U Talkin’ U2 To Me? - U Talkin' U2 To Me? - U2 Talk 2 U
Episode Date: August 6, 2015It finally happened. Scott and Scott traveled to the legendary Electric Ladyland Studios in New York City for a monumental bare all confessional interview with the lovable lads Bonobos, Thedge, Larry ...Mullen Sr.'s Son & Adam Clay 2000 Pounds.This episode is sponsored by: Audible , Squarespace , and Meundies . Use offer code Bono to save!
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From boy to breaking wave, every last one of them, that is,
this is you talking U2 to me, the comprehensive and encyclopedic compendium of all things U2.
This is good rock and roll music.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Welcome back to the show.
Episode 22.
This is Scott.
And this is Scott.
And we're back
We're back baby
We're back
Pretty quickly
Pretty quickly yeah
The last episode was a few weeks back
Yeah
A few weeks yonder
In the rear view
Sorry I've just been spending a lot of time in the south
Oh really have you?
The American south?
No
The southern
The south pole?
The southern part of my house
Oh okay And that's the only place where you're
allowed to say the word yonder? Yep. And that's just how people speak down there. It's crazy.
I pick up, I roll my own cigarettes. What are the people like down there?
Well, they say yonder and they roll their own cigarettes. That's all they do.
Really? And this is primarily your family, your two kids?
Yeah. And this small man
named jack he lives in the southern part of my house and he just sits there in a corner rolling
cigarettes going yonder yonder yonder interesting what an interesting fellow he's cool a roommate
well he's not allowed to be there i'm the only one that knows about him wait are you the only
person who sees him yes okay like if you came over and I was like, here's Jack, you would say there's nothing there,
but I know he's there. Interesting. I'm finally realizing after 22 episodes that you are
certifiably insane. I'm crazy. Okay, good. How have you been able to hide it from all of your
co-stars over the years? Well, Jack was on the Parks and Rec set every day.
Was he a main character?
He was – well, he and Polar were the main characters of that show, but nobody knows that except me.
Okay.
Interesting.
Well, as we've said, we are Scott's Necros for me.
We have, of course, Adam Scott, you know, from Parks and Cree.
Parks and Jack.
Parks and Jack.
And introduce me.
Give the people who have never heard an episode a little bit of an intro of me.
Ladies and gentlemen, sitting across from me is a man who is on television.
A man who is on shows. a man who is on shows,
a man who has hands.
His name is Scott.
Yes!
That is both of us.
Okay, you may know me from Comedy Bang Bang.
If this is the first time you're ever-
We both have hands.
We both have hands.
You know me from having hands.
You know what?
But that's sort of insensitive
to the people who don't have hands out there in the world.
But also, I'm not on a show,
so you're the only one between us who's currently on a show.
That's true.
But you probably have reruns of your show out there, right?
Sure.
There are reruns.
Getting some of those sweet zids?
Getting the zids from the Esquire channel.
So it's great to be back.
I got to say, very special episode.
I believe people are going to really enjoy the content of this episode. We're back so soon. Why, you say? Well, I mean, we've had some really interesting things happen to us.
Something big happened.
Something big. In the context of you talking you too to me, the podcast. Sure. We both – oh, before we get started here, can I just really quickly say hi to a few people?
Yeah, please.
No, I would love that.
Okay.
Thanks, Scott.
Sure, Scott.
I would like to say hi to – I would like to say hello rather to my friends.
I would like to say hello to my family. I would like to say hello to my fans.
I would like to say hello to all of the people.
All of the people.
You could have just started there.
Shut up for a second.
Okay.
In the world.
Every single person.
Okay.
I would like to say hello.
every single person,
okay,
I would like to say hello.
And,
I would,
I would like to say hello to you.
Thank you so much.
I mean,
you included me
in all the people of the world.
No, but you're,
it's,
I get a special one.
What I meant was
all the people in the world
except you.
Oh, right.
How about animals?
Where do you stand on them?
I would like to say hello
to all of the animals,
especially
the lion
who was murdered by the dentist.
That's right.
That was pretty cool, right?
That dude rules.
What a great guy.
What a great guy.
You know what?
My wife is from Minnesota.
I got to look him up.
You should next time you're in Minnesota.
What a chill bro.
You know what? I mean, all the bullshit. All the bullshit. Should a chill bro. He seems, you know what?
I mean, all the, all the bullshit.
All the bullshit.
Should we have done it?
Should he have done it?
Who cares?
Who cares?
Who cares?
He seems like pretty cool.
He's a pretty cool guy.
Have they found him yet?
Oh, they should.
We should, you know what?
Let's just say this is an open invitation for him to come on, you talking YouTube to me,
and tell us what he thinks about you too.
Yeah.
We would love to have your first post all of this hubbub interview where you just tell us when was the first time you've heard of you too.
Exactly.
Because after today, I think people will probably want to come on our show.
Yeah.
I definitely think so.
I think that would be a bigger interview than what we have coming a little later.
I think you might be right.
So it's a big, big, something big
happened and we all know what it is. The Entourage movie came out, which means it's time for an
episode of Talking About Turtle. Hey, this is Scott. And this is Scott. And today we're just
talking about Turtle. Oh man, turtle. You been blue turtling
lately? Is this an episode of Blue Turtling? I think it might be.
Hey, this is Scott. And this is Scott. We're just blue turtling today. Oh man, I blue turtled
all the way over here. Oh, I bet you did. In my car. That's the best place to do it
in my opinion. I was blue turtling in the shower the other day, and my wife came in, and I was like, uh-oh.
Did you blue turtle all over the floor of the shower?
All over the ceiling, my friend.
It dripped down to the floor.
Oh, Jesus.
Well, this has been Blue Turtling.
Bye.
Good ep.
Great ep.
So, yeah, Turtle was really good in that movie.
He was great.
Didn't Ronda Rousey?
Ronda Rousey got in a ring with her.
Mm-hmm.
And he's also-
He wanted to put a ring around her finger.
Instead, he goes into the ring with her.
Oh, God.
You know, the thing that really blew my mind was when she ordered him an Uber.
Yeah.
It was like, oh shit.
So cool.
So cool.
So cold.
Do you think they paid Uber
to use their name
in the movie?
Either that
or they got permission
because you have to
clear stuff like that.
You always have to.
Legally,
you have to clear stuff.
Yeah, I don't want to get
all into the legalese
of filmmaking.
Wait a minute,
is this an episode
of the legalese
of filmmaking?
I think you're right.
Hey, welcome to
The Legalese of Filmmaking.
This is Scott.
And this is Scott.
And, uh,
what are your favorite
Legalese movies?
Well, I love Legal Eagles.
Legal Eagles?
Wait, is this an episode
of Legal Eagles?
I think it
is hey welcome to legal eagles this is scott and this is scott and we're just talking about legal
eagles the uh who's in that movie robert redford daryl hannah deborah winger the list goes on it
goes on to include everyone who is in that movie All the people that acted in that movie are on a list somewhere.
Santa's list.
Yes, pertaining to the cast of that film.
And you know what he does?
He checks off nice, nice, nice, nice, nice every year because Legal Eagles is the best movie of all time.
Ever.
1986, all of them got great Christmas presents because Santa Claus loves that movie.
Legal Eagles. See it now
in theaters.
Well, good app. Great app.
So, we're still in the middle
of legalese. Yeah, I don't want to
get all caught up in the legalese of films.
Okay, good. We should end the episode then. Okay.
Good ep.
Great ep.
Yeah.
So, yeah, Turtle... Turtle, you know, Jerry Ferraro's really slimmed down, as we all know.
Sure. He used to be like two turtles, and now he's like a normal turtle.
Just one turtle, and he looks great.
He looks great.
Great in the movie.
Nice gentleman, from what I understand.
Super nice guy.
Great podcast.
Jerry Ferraro, we should get him in here.
We should get him in here to talk about the first time he ever heard of you, too.
And we need him to be a guest on Talking About Turtle.
And Blue Turtle in as well.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, this has been Talking About Turtle.
Bye.
Bye.
Good app. Great app. Wow wow some good stuff there so that well that was really big we just we thought we should come back and talk about that yep yeah and then uh whatever what else wait should we also talk The interview that we did with U2.
Who?
The band U2.
There's the rock and roll band.
There's rock and roll. Wait, wait, wait.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Stop right there.
Rock and roll?
What is that?
It's a form of music.
It was sort of invented in the 50s.
It came from blues, R&B, kind of all mixed them together.
Like rockabilly music, do you mean?
Yeah.
Like hillbilly kind of stuff?
Well, it was a mixture of hillbilly music,
of country music, of R&B music,
of blues music.
You kind of, they melded them all together
in the early, mid-50s.
It's ringing a bell.
Have you ever heard of like,
dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-d 50s. It's ringing a bell. Have you ever heard of like... Yes, yes, Scott.
Scott, that's the beginning of it.
What they did was they took old
blues riffs and kind of sped them up
and put a faster beat to them.
There you go. You're on to something.
That's it. That's rock and roll. I like it.
Remember in Back to the Future when
Marty McFly...
My favorite movie. Back to the Future.
Wait, is this an episode of I Love Films?
I think it is.
Hey, welcome to I Love Films.
This is Scott.
This is Scott.
We're talking about great films like Back to the Future.
Ah, Back to the Future.
Listen, Back to the Future is a movie that came out in 1985.
Yep, 30 years ago.
And you know who's the star?
Huey Lewis.
Huey Lewis plays a really stuffy judge.
I don't think he's a judge.
Yeah, he's a judge in the Battle of the Bands competition.
Okay, but do you think his actual job was a judge?
Well, he's probably a counselor at the school or something,
but for the moment, he's judging.
He's adjudicating things.
Yes, he is adjudicating who gets into the Battle of the Bands contest.
Okay, certainly.
And he was coming off the success of sports.
Hey, Scott.
Adam is holding up a picture of a dick and balls
with a word balloon saying, give me a break.
Ah, that says it all right there.
All right, this has been I Love Films.
Bye.
Great ep.
Great ep.
Yeah, so...
So rock and roll.
Rock and roll.
There is a band.
Take me through it.
Elvis.
Elvis Presley.
Then there's like Chuck Berry.
Again, back to the future.
Marvin Berry told Chuck Berry.
Oh, I know Marvin Berry.
He's related to someone named Chuck?
Yeah.
Chuck Berry was his cousin.
Marty McFly.
Marvin Berry sang Earth Angel at this dance.
Yes, Earth Angel.
Okay, great.
Marty McFly sang Johnny Be Good.
Mm-mm.
Mm-mm.
Marvin Berry.
I wasn't ready for that.
Well, Chuck Berry wasn't either.
My kids might love it yeah
will you let me talk
but the weird thing is chuck berry didn't seem to really know marvin berry that well because he had
to remind him this is your cousin marvin Barry. He said Marvin, Marvin Barry.
They're not on first name basis.
Yeah, it wasn't like he was like, hey.
He knows his phone number by memory because they –
certainly if he did not know it by memory,
they would have included an insert shot of him rifling through his wallet
to look for this little strip of paper that his cousin wrote his number on.
Exactly, and we all know they didn't have strips of paper in the 50s.
Yeah, exactly.
So there you go.
Anyway, so rock and roll, I get it.
Okay, rock and roll.
There's a band that has been around since the late 70s called U2, and there are four guys in the band.
Who do we got?
There's Bonobos.
Bonobos, of course.
Fedge.
Fedge.
Adam Clay, 2,000 pounds.
Great. And the drummer. Like who goes, do. Adam Clay, 2000 pounds. Great.
And the drummer.
Like who goes,
do-do-boom-boom-boom-ba-ba-da-ba-da-ba.
Yes,
with drumsticks.
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-do-ba.
Oh,
not his mouth.
Okay.
And his name is Larry Mullen Sr.'s son.
Oh,
okay.
No,
I know this band.
Yeah,
four guys.
Hugh too,
and also New York City.
That's a character in it,
right?
Yeah.
Well,
New York City is a character in it right yeah well new york city
is a character in everything okay right so so this band hue too yes we talked to them we talked to
them last week all four guys and wait a minute monday didn't happen on monday no it was on it
was on how do you not remember this it was on Wednesday. Wednesday. This is ringing a bell. Hump Day.
Yeah, Scott.
Wednesday.
Hump Day.
You and... Okay, Hump Day.
Thank you.
You and I got on airplanes.
Yes.
And we flew...
We flew to New York City.
The character...
The character in Sex and the City.
It's a character in...
Manhattan.
In Harry Met Sally. Certainly. Certainly. It's a character in Manhattan. In Harry Met Sally,
certainly.
Certainly.
Manhattan.
Ugh.
Annie Hall.
It's a character in every,
it's a character on
one of U2's albums.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Okay, no, yeah,
I remember this.
And so we touched down
and then we went in.
Okay, you want me
to take you through,
yeah, we touched down.
We were on separate airplanes.
That's true,
because we,
for the safety of the You Talk You Talking U2 to Me podcast,
should one of us perish, the other needs to take up the slack.
We had to carry on.
We always have.
In fact, we're not even recording this in the same city.
Just in case the world ends or at least Los Angeles is wiped off the map.
One of us is in Antarctica right now. Of course, with all those research scientists.
So, yeah, we went and we talked to those guys.
We did.
That's fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you want to talk about that?
No.
Actually, I feel like we should just end the episode now.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because who's interested in that?
No one.
Actually, maybe no one except us.
Well, okay.
So that's what we're going to do in this episode then.
We're going to play the tape
of when we went out to New York City
and we met you two
and we talked to all of them.
For like an hour.
For an hour.
Over an hour.
We're going to do that.
They sat down with us for an hour and like 15 minutes.
Yeah, and even longer
with what happened afterwards,
which is very, very interesting. That was like an extra half hour. Yeah, that even longer with what happened afterwards, which is very, very interesting.
That was like an extra half hour.
Yeah, that was insane.
And we'll talk about it, but it was not supposed to, about what podcast they would do if they ever
had a podcast. We run the gamut of questions from the nerdy to the incisive to the touching.
We talk to you two about it all in their most bare all confessional interview yet.
And we are freaked out the whole time.
Yes.
We have audible nerves the entire episode.
Let's talk about just briefly how it came about.
Now, in our last episode, we were talking about Laura, their publicist.
Yeah, the lovely Laura.
The lovely Laura, although that has no bearing on her abilities as a publicist.
Although she may use some of her feminine wiles to get what she wants every once in a while.
Jesus.
But Laura is awesome.
Laura is awesome.
She is the one who reached out to us about coming to see the show.
Right.
And about our one-on-one meetings. Right. With Adam and with Bonobos.
And we, after that meeting, we were riding high and we said, wow, we did it.
We talked to Bona.
That's probably all we need, right?
And we were ready to go to our graves.
That's right.
It was a great little interaction.
And he had the perfect little sound bite for us, and it was really fun.
But we said, you know, we didn't record it.
Yeah, and we were kind of thinking for a while, like, I wonder if we could get them on, like, for reals, get them on the show.
For real.
We started this show just wanting to talk about them, but pretty early on, you know, we figured out they should just come on the show
and talk to us.
All we would need,
we've talked about it
on other episodes,
all we would need
is about two,
three hours of their time,
including setup.
That includes them
setting up their own microphones.
Okay,
we'll include that in the setup.
Right.
But all we need is like
two or three hours of their time
and we'd need some merch,
man,
specifically.
Fucking t-shirts, bro.
T-shirts.
But we never totally seriously thought that was something that was in the cards.
No.
When Laura reached out to us about coming to the show, we were blown away that they even would even want to say hi to us.
Right.
Or that they even knew what the podcast was.
Right.
Or that they knew what a podcast was.
Or that they knew what, you know, the earth is.
But then once. We don they knew what you know the earth is but then we don't know
what they know once that happened we just sort of thought well should we at least try to get this
going and and i remember you and i were talking about it like they they kind of reached out a
little bit but then haven't reached out since should we just we do a follow-up? Should we just pitch the idea of them coming on the show?
Batter up.
And so we sent an email just saying—
We all have email.
We all know what this is.
Email.
It's on your phone.
Some people have it on their phone.
Sure, sure.
Some people have it on what?
A computer.
A computer.
Sorry, a touring machine.
Sure.
iPads. iPads.
iPads.
iPhones.
I don't know anymore.
And iWatch.
iWatch.
Famously introduced right after Q2's new record.
So we reached out via email.
Laura sent back a pretty cryptic email saying, Wednesday, New York City, 7 p.m., be there.
Yeah.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what?
Well, I think before that, it was even like, I think that's a great idea.
Let me bring it up.
But it's a better story if she just writes back.
Okay, sure.
So we get a day and a time, and we're like, how do we get to New York City?
How does one do that?
Right.
What do we do?
I don't know how to do this.
We started asking Laura, like, do we walk?
Do we ride unicycles?
What do we do?
If we started walking now at about 110 miles an hour, we could probably get there by Wednesday.
But that is impossible, Scott.
Right.
We can only walk probably 35, 50 miles an hour.
Right.
Well, you walk 50 miles an hour because you have longer legs.
Sure, yeah.
You walk 49. 49 miles an hour. Right. Well, you walk 50 miles an hour because you have longer legs. Sure, yeah. You walk 49.
49 miles an hour.
Yeah.
So they explained to us about the Wright brothers, all that kind of stuff.
This took three days just to explain.
Yeah.
And also we watched The Aviator, in which you starred in.
Yeah, I was in that movie.
And you didn't even know about airplanes.
And I didn't even know I was in the movie.
Yeah.
What do you think?
I was happy with it and with my work.
Must have been a thrill to work with Marty.
It was great.
You know, Martin Scorsese.
As he likes to be called.
Well, that's what people call him.
Mm-hmm.
Dumb people.
The only thing is, I don't know, I don't remember being in the movie.
So I didn't know I was in it.
Oh, okay.
So you have no memory of all this.
I still don't know that I'm in it. Did you ever see when you were watching The Aviator,
did you ever see that guy who sang yonder and rolling his own cigarettes?
Oh, he was there the whole time. He was- In every scene?
Yeah. He was perched up on top of Video Village. Okay. Interesting. So we finally figured out how
to get to New York City. We spent an inordinate amount of money to get out there.
Literally thousands of dollars to get there at the last minute.
And we were told – this is what we were told.
Can you do it at Electric Ladyland Studios?
Yeah.
Which is also known as Electric Lady.
Yeah.
I couldn't tell what the official title was.
I think it's kind of both
maybe kind of both okay so we were so cool because that is a an historic recording and
historic and historic and historic but a very beautiful place beautiful place jimmy hendrix
built it brick by brick himself in between guitar licks. A lot of people. Bear.
Okay.
Bear.
Chunk.
Chunk.
And beautiful place.
So we both got there.
We got there Wednesday morning, both of us.
And with a few hours to spare between getting there and the interview, we're both freaked out of our lives.
Yeah.
We walk into Electric Ladyland Studios and we see a big painting of a topless woman.
That sets me at ease.
Yeah.
Because I'm thinking rock and roll, sex,
just add some drugs in here,
you got a Dennis Leary special.
Rock and roll, bro.
You know what I mean?
We did.
We walked in and you're like,
check that out, bro.
It was just like a big painting
of a beautiful naked lady.
So we got down there and uh we met the uh the team of people who were going to be assisting in the recording uh the people from
electric ladyland studios the people from earwolf new york city and uh we sat there waiting and we
had about we had about half an hour yeah we got there early we got there early because we wanted
to make sure they were right on time but we just got there early because we wanted to make sure. They were right on time, but we just got there early.
Exactly on time.
We wanted to just acclimate ourselves to the space, make sure everything was cool.
We were nervous.
We're freaking out.
How did you feel?
I was freaking out, and especially in that studio, because I've seen pictures of them recording there.
They recorded a good portion of Songs of Innocence in the very room we were set up in.
And I took a bunch of pictures of you just waiting around.
We should post those.
Yeah, I got a couple of you just waiting around as well.
And we were, like, there are instruments everywhere.
Like, it's, yeah, there are guitars tuned up and drums there and a little sound booth
and a piano just sitting there.
Everything just waiting for, like, people to stroll in and start going.
Yeah.
And we asked, like, who's recording here now and they
were a little they were cagey about it in case we were like you're like gonna show up the next day
and try to interview someone um but they were all really nice and really nice and we were just kind
of alternatingly getting up and walking around nervously and sitting going and peeing yeah and
each time one of us would go pee the other one was just hoping that you two
wasn't gonna walk in in the middle of and we were gonna be alone or i while i was in the bathroom i
was like i hope the edge doesn't walk in and i have to meet him in here like it would be weird
right like meeting him at the next urinal yeah like hey buddy um yeah so so we waited around
about a half an hour or one hour that had been halved.
Sure.
You take an hour, you cut it in half, you got a half hour.
There you go.
Why not?
Why not cut it in half sometimes?
So we were waiting around and we kept getting word, you know, they're 10 minutes away.
They're almost here.
Right.
Which was like, we're early.
It's not like we're, you know.
Yeah, they didn't have to tell us that.
Yeah.
That was so nice, I thought.
That was the nicest thing of the entire thing.
The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.
So they suddenly walk in.
Yeah.
All four of them.
All four dudes.
All four dudes, and they meet us.
Couldn't have been nicer.
Blokes.
Yeah.
The lovable lad from Liverpool. What did you been nicer. Blokes. Yeah. The lovable lads from Liverpool.
What did you,
because the edge walked in first.
What were you thinking?
Like what was going through your head
at that moment?
God, I don't want to make
an asshole out of myself.
That's all,
the entire experience
was just that.
Like, I sound stupid.
I look stupid.
Yeah.
I am stupid.
I,
I,
I,
this is what I thought would happen.
I thought that after a couple of minutes of sitting there, the enormity of the moment would dissipate and it would start feeling totally comfortable and fine.
But what actually happened was the enormity of the moment only grew.
Grew and grew and we sounded stupider and stupider as the thing went on.
We really did.
We've listened to it back.
And look, I've had a lot of, in my wonderful career, I've had a lot of moments where I've met some of my heroes, some of my idols, people that have inspired me to create, and people like President Barack Hussein in Obamacare.
Yes.
And you always try to keep it together because you have a job to do and i have people on the couch on comedy bang bang every
single week that i love and admire and and uh i'm pretty good most of the time just keeping it prof
yeah keeping it fesh profesh you know just uh you know even keel hey we got a job to do it's
really nice to meet you.
I'll tell you that the times that I've been most nervous are the Pee Wee Herman or Paul Rubin's interview early on in Comedy Bang Bang.
Yeah.
I had been trying to, I think what it is, the longer you try to get something going.
Yeah.
The more enormous it seems to you.
I was trying to get that Pee Wee Herman interview going for two and a half years.
Did he do it as Pee Wee Herman?
No, he did it as Paul. He did the TV show as Pee Wee Herman. And I was way more comfortable then
because I had built up the previous thing so much that it was like, don't fuck it up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you have to talk to this person whose work you so admire. Don't sound stupid. Ask
incisive questions. And so you can hear me in that interview i think
being pretty audibly nervous um the obama thing i handled really well yeah and you didn't have to
interview him but you had to handle everything i had to handle it and and talk to him about how
it was going and give him direction and all that kind of stuff like maybe do another do another
take all sorts of stuff that was like i i just was in the moment of got to get your job done,
got to get your job done and was fine.
And then meeting him the second time was maybe a little more like, hey, how's it going?
And you hope you don't say something stupid.
But this was probably the biggest one for me.
Yeah.
And I think part of it was that it was all of them.
I feel like even if it was just Bono and the Edge, it would have been less intense.
There was something about just the U2 is here.
Yeah.
They're all at a table.
And looking at us.
Looking at us and expecting us to be interesting.
And as far as you and I are concerned, probably wondering what is this and why are we doing this?
Why did Laura rope us into this?
And let me just tell you, that was not how they acted in the least.
No, they were so cool.
And if they hadn't listened to the show, they had been briefed intensely.
Intensely.
They debriefed someone else and they were briefed.
Yeah.
And they were all wearing briefs, which we appreciate.
Me undies, I believe.
And they were briefed.
Yeah.
And they were all wearing briefs, which we appreciate.
Me undies, I believe.
But also, I have to say, like, I'm so glad you are a person that is an experienced interviewer.
That's very nice.
Because I've never interviewed someone before.
This was your first time, right?
Other than the people that we have on the show, which is just like friends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've never.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't even think of that as an interview. Yeah, it's just a conversation.
It's really hard, especially when it's someone that you admire.
That you admire, yeah.
And that you kind of want it to go a certain direction.
Like we wanted it to be a little funny at times too.
Yeah, we didn't want it to be like a joke interview
because we respect them and wanted it to be worth their time.
But at the same time, for fans of the show, we want it to be funny and we want to still be ourselves.
But at the time, we're freaking out and we can't be ourselves.
And I found being that nervous in front of – because for me, I thought it would just be I'd be in the present with these people.
But I found myself, like I said, the enormity of it grew.
these people. But I found myself, like I said, the enormity of it grew. And I found myself thinking about being a teenager and going and seeing Rattle and Hum and just how much I've
been following them through all of these years. And it was all hitting me while I was there with
them. I couldn't stop. And I lost my sense of humor. There were things that-
Have you gained it back, by the way? I can't tell. You can't tell
with how this is going right now. I'm not sure. But I also kind of felt like sometimes I had
questions, but instead of questions, it just turned into something else. It was really difficult,
but they couldn't have been cooler. They couldn't have been more gracious and cool about it. And
you're going to hear it had interesting questions for us. Yeah.
And we get into some stuff that has never been discussed in previous interviews, I believe.
We get into stuff regarding their next album that they have not talked about.
They ask us certain questions.
I don't want to spoil any of the interview, but I just want to kind of hype up what people are about to hear.
I think it is a really interesting interview because we tried to not talk about the topics that they continually talk about.
Yeah, like we didn't bring up the iTunes release or any of that because we felt like that had been talked about.
Like who cares?
Yes.
It was really an intense experience for us.
We sound stupid.
Yes.
I just, seriously, all apologies because I sound like an idiot.
Yeah.
I appreciate that you're saying that I am slightly more seasoned of an interviewer.
Oh, for sure.
You definitely kept it afloat and kept questions coming and really good questions while I was just staring at them.
But, you know, I think that we both kind of kept, you know, I don't think it's terrible or anything.
I just find it slightly embarrassing.
It's slightly embarrassing.
Yeah, it's embarrassing.
We're not as funny as we want to be.
We're not as in control as we want to be.
It's an embarrassing listen for us slightly, but I think it's also a really interesting listen because I don't think these guys do interviews like this where just fans are asking them questions for this amount of time.
And they didn't really do much more than this as far as press goes while they were in New York.
So we were really lucky.
That they gave us so much time.
And there wasn't really, that was the other great thing,
there wasn't really an end clock necessarily.
It was just like kind of try to wrap it up around an hour
and no one was ever like in the back waving at us.
And then once we finished, like you said,
there was another extra half hour of stuff that happened.
But they just hung out and chatted.
They weren't rushing to get out of there.
Yeah.
So we're going to hear this interview after the break,
and you're going to hear you two just kind of being normal guys,
talking about stuff that just kind of speaks to how normal they are
and about their various interests.
And we may jump in every once in a while to clarify something because at the time, you know,
in a normal interview, we would have the presence of mind to sort of like reiterate what is happening for the listener.
But at the time, we were just like, what do we do?
What do we do?
What do we do?
So let's take a break.
we do what do we do so let's take a break when we come back we are going to have the monumental interview of you two scott and scott interviewing you two after this here we go Hey, Adam.
Yeah, Scott.
What's up?
Do you like building websites?
I love it.
You love it?
I love it.
It's all I do in my spare time.
But it's very difficult, isn't it?
Yeah, I'm terrible at it.
Yeah, well, how much time do you take a day to build a website?
Seven, eight hours.
It's a full-time job, isn't it?
Yeah, and I can't get anything else done because I'm trying to build this website.
Yeah, well, and what is your website, by the way?
It's a website that's about different kinds of spaghetti.
My favorite spaghetti, my kids' favorite spaghetti, the spaghetti of the future, spaghetti of the past.
It's not working out.
Is the spaghetti of the future like dipping dots?
It's like dipping dots, but it has like laser beams.
Oh, okay, coming out of the spaghetti?
No, directed right towards it.
Oh, right towards it. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, I was stupid when I said that. Yeah, okay. Coming out of the spaghetti? No, directed right towards it. Oh, right towards it.
Okay, that makes sense.
Okay, I was stupid when I said that.
Yeah, what's wrong with you?
Well, look, even if you do know your way around coding,
creating something that looks good and works well
is time-consuming, as you know.
The worst.
So whether it's for a business site,
which is this a business site or just for fun?
No, it's my new business.
It's how I'm bringing in all of my income
and it is not working out.
Okay, well, or a portfolio, a restaurant. Is this a restaurant as well? No, it's just a spaghetti website. Okay.
Sorry. Well, look, in this day and age, you probably need a website. So lucky for us,
Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. I hate
sweating. I sweat the entire time. Yeah. Well, Squarespace provides simple, powerful, and
beautiful websites that look professionally designed regardless of your skill level.
What skill level are you?
I'm below zero, Scott.
That sounds like beginner.
Worse than beginner.
I'm like zygote level.
Oh, my gosh.
Well, no coding is required.
Not only does Squarespace provide you with intuitive and easy-to-use tools to create your website with,
or with which to create your website is a better way of saying that,
Squarespace also has state-of-the-art technology powering your site so that ensures security and stability.
And as you know, you can trust in Squarespace for your website needs
when millions of people in some of the most respected brands in the world trust in them too.
When you decide to
sign up for squarespace here's what you do all right squarespace gives you 24 7 online support
and a beautiful website 24 7 what does that mean okay say it's three in the morning three in the
morning on say a tuesday even december 25th wait if my s Santa comes. Three in the morning, is that, would you say Monday night or Tuesday morning if it's three in the morning?
I would say it depends on when you went to bed.
Got it.
I think the days of the week should end when people go to bed.
Wait, Gregorian?
Yeah, exactly, on a Gregorian calendar.
So this whole 12 a.m. to 12 a.m. thing, it's no good.
this whole 12 a.m. to 12 a.m. thing, it's no good.
Have it be like 10 p.m. for older people and like 3 in the morning for rock and roll guys like us.
Anyway, so you can even get a free domain.
This is only $8 a month.
I told you that, right?
You can even get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for the year.
So what are you waiting for?
Start a trial with no credit card required
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And when you decide to sign up for it,
make sure to use the offer code Bono
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and to show your support for you talking you too to me.
We want to thank Squarespace for their support.
Squarespace, build it beautiful,
and get in one last plug for your website.
It's futureandpassspaghetti.com,
futureandpassspaghetti.org,
and just spaghetti.gov.
All right.
See you then.
Yes.
Listen to that bass.
Bass guitar.
Adam Clay, 2000 pounds.
That's right.
You talking U2 to me. We're back and talking about the titular New York City from that song that they sang on the All That You Can't Leave Behind record album.
CD.
Compact disc.
A disc that has been compacted.
Some people call it NYC.
Some people call it the Big Apple.
The Big Apple.
But all I know is I heart it.
Me too.
I heart it.
The Stephen King novel, It.
Yeah, it's a terrific book.
Yeah, fantastic.
Scary Clown.
Oh, man.
The scariest.
So other than capturing the Freedmen's, I would say.
That's maybe a scarier clown.
Yes.
Yeah.
Super quick episode
of I Love Films
yeah that was really quick
it just ended
so we went out
to New York
we met with
the Lover Bowl Ladders
from Liverpool
yep
Hugh too
and we had
an interview
that we
Adam and I
find personally embarrassing to listen to but we're going to sit here and listen to it.
We experienced it.
We've already listened to it.
And now we're going to listen to it again with you and interject every once in a while to clarify something because we did not have the presence of mind to really properly give the listeners a picture of what was happening.
And in fact, I think we just started.
We didn't even do any kind of setup of like, hey, we're here.
We were just like, hey, guys.
That's right.
So we're going to listen to this interview now.
This is all four of them sitting in Electric Ladyland Studios, across the table from us, me with my laptop open,
staring at my questions that we had sat and rehearsed in a hotel room earlier in the day.
Gone over everything with a fine-tooth comb.
Are they going to think this is okay? Is this going to be all right?
Oh, boy.
So here we go. Let's hear the U2 interview on You Talking U2 to Me.
Well, thank you.
First of all, thank you guys for being here.
Just can't thank you enough,
and thank you for not being creeped out.
Yet.
Yet.
Yet.
Yeah.
With two guys in their 40s who have a podcast about your band.
Thank you.
We've talked about you for, we were trying to estimate it at this point.
This is our 22nd episode.
I think we've talked about you for about 50 hours or so at this point.
So, you know, it's a little strange.
I'm sure to have strangers talking about you that much.
When did you start?
We started about a year and a half ago.
We started when the first rumors started percolating that the new record was coming imminently.
So right before Invisible came out, we started.
And we just went album by album.
Chronologically.
Yeah, chronologically yeah chronologically album by
album and just kind of talking about each album uh and our feelings about it and how we first
heard of you guys and uh you know just sort of i think we've both been fans since we were
14 or 15 uh so thank you anyway thank you so much for for being here we really appreciate it
because we realize after
this you'll stop yes i believe this is the series finale they say you should never you should never
meet heroes and and so here you are and go oh god they're really dull um great next so it's uh
who's next chris martin well there's literally nowhere else to go. Who else do we mean? Now, you've brought us something here, and it's some sort of a package, a wrapped package.
It's flat.
I'm not even going to hazard a guess.
We went through a great deal of trouble.
Great deal of trouble.
By the way, I don't know what it is.
Okay, good.
So you're not standing behind this gift at all.
No, I have no idea what it is.
Packaging is everything.
Larry, do you know what it is?
And I'm not kidding.
I caught a glimpse of it, but I wasn't really...
Should I be frightened of this?
Yeah, probably.
It's gorgeous wrapping paper.
Now, where does a band like you two get their wrapping paper?
Now, you guys all went wrapping paper shopping together, right?
Actually, I collect wrapping paper.
Adam collects wrapping paper.
I do.
Whenever I go past a shop that sells interesting wrapping paper,
I go in and I buy the wrapping paper. That's interesting. It's like a wrapping paper collection. do. Whenever I go past a shop that sells interesting wrapping paper, I go in and I buy
the wrapping paper. That's interesting. I have a wrapping
paper collection. Do you really?
Not many people know that. You are a rap artist
Adam. He's a rapper. Very good
the age. I was going to say
it's not just that he loves luxury goods, he is
a luxury good. He is a luxury good. What is your
favourite piece if I may ask?
Well I think the most
minimal, the plainest you know when you get down to I mean you can, if you want to? Well, I think the most minimal, the plainest.
You know, when you get down to, I mean, you can,
if you want to be a little showy, you can work with the silvers
and the golds and even the platinums.
But then if you just want to be very, very subtle,
that just, that very, very humble brown paper look.
Sure.
Yeah.
With a little bit of shine on it sometimes.
Adam, can I ask a question?
Do you have a special room dedicated
to wrapping? I have a studio. Yes, a wrapping studio. Do you wrap your own gifts or do you
have like a fancy butler or three butlers? No, no, no. That's the whole point. Folding the paper.
I see. And this is paper that you've got to be the first person to fold the paper.
You actually use it to wrap gifts. It's not just you're hoarding it.
You do use it to wrap gifts.
I practice wrapping gifts.
Wow.
So I would imagine at this point you're incredible at wrapping gifts.
You could describe it like that.
You could. All right.
Okay, so at this point, Adam and I have no idea whether this is a bit or not that they're doing.
It very well may be that Adam has a wrapping paper studio in his house.
I would imagine that he does like wrapping paper and collects it.
Maybe?
I don't know about having a room that's just dedicated.
I cannot tell.
It seems like it's a bit that we're not getting.
Maybe.
dedicated i cannot tell it seems like it's a bit that we're not getting maybe but regardless of all of that we just we just are like when do we do we start asking questions when do we start asking
questions and are we going to talk about wrapping paper for an hour i think i think were this to be
you know just a normal interview we would we would be a bit more clued in on whether this was a bit
or not but i i in listening to it now for the third time i think it's a bit that clued in on whether this was a bit or not, but in listening to it now for
the third time, I think it's a bit that we're just not catching on to the fact that it's-
I think it's kind of a bit, but I feel like he is a guy that likes nice wrapping paper.
He loves-
Probably has a lot of it.
Before the interview, he was talking about a certain pair of shoes that Lady Gaga was
wearing and he knew them by name.
So he's very interested in the finer
things in life, as they were saying. So anyway, I just thought we should clarify that Adam and I,
I think, are too stupid to understand what's happening at this point.
Yeah. I just saw it as kind of a bit, but kind of not. I don't know.
We'll let history be the judge.
Jury and executioner.
Yes.
All right, let's get back to it.
I'm opening this gift here.
Let's see what it is.
It's saying...
We know more about you than you know.
You think you know shit about us?
We know.
We know you.
Okay.
This needs clarification because we don't actually ever say what this is.
We allude to it, but yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it was a flat gift that was wrapped, and when we unwrapped it, there was a manila envelope.
Yeah. there was a manila envelope yeah we took out of the envelope there is a picture that bono drew
hand drew and it is of essentially it's of a it looks like a vase with a heart in it
now the vase has little hairs on the it's like this it's like like a dick and balls with a heart at the top of it as the tip and it's
shooting what appears to be a liquid up the top of it yeah so basically he's drawn us a picture
of a cock and balls shooting with a heart and like it's uh we have it right here we have it right
here you can go to the website and check out the bono original. Basically, he had listened to previous episodes of the show
where we had drawn these pictures ourselves
and had seen the pictures we drew
because we put the pictures on the website
and drew his own for us,
which is the weirdest thing to have happened
at the top of an interview I can think of.
It is not at all what we were expecting.
Not in the least
bono to give us a drawing of a dick it was the craziest best thing it was amazing our minds were
so blown that you can hear us we don't even we can't even elucidate what it is that we have at
this point it was so crazy and it was it was bono's first way of showing us that he knows as he said more about
us than we would like and he signed it bonobos like he will say we'll say that yeah yeah so let's
go back and we know a lot about you we know that you have a very passion for for drawn for drawn
appendages yeah this is a uh this is an original of yours, I would imagine.
You signed it.
I've signed it, Bonobos.
Bonobos.
Wow.
You don't think we listen to your podcast?
This is...
We know what, literally, we know what you had for lunch yesterday,
which I believe was a chicken chopped salad.
How do you know that?
That stumps.
Oh, my God.
You do know that.
How do you know that?
Yeah.
You do know that.
How do you know that?
Yeah.
The day before, I had had a chicken chopped salad from the restaurant Stamp here in LA,
and he-
He knew that.
I couldn't even fathom what I was hearing.
Yeah.
You can hear me kind of trying to say to Adam, like, no, that really is it.
I don't think necessarily that you picked up on it. No, it wasn't until later that you-
That I told you, no, I literally had that for lunch, and he knew that he found out what i had had to lunch had for lunch
earlier yeah i was and i was sitting there not trying to show it and tell everyone this is no
that's what i had have you figured out yet how he found out it's a mystery wow yeah all right let's
go back i'm just saying i I know shit. From Stamp.
Yeah.
That literally is what I had.
Oh, my God.
You know everything.
Now, Scott, should we try and describe?
Yeah.
It's a, well, I mean, gosh, how does one describe something like that other than call it what it is?
It's a hairy vase with a heart in the top.
That seems to be leaking upwards.
There is no gravity on this planet.
This is true.
So there is water leaking up into the air.
Or perhaps down from the ceiling.
That's probably what it is.
Someone's watering it from up here.
Thank you so much. We'll take a picture of this.
This is incredible. Thank you.
It's a sizable penis.
I didn't see that when I looked at that.
But now that you say it, yeah, I see it.
Wow.
This is exactly what we need and want. I didn't see that when I looked at that, but now that you say it, yeah, I see it. Wow. Wow.
This is exactly what we need and want.
So thank you very much.
So guys, we're here in New York City, and you're sort of at the end of the U.S. leg.
Thank you.
Think thin.
Very good.
Thank you.
I eat those things.
Yeah.
I really do.
You do.
Those are great.
He's a listener.
That's actually for things. Yeah. I really do. You do. Those are great. He's a listener. That's actually for you. Yeah.
Yeah, at this point, Bono passed me a Think Thin bar because you're constantly eating them during the show.
And you, in fact, just ate one about five seconds ago right in front of me.
Yeah, just now.
But so he brought a Think Thin bar for you.
Yeah.
Which is so weird.
Yeah. You look great, by the way. Thanks. He brought a think thin bar for you. Yeah. Which is so weird. Yeah.
You look great, by the way.
Thanks.
He's a listener.
He snatched it, Scott.
Snatched it.
We're here.
You have two more shows left at Madison Square Garden,
and then you take a little break,
and then you're off to Europe.
Is that right?
This is true.
Yes.
So you're in the middle of the Songs of Innocence tour
and trying to get out there and have people listen to the record.
And a lot of the record is about looking backwards
and sort of talking about your youth, talking about your influences.
So if you were to have a podcast like we have a podcast about any band,
who would you like to discuss?
What band would it be a pleasure to sift through their records
and talk about them a lot?
I would have to say The Clash.
The Clash.
The Clash.
That would be my first choice,
because I think they had a very interesting journey
from the beginning where they were recording their first album
in a few hours, and it was so rough.
But then their songwriting and their understanding of arrangements
just got more and more sophisticated.
And towards the end, they were turning out records
with incredible sophistication and kind of a swing
and a feel that was really amazing.
And they should have made more albums, that's the only thing.
But the ones they made, I think, are astonishing.
What do you think of Give Them Enough Rope?
I think there's some great tunes on it.
And I think it's the difficult second album,
and it's always one that you can get into trouble with.
But I think they did some great work on that.
Pop quiz, who played the piano
on Rock the Casbah?
I know
Topper
isn't that incredible? Did you know that?
No I did not know that
One of the great piano parts of all time, that was the drummer
Ask Larry Mullen why he doesn't play piano
How could I top Topper?
That's amazing
What do you think of Big Audio Dynamite?
I thought they were a really interesting band.
They toured a lot with us on their first album they opened for us,
and we got to know Mick quite well.
They were doing something really cool,
exploring in two directions the kind of early
hip hop and
the dance music that was sort of coming
out of America but also with that reggae
flavor I think some
again for that moment
some really cool things they were up to
that's great. How about you Adam?
Is there a band that you could
explore with as much
nerdy detail as we have you?
Well, I'd always kick for something like the Marley Records.
Because you're a bass player.
Well, primarily I'm a bass player, but they were just fantastic tunes.
And when people think about reggae, they think about something slow and doped out.
Those tunes, they're quick, and the bass does lead them.
It does underline the melody.
I always thought Naughty Dread was just a perfect album.
It's recorded so well, and the songwriting on that album is particularly strong.
All right.
Listen.
I didn't know what to say.
That was very insightful, I thought.
Oh, God.
And this is just the beginning.
This is just the beginning.
I do love that album.
That's my favorite of the Bob.
As an entire album,
it's great,
but Jesus Christ,
why,
why say that?
I don't know.
I just wanted Adam Clayton to know that I totally know what he's talking about.
It's very endearing.
I think, I,
I,
I think that it's,
it's adorable.
Jesus Christ.
I,
I,
there's,
it's the first of many cringey moments for me.
I cringed a little earlier when I say it's the Songs of Innocence tour.
It's, of course, Innocence and Experience.
But what I was trying to say was that it's the tour for that record.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But instead I called it by the wrong name.
Whatever. I get several by the wrong name. Whatever.
I get several facts wrong over this
and say,
I think I say a made up word at some point
of experimentational or something like that.
We're very nervous.
We're very nervous.
We calm down a good 15 minutes from now,
but just please bear with us.
And only briefly.
I feel like we go back to being,
I don't know.
Let's just keep going.
Yeah, and there's a funny thing about those records is depending on what mood you're in,
you kind of hear the balance differently.
And sometimes the bass leads or the guitar or whatever,
but just beautifully crafted songs.
And if Marley wasn't a black Jamaican,
those songs would have been regarded
up there with Beatles songs
they would have been
given that honour
Do you have a preference of which mix
you like, the US mixes
or the original Jamaican mixes?
I'm not that much of an anorak
but there is a lot of
mixes out there
a lot of choice
There's an interesting fact But there is a lot of mixes out there, so a lot of choice.
There's an interesting fact that there is a tribe of Native American Indians that live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon
who came to the conclusion that Bob Marley was some sort of semi-deity.
And if you go down, they all wear Bob Marley T-shirts,
and some of them have dreadlocks. and it's just this little set.
They're called the People of the Blue Green Water, something like that.
Yeah, uber fans of Marley's.
To this day, they're down there.
Well, as far as I understand.
Apparently, they're ready to move out if you could get your NREX together.
Yeah.
if you could get your anorex together
yeah
but it's
I mean
he was that kind of artist
who
just
inspired people
no matter where they lived
what their cultural background
it just sort of
seemed to cross all
first
first global superstar
because
he's a superstar in Africa
yeah
yeah
and keeping with that theme
I'd just like to point out
we are in electric ladyland
this is the home of Jimi Hendrix who was incredible And keeping with that theme, I'd just like to point out we are an electric ladyland.
This is the home of Jimi Hendrix, who was incredible.
He just defined a guitar sound and changed the way people approach guitar forever.
It's amazing being here, by the way.
A lot of people would say that about you, Edge, that you changed the way people play guitar.
And you certainly have a unique way of playing. Rank yourself next to jimmy hendrix me yeah well no one can write themselves next
to jimmy hendrix so i wouldn't even dream of it but um i think that what i have done is maybe just
approach the instrument from a different point of view to most guitar players.
And mostly it was because of these guys.
Because when we were 16 and 17 and 18
trying to write our first songs,
there were so many things that were banned.
There was bending of strings was utterly banned.
I mean, that was like a sin
worthy of instant excommunication.
To get that bluesy.
Yeah, all of that stuff.
And even the blues scale in our songwriting, we banned it.
So what I had to do was sort of find new things to do
and invent new ways to play the instrument.
And really, that's kind of the basis of my style.
It's not really that I came up you know, I came up with this great
approach. It was more like, well, what's left?
What can I do that
isn't banned and that is going to
inspire these guys? So it's always been a case
of trying to find new
territory and new sounds and new approaches.
Do you remember the time that you came up
with a certain sound that you were like,
whoa, I think that's
never been done before.
And was it the rest of the band around you?
Was this in rehearsal?
I think, you know, there's a couple of things that spring to mind.
Probably, I mean, if I'm being honest, it was really when I got the first Echo unit
and I started realizing that you could sound like two guitar players bouncing off each other.
And, I mean, people had used Echo before,
but within our group there was so little filling the sound
that it gave me this opportunity to really mess around
and play around with delays
and in that mathematical way of filling in rhythms and beats
so that one note really does a lot of work.
Can you remember what your unit was called?
The Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man.
Do you still have it?
Wow.
Yes.
Actually, sadly, not the original one.
It broke down.
It got repaired numerous times
and ended up getting put in a rack mount unit,
which got flooded in a terrible accident
that happened to our equipment back in the 90s.
But they actually reissued them,
so I do own an original of that design,
but it's not the original.
Ask me what strings do I use.
Speaking of playing guitar, are you bummed that
you're i mean how how can you still play a little bit one finger one finger which if i go blind
which is on the car and you can see where this is going i just put a bottleneck there and somebody
else kind of like you're playing in roadhouse stage and you know uh i'm i'm very bummed about it
the other band
don't seem to be as
bummed which is difficult
you're hiding your giant
grin behind your palm
it's one less thing to get hit over the head
with
if you come in in the wrong place
well things do become weapons
for us
if they're just left lying around.
And perhaps, you know,
I'm best leaving the guitar lying around.
But I miss it for my own.
Never very good with it on stage.
But I held on to it quite tightly as a songwriter.
And so, yeah, I'm fine.
There are bigger injuries to get over,
but I might have surgery that can get it back.
Oh, really?
We're hoping, very much hoping,
that it will just be a matter of time.
Oh, wow.
You could always try getting an echo box.
Just do that one finger over and over and over again.
Do you have that surgery scheduled in around the tour right now,
or are you just kind of contemplating it?
I'm hoping, this is boring stuff,
but nerve damage heals about a millimeter a week.
So that gives you about 18 months to find out if it heals.
At the moment, I seem to have some other mechanical obstacles,
not just nerves, to being able to
bend my nasty fingers on my left hand which is you know and that's what might need the surgery
but you know maybe we're wrong and maybe it'll it'll come good we'll find out in like six months
wow uh how about you Bonnet do you have a a band that you could delve into with 23 episodes or so well yes i do um i mean i i could say the ramones of course
because they taught me how to song write and sing and lots of things and talk about on songs of
innocence but because myself and the edge have just come from the announcement of john lennon day
on ellis island oh really with yoko oh no oh wow yeah i have to talk it's the beatles because the announcement of John Lennon Day on Ellis Island with Yoko Ono
oh wow
it's the Beatles because the Beatles for me
are just
inexhaustible
and
you know we've spent time
with Paul McCartney
recently he was at our show
and he's very generous
with his insight into you know how they wrote those
songs and i could listen to that really forever i had a breakdown like how he wrote a song for
sometimes yeah i had an amazing thing uh this is probably too long for your podcast but no please i
had the pleasure of being picked up in a car um a red Rover in Liverpool by Paul McCartney
and taken around the neighbourhoods where the Beatles grew up.
Wow.
And he's saying, you know, this is where over there
was where, like, George, you know, grew up,
and this is where I first...
Oh, oh, oh, look, that bus.
That's the bus I used to catch with John.
Wow.
And, you know, he'd say, oh, this is the newsagent
when we had our first big conversation.
And he'd say, do you mind me telling you that?
I go, jeez, no, no, not at all.
And so...
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the shit that happens
when you are Bono.
Yeah.
Where are you guys?
No.
Just making an omelette in your kitchen or something?
I mean, no.
What an amazing experience.
I put myself out there, that's true.
And I'm unembarrassable.
So, I mean, I will sit at the foot of a Paul McCartney.
I would carry his luggage.
In fact, I might have before I got into the car.
But, you know, because for me, he's, you know,
he's Johann Sebastian Bach.
I mean, his melodies are as important as Bach
in a thousand years' time.
I know that to be true.
Yes.
And so whilst we still have a Beatle around,
I think we should be making a fuss.
But the other thing is it really brings home
stuff about our band.
Like, we will go out, and I remember we were out with stella uh paul's daughter stella mccartney is just incredible in
her own right and it was just the four of us out in london at the firehouse we're all sitting there
and she went quiet for a minute and and she said oh my god i said. I have no memory of this for the Beatles,
of them going out and hanging out.
I know they did.
And it's really an encouragement for us all
just to really keep our friendship going.
And you think, what would the Beatles sound like now?
Because you know it would be interesting. Do you think, what would the Beatles sound like now? Because you know it would be interesting.
Yeah, right.
Do you think about that?
If they had become like the Rolling Stones,
if they had stayed together,
would they have made their dirty work?
Well, the problem with, see, it just depends.
You ask exactly the right question.
Because what made them extraordinary was their friendship
and this kind of game of know, game of table tennis
that went on particularly with Lennon and McCartney,
but it also went on, you know, with Harrison and all the rest of it.
So because with the Rolling Stones,
Keith and Mick's relationship broke down,
I think that was very hard for that band,
because they were mates.
They were also schoolmates, just like us.
They knew each other in the early teens.
And you think, wow, that's alchemy.
In the end, there's only so much you can do
with craft and writing songs.
You really are sitting here,
and I can say this,
Quincy Jones gave me this line.
He said, you're waiting for God to walk through the room.
That's it.
And God, as it turns out, is pretty unreliable.
And so you wait a lot.
I said that to Quincy.
What's that about?
And he said, teaching your patience.
So if you're waiting on magic, it's about relationships.
And I think with the Beatles, if John and Paul had made up,
I think you'd have got there.
Yeah, because it seems like something like Songs of Innocence
could not have been made if this was just now a business relationship.
Like this album is really about something,
and it has a feeling to it.
That was what we promised each other and ourselves
when we went in to make the album, something and it has a feeling to it that was what we promised each other and ourselves when
we went in to make the album was but the songs had to mean enough that we would be able to justify
going on the road and playing them and being away from our families for you know the guts of
six or eight months per year for a couple of years, which is something that we love to do,
but it's no small thing.
And you just got to feel like the songs deserve
that kind of commitment.
And so when we started working on the tunes,
when we got really into talking about the themes,
it became obvious that we had to find
an area of inspiration
that would be very revealing and personal.
And so it followed, really,
that it was going to be somehow connected with Dublin
and we ended up getting to the place.
Really, Bono, as he started working on the lyrics
and some of the songs started to come through,
we realized, well, it's actually not just Dublin.
It's the Dublin of when we were 16, 17, 18,
what happened to us, what formed the band as a band,
but also what influenced us as individuals
and got us into the place where we are now.
So it is one of the most personal and revealing albums we've ever made.
And it sort of took that.
It really took going that personal to make those songs mean as much.
Was everyone on board?
Did someone have to sort of pitch,
hey, we want this to be a theme
record? I mean, in a way, it is a theme record, sort of, you know? I mean, obviously, there is
that angle to it. But I think what's more significant in terms of the history of the band
and what we do for each other is you have to create an environment where it's safe to fail because you fail a lot.
I think we were all humbled from the very beginning of this project
at how difficult it is to get to the good stuff.
I think if our relationship means anything at the end of the day,
it's that when we go into the studio, we do support each other,
we do encourage, we do try and create a safe place to go there.
That's great.
Do you guys do the sort of math with your relationships of like,
wow, I hang out with you guys more than my wife?
For example.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, listeners to the show, obviously he just said my wife,
and it took so much strength for me sitting there to not say my wife to him.
Yeah, I know.
I thought of it, too.
It was killing us.
It would have been really weird, and they wouldn't have known what we were talking about.
And you wanted to say something about – Well, there's just so many points in this interview where I can hear myself after they answer a question saying, that's great.
Like I can't help myself.
I'm just so dazzled.
You want to tell them that you love them.
Remember Tell Me You Love Me?
Yes.
This is like this.
It's like that.
There are a few moments like that where like i there there's a moment
coming up where i had a question and instead of getting to the question part i just express my
feelings about something like i it's great you're not a professional interviewer that's didn't know
what was happening to my brain this is what would happen if true fans interviewed them? So that's why I like it. Yeah, okay.
You know what I mean?
All right.
It's mortifying.
All right, let's go back.
Do you?
I mean, I think in ours, I probably hang out with these.
Yeah.
You and I were sleeping together before you were sleeping with me.
That is true.
We shared rooms.
I and myself shared rooms, which was trying, wasn't it?
It was a little difficult.
Not for me, I might add.
You were a wonderful roommate.
Thank you.
So you guys went from roommates to being in a band for 35 years at this point.
I mean, I can't stand my old roommates.
Yeah, yeah.
I used to steal some socks.
I'm still on the back.
I can't imagine still knowing those dudes, let alone being with them on the road for most of my life.
He's trying to get his money back.
Larry, what about you for a podcast about a band?
Is there anyone you think of?
I don't know that it will be just one single band.
My musical history is pretty teenage.
I grew up with glam rock.
Yeah.
And it was that whole period where it was buying the single.
It was Gary Glitter.
It was the Glitter Band.
It was T-Rex.
It was Bowie.
It was just a whole thing that was going on.
So if I was to do a podcast, it would be about that whole era,
that generation.
And that's why I started playing,
because it was rhythmic and simple.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's so great to have been successful
and to do this with little, you know, sort of that thing
that people seem to value so much,
the sort of musical snobbery about what you can do,
the athleticism of music.
And we don't really have that.
What we have is we've got a lot of heart
and probably not as much head.
And that kind of works for us.
But it is so great when you go out and meet...
I'm personally very hurt by that.
You know what I mean? When you go out and meet kids.
I met a kid the other day, and he said to me,
he said, I'm a street drummer like you.
I said, I taught myself.
I learned how to play.
I just thought, how great is that?
That's great.
Just learned how to play.
Just listened to you.
No, I don't think just listening to me.
Just listening to music.
Just wanted to do his own thing. not wanting to be like everybody else i just thought it was fantastic it made me feel very proud that's terrific you know the funny thing is when we
started the podcast when we had the idea for it our original idea was to to do an episode per
what we called three album cycle of yours. We thought of your career in these three.
There is a lot of that.
Basically, the first three are starting the band,
and then the next three are the more experimentational,
and then the irony cycle, and then the getting back to basics.
But then it was so much fun that we did an episode per album.
But do you guys look back and see those three album cycles,
or is that just nonsense and you were just making records?
I think there's definitely something to it.
We could break it down into phases.
I think you can also break down the albums into different almost chapters.
I was talking with Don about this the other day.
You were talking about the final suite of a U2 album
seems often to be three songs.
But some of this is conscious.
Some of it's unconscious.
Some of it's just as you're working,
you do certain things because they make sense.
What cycle do you think you're in right now?
Because this new record seems like it's the start of something.
Yeah, it's a, well, it's one half of something,
which we'll try to get out next year,
and songs of experience.
But there is, there could be, there's a, you could be there's there's a you know there's
there's songs around it as well so you know you mentioned invisible earlier that's a very
important song but it's not on the album yeah uh you got crystal ballroom that's very important
so we're we're moving away from from just the the liter the literalness of the album,
which used to be everything for us,
and now we're just exploring songs.
And the reason it's called Songs of Innocence,
apart from the reference to Blake and all that,
is because the thing that we wanted above all else
was to challenge our songwriting.
Because in the end, playing around in the Sonic playground
with Edge and Brian Eno and all the innovators we have around us,
it's too easy for us.
I mean, we could go for a year just doing that.
But actually, what's so much harder is to go back to the discipline
of the three-and-a-half-minute song, which is where we came in.
That's where punk came in.
And we just go, oops, we're not getting a bit of that.
Oh, look, it's on the end of my ankle.
Look, Edge, I think it's on you too.
What is it?
Oh, it's the progressive rock lurgy.
And it's the head music that Larry was referring to.
It's the thing.
Oh, my God.
Oh, and we're better than you.
Oh, that's what comes with it.
And it's just this was the enemy when we were growing up.
So let's not get any.
It must be so hard because now you can do anything.
You can sit here for years and years and years,
and you can make any sound you want,
and you can have anyone come in and go,
oh, okay, well, I would add a complicated chord structure to this.
But this record feels so simple.
Simple.
And I think, by the way, there were some stunning reviews of it
in Rolling Stone and Q and Mojo and some people really got it
but a lot of people really didn't
because it was so simple
and I mean
in some cases
the surface was a little overworked
I think
but the songs stand up
as you see when you come to the shows
because you can't put songs up against
Sunday Bloody Sunday
or Beautiful Day
or Vertigo
if they're not your very best because you're going to find out.
It's like walking out with no clothes on.
You know, I thought this was significant that he kind of alluded to the fact
that he thinks the album's a little overproduced.
It was interesting.
I mean, maybe he means that, which is why they did stripped down acoustic versions.
We didn't ask a follow-up, which would have been the thing to do maybe,
but we didn't want to be rude and impress him on it.
But yeah, it's interesting.
I feel like he's really sensitive.
The follow-up I also wanted to interject but didn't want to interrupt
is that I strongly feel that most of those reviews were reviewing more the release
and barely even mentioned the music.
So I think a lot of those reviews were a little ridiculous.
But it's interesting.
I wonder which songs he actually means.
I would guess Every Breaking Wave.
Probably.
Because they put out the stripped-down version of that.
And that's what they do in a concert and stuff.
Yeah, so maybe something like that.
But yeah, interesting.
Yeah.
And it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. You can kind of brazen a couple and stuff. Yeah, so maybe something like that. But yeah, interesting. Yeah. And it just doesn't matter.
It just doesn't matter.
You can kind of brazen a couple of them,
but you can feel an audience,
just their energy go down
if you're not connecting them.
So we're really pleased with the songs.
That was it.
That was the high jump for us.
We were listening to,
we discovered in punk rock
there were genius songwriters like
pete shelly from the buzzcocks you know the song ever fallen in love with something you shouldn't
have fallen in love with this is steven sondheim good this is yeah you think you forget this and
or the ramones they were writing classics three chords and just really really simple melodies. But classics. But classics, yeah. And impossible to write.
Yeah, that's the biggest thrill as a fan is just the songwriting on the new record.
You guys are at songwriting peaks right now.
And I remember when Atomic Bomb,
when How to Dispensal an Atomic Bomb came out,
I had done the, or my friend had done a calculation
that it was the same, it was coming out the same year that when the Stones had put out Steel Wheels, you guys
were at the same point in your career that they were. And so I would, I remember just hoping that
the record was good and the songs were there and being so thrilled that at that point, I felt like it was my favorite record of yours.
So you guys have been able to keep the songwriting
at a place where bands just aren't able to do it.
Do you attribute that to what you were talking about earlier
with maintaining these friendships, Adam, do you think?
Oh, that's all very heavy.
I think, if I might interrupt Adam, do you think? Oh, that's all very heavy. I think, if I might interrupt Adam,
that part of it is also because we've always considered ourselves fans,
first and foremost,
so we're drawn to be part of the conversation
that's happening in the culture.
And what happens, I think, as a result of that
is that there's a kind of development in our music composition and songwriting, which is unconscious.
But it sort of protects us from ending up as part of a little, you might call it the Oxbow Lake, the part of the river that's actually no longer in the stream.
It's sort of just end up getting left behind.
Right.
And it's subtle things, but, you know, melody lines,
styles of melody lines get worn out.
And then the culture finds new and more interesting,
different things that haven't yet been explored or worn out.
And I think we we as a band
have always been
curious and inquisitive about the culture
so you know I could point
to what influenced Actual Baby
what we're listening to around Joshua Tree
and what we're listening to now
it informs us, we've never
written in a vacuum, we've always
been aware of what's been going
on, I think there are bands who
have a heyday they have a particular moment in the development of rock and roll that they
fell in love with and they've not moved on from that ever and i think the culture does move on
so you sort of end up inevitably sounding like a heritage act, even though you're still working on new ideas.
It's just they don't have a reference
to the new move in the culture.
It's weird.
It's like filmmakers sometimes.
Once great filmmaker who blew our minds,
you go see their latest movie,
and it's like, well, what happened?
Are you talking about someone you've worked with?
What's happening right now?
I'm talking about myself.
Oh, wait, is this an episode of I Love Films?
I think it might be an episode of I Love Films.
Oh, hey, all right.
Hey, this is Scott.
And this is Scott.
And we love films, and we're talking about great films and great directors.
Well, I was talking about formally great directors.
Formally great directors.
We have some guests here on I Love films uh what what are your favorite films we love films like the godfather oh citizen
cain lawrence of arabia those are the types of films we like but what kind of films do you guys
like those i mean those classics you know early polanski um some of his, what else, Orson Welles, yeah.
Back to the Future, where do you land on that?
You know, I hated it when it came out.
Did you really?
I really hated it, and I've actually come to like it more.
Andrew, what...
I see him in the mirror most mornings now with the new peroxide blonde do.
After I get up, I look in the morning i look like
what's his name the professor yeah christopher lloyd doc brown doc brown i see that brown a lot
i i'm not look i'm not looking forward to seeing him but i see him in the mirror what what films
do you like do you what's your favorite movie of all time would you say like being a movie
you look like a movie star you're like a young james dean that's so kind of you i mean he never got to be an old james
okay i'm not sure how to take that now um i i i tend to um every couple of months have a new
favorite but i just i remember one particular movie that kind of, in my house with my kids, like changed everything for us.
And, you know, there are always these moments that sometimes it can be dinner, sometimes it can be music.
And this was one movie.
And my kids watched it over and over again and still do.
And that's School of Rock.
Oh, yeah.
And just changed everything in my house.
We sat down together.
We watched it.
We knew the songs.
It just, it was everything.
So I think that is one of the great movies of all time.
Wow.
It is so great.
It's a great kids movie.
My kids love it too.
Well, this has been I Love Films.
Great ep. Really good ep.
Really good ep.
Yeah.
Let's talk about the tour, because we've been to it a couple of times in L.A., and it's fantastic.
I was unwittingly sitting in front of Thomas Lennon, who is Lieutenant Dangle in Reno 911, and he said it was the best show that he has ever seen.
Every single person around me was just blown away
it's such uh first of all you guys are playing these amazing new songs uh but it's a technological
spectacle at this point you guys have always been on the forefront of that um sort of pushing the
boundaries of what we see when we're at concerts what we hear now with the uh the speakers everywhere
around in the how is it difficult to sort of balance
giving a true sort of rock and roll performance
while you're thinking about things like,
oh, I have to hit my mark, or this is my,
it's not like you're doing choreography necessarily,
but you have to be in a place at a certain time
or else something's going to land on your head, right?
I don't.
40 years of being a professional.
I don't do choreography.
Yeah, is it, and this is a separate side question,
do you like getting to sit down the entire show,
or is that a bummer for you?
Well, I, you know.
You do get to stand up.
I get to stand up.
The problem is that I am clearly a target
for all kinds of things.
You're not moving around that much.
I'm not moving around that much.
You mean fans throwing stuff?
Well, not always, but the conversations open,
and I'm included in the conversation because I'm not moving.
Right. And they're taking photographs, and it's terribly distracting.
Whereas these guys, when it happens to them, they just move.
Yeah, sure.
Somebody's waving at them, they move over to you.
I can't move.
Have you ever had something like that?
And you get the same people the whole show.
Yeah. Have you ever had something where you're like a catcher
at a baseball game and they're heckling you
and there's someone right behind you,
you're like, God, I wish they would move.
I've never had that experience.
What's it like doing such a grand spectacle with the show?
It's a few shows in one show.
So it starts off like a punk rock show.
And it's just full tilt and there's no
marks, there's no nothing. It's just
you know, it's just for
people, you know,
playing for their lives really.
And as we started out and
continue to do.
Then it's like
somebody slips something into your drink
and you go on a very
narrative based journey.
It's very theatrical, very un-rock and roll, actually.
But it's quite punk rock to be bringing up the kind of emotions
that are kind of banned from rock and roll,
like singing about your dead mother, generally banned,
singing about friendship, your first love.
I mean, it's how un-punk rock it is.
I killed my girlfriend is much more of a Bunk Rock thing.
So we were trying to really push that.
And then there's a sort of loss of innocence
that happens through the 70s, which really did happen.
And everybody has their first loves,
but it's their first losses that take away a bit of innocence.
Then there's the political violence
that we grew up in and around.
That took away a bit of innocence.
And so that ends the first half of the show.
And then we kind of get,
we get spat out of the machine
having a great time.
And it's the Berlin Wall arrives
in the middle of Madison Square Garden.
The whole thing.
You can't see from the left to the right,
or as we call it, the north side to the south side.
And then the wall starts talking to you.
And we do The Fly or we do The Wanderer with Johnny Cash.
And this machine spits you out and you're just like glad to be alive
and it's the 90s and we have some fun with that.
And then at some point you sort of
hold on to love and then love starts to get complicated even it bites you in the ankle and
the arse and whatever else and eventually we get there to to a place you know some kind of ecstatic
place and then I mean the other night it really was like church or something like Howard I would have hoped
a church would be
it's very hard
I did go to one church
that was like that
Glide
in San Francisco
if you ever get a chance
there's a guy
go there
Cecil Williams
is his name
he marched
with Dr. King
and you can get a
get a HIV test
during the service
they got people
from the Tenderloin
in crash helmets
and shit
in the choir and you feel that
ecstatic thing that's that's what i want yeah we had it the other night and people i didn't sing
one word of of our song one it just it was sung the song was stolen from our lips. It's beautiful. So when it goes great, these shows are just
a wild ride.
But trying to remember
where you're standing
when you're telling a story through
animation and things like that,
that is tricky at times.
If you've been recently
concussed.
I can't think about marks
or what I'm supposed to do
other than what the song is telling me to do.
Sure.
Well, you have to remember
what you're doing with your hands, too.
There's a lot of not just that,
but also the feet changing sound.
So I'm really,
the guide for everything is the song.
Yeah.
So if somebody was to unplug the guitar
and I was actually not hearing,
I would have no clue what to do.
It's sort of like I'm driven by the music itself,
and that sort of tells me where I am
and where I need to go next.
So there's like muscle memory with the songs.
Totally.
Yeah.
And also with the staging,
there are certain very broad things,
like for this song being this part of the stage.
But it isn't in any way true choreography.
And my wife's a choreographer, and at times she said,
hey, H, really it was great when you and Adam were there at the same time
and you did this.
And I go, yeah, I can't think like that.
If I start to think like that, I'm taken out of the show.
I can't do what I do.
So I just try and inhabit the songs and let them sort of guide me where I need to be.
That's great.
You guys mentioned the political climate in Ireland that was around when you were first getting together.
And I think here in the United States we have
a lot going on here
as well and yet music
isn't really reflecting that all
that much if you look at what's popular
there aren't a lot of protest songs. No rage
Yeah, I mean there are a few
artists here and there but it's a little weird
when Prince is the only one
making a protest song out
there, you know it's so much different than the 60s. You need Pussy Riot little weird when Prince is the only one making a protest song out there.
It's so much different than the 60s. Pussy Riot.
We were with Nanja earlier.
Really?
I think she's coming.
The music comes almost out of
the angst that
is caused by
injustice, political
oppression, whatever
is going on.
Do you think that maybe pop artists now are too rich too soon?
They don't have any angst?
I think when you think about what's been going on,
and we refer to it in the show,
in Baltimore and New York and Black Lives Matter and Charleston,
Baltimore and New York and Black Lives Matter and Charleston.
You can imagine how there's stuff going on there that will find a musical outlet.
But it is that sort of stuff.
And we grew up with it when we were inspired by the movement punk rock.
It was born out of real austerity in Europe,
in the British Isles,
and a lot of anger drove that music
because everyone leaving school
felt totally disenfranchised and forgotten about and ignored,
and there were riots,
and the music reflected all of that.
And simultaneously, the rise of a neo-Nazi movement in Britain,
the National Front, and, you know,
there was some real awful stuff happening,
brewing in sort of the...
on the grassroots level.
So punk rock became this immensely important sort of on the grassroots level. So punk rock became this immensely important
sort of force politically,
and bands like The Clash
really hit a lot of those issues head on,
and we got inspired by that.
And that's a lot to do, I think,
with why we've never felt the need
to stay out of what they say
you should never discuss in polite
society which is politics and religion we actually thought that's exactly what
we want to talk about because that's what matters to people yeah but it's
going to go off here because there I'm meeting a lot of people 15 year old
16 years and they just want to burn down the pop charts
it's it's going to happen revolt is around the corner whether it's electric guitars or you know
hip-hop who knows or some hybrid or some dj you know with a really really really violent
needle who's the people here this is some mad electronic music out of France there, Justice a few years ago, but it was punk rock.
And the rage is okay.
It's very important to own up to it and to get it out there.
And that's what hip-hop was quite good at,
was getting out those feelings that people hadn't owned up to.
But what's happening in the United States at the moment,
this is a seismic yes moments there
is and i don't feel that any side is really you know left or right are telling people what is
going on that the you know the the manufacturing class is is is the manufacturing jobs don't look
like they're coming back and the reboot that was necessary in education
to prepare for that hasn't happened.
It doesn't exist.
And so, you know, whereas...
Calm down, Adam.
Jeez.
Sorry about that.
Sorry.
Did you say...
This is the manga.
Yeah, boy.
Are you going to be starting these bands, Adam?
I don't know how to play guitar, so...
Someone's going to have to teach you.
Adam and me are going to start.
That's right.
An electronic duo.
That's right.
Okay?
No guitars.
Called the Radical Center.
Yes, I would love to hear this.
All right.
It doesn't exist, Adam.
All right.
We need to take a break.
It doesn't exist.
I think that was the moment
though where we sort of broke out of interviewer
mode and I think the back part of
this is way more enjoyable for us to
listen to. But we do need to take
a break. When we come back, we're going
to have the back half of our conversation
with you two and we'll talk about what
happened afterward, which is even more
mind-blowing. Come on
back with more You Talkin' You Too to Me!
Hey, Adam, we have a really cool sponsor
for this episode
of You Talkin' You Too to Me.
What is it, Scott? What is it? Well,
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Shut up.
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What is it?
It's like Christmas morning with you with these ass.
Oh, I can't wait.
Well, look, Adam, you can agree with me
that confidence is sexy, right?
Oh my God, it's the sexiest.
We have conversations about this every single day, don't we?
All the time.
What's the sexiest thing of all?
Confidence. Exactly. Let's the sexiest thing of all? Confidence.
Exactly.
Let's talk tomorrow.
Okay.
I hope you don't change your mind.
I'm confident about it.
Oh, that's so sexy.
Well, confidence comes from what?
A big dick.
No.
It comes from being comfortable.
Oh.
Okay.
But how great can you feel if your underwear is wrinkling and riding up?
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364, but thank you. Okay, what's the other day?
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And rain or shine, right? Only if it's raining, but it always rains on my birthday.
Wow, interesting. What day is that? April 3rd.
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Wow.
What an endorsement.
I hope that gets put up on billboards.
It will.
Well, MeUndies has designed underwear that makes you look and feel fantastic.
MeUndies is made from modal, a fabric that's twice as soft as cotton,
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Yeah, I mean, cotton, any chaise lounge with cotton on it, I'm lying down. I love chaise lounges.
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Wow.
Well, that's twice as soft as whatever underwear you're wearing right now, unless you're already wearing MeUndies.
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Anyway, MeUndies has tons of colors and styles, 2,000 pounds worth, and the only place to get matching pairs for men and for women.
So, hey, you'd like to get a matching pair of underwear so you can feel extra close to your loved one?
Yeah, or my side piece.
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Adam wears it.
Plus, we all know that paying for shipping sucks, so MeUndies has removed that from the equation.
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Well, they're
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All right, we're back with you talking U2 to me.
We're in the middle of our extensive interview
with the lovable lads from U2
and Adam and I are just cringing here
as we're listening to it.
But it's okay.
It's all right.
We're human.
We're human beings.
It's all right.
You know, they weren't that hard on us.
They were helping us through it.
Yeah, they were nice.
They were super nice.
All right, at this point,
I feel like it gets a lot looser and a lot easier,
and we're on an express train to Finishville from here on out.
I think you're right.
So we may do the rest of it uninterrupted.
I'm not sure.
Maybe.
All right, let's see.
Anyway, here we go.
This is the conclusion of our conversation with you two.
Let's get to some more lighthearted questions.
I have a question just about the tour.
This is where you can reach me now I'm just
you guys are going to Europe on the next leg
do you think that song will make it into the set at all
it's going to be called there is where you can reach me
I hope so
I like it a lot
we should give it a run
great bass part
a lot of different some of the more obscure tracks have been trotted out.
I think we will get to that at some point.
It's an incredible song.
And correct me if I'm wrong, is It and Invisible,
are those maybe about the same moment in time for you guys?
They're all set within the same year, probably.
It just feels like it's that one,
that moment where the decision was made
that we're going to leave all of this
and we're going to go on the road
and we're going to be a band.
Those couple of songs.
Yeah.
Good theory, Adam.
Thank you.
All right, let's see.
Okay, so that is a moment where i had a question
connected to that thought and just ran out of steam got freaked out and ran out of nerve the
question was going to be like if that decision wasn't made what do you guys think you would be
because there's just that moment where they decide fuck it fuck all y'all we're gonna be a band what if they said it just like that fuck all y'all uh what if you didn't do that what
would you guys be doing now but i just kind of got lost in the mire of uh my stupid thoughts and
forgot to ask a question and you made fun of me for it all right let's go back. All right, let's see. So more lighthearted questions.
It's great to be at your last podcast.
Yeah, exactly.
So, I mean, what have you guys learned from doing all these podcasts?
We learned that people...
Now that we're coming to the end of it.
There's a great appetite for two guys just dicking around.
I've learned that Scott's kind of an asshole.
I've learned that about myself as well.
Scott's kind of an asshole.
I've learned that about myself as well.
Do you guys, you've been famous longer than you've not been famous at this point in your life.
Do you guys miss, like, going to a Chipotle, you know?
How bourgeois of you.
Like a 7-Eleven?
I do.
I do.
That time, I was wandering around New York City yesterday.
You do miss it or you go to Chipotle? I had no trouble.
I went to the gym this morning.
You did?
Yeah.
You're looking great, by the way.
Thank you.
You're sort of a brag.
Oh, stop it.
But do you guys get those moments where you can just walk around?
Or do you have to be in disguise?
I think you can take them.
You can take those moments. And, you know, there's as much, if not more,
good stuff that comes with, you know,
people sort of giving goodwill in your direction
as to bad stuff.
Adam's new reality show.
It's really, you really got to see it.
It's mostly him walking naked in his kitchen.
But he has dresses.
There are robes for earlier when he's got a sort of PLG
or whatever you call it version where you're in the robe.
Oh, yes, PG.
PG.
Is that for ABC Family?
But the PLG version sounds interesting as well.
I might get a robe for that.
Yeah, that's a juice when you really return to the infant.
I can't wait for the
rapping episode
where you're rapping
all the presents.
Yeah, I think myself
and Sharon Osbourne
could really kind of
do that together.
That would be good.
Rattle and Hum,
are you guys doing
a deluxe reissue?
Is that the plan
to do it for every record?
Good question.
We've kind of got busy,
so we haven't really
thought too much about that.
It's a long
story, but
I'm sure we'll get to
do something, yeah.
I think it deserves it.
Just a great, kind of
underrated record.
Alright, Adam.
Son of a bitch.
Your interview style seems to just be compliments.
You too is here.
Okay, all right, all right.
You've written songs for the stage.
You've written songs for films.
You've been in Entourage.
Do you guys want to EGOT?
That's winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony.
I think of myself as a slashy
you know
musician slash
slash award winner
award winner
slash composer
slash style icon
you would all have to
like do a guest spot
on Modern Family
or something
if you want to get a
get a real Emmy
right
that is a really great show
it's
it's dark
what's your favorite TV show
do you watch TV shows
that's one of them
that's one of them
do you watch TV shows
that like
the two of us
might happen to be on
ever
you know
I am preparing
for this moment
I didn't
okay
all right
so much of
our podcast
is about us rating you guys's work and ranking you guys's
work and we've gone over like okay these are our top uh you know songs in order do you guys
rank your own material like that like if if i asked you could could you say your top three
you two songs you could ask okay I? What are your top three
U2 songs?
I didn't say that.
Oh,
okay.
Again,
that kind of changes,
but as far as
playing,
straight out of the bat,
I really like playing
Cedarwood Road.
Nice.
I really like playing One,
and I really like
playing Sunday Bloody Sunday.
So, that's today.
Tomorrow will be different.
All right, we'll check back
with you tomorrow.
Do please.
I really don't like singing
Miss Sarajevo
if Luciano Pavarotti
is not around.
He's sort of the star of that one.
But that's one of my
favorite U2 songs.
When I hear that,
I'm very moved.
There's another one called
Stay, Far Away So Close from Zeropa. That's one of my favorite U2 songs. When I hear that, I'm very moved. There's another one called Stay, Far Away
So Close, from Zeropa.
That's one of my favorite U2 songs.
And I think
probably up there
for me at the moment,
and maybe number one, just
because it takes me to a very special
place every time I sing it, is Every Breaking Wave.
Beautiful.
Edge?
probably
Running to Stand Still
and
Until the End of the World
and then probably
just because
it's so much fun to play where the streets have no name.
We saw you do that in LA where you walked off the stage
while you were playing it.
And I guess the radio transmission of it
just kept kind of playing in the stadium.
I think that was still what I'm looking for.
Just sorry.
Oh, yeah.
We still haven't found what I'm looking for.
Wow, was it really?
Yeah, yeah.
Should I pay attention more?
Just Sorry.
We have the radio leads.
So you can actually,
I could have kept playing
almost all the way to the car park,
but at a certain point it would start breaking out.
At a certain point it just cut out.
Yeah, it never skipped a beat, the edge.
Adam, what are your three songs?
I'm going to choose some obscure ones.
I would say Heartland.
I would say A Man and a Woman
and Moment of Surrender.
Nice.
Moment of Surrender is pretty great, you're right.
You know, we were talking earlier
how we feel like Adam is kind of the star
of this new album. Like's it's pretty like on
Iris it's it's incredible it's like you're doing a few things at once it's almost like you're
commenting on reflecting back to the boy October war days and then sort of commenting on it and doing something new as well. Was
it, was it particularly, was this record particularly fun, fun for you? It's just, there's so much
happening on the album.
Well, I think I was very lucky in that there was some really great collaborators. I mean,
I think Danger Mouse, Burton you know he really
listens to the bass so I felt there was a lot of room there and he and Larry
worked really hard on you know great drum parts so that that was good then
Paul Epworth when he came in he kind of paid attention to the bottom end. So I mean I think I have come out of
this record very well but I couldn't really say why. I've just hung around long enough
and the parts got used.
That's great. Do you sit around at home like coming up with bass parts like, ooh this is
going to blow them away.
Actually I find it really hard to practice.
By the way, that bass part that he just said with his voice,
you can't use that.
Yeah, that's mine.
Stay away from that.
I have to say, because I don't practice,
I tend to find that it's the solutions to playing around the problem
that create something more interesting.
So it's almost like...
Are you saying we're the problem?
No, no, no, no.
I think he is.
I think he is.
This was the day that YouTube broke up because of our podcast.
No one would ever forgive us.
No one thought that this podcast would outlast you, too.
What do you guys do when you're just sitting around at home?
What time do you get up in the morning?
Do a podcast.
Over the breakfast table.
I'm an early riser.
I get up very early.
Larry's Count Dracula.
He gets up the latest.
I go to bed the latest.
I basically turn it around.
I used to be the, you know, when you start something and you're so enthusiastic.
And I was very enthusiastic at the beginning of this journey.
So I used to turn up for rehearsals on time.
I would turn up for the gigs on time.
But these guys never did.
When was that, in the 80s?
The 70s into the 80s 70s
into the 80s
and
so after 10 years
I basically decided
that I was going to be late
unfortunately
I've never recovered
and
I am
constantly late
I go to bed late
I get up late
I'm late for everything
right
so is everybody
always late
to everything
so every
no it's just Larry
just Larry
god damn it Larry I know actually I'm not much better but I So is everybody always late to everything? No, it's just Larry. Just Larry.
God damn it, Larry.
I'm not much better, but I think I try a little harder.
I also realized something that I used to be really organized,
and I was in the wardrobe area in Madison Square Gardens where the wardrobe girls were pointing out that I had
the most untidy wardrobe
case and it was very hurtful
from all the other guys
even Bono's was tidier than mine
When I shared with Larry
he used to pack my case
because he couldn't stand the sight of it
it exploded
So you would fold Bono's clothes?
He probably didn't fold them
It wasn't folding but I I mean, it was like
a suitcase
scrunched
down, so as soon as he would open it,
shit would fly everywhere.
And then he'd just leave it. And then we'd have to
get on the bus, and he would have
disappeared off somewhere,
basically being all arty,
you know, some cafe with, you know,
and somebody said, we've got to get the bus in five minutes.
I was like, I have to pack this shit up.
And there are people still doing it to this day.
We had an amazing moment with Frank Sinatra,
and Larry asked him about Buddy Rich,
and Buddy Rich maybe had just died or something.
He just went into one about Buddy Rich maybe had just died or something. No, no. He just went into one about Buddy Rich.
And it turns out that he and Buddy had shared rooms.
And they were always firing shit out of windows.
Really?
Yeah, in fights.
I remember that.
Wow.
At each other?
I think there was some fracka.
But he spoke about it very affectionately.
Have you ever heard that tape of Buddy Rich yelling at his band?
No.
Isn't that where that movie, the whole movie, what's it called?
The movie about the drummer?
Oh, Drumtown.
No.
No, that's one of my favorite films.
Drumline.
Oh, Drumline.
No, no, it's called the Shush.
Oh, yeah, the J.K. Simmons, the Just Kidding Simmons movie.
Now, this is Whiplash.
Whiplash.
This is an extraordinary actor and in an extraordinary part.
That film's very, very special.
Another episode of I Love Films.
I love it.
Snuck it in there.
Yeah, great ep.
Thanks.
So you guys say that Songs of Experience is coming next year.
Well, we hope so.
I'm unreliable at this.
Will you promise us?
I think it'll be good.
I think things will be really good.
I have some questions for you guys.
Please.
Because I think it's going to come down to
a very straightforward uh decision at a certain point because um we have a lot of great material
as we did um when we went in to start working on zuropa and uh when we made zero we we played a
trick on ourselves we said okay we're going to put out an EP.
It's just going to be six tracks, that's it.
And we're going to finish it really fast because we've got all this great stuff left over from Acton Baby
and we've got a couple of new ideas.
So we'll steam in, we won't spend a lot of time, just six tracks.
Then we got the six tracks really quick
and then Bama came to me and said,
those six tracks came through really fast.
But you know, we actually have another four amazing tracks.
If we just pushed a little harder, this could be an album.
And I thought about it.
I mean, he's absolutely right.
We really could do this if we're willing to make decisions quickly
and push through and not think about things too
too much so i think we're kind of almost there again we could for sure put out an album in the
short term but it would have to be if we weren't going to think it was kind of you know one of
those albums that had to be absolutely perfect. Absolutely. Does that get in the way sometimes where you're U2,
you've made some of the greatest rock and roll songs ever.
We have baggage.
Do you feel that pressure of like,
this has got to be a U2 record.
This has got to be as good as everything we've ever put out.
We made a few albums where we thought they were
more experimental and that they would be viewed in a different
way. So we, I would say No Line in the Horizon started out as a very experimental work and
we sort of put it out in that spirit and then we realised, you know, they're just U2 albums.
No one's really thinking, well well the lads are up to something
you know
different this time
so we have to think about it
in a different way
they don't think
no one thinks like that
it's like
is it a U2 album
if so
I wanted to
you know
have great songs
and do certain things
Zeropa
had some great songs
but it is pretty experimental
in places.
I love that record.
That's actually, for me, I like it a little better than Octoon Baby, strangely enough.
I just have to cut in here, and I wish I said it at the time.
Who cares?
I'm trying to be supportive and tell him that risks, when you take risks, it pays dividends.
Yeah, but who gives a shit?
Yeah, I know.
All right, back to it.
But I really like it when there's a very short period of time between records
because then you sort of view it through the prism of,
oh, these guys are putting out a lot of material instead of,
you mentioned No Line on the Horizon.
It had been seven years before the
previous record and it just,
then it becomes an event. Then it's like
U2 has a new record, we have
to judge it on kind of
is this the best U2 record of all time?
Whereas if you guys put out a record next
year, it would be like, oh great, more stuff.
I think it would be really cool.
That's a good answer.
You've got to get your facts right pal
I think it was
seven years between No Line in the Horizon
and Songs of Innocence
is that right?
or six years
five years
so five years in between
and that's by the way inexcusable
not the facts that are fair
but taking five years is too long.
Right.
Well, you guys used to be on a one album a year thing.
It's not right.
And the only thing that's worse than it is a shite album.
OK?
But it's still not right.
And we have momentum.
This is, right now, our band has never been this been this well the band actually have been this good
uh to be honest i haven't been this good as a singer i know that uh if i still have my voice
at the end of this tour we can we can make our best album and um that's what we've got to do
is that one of the advantages to recording while you're on the road is that you don't have the time to sit in there for weeks and weeks yeah you just kind of pop in and pop out
and that's why zuropa still sounds fresh zuropa was a lot of stuff that um we had started work on
for act on baby and never got around to finishing so stay was actually a verse that had been proposed for uh i think it was light my way
ultraviolet light my way and we loved it but we didn't think it fitted for that song so we just
lay there for a while and then we um we got a call from vim vendors saying you know would you write
us a song for far away so close the follow-up to Wings of Desire.
And we dug out that verse, and I worked on some piano ideas
and then played it to Bono.
And we started jamming on this sort of almost Sinatra-type approach
to the song.
And hey, presto, this song came out of it which is so i think it's another yeah oh
this is another episode of oh yeah
wow we're really sneaking them in here three episodes of i love films this is incredible
incredible wow well do you guys do you get surprised when a song comes out and you're like, whoa, this is really good?
You mean somebody else's?
No.
Ours, yes.
It's hard to like one of your own songs on the radio.
Yeah.
But you talk about when we're making it.
When you're writing, yeah. Is it kind of like you're just trying stuff, trying stuff,
and then there's something there and you just go,
I can't believe that just came out of us.
Yeah, I mean, we're kind of junkies for that moment.
As Bono said, you're waiting for magic to happen.
And sometimes it happens and you have no idea
why that day something special occurred
and why the following day you just sound like a bunch of amateurs
just hammering away and nothing great is going on.
So it is frustrating at times,
but when something does arrive that is powerful, we know it.
That's the interesting thing.
I don't think we ever miss something really that has
a special quality it's like that's maybe above everything else the thing that is essential to
being in a in a band and being a songwriter is knowing when you've hit on something good
is it challenging for you guys, like a song like California,
that I was just kind of blown away by the energy of it
when I remember the first time hearing the song?
And it's like you guys harnessed the might and the power of the band,
yet pushed it in this direction of almost pop confection.
It's this, I hadn't heard it out of you guys
in quite that direct a way before.
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
had that same energy.
Is that challenging to harness the might of the band
and push it in that direction,
which is different than where you might naturally go?
If the song asks for that energy, it's fine.
But sometimes it's exhausting if you're trying to play your way to a song.
Right, right, right.
But that's a bass part that you've picked up on that propels it.
Yeah.
The ba-dum-ba-bow. That one. It picked up on. That propels it. Yeah. The ba-dum-bum-bam.
That one.
That's still mine.
Can't use it.
It's kind of a Ramones song.
Yeah.
In a way.
California.
I'm glad you mentioned California.
It's hard to...
I'm still able to enjoy it.
I'm able to enjoy the new songs,
just the older songs I can't.
I'm still in the phase of being able to enjoy the new one.
And that one really takes me away.
Yeah, it's fun.
It's a fun, fun song.
Well, I think we've got to wrap it up.
By the way, I was looking at my phone, not out of rudeness,
but I'm looking at it to see if I have a few songs of experience,
which when we wrap up, we could play.
Oh, that would be amazing. Oh, my gosh. Of course. Actually, if we are going we wrap up we could play oh that would be amazing
oh my god
of course
actually if we are
going to wrap up
we did just bring you
some stuff
what
we heard you were
looking for some
what
merch
we call it swag
you just gave us
a huge
black swag bag
with
what is this
in here
holy shit
Scott
the problem is that
we've run out of t-shirts because they've been
selling like hotcakes so we just bought some
other stuff
this is so nice
so no t-shirts
this is better than t-shirts
we have like
four hats
are there mugs in there
yeah there are mugs
there's a tour book.
This is incredible.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, you guys.
This is incredible.
Above and beyond.
Do you have any, this may be our final episode ever.
I don't know how you top it.
Do you have any advice to us?
You know, obviously we've been listening to you since we were just little boys
and we wanted to be big boys and we were inspired by you
and we were like, we want to be big boys and we want to be artists like them.
Do you have advice for us about being an artist
and an artist's life and what is it all about?
Staying together is crucial.
Don't break up with yourself.
You can't break up.
Unfortunately, this is it for us.
I think the least you could do after this is do podcasts for all the videos,
for all the live...
Every video you've made.
Every video we've made.
Magic tricks on the radio.
Sorry?
Magic tricks on the radio.
That's it.
And every live DVD.
And I think this could go on for a long time.
I think you're basically, what you're doing is
I think you're
disenfranchising a lot of people
out there and I think you owe it to them to
carry this on. You know what, you're right
and we're going to do that, this is
maybe the end of the season but we're going to have a season two
where we just go over everything. Where we describe
every time you guys have been on television
or in movies
it's going to be like audio commentary of your entire media life.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that sounds like a – that's a great idea.
Okay, fantastic.
So thanks so much, guys.
It's such a pleasure.
So we just brought you out of retirement then.
Yeah, thanks.
Pretty much.
You were just about to go in there.
You're inspiring us to keep Terry on.
Yeah.
This has been fantastic. We want to thank, of course, Bonobos, Thedge, and Adam Clay, 2,000 pounds,
and Larry Mullen Sr.'s son.
Thank you so much, guys.
Thank you so much, you guys.
Big pleasure.
Thank you, Adam, guys.
To the Scots.
Scott and Scotch.
Yes, thank you so much, guys.
Wow.
Okay, there are what? You know what? So much to break down. Scott, Scott. What, what, what? Wow. Okay.
You know what, Scott?
So much to break down.
Scott, what?
They didn't give us any fucking t-shirts, bro.
Did you notice that?
No fucking t-shirts?
I have the bag right here.
You have mugs.
You have tour program.
You have hats.
You even have a U2 cool flask.
What about the fucking t-shirts, bro?
Zero percent t-shirts, bro.
What the fuck?
You know, they were telling us to keep doing this podcast.
We got to keep doing it to get them back on to get some of these freaking t-shirts.
I will not stop until I get those goddamn t-shirts.
Thank you.
That's exactly what I was going to say.
You know, it was a cool experience and everything, but it really soured it at
the end.
I mean, we went all the way out there.
They went to the trouble of coming to the studio.
A couple blocks down to the studio.
And we, they couldn't bring any fucking t-shirts.
And did you notice this?
No college girls.
Not one. Not one college girl. Well, this? No college girls. Not one.
Not one college girl.
Well, Laura went to college.
That's true.
You know what?
I'm presuming.
We were being polite, saying like, oh, this is better than t-shirts.
This is better than t-shirts.
Bullshit.
I was just boiling.
My blood was boiling.
I could barely speak to them after that.
I couldn't keep it together.
Boiling.
I could barely speak to them after that.
Yeah, I couldn't keep it together.
Okay, well, that was obviously really cool of them to do,
really fun to listen to.
I hope you guys thought it was fun to listen to.
But we do want to talk.
Bono, at the end there, said he wanted to play us songs from the new album.
We need to take a break. When we come back, we will talk about what he did after that and where we went after that to see something else cool.
And then we'll talk about, you know, just what we think about the whole experience.
So let's take a break.
We'll be right back with more You Talking U2 to me.
Hey, Adam.
Hey, Scott.
Guess what?
I got some news.
Oh, okay.
No, it's not bad news.
Oh, great.
No, it's actually great news.
Oh, okay.
Great.
Yeah, today's episode is brought to you by Audible.
Oh. Okay. I think that's great is brought to you by Audible. Oh.
Okay.
I think that's great news for me, and it's great news for our listeners because Audible has over 180,000.
That's right.
Not just over 180, over 180,000 titles to choose from, from which to choose.
Wow.
Yeah.
So here's what you do. You go to
audible.com slash Bono. Easy to remember. He's the lead singer of Hue 2. Right.
Audible. By the way, we should not say that Audible is the lead singer of Hue 2. No, it's
Bono. Bono is. So audible.com slash Bono, and you're going to get a free 30 day trial and a free audio book. How bitchin' is that?
That's bitchin', Scott. Okay, if you need a place to start, why not start at Between the World and
Me by Tana Sy Coates. Can't wait. Tana Sy Coates is my favorite. Absolutely my favorite author.
I'm assuming that is an author and a person and not a computer program who's designed to write a book.
Well, I'll tell you what it is.
It's a profound work written as a letter to his son that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son.
Wow.
That sounds powerful.
Sounds powerful.
Ta-na-hi, ta-na, ta-na-hasi, ta-na-hasi Coates.
That's the dude.
Can't wait.
If you're still not convinced, here's why Audible is worth your time.
I'm not convinced.
Convenienced.
If you're still not convinced.
Okay, here's why it's worth your time.
Unlike a streaming or a rental service.
Yeah, fuck that shit.
With Audible, you own your books.
You know what I mean?
You're not going to be like, oh, I can't own my books anymore.
I'm so sick of people saying that.
Can't own my books, mommy.
Free apps for iPhones, Android, and Windows phones, so you can access your books anytime.
I use it.
Yeah, I bet you do.
How about this?
Do you use this?
The WhisperSync technology.
I just listened to the Steve Martin autobiography, Born Standing Up.
Yeah, that's a great book.
Do they have that on Audible?
Yeah.
Oh, man.
And he reads it.
He reads it?
And he does some of his old bits.
Forget this Ta-Nehisi, dude.
It's great.
Go listen to Steve Martin.
Why are you wasting your time on Ta-Nehisi?
WhisperSync, I want to talk about that.
You can bounce back and forth between the audio book and the e-book.
So say you're reading your book at home and you're like, I just want to read this.
And then, oh, man, I got to go to work.
I'm going to go to work.
Pick it back up in your car and just listen to it.
Yep, that's the way to do it.
Easy chapter navigation, annotated bookmarks,
and if you don't like what you choose, no problem.
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They're not gonna ask you, hey, wait a minute.
Hey, or like, hey, what's your name?
Well, they may have to ask that
in order to give you your book back.
Then what's your credit card number?
They don't ask any of that stuff.
No, well, they're going to need to know
that information to credit you back.
What's your email address?
Again, well, yeah, these, okay, you're right.
So some questions asked,
but none about why you want to exchange your book.
Right, right, okay, I got it. Right're right. So some questions asked, but none about why you want to exchange your book. Right, right, okay, I got it.
Right, right.
So go to audible.com slash bono for a free 30-day trial and a free audio book.
Audible, you got to get it.
You talking U2 to me?
I don't know, I think this still sounds good with all the instrumentation.
I agree.
I like this version.
I don't think the album is overproduced.
Neither do I.
All right, we're back.
Scott and Scott here, and you just heard our astounding to us interview with U2.
And, you know, the second half, we kind of did it did an okay job
i'm gonna leave it up to the listeners yeah uh i don't want to review it ourselves there are still
embarrassing things but just the experience of it and they were the fact that they were as cool as
they were made the whole thing really great and another part of the experience that we want to
talk about is what happened directly after so bono said to us hey by the way i started thinking these guys are
enormously present during this interview they're not you know looking at their phones or anything
but in the last two minutes bono started looking at his phone i was like oh maybe i should wrap it
up but he was literally looking for songs to play us that he had on his phone from the new record. Yeah. So he took us into the control booth and he said, I'm just going to play you two snippets
of two songs.
Right.
And then proceeded to get so into it and so into our reaction, he played us four complete
songs.
I thought it was five.
It was four.
It was four.
Okay.
Yeah.
Four complete songs.
I thought it was five.
It was four.
It was four, okay.
Yeah.
But played us four whole songs.
Yes.
While like air drumming.
Yeah.
Singing right into our ears. Singing the lyrics, singing along with the songs into our ears, like in our faces, and sometimes yelling out like,
this is my favorite moment in a U2 song ever,
coming up right here.
No, not this.
Not, right here, right here, right here.
Turn it up.
And then he would turn it up really loud.
It was so loud.
And then explaining the lyrics,
like shouting the lyrics in our ears
and explaining what he meant by them.
It was just the three of us.
It was just us.
You had, Adam was watching.
I did notice, after a while I turned around and Adam was like two feet behind us. Adam was watching. I did notice, after a while, I turned around and Adam was like two feet behind us.
Two feet and just kind of enjoying our watching of it.
And then he waved and intimated he had a really good time and then took off.
And it was just, you know, we've read about those types of things where if an album is coming out soon, Bono will do that to a journalist or something.
It was so crazy to experience.
Yeah.
It was really fun, and he was really into it.
Okay, should we talk a little about the songs?
We can talk generally about the songs.
He played us, I believe, three from the new album and one that he's working on for something else.
And the first one just like totally kick-ass like album opener type thing.
Yeah, it was like a little more experimental.
Huge drums.
Huge drums.
We talked about the drums.
We were like, this drum pattern is amazing.
And he got very excited about the drums and started talking about them and he said this is my favorite drum breakdown
on a u2 album ever and then he said his favorite sonic part of any u2 album ever at some point yeah
it was uh and we were just like all we could say was like wow this sounds amazing yeah um then he
played us he said okay that's more of the rock thing here's more of a Yeah. Then he played us, he said, okay, that's more of the rock thing.
Here's more of a pop song.
And he played us the best song as far as I was concerned.
Yeah.
I feel like if this isn't the next single, then they're crazy.
What are we doing with our lives?
Because this was a perfect pop song.
It's very pretty.
Very catchable, very pretty, but also like one of those kind of driving anthemic songs.
Yes.
I mean, it was a really, really beautiful song and so catchy.
And he was singing along.
He told us what the lyrics meant and what other song that it sort of related to.
Yeah.
And that was supposed to be it.
But he played the entire thing. The entire song. Because we were getting so into it. of related to yeah um and that was supposed to be it but he was only supposed to play a snippet he
played the entire thing entire song because we were getting so into it and that was supposed to
be it and then at a certain point one of his team members said hey bono we have to go and he was
like no no no i want to play them just short snippets of a couple of and then he played us
just two complete other songs yeah while like singing it, explaining how they recorded it.
And one of those songs was like a big, epic U2 song.
Like a big, you can see an arena just going crazy for one of these big, anthemic, huge songs.
It was.
It was like a classic U2 song, but also a little more experimental than Songs of Innocence still.
It was an incredible moment.
We were just sitting there beaming.
I was sort of like jumping up and down during one of the big songs.
And there were a couple of the engineers there were like watching this like I had no idea this was going to happen.
And they were smiling.
And at one point Bono even turned and was like,
Adam, you haven't heard this yet, right?
Right, yeah, Adam hadn't heard the new version of it.
It was just really crazy.
And so as far as we can tell, these four songs,
there are four very finished songs of experience songs.
Yeah, I expected them to be a little more like,
well, we don't know what we're doing with this.
This record sounds very close to being complete.
Yeah, and it sounds different than Songs of Innocence,
but definitely a companion piece.
I think this is going to go nicely with Songs of Innocence.
Yeah, it was great.
I hope that they put it out next year
how crazy was that
that Edge was asking
our opinion
I know
about whether they should
do it or not
and he
what you said about
you know
it coming out soon
it's not going to be
judged as harshly
because it's not
hasn't taken five years
that
watching him
hear that
he was like
nodding along
and sort of pointing at Bono
like yeah yeah this is this is what I'm talking about.
I could tell it was landing with him.
Yeah.
Should we go through this bag?
Yeah, well, go ahead and go through the bag.
I haven't looked at this yet.
I want to talk about some other stuff.
Okay.
So then after that, here's what happened.
There was a party at a club a few blocks away that was happening right then that was for
the website at U2.com
which has been around for 20 years.
It was their 20th anniversary party.
They had all the
people from the site there, all big U2
fans, and they had a U2
tribute band called the Unforgettable
Fire there who was playing the party.
Now, unbeknownst to
everyone except for the club the
club were the only people who knew i didn't even know they knew yeah the club knew because because
laura and everyone had worked it out beforehand um they had to with the club uh other than that
no one knew what was going to happen which is basically uh in the middle of the band's performance,
someone from U2's team came over to their technician, I believe,
and said, hey, I work with U2,
and U2's guitar tech is coming and wants to maybe play Where the Streets Have No Name with the band.
Do you think they'd be into that?
And now U2's guitar tech is very well known with U2 fans.
And so they were saying, oh, definitely, that would be amazing.
So they gave guitar specs for how supposedly the guitar tech
wanted the guitar to sound and put it through the pedals
and all the specs that they needed.
So they tell the band, and the band is really excited,
and so they introduce the guitar
tech who comes out on stage.
Dallas?
Dallas.
Something.
Yes.
Obviously very well known to YouTube fans.
He comes out on stage, he fiddles around with the guitar, makes sure that it sounds the
way it's supposed to sound.
Right, right.
And then Edge and Adam walk out on stage,
this little tiny club, surprising the band,
surprising the fans,
and we're in the back of the club at that point watching it.
It was incredible.
And it wasn't that many people.
I mean, the club was like half full.
I mean, when you say it's half full,
it's a place that's sort of like the Roxy or whatever and and the even smaller i'd say maybe yeah and by the stage was in northern you know
it was packed with people and people were like climbing up on top of things in order to get
better views of it but to hear these guys and they're playing it with you know like a tribute
band drummer and singer who are just having the time of their lives. And meanwhile, the guitarist and the bass player
of the tribute band, they're not playing,
but they are like, can't believe this is happening.
They're on stage.
They play Where the Streets Have No Name,
which sounds incredible.
Sounds great.
The singer was terrific, by the way.
The singer was great.
And then they take pictures with the band
and it was the loudest I'd ever heard a small room
of people chanting, one more song, one more song.
So they play out of control after that. Um, and it was just,
and then they just walk off back into the night and the band had to follow that.
Yeah. They were like, okay, well let's play some more songs, I guess. Um,
but it was,
it was just really really fun and cool to see them out there doing stuff like that.
It was cool because we drove over with Laura and another person who works for U2
and walked in right as they were taking the stage.
And so it was kind of cool because we had just finished interviewing them like 40 minutes prior.
Right, and had been listening to these new songs and we're still reeling from this.
Yeah.
And just to watch them go straight from that
to hopping up on stage,
making everyone's year.
Yeah, year.
Yeah, life.
And then just hopping off stage and taking off.
Yeah, and I know the people at atyoutu.com
really appreciated that
and thought it was a nice tribute to them.
So that was really awesome.
And, you know, I thought it was was it was just a really cool experience for us to get to see you know see both
of those two things which is basically the band being loose having fun with fans doing a show
like ours which they don't need to do and just having fun with it so So I thought that was really cool. Yeah. It was all really fun and really cool.
And so this may be the final episode of this season.
Maybe we'll do some more.
Who knows?
I guess it all depends on what happens, what – I don't know.
Maybe we do another episode for the European tour if they change things.
Sure, or definitely if they come out with a new record next year.
And who knows, maybe we'll do a different band, we don't know.
But I did want to say that I think this whole experience of just doing this show, you reached out to me and said,
hey, I want to do essentially like a side podcast, just like a side project
that neither of us thought anyone would listen to.
Right.
And the trying to get the band on the show was sort of a joke at the top.
But I think it really bespeaks to the power of fandom where something like this can happen
to two people.
I think, and what I mean by that is like I go to Comic-Con every year and I see people
who are just passionate about things and who like things.
Yeah.
And there's so much of people out there saying, well, this sucks, this sucks, I hate this
movie or this TV show sucks.
It's really cool when people can just be passionate about stuff.
And not everyone who listens to this
show has been on board with what we're passionate about but they like hearing us talk about this
and we've converted a lot of people and i read that on twitter all the time and people send us
letters saying i never thought that i would ever even own a u2 album and now i own the entire
catalog and i listen to them all the time. I just think it's
cool to see stuff like this where people can start something to just talk about something they like
and have an experience like this is just incredible to me.
Yeah. And I think something that I couldn't articulate at the time because I could barely
articulate anything, but you kind of in a funny way alluded to it at the end because I could barely articulate anything, but you kind of, in a funny way,
alluded to it at the end of the interview, which was, you know, we did grow up watching these guys
and one of the special things about this particular band is from the very beginning,
and I've seen them play a bunch of times. I've seen them play on the Pop Mart tour
when there was huge sections of the stadium that were empty. I've seen them play in moments of
triumph, but I've never seen them play where they weren't playing as if their very lives depended on
it. And I think that's part of what inspired me as a kid watching them kind of doing what they love and doing it with every ounce of energy that they
have. And there is something genuinely inspiring about that. And I think that even though we're in
like totally different fields, there is something, some genuine inspiration there for people who want
to go pursue what they love.
And I think that you took that kind of inspiration and you were in that Hellraiser movie.
Yeah. I took that inspiration and I completely squandered it on garbage.
Well, I think, you know, just an episode like this and looking at Kumail, who has his X-Files podcast, and he now is on the X-Files.
I think the lesson here is if you ever want to meet a celebrity, start a podcast about them.
Just start talking about how awesome they are in a public forum.
The other thing is it's not like we tried super hard to get them.
It's not like we were chasing them down.
They were really cool and kind of met us halfway.
That's part of the cool thing about the fact that they met.
It was really incredible to have them put that much work
into finding out what I had for lunch
and what you eat during the episodes.
And I mean, they really went above and beyond
to make us feel comfortable and to make it a good experience for us.
It was really fun.
Yeah, it was really great.
Well, I think that's just about it.
And in the meantime, I've taken the contents of these bags out.
There's hats.
There's buttons.
There's even, in a sense, an experience necklace.
There's some water bottles.
And I can confirm that there are no fucking t-shirts.
No fucking t-shirts.
Yeah.
It's disappointing.
I mean, that's the real lesson about all this.
Bring the t-shirts next time.
They're just trying to get at us, Scott.
They're just...
That's how I feel.
I think those four guys are trying to fuck with us.
I think the whole thing about them running out of t-shirts, that might have been fake.
I think that was bullshit, man.
Oh, man.
It really gets under my skin.
Well, you know what?
That's going to be it for this extra jumbo-sized episode.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Let us know what you think.
And that's going to be it.
And any final words?
Just want to say thank you, Scott.
This has been so fun.
Yep, thank you.
And we do want to say that if you're out there listening to this show,
that we really hope that you have found what you're looking for!
Bye!
Bye! Bye. Bye.
Bye. Don't forget that Audible has over 180,000 titles to choose from. So go to audible.com slash bono for a free 30-day trial and a free audiobook.
And now with WhisperSync technology, you can bounce back and forth between the audiobook and e-book without losing your place.
With easy chapter navigation and annotated bookmarks, never losing your place again, what's not to love?
Audible also offers a great listen guarantee.
You can exchange any book you're not happy with for another title anytime, no questions asked. What are you waiting for?
Go to audible.com slash Bono for a free 30-day trial and a free audiobook.
This summer, you center, you monster. The world's greatest screenwriters. So it appears it is to be
a chess match after all. And Hollywood's brightest actors.
How do you just stop believing
in it all? Will come together.
Eventually, you will
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The Blacklist Table Reads takes
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It's like a movie for your ears.
You have no idea how committed we are.
The story continues every week with a new movie every month.
The Blacklist Table Reads, hosted by me, Franklin Leonard,
and not in the movie trailer voice.
Check it out on iTunes, at wolfpop.com, or on your favorite podcasting app.
We'll see you there.
This has been an Earwolf Media Production.
Executive Producers Jeff Ulrich and Scott Aukerman.
For more information, visit Earwolf.com
EarwolfRadio.com
The wolf dead.
Hey, Queeros.
It's me, Cami Esposito, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, Queery.
You can sit in on hour-long conversations between me, Cameron Esposito, and some of the brightest luminaries in the LGBTQ family.
Queery explores individual stories of identity, personality, and the shifting cultural matrix around gender, sexuality, and civil rights.
Plus, it is fun.
We have had some incredible guests.
Emmy winner Lena Waithe?
Yes, definitely.
Congressman Mark Takano?
You bet.
L Word creator Eileen Shakin?
Yes.
President and CEO of GLAAD, Sarah Kate Ellis?
We definitely have.
We've got celebs.
People like Trixie Mattel, Evan Rachel Wood,
Tegan and Sarah, the band, and the people separately on two different episodes. We also have activists and change makers in our community. I think it's a one of a kind show full of chats
you have never heard before. It's identity, it's community, it's query. You can find query
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wherever you get your podcasts.