30 remarkable years: Why McGuinness has been good for U2
Hot Press, March 23, 2009
http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=5464
Some interesting questions:
Is there a possibility there'll be a second U2 album later this year?
I can't see how, but we did that once before on the Zoo TV tour – the Zooropa album came out. But I remember the sheer effort of flying back to Dublin every night of the European tour to work on that album and then fly out again a day or so later – it nearly killed the band. They should remember that period if they think about doing it again. Nothing would surprise me, but it's certainly not something I would have expected.
Edge told me that the band have the guts of 50 new songs in the can.
Well, finishing a song is a different thing to having the basis of a song. The finishing always takes longer than you may expect. U2 consists of hopeless optimists – as well as pragmatists and pessimists (laughs).
No need to answer that one! Tell me your thoughts on the new album.
I think it's extraordinary. I think it's a masterpiece. The extraordinary thing about managing U2 is how ambitious they continue to be with the quality of the work they do. And they keep doing better work, and it's been going on for years and years and years now. People are not really surprised any longer, but in a way they ought to be, that this kind of creative stamina and ambition still exists. If it was a sports team, this would be a team that has won the Premiership every year for...
What's been U2's biggest mistake over the years?
Biggest mistake? Hmmm... it's hard to say. I mean, I suppose Rattle and Hum was a bit vainglorious. We got carried away. And I'll take my share of the blame. I was attracted by the idea of taking it to a new level through cinema. And that had happened, you know there was a kind of precedent that I liked. You know, some of them were ghastly precedents – like Elvis. Elvis's movie career is now a kind of anachronistic, humorous thing to check out.
