“That’s where U2 started – with big choruses, clear ideas. Let’s go back there, but do it with some petrol and some matches”: U2 on the “unreasonable guitar record” they want to release

U2 fans might want to keep their eyes peeled for an “unreasonable guitar record” from the band, who’s set on “turning the amps on” for their next album.

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Last October, U2 frontman Bono told The New York Times that he wanted to make a “noisy, uncompromising, unreasonable guitar album”, saying: “Right now I want to write the most unforgiving, obnoxious, defiant, fuck-off-to-the-pop-charts rock ‘n’ roll song that we’ve ever made.”

Reiterating the band’s aspirations for that rock ‘n’ roll record in a new interview with MOJO, Bono says: “I announced it, without discussion, as ‘an unreasonable guitar record’.”

“And Edge called me up and goes, ‘How unreasonable?’ And I said, ‘As unreasonable as you’re ready to take it.’”

The singer also says that he doesn’t think “the world is waiting on the next U2 album.” Instead, the band has to “give them a reason to be interested in it.”

“I just want to write great tunes,” he says, “because that’s where U2 started – with big choruses, clear ideas. And let’s go back there, but do it with some petrol and some matches.”

Beside him, bassist Adam Clayton confirms, “We are turning the amps on.”

“I certainly think the rock that we all grew up with as 16 and 17-year-olds, that rawness of those Patti Smith, Iggy Pop records… that kind of power is something we would love to connect back into,” Clapton explains. “Songs Of Ascent is a much more meditative, spiritual record. This will be Songs For Fighting, I’d say!”

In other news, The Edge recently confirmed that he has ditched his tube amps for Universal Audio‘s UAFX pedals for U2‘s shows at Sphere in Las Vegas. Rumours of the switch began after photos of the guitarist’s pedalboard featuring digital amp emulators started making their rounds online.

Speaking to MusicRadar, The Edge said, “For various reasons at the Sphere I decided to switch from amplifiers to digital amp emulators. I’m using UA Ruby, Dream and Woodrow amp pedals with some Fractal Axe-Fx units handling additional amp emulation and FX.”