
24:34
Speaker 1: a gray place. There wasn't a huge amount going on.
24:39
Speaker 1: So music was an escape, you know, it was it
24:42
Speaker 1: was like a window to something else going on in
24:46
Speaker 1: another part of the world. So the last thing we
24:49
Speaker 1: wanted to do was listen to her, you know, traditional
24:52
Speaker 1: Irish music, to be reminded of what we were very
24:56
Speaker 1: well aware of every day, which was Ireland at that time.
25:00
Speaker 1: Now I look back and it's it's beautiful music. There's
25:03
Speaker 1: actually a huge revival of folk and traditional music happening
25:07
Speaker 1: right now in Ireland, and some great new groups langcom Ye, Vagabonds,
25:14
Speaker 1: Lisa O'Neil. These are really regarded new folk and traditional artists,
25:20
Speaker 1: but back then not really understood. Please feel free to
25:23
Speaker 1: share any of the new ones that you like, just
25:25
Speaker 1: because I like all kinds of music and I don't
25:27
Speaker 1: know about this movement, so that's exciting. How did you
25:31
Speaker 1: first connect with Eno, Well, we made our first few
25:35
Speaker 1: records with Steve Lillywhite, and he had this idea in
25:38
Speaker 1: his head that he would only do one album per artist.
25:41
Speaker 1: That was this thought, but in our case, he broke
25:44
Speaker 1: his rule and he actually did the first three you
25:46
Speaker 1: tube records. But then we're coming up to recond number
25:49
Speaker 1: four and even we are at this point going, let's
25:52
Speaker 1: think of working with somebody new and fresh, just to
25:56
Speaker 1: keep it interesting. So we were swapping ideas and names,
26:00
Speaker 1: and I particularly loved Before and After Science, which is
26:02
Speaker 1: Brian's solo album, and we all liked Talking Heads, and
26:07
Speaker 1: we loved the work he's done with Bowie, so he
26:10
Speaker 1: kind of bubbled up to the top of our list
26:12
Speaker 1: of like, well, this guy, we'd love to work with
26:14
Speaker 1: Brian if we could persuade him. So we kind of
26:17
Speaker 1: mounted a little bit of a campaign and through management
26:20
Speaker 1: we got in touch with him and we had a
26:22
Speaker 1: meeting with him in London. Actually it was Dublin. He
26:25
Speaker 1: came to Dublin and he said he came pretty much
26:29
Speaker 1: with the idea that he was going to turn down
26:32
Speaker 1: the offer. But in the course of our conversations, I
26:37
Speaker 1: think we realized how much we had in common in
26:39
Speaker 1: terms of the music we liked, but also our ambitions
26:41
Speaker 1: for sonics and experimenting with sound. So he found himself
26:47
Speaker 1: at the end of the trip going, I think I
26:49
Speaker 1: want to work with these guys, and so he's slightly
26:53
Speaker 1: hedging his bets. He'd decided he would bring his friend
26:56
Speaker 1: from Canada, fellow called Danny Lanois, who at that point
26:59
Speaker 1: had been on dozens of records as a kind of
27:03
Speaker 1: producer but local to Canada. And we had some songs
27:09
Speaker 1: pretty much in good shape, maybe without lyrics. But I
27:13
Speaker 1: remember a few days before, a week before Brian was
27:16
Speaker 1: to arrive to start work, we had this sort of
27:19
Speaker 1: crisis of confidence in material. So Steve Lilly might happen
27:23
Speaker 1: to be in town, so we grabbed Steve and I said, look,
27:27
Speaker 1: should we cancel the sessions. We're not sure we have anything.
27:31
Speaker 1: He said, well, blame me what you got. So we
27:34
Speaker 1: played him a version of Pride in the Name of
27:37
Speaker 1: Love and a sort of homecoming and Unforgettable Fire and
27:43
Speaker 1: he said, m I think you guys are going to
27:46
Speaker 1: be fine. I don't think you need to worry about
27:48
Speaker 1: the songs. You got some good things here. So we
27:51
Speaker 1: started working with Brian and Danny and we decided for
27:54
Speaker 1: that album, rather than being in a recording studio with
27:58
Speaker 1: the sort of limited acoustic properties, we rented Slain Castle,
28:02
Speaker 1: which is this sort of medieval castle north of Dublin City,
28:09
Speaker 1: and what it had was these enormous rooms with the
28:13
Speaker 1: possibility of recording, you know, in these spaces that would
28:18
Speaker 1: add so much to the color and flavor of the music.
28:21
Speaker 1: So we decamped to Slay Castle and had like, I
28:26
Speaker 1: think it was six weeks, that's all we had. But
28:29
Speaker 1: we had so much fun with Brian and Danny because
28:32
Speaker 1: they both, I mean, as well as being incredible musicians,
28:37
Speaker 1: they both shared so much of our kind of curiosity
28:41
Speaker 1: about sound and it was just a pleasure to work
28:44
Speaker 1: with them and I've obviously worked at them many times since.
28:47
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. It's so nice when those those magic moments happen,
28:51
Speaker 1: that you find a great collaborator and it just works
28:54
Speaker 1: and you get to do it for a long period
28:55
Speaker 1: of time. It's golden. Yeah. Yeah, And I mean I
28:59
Speaker 1: would credit Brian and Danny with with, you know, really
29:02
Speaker 1: bringing our music up at the level. You know, We'd
29:04
Speaker 1: already had a bit of success on the War album,
29:08
Speaker 1: so we were doing pretty well, but in terms of
29:11
Speaker 1: the dimensionality and the kind of experimental qualities, they really
29:15
Speaker 1: upped our game. This is a personal question. You could
29:19
Speaker 1: answer it anyway you like, but tell me what you
29:21
Speaker 1: think each band member. You can include yourself in this.
29:24
Speaker 1: Each band member's biggest strengths and biggest weaknesses are and
29:29
Speaker 1: this is only from your point of view. This is
29:31
Speaker 1: not a broad view of how the world sees it,
29:34
Speaker 1: just from your seat, right. Well, start with Adam Adams
29:39
Speaker 1: probably are least conventional musician in the band, and that
29:44
Speaker 1: his grasp of even the basic idea rules of music
29:48
Speaker 1: is very tenuous. So Adam brings a kind of unorthodox
29:53
Speaker 1: quality to our work, which is hugely important. So he
29:57
Speaker 1: would often do something that no one else would ever
30:02
Speaker 1: have thought of, and to him it's just as valid
30:05
Speaker 1: as the things that most people would consider to be obvious.
30:09
Speaker 1: To him, there's no difference. So that's a huge strength
30:13
Speaker 1: to our band, and over the years there's a great
30:16
Speaker 1: example of that with Bullet the Blue Sky. So that's
30:19
Speaker 1: a that's a tune. We're in the studio demoing a
30:22
Speaker 1: bunch of songs and I've been listening to this band
30:24
Speaker 1: called The Fall, and I've been one of their songs
30:27
Speaker 1: is this really jagged, cool sort of guitar part. So
30:31
Speaker 1: I'm in I'm in the rehearsal space and I'm starting
30:35
Speaker 1: to figure out this guitar part and I've got something
30:39
Speaker 1: different but sort of in the same vein, and I'm
30:42
Speaker 1: just playing this part and I see Adam and Larry
30:45
Speaker 1: coming in because they've heard this, and I think this
30:47
Speaker 1: is cool. So they join in, and I suddenly realized
30:50
Speaker 1: they're playing it at in halftime, meaning I mean, here
30:54
Speaker 1: is dadda and they so and I'm like looking at them,
31:03
Speaker 1: going they just don't get it, you know, this is
31:07
Speaker 1: what are they doing? So Adam comes up this incredible
31:11
Speaker 1: bass part, but I'm I go back into the control
31:14
Speaker 1: and Bona's in there, and I'm like, well that was
31:16
Speaker 1: a bit of a mess, and Bonna's going, no, listen,
31:21
Speaker 1: this is so cool. And I listened back, and sure enough,
31:24
Speaker 1: the way they were hearing it, David a completely different twist,
31:29
Speaker 1: and you know, we kept the bass part, we kept
31:32
Speaker 1: the drum part, I changed some of the guitar and stuff.
31:35
Speaker 1: But that was just an example where you really you
31:39
Speaker 1: get great positives from differences of sensibility and how you
31:44
Speaker 1: hear things. So that's Adam. I just have one quick
31:47
Speaker 1: question about that, which is, from that moment, did it
31:51
Speaker 1: then open your mind to possibilities in general? Like did
31:56
Speaker 1: you become a different musician after that experience. Yes, I
32:01
Speaker 1: mean I think that's all part of recognizing limitations as strengths,
32:08
Speaker 1: and I think that whole album The Joshua Tree had
32:12
Speaker 1: many examples of that. One of my favorite stories on
32:16
Speaker 1: that front is another Adam's story. We were doing where
32:19
Speaker 1: the Streets of No Name, and we played this take
32:23
Speaker 1: and it had a great energy, really cool vibe. But
32:26
Speaker 1: if you were to listen to the individual instruments, they
32:30
Speaker 1: weren't particularly in time, you know, they'd be fairly substantial
32:34
Speaker 1: sort of swings and periods where you know, there was
32:39
Speaker 1: a lot of tension rather than everything being in the pocket,
32:42
Speaker 1: you know, things were kind of struggling to stay in
32:45
Speaker 1: the pocket. And I remember Adam actually got quite overwhelmed
32:50
Speaker 1: at one point by the fact that we couldn't get
32:53
Speaker 1: the perfect take. So we were working with this particular
32:57
Speaker 1: version where the Streets of No Name, and eventually really
33:00
Speaker 1: got something we were very happy with. But Steve Lillywhite
33:03
Speaker 1: came in towards the end of the project to help
33:05
Speaker 1: us mix the album to get these songs over the line,
33:08
Speaker 1: and Dad and he sat him down. He said, look, Steve,
33:12
Speaker 1: if you are mixing Streets, you should know that there's
33:16
Speaker 1: one base part here, which was an overdub that we've
33:19
Speaker 1: We've spent hours getting it perfectly in time. And then
33:22
Speaker 1: there's the one that Adam played live, and every rough
33:26
Speaker 1: mix that we've done with the overdub, we've all decided
33:31
Speaker 1: it sounds terrible. The one with that tension in it
33:35
Speaker 1: where it's out of time is the one to use.
33:38
Speaker 1: So anyway, Steve starts his mix and he puts up
33:42
Speaker 1: the floor base as we call it. Now He's going,
33:45
Speaker 1: this is wildly out of time, I'm not using that,
33:48
Speaker 1: so we put up the other one. It's like sitting
33:50
Speaker 1: as it should in the pocket with the drums, and
33:53
Speaker 1: he does his rough mix and he's getting close to
33:57
Speaker 1: finished and he calls us all in and we come in.
34:00
Speaker 1: Apparently I don't remember this, but he Steve does. We
34:03
Speaker 1: all came in and we're going, oh, sounds terrible. What
34:06
Speaker 1: have he done. It's like, this is an awful mix.
34:09
Speaker 1: It's terrible, Steve, whatever you're doing, it's just not working.
34:13
Speaker 1: So it's like taken aback. So he says, well, he
34:17
Speaker 1: remembers this conversation with Danny. He swaps out the basses.
34:21
Speaker 1: Well does this help? And we all went there. It is.
34:25
Speaker 1: That's the mix mate. That sounds great, and that's what's
34:30
Speaker 1: on the albums, so incredible. Again, the idea of what's
34:35
Speaker 1: right and correct is often not right and correct. So
34:39
Speaker 1: with Larry, I'd say Larry's great strength again as a
34:42
Speaker 1: musician is Larry plays to the to the vocal. Larry
34:46
Speaker 1: doesn't play to the guitar, he doesn't play to the bass.
34:49
Speaker 1: Larry plays drums to the to the singer. Which is
34:52
Speaker 1: why he's such a great drummer because all his nuances
34:56
Speaker 1: and his inflections and the groove he's picking up from
35:00
Speaker 1: the vocal. So when it's funny, when you listen to
35:05
Speaker 1: the monitor mixes of the band, you get this inside.
35:09
Speaker 1: So my monitor mix is basically a full blend of
35:13
Speaker 1: everyone's instruments with the guitar and my voice slightly elevates it.
35:18
Speaker 1: Follows is kind of the same, but with his voice
35:21
Speaker 1: elevates it. Adam has mostly kicked drum and a little
35:26
Speaker 1: bit of a voice and a little bit of guitar,
35:28
Speaker 1: but really it's base and basin kickdrum, and then Larry
35:32
Speaker 1: is drums and the voice and a mighty bit of guitar.
35:39
Speaker 1: So that quality I think for a musician, that drummer,
35:43
Speaker 1: he's just there with the voice the whole time. I
35:46
Speaker 1: think that's why he's so good, beautiful. And then myself,
35:51
Speaker 1: I'm my strength, I suppose would be my ear, my
35:54
Speaker 1: musical ear. So to me music I feel it very viscerally.
35:59
Speaker 1: You know, it's not intellectual to me, it's just it's
36:03
Speaker 1: like in my gut is where I receive music. So
36:07
Speaker 1: writing and for four is very instinctive rather than technical.
36:12
Speaker 1: So that's the strength. The weakness I suppose would be
36:15
Speaker 1: the exact thing, not technical. So sometimes you know, not
36:20
Speaker 1: knowing as much theory as as I ought to leaves
36:24
Speaker 1: you slightly a hostage to inspiration. You know, you're not
36:28
Speaker 1: necessarily have the way to get out of a problem
36:32
Speaker 1: using just plain old theory. With Barow, he's also incredibly
36:38
Speaker 1: instinctive and will will find amazing melodic ideas. And again
36:44
Speaker 1: I think it's to do with growing up as we
36:46
Speaker 1: did on stage. This sort of innate understanding of what
36:50
Speaker 1: a great melody is and what is going to reach
36:53
Speaker 1: an audience means that you know, when he hits on something,
36:58
Speaker 1: it's going to ring like a bell. It's like you
37:00
Speaker 1: know that melodic idea is going to travel. It's got potency.
37:06
Speaker 1: So that's his great talent, I think. I think the
37:09
Speaker 1: other strength we have as a band is this sense
37:13
Speaker 1: of trust and us all having a common goal that
37:18
Speaker 1: binds us together. So we're all looking out for each
37:21
Speaker 1: other's backs at all times, you know, So when when
37:24
Speaker 1: Larry sits behind the drum kit to figure out a part,
37:28
Speaker 1: we're kind of there to add commons, help whatever, And
37:31
Speaker 1: the same with me Bo or Adam. It's like there's
37:35
Speaker 1: there's three guys have your back when you're coming up
37:38
Speaker 1: with your ideas, which I think is a huge strength.
37:42
Speaker 1: You mentioned that music isn't intellectual to you, it's more instinctual,
37:48
Speaker 1: and that plays well with the idea of the right
37:52
Speaker 1: way would be the intellectual way. The instinctual way is
37:57
Speaker 1: the one that just sounds good to you, you know,
37:59
Speaker 1: the one that that feels good, doesn't have to follow
38:01
Speaker 1: any rules. If it feels good to you, that's the
38:04
Speaker 1: ultimate taste. Is I feel it, So it's good, doesn't
38:09
Speaker 1: matter what the math of it is, and we don't
38:10
Speaker 1: need to know the math of it. Yeah, And I
38:13
Speaker 1: wanted to ask if you feel like that there's a
38:16
Speaker 1: spiritual dimension to that. Yes, I mean whether you however
38:21
Speaker 1: you describe spiritual, and there's so many different versions of that.
38:25
Speaker 1: I do really believe that. I've been reading a great
38:28
Speaker 1: book recently called Notes on Complexity. It's it's actually a
38:33
Speaker 1: science book that explains the limitations of science. And what
38:38
Speaker 1: it introduces is the idea that our insights as creators,
38:44
Speaker 1: as inventors, as scientists often are outside of any kind
38:51
Speaker 1: of explanation, any logic. They are the kind of leaps
38:56
Speaker 1: of insights. And I think of songwriting that way, it's
38:59
Speaker 1: like you get this vision in your mind's ear, you
39:03
Speaker 1: hear like a complete song sometimes or when we're playing together,
39:08
Speaker 1: you know, you just find you're reaching for notes, so
39:11
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily know what the note is or why
39:15
Speaker 1: you're going there, but it emotionally makes sense. So to me,
39:20
Speaker 1: there's a sort of this consciousness in the small sea sense,
39:24
Speaker 1: which is the individual consciousness, but there's also a kind
39:28
Speaker 1: of collective consciousness, big sea consciousness, which we can access,
39:35
Speaker 1: and it's when you access that that you're really kind
39:38
Speaker 1: of you're not just being inspired. I think there's a
39:42
Speaker 1: kind of a higher level again, where you can kind
39:46
Speaker 1: of access things that you couldn't you couldn't normally do,
39:50
Speaker 1: and you couldn't possibly explain how you got there, but
39:52
Speaker 1: suddenly you've arrived. Some are very unique, and I think
39:56
Speaker 1: that's true for some of the great breakthroughs in science
39:59
Speaker 1: as well, like Einstein and his theory of relativity. He
40:03
Speaker 1: didn't sit down with a slide rule and go, well,
40:06
Speaker 1: that must mean such and such. He saw it does
40:09
Speaker 1: a vision and then figured out the mathematics to make
40:13
Speaker 1: sense of it afterwards. So I feel I think that's
40:17
Speaker 1: the spiritual dimension and of course, I mean I do
40:20
Speaker 1: have a faith, so I'm not saying that that's not
40:25
Speaker 1: true for me, you know, the more specific faith in
40:29
Speaker 1: existence of God. But I suppose I can see it
40:33
Speaker 1: being true if you have no belief in God, if
40:36
Speaker 1: you just see it as being open to to these
40:41
Speaker 1: other levels of consciousness. Yes, and whatever creative energy brings
40:47
Speaker 1: forth everything in on the planet. You know, there's some
40:50
Speaker 1: there's something productive going on, because the trees are growing,
40:53
Speaker 1: there's something happening, there's some energy. Well, I mean my
40:57
Speaker 1: definition of God is the creative force of the energy,
41:00
Speaker 1: you know, and of the universe, the creative energy of
41:03
Speaker 1: the universe, because I mean, if you start looking at
41:06
Speaker 1: the Big Bang and all the theories about this universe existing,
41:09
Speaker 1: you realize it's a miraculous thing. There's no explanation for it.
41:15
Speaker 1: I mean, it shouldn't exist. And the only way that
41:18
Speaker 1: the cosmologists of today can sort of rationalize the mathematics
41:23
Speaker 1: of the improbability of it is through the multiverse that
41:28
Speaker 1: there are in fact an infinite number of universes. And
41:31
Speaker 1: somebody was explaining how improbable it is that our planet
41:36
Speaker 1: exists with life and sentient life. Instead, it'd be like
41:40
Speaker 1: flying a plane at like ten thousand feet throwing random
41:44
Speaker 1: letters out the window, and that a Shakespeare play is
41:49
Speaker 1: formed on the ground. It's like beyond much too much.
41:55
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm much more with the program of some
41:59
Speaker 1: creative and energy whatever, whatever that is, whatever that is.
42:03
Speaker 1: I just heard a story about Einstein's theory of relativity,
42:07
Speaker 1: which was from the time that he presented it to
42:10
Speaker 1: the people of the powers that be in the science community,
42:15
Speaker 1: he was basically called a quack for twenty one years.
42:19
Speaker 1: Took twenty one years until they finally recognized the theory
42:25
Speaker 1: of relative For twenty one years, he was crazy and
42:27
Speaker 1: it was impossible by the powers that be. Yeah, that
42:31
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me. It's such a radical idea, and yeah,
42:35
Speaker 1: it turned everything on its head, but it turns out
42:38
Speaker 1: to be absolutely on the money. Yeah, and then there's
42:42
Speaker 1: a whole other this is interesting, you might like, there's
42:44
Speaker 1: a whole group of other researchers called the Thunderbolt maybe
42:50
Speaker 1: it's called the Thunderbolt Project who actually believe that Einstein
42:55
Speaker 1: was wrong and that everything that has been built on
42:59
Speaker 1: Einstein's philosophy, everything we think in physics is not true.
43:04
Speaker 1: Based on that everything since then has been wrong, which
43:07
Speaker 1: is again interesting. Again. I don't I don't have a
43:11
Speaker 1: I don't have a horse in the race. But I
43:13
Speaker 1: love that there are people thinking about it. It's like
43:16
Speaker 1: maybe the thing that we thought was impossible as possible,
43:19
Speaker 1: Maybe the thing that we're sure of is not the
43:21
Speaker 1: way it is. It seems like a healthy outlook to
43:26
Speaker 1: continue this creative unfolding. Well, I mean, every every scientific
43:31
Speaker 1: idea is called a theory, yeah, because at any time
43:36
Speaker 1: they could end up being proved to be incomplete or
43:39
Speaker 1: inaccurate in some way. Newtonian physics was it for so
43:43
Speaker 1: many centuries, and when relativity was first brought to the
43:48
Speaker 1: public attention, it turned Newton's ideas on its head. So
43:53
Speaker 1: it quite likely could happen again to Einstein's ideas. But
43:57
Speaker 1: I think the scientific method is what's important that we
44:01
Speaker 1: use for something as as important as science, that we
44:04
Speaker 1: use that method. And I think you can't mix science
44:09
Speaker 1: and faith. You can use inspiration from metaphysics if you
44:15
Speaker 1: want to arrive at a new theory, but the actual
44:19
Speaker 1: the proving out of that theory has to be methodical
44:22
Speaker 1: and scientific, absolutely, and I think most scientists would probably
44:26
Speaker 1: agree with that. I think so many scientists are are
44:29
Speaker 1: spiritual beings and that's how they find their way into
44:33
Speaker 1: the new ideas. It's not not at all uncommon. Yeah.
44:38
Speaker 1: One of one of my friends is a particle physicist
44:41
Speaker 1: and I guess cosmologist Brian Coxesnim. He works at certain
44:47
Speaker 1: particle accelerator and he's also a great communicator on science.
44:51
Speaker 1: So he does a lot of TV shows and actually
44:54
Speaker 1: does live concerts, which is quite interesting to go and
44:58
Speaker 1: see somebody lecturing about black hole theory to you know,
45:03
Speaker 1: two thousand people. It's really I would recommend going to
45:08
Speaker 1: one of the show. He is not an atheist, he's
45:11
Speaker 1: an agnostic. But one of his friends is a bishop,
45:16
Speaker 1: and they've sat on many occasions going over the differences
45:22
Speaker 1: between the sort of belief systems. One is purely scientific
45:27
Speaker 1: and one is theological, and they've decided this very little difference.
45:32
Speaker 1: The only real difference is that the bishop believes that
45:37
Speaker 1: the existence of God is eternal, omnipotent, and therefore truth
45:43
Speaker 1: and you know, insight and understanding is both universal and omnipotent.
45:49
Speaker 1: And what Brier would say is no, I think that
45:53
Speaker 1: sort of insight and understanding is about human beings. Here
45:57
Speaker 1: and now on planet Earth. So it didn't exist before us,
46:01
Speaker 1: it won't exist after us unless some other life form
46:04
Speaker 1: has developed this level of intexual development. But that's the
46:09
Speaker 1: only difference. And I think that if you just approach
46:12
Speaker 1: spirituality as like they're all truth seeking, that's what it is. Yes,
46:16
Speaker 1: and we're all have a slightly different version of but
46:20
Speaker 1: it's the same set of questions that we're all trying
46:23
Speaker 1: to answer. Yeah, and they seem to get us to
46:26
Speaker 1: the same place. Same true with all of the faiths,
46:28
Speaker 1: or so many of the faiths seem to be many
46:32
Speaker 1: streams leading to the same river, you know, the eternal
46:35
Speaker 1: truths seem to be in all of them. Yeah, And
46:39
Speaker 1: it's a different approach with science, it's it's much more methodical.
46:44
Speaker 1: But I think it was Carl Sagan who said that
46:48
Speaker 1: he put forward the idea that humanity is the means
46:52
Speaker 1: by which the universe understands itself. Without humanity, it's there. Yes,
47:00
Speaker 1: there is no understanding of it, or appreciation of it
47:03
Speaker 1: or celebration of it. Yes. Well, there's a great gift
47:07
Speaker 1: that we have and a certain responsibility. We're going to
47:11
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll be back with
47:13
Speaker 1: the Rest of Rix Conversation with the Edge. We're back
47:20
Speaker 1: with the Rest of Rix Conversation with the Edge. How
47:24
Speaker 1: do you think your band has managed to stay together
47:27
Speaker 1: all of these years when it seems like practically none
47:30
Speaker 1: of your contemporaries have been able to do that. You know,
47:33
Speaker 1: we do it because we love it, and we do
47:36
Speaker 1: it because we love working with each other. And you know,
47:40
Speaker 1: there's been times where we haven't loved the idea of
47:43
Speaker 1: working with each other and being together, and you know,
47:45
Speaker 1: so we have to give each other time, you know,
47:48
Speaker 1: time off, time to be away. But bottom line, I
47:52
Speaker 1: think it's because we all know instinctively that we shine
47:56
Speaker 1: individually the brightest when we're in this collective. So the
47:59
Speaker 1: collective works for us beautiful, and it works for all
48:02
Speaker 1: of us because we're not really in competition if you
48:05
Speaker 1: think about it, you know, it's like think about say
48:07
Speaker 1: the Beatles. You know, you've got three lead singers and
48:12
Speaker 1: three great songwriters who are trying to get their song
48:16
Speaker 1: on the album. You know, the case of George, he
48:19
Speaker 1: had a harder time than Paul and John, but they're
48:22
Speaker 1: amazing talents, all of them. And you could make the
48:25
Speaker 1: argument probably for any one of their songs, Well maybe
48:29
Speaker 1: one of the other guys should have sung the lead
48:31
Speaker 1: on this. So in our band, it's not like that
48:33
Speaker 1: we each have our own area of expertise, you know.
48:36
Speaker 1: With me, it's sort of compositional responsibilities. That's what I do.
48:40
Speaker 1: I'm the lead composer. Bono's melodically responsible and lyrically responsible.
48:46
Speaker 1: Adam and Larry are there as part of making our
48:50
Speaker 1: music unique and different. And Larry's a better drummer because
48:55
Speaker 1: he's playing with me and Adam. And I'm a better
48:58
Speaker 1: guitar player because I'm playing with Larry and Adam and Adams.
49:03
Speaker 1: You know, the bass player is because Larry and me
49:05
Speaker 1: and Bono. So I think in that way it's a reliance,
49:10
Speaker 1: but it's a trust as well that works. There's a
49:13
Speaker 1: great another book, please, Robert Axelrod. I think it's called
49:18
Speaker 1: Evolution of Cooperation, and it's a great analysis of how
49:22
Speaker 1: cooperation works in nature and how it's not exclusive to humans,
49:27
Speaker 1: and that the basis of it is that if you're
49:30
Speaker 1: in a cooperative relationship, that means you're better off than
49:34
Speaker 1: being on your own. Yes, the minute it stops being that.
49:37
Speaker 1: In other words, for anyone's being exploited, then it's going
49:41
Speaker 1: to fall apart, but it just so happens. Over the years,
49:44
Speaker 1: we understand one thing, which is human nature. Everybody is
49:49
Speaker 1: going to always overestimate their own importance and value in
49:53
Speaker 1: a given relationship, as they also underestimate everyone else's. And
49:58
Speaker 1: if you can keep that in your mind, yes, you know,
50:01
Speaker 1: it sort of tempers your ego and you just go, oh, well,
50:05
Speaker 1: that was something I did that was great, but it
50:07
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for these guys. Absolutely,
50:11
Speaker 1: let's talk more about composition. Is there a particular way
50:16
Speaker 1: that it happens for you or does it happen in
50:18
Speaker 1: different ways. I think that the most important tool to
50:24
Speaker 1: good composition is recognition that you've got something really good.
50:28
Speaker 1: And the enemy of getting to something really good is
50:32
Speaker 1: not something bad, but something that's just good, yes, and
50:38
Speaker 1: something that's kind of almost it. Yes, I can really
50:44
Speaker 1: fool you and waste a lot of your time and
50:46
Speaker 1: a lot of anguish. And so I think there's been
50:49
Speaker 1: times where we're as a band are more attuned and
50:53
Speaker 1: less attuned, and so records can take longer if you're
50:58
Speaker 1: not as a tune, not because you're not writing good stuff,
51:01
Speaker 1: but the stuff you're you believe is it. You know,
51:05
Speaker 1: it turns out not to be as good as you think,
51:07
Speaker 1: So that's I would say that the most important quality
51:12
Speaker 1: is almost what you reject, and knowing to keep rejecting
51:16
Speaker 1: until you start to get to something really great. It's confounding,
51:20
Speaker 1: you know. It's because you can be waiting around. You know,
51:23
Speaker 1: you might have something that you know there's an element
51:25
Speaker 1: there that's really special, but getting to the finished song
51:30
Speaker 1: can take a long time. Do you always write with
51:33
Speaker 1: a project in mind or do you just write on
51:35
Speaker 1: a regular basis. I just write. I just write on
51:39
Speaker 1: a regular basis. And you know, early early days, I'd
51:43
Speaker 1: work with four track set machines and I'd like have
51:46
Speaker 1: drum machines and keyboards and bass guitars and guitars and
51:51
Speaker 1: try and build up tracks that way. These days it's
51:54
Speaker 1: all on the laptop. And was garage band. Now it's logic.
51:58
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's basically the same, searching for a collision
52:03
Speaker 1: of melody and chords that tells you there's something special
52:08
Speaker 1: going on here. And often I'm hearing it, you know,
52:12
Speaker 1: I'm playing some chords that I'm using and I'm hearing
52:15
Speaker 1: something Bona's doing and something that's it something great here, Now,
52:20
Speaker 1: where's this leading us? And so you're trying in a
52:22
Speaker 1: way to take that little moment of inspiration and follow
52:27
Speaker 1: it through to where it naturally wants to go. And
52:32
Speaker 1: the frustrating thing is sometimes you just can't find that way,
52:36
Speaker 1: and it can you have many full stones occasion, and
52:40
Speaker 1: then sometimes the song is there from the beginning, almost instantaneously.
52:45
Speaker 1: Would you say that in the early days it was
52:47
Speaker 1: more of a being in the room with the band
52:49
Speaker 1: playing off of each other to find it, and now
52:52
Speaker 1: it's more finding it yourself and then bringing it to
52:55
Speaker 1: the band just by the nature of everybody living in
52:58
Speaker 1: different places. Yeah, that's definitely true. But I think what
53:03
Speaker 1: happened in that earlier process of kind of being in
53:07
Speaker 1: the rehearsal room and trying to figure something out, it
53:10
Speaker 1: sort of gives you a much smaller palette of possibilities
53:16
Speaker 1: because you're kind of you can only move when you're
53:19
Speaker 1: moving as a group, and sometimes that's magical. I mean,
53:23
Speaker 1: I remember with Adam, the two of us just improvising together,
53:29
Speaker 1: and this whole song Into the Heart came together, which
53:35
Speaker 1: is on our first album. It was basically the two
53:38
Speaker 1: of us in rehearsal and just just really like in
53:40
Speaker 1: a kind of duet and me responding to things that
53:44
Speaker 1: Adam is doing on the bass and him doing the
53:47
Speaker 1: same as I would play something on the guitar you
53:49
Speaker 1: would change, and that when it works is magical. But
53:53
Speaker 1: it's it's extremely rare, and what actually happens most is,
53:59
Speaker 1: you know, you'll get some simple idea. You know that
54:03
Speaker 1: that idea will not go anywhere until somebody sits down
54:06
Speaker 1: and starts to work on a new new section. Tell
54:11
Speaker 1: me about playing with Adam, because that's a that's a
54:13
Speaker 1: real thing. Yeah, he's such a unique musician and for
54:20
Speaker 1: all of the lack of theory, he has a feel
54:25
Speaker 1: that's incredible. When he plays it always feels good. Even
54:30
Speaker 1: if the note's wrong, that's something that can be repaired
54:33
Speaker 1: or whatever, but the feeling of it, the groove of
54:37
Speaker 1: it is always cool. Yeah, always, yeah. I mean a
54:42
Speaker 1: good example of being New Year'sday. So you know, we're
54:45
Speaker 1: in rehearsal or maybe in the sound check and it
54:48
Speaker 1: suddenly starts doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
54:51
Speaker 1: doo doo doo doo doom doo doo doo doo doo
54:54
Speaker 1: doo doo. We're like, whoa, dude, that's amazing. So we
54:58
Speaker 1: kick that around for But that's it. That's all we have,
55:02
Speaker 1: you know, is his first part. So the next stage
55:06
Speaker 1: of that was me sitting with the piano and going, Okay,
55:11
Speaker 1: where's this taking us and figuring out the next part
55:15
Speaker 1: of the music. And I didn't really have melodic ideas
55:19
Speaker 1: per se, but I knew, I just knew instinctively has
55:22
Speaker 1: to go here. So that's an example of that song
55:27
Speaker 1: wouldn't exist without Adam, but it wouldn't have been a
55:30
Speaker 1: song without the compositional work that had to happen after
55:35
Speaker 1: the fact. So that's why it really works for us
55:39
Speaker 1: being a group and with Adam. As I say, with
55:44
Speaker 1: where the streets of her name, what's technically correct, it's
55:48
Speaker 1: not really here nor there? Really, Yeah, let's talk about
55:53
Speaker 1: walk On and tell me what you remember about the
55:56
Speaker 1: origination of walk On and the writing of it. In
55:59
Speaker 1: the development of that song, it's one of my very favorites.
56:02
Speaker 1: I think what started was a set of chords in
56:06
Speaker 1: an idea that I had worked up at home and
56:11
Speaker 1: brought it to the sessions and everyone thought it was
56:14
Speaker 1: really promising, so we started working on it as a band,
56:17
Speaker 1: did a couple of versions, and then we like this
56:21
Speaker 1: particular take, so we started working on it and Bono
56:25
Speaker 1: was working on melodic ideas and we kicked around for
56:30
Speaker 1: a while, but it didn't seem to come good. It
56:33
Speaker 1: just was something was not working. So I think at
56:38
Speaker 1: one point Brian said, where did these chords come from?
56:42
Speaker 1: I said, well, I worked on them at home, and
56:46
Speaker 1: he said, I think that's the problem. So I took
56:50
Speaker 1: that and I went, now, I could I could have
56:52
Speaker 1: been insulted, but in fact I just want I think
56:56
Speaker 1: he's absolutely right. I think there's a flaw in this
56:59
Speaker 1: course sequence. So I went away and worked and came
57:03
Speaker 1: back said, okay, let's try this, and it was not
57:06
Speaker 1: radically different, but it was actually a different chord progression,
57:11
Speaker 1: and the song just almost wrote itself after that, and
57:15
Speaker 1: we all got involved in sort of throwing ideas for
57:20
Speaker 1: different sections melodically. But again, once you got the log
57:25
Speaker 1: jam out of the way, it's just the thing really
57:29
Speaker 1: sort of almost wrote itself. So so lyrically, walk On,
57:33
Speaker 1: Walk On, that was a big breakthrough. That came as
57:38
Speaker 1: a result of this change of the chords, and we
57:41
Speaker 1: were at that time very inspired by the leader of
57:44
Speaker 1: the Democratic movement in mymar who had been under house
57:48
Speaker 1: arrest for a number of years, and we had just
57:50
Speaker 1: received the freedom of Dublin City, a great honor, and
57:55
Speaker 1: she had been honored at the same ceremony. Her son
57:59
Speaker 1: came along to accept on her behalf because she was
58:01
Speaker 1: in jail. So that was the first time we really
58:05
Speaker 1: became aware of her story. So that's just a great
58:09
Speaker 1: example of something that's almost good, that's almost being your enemy.
58:15
Speaker 1: And we did waste we probably wasted in hours trying
58:18
Speaker 1: to make this first version work. The other thing about
58:21
Speaker 1: it that has so much power, and I think it's
58:23
Speaker 1: different than other YouTube songs, is that it continues to unfold.
58:27
Speaker 1: It's got the home section kind of late late in
58:31
Speaker 1: the song, when it feels like the song would be ending,
58:34
Speaker 1: we have this beautiful bridge and then there's the all
58:38
Speaker 1: the all that you repeat, all that You is at
58:40
Speaker 1: the end. It really takes us on a journey. Yeah
58:44
Speaker 1: that most songs, don't, you know. Most songs are three
58:47
Speaker 1: and a half minutes or four minutes, But this one
58:49
Speaker 1: feels like it goes the extra two extra levels of
58:54
Speaker 1: taking us on this adventure. Yeah, and I think those
58:59
Speaker 1: different sections we're all attempts to solve the songwriting problem.
59:03
Speaker 1: And then we had this collection of great moments, so
59:07
Speaker 1: the real challenge is trying to sew it all together
59:10
Speaker 1: in this sort of coherent way. It was arranging and
59:13
Speaker 1: it was it was sort of a dynamic journey that
59:16
Speaker 1: we had to establish. And then the most recent version,
59:19
Speaker 1: which is on the Songs of Surrender collection, Bonno and
59:23
Speaker 1: I had done a very stripped down version of the
59:25
Speaker 1: song on an Irish TV show. We thought, well, let's
59:29
Speaker 1: try let's try walk on at this particular show. What's
59:34
Speaker 1: the minimum version we can do. It's like it came
59:36
Speaker 1: up with this acoustic part which only hints at the chords,
59:40
Speaker 1: but just enough so the melody makes sense. So then
59:44
Speaker 1: we took that and we were recording it for the
59:48
Speaker 1: Songs of Surrender project. And almost that day or a
59:53
Speaker 1: few days before, we first heard about the Russian invasion
59:56
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. And Bonno had actually met President Zelenski at
1:00:01
Speaker 1: at an event like a couple of years before, so
1:00:04
Speaker 1: he had actually had a chance to get to know
1:00:06
Speaker 1: him a little bit, and he knew that he was
1:00:10
Speaker 1: before becoming a politician, had been an actor and a
1:00:13
Speaker 1: stand up comic. In fact, he did apparently he did
1:00:17
Speaker 1: a open mic session in Drahada in the late nineties,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: you know. So it's like we were so struck by
1:00:26
Speaker 1: the sense that the person standing up to this bully,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin and and kind of protecting the idea of
1:00:35
Speaker 1: democracy against the threat of a totalitarian ideology was a
1:00:41
Speaker 1: stand up comic, a guy who is the least likely person.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: So that became the basis of a new set of
1:00:49
Speaker 1: lyrics for a Walk On which we've put on this
1:00:52
Speaker 1: new collection Beautiful. I think to end, I'm going to
1:00:57
Speaker 1: play the new version of Every Breaking Wave, because it's
1:01:01
Speaker 1: a song. It's a song I've loved. I loved the
1:01:04
Speaker 1: original version, I love this version, and something about hearing
1:01:07
Speaker 1: it in its intimate form really allows it to shine.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: So I will play that. Thank you for that, and
1:01:14
Speaker 1: we will listen and thank you for doing this today.
1:01:18
Speaker 1: It's been an absolute pleasure, Rick, and we'll definitely we
1:01:21
Speaker 1: have to do this again. We will Every Breaking Way
1:01:46
Speaker 1: on the Shore tails the next one. There'll be one more,
1:01:53
Speaker 1: and every Gambler knows that's a loose is what you're
1:02:00
Speaker 1: really Therefore, summer hours far listeness now I speak, came
1:02:09
Speaker 1: to an answer phone like every father, all the breeze,
1:02:18
Speaker 1: winter would leave it alone. If you go, if you
1:02:29
Speaker 1: go your way? And I gom a wiser, always so
1:02:38
Speaker 1: helpless against the time. Maybe every time of the boostream
1:02:46
Speaker 1: knows that we're in love with the food. Are we
1:02:51
Speaker 1: ready at you beswift off our feet and stop chasing
1:03:00
Speaker 1: and breaking away? And every sale knows at the scene
1:03:16
Speaker 1: is a friend made enemy, and every shipwreck so knows
1:03:22
Speaker 1: what it is to live without into sea. I thought
1:03:29
Speaker 1: I had the captain's voice, but it's hard to listen
1:03:36
Speaker 1: while you preach, like every broken on the shore. This
1:03:44
Speaker 1: is as far as I could read. If you go,
1:03:54
Speaker 1: if you go in a coma, Are we soul always
1:04:04
Speaker 1: so help us against the tide? Baby ever t on
1:04:11
Speaker 1: the street and knows that we're in love with truth?
1:04:17
Speaker 1: Are we ready to the swifts off our feet and
1:04:23
Speaker 1: stop chasing breaking the sea knows other rocks trying his nosing.
1:04:42
Speaker 1: You know the hottest see place yours has been. We
1:04:47
Speaker 1: know that the fitter we sorely and before we pick it,
1:04:52
Speaker 1: before we begin if you go, if you got, are
1:05:04
Speaker 1: we soon? Are we shook handless against her time? Even
1:05:14
Speaker 1: every dog on the street knows they're wearing life? Are
1:05:23
Speaker 1: we read it to be? Swift? Feet can't stop you
1:05:29
Speaker 1: saying breaking a breaking way, re breaking? We were breaking breaking.
1:06:35
Speaker 1: Thanks to the Edge for catching up with Rick YouTube's
1:06:38
Speaker 1: new album, Songs of Surrender is out now. We can
1:06:41
Speaker 1: hear all of our favorite YouTube songs on our playlist
1:06:44
Speaker 1: at broken Record podcast dot com. Can subscribe to our
1:06:47
Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast,
1:06:51
Speaker 1: where you can find all of our new episodes. You
1:06:54
Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record
1:06:58
Speaker 1: is produced with Helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Naladay, and
1:07:02
Speaker 1: Eric Samer. Our editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is
1:07:06
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show
1:07:09
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Speaker 1: you like the show, please remember to share, rate and
1:07:26
Speaker 1: review us on your podcast app. Our theme musics by
1:07:29
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Rischman,