The documentary feature film ‘It Might Get Loud’ opens in the UK this Friday, January 8th , about a meeting between three iconic guitarists of different rock generations: the legendary Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, garage blues primitivist Jack White of The White Stripes and U2’s professorial effects master The Edge. My interview with Jimmy Page ran in the Telegraph last week but while researching it I spoke to The Edge, who called from LA just before Christmas. Here, for U2 and guitar fans, is that conversation in full, in which Edge discusses the past and future of the guitar, U2’s new album, why they might play new songs at Glastonbury, the fate of Spiderman and the Edge’s previously unremarked resemblance to a Hollywood sex symbol.
It´s not often that you might find yourself on stage with some of the greatest guitarists in the world, so what did you learn from the experience?
What did I learn? Even though all guitar players are reaching for the ideal guitar tone, I was struck by how different they sounded, and in the hands of other people with different set of ears to put a sound together, its such a different result, and it just showed me how the instrument is so versatile. A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that’s true of a lot instruments, pianos sound like pianos, but there’s something about the guitar, the range of possibilities is much broader. And I really felt our differences influences and points of view were really contained within our sound and choice of sound and ways of playing.
Indeed, the way the different personalities express themselves through their instrument is something that comes across very clearly in the film. Yet while the individual journeys that bring you to that shared stage are fascinating, when you do all get together, there’s no great musical explosion, just a lot of tentative twiddling, really.
That was the other thing I learned: how useful drummers and bass players and singers are! Put three guitarist together in a room and what you get is lots of guitars. Also I was thinking about what would I play out of my stuff for these guys, and I realised what I do isn’t really designed to be heard solo. Its not like I sit down and write a guitar piece and that becomes a song. I actually rely on what Adam and Larry are doing to complete the picture. The Streets Have No Name doesn’t make any sense out of context, it just becomes this very Philip Glass like set of motifs, and the meaning is really in the changes in the bass and drums. So that was actually a nice realisation, I’m one of those guitar players who’s really integrated into his band. I’m not like Jimmy or Jack, who can play solo guitar that would stand up on its own.
Do you often play with other guitarists?
No, I try and avoid it at all costs. Jamming is really the most awful, excruciating experience for me, I really don’t enjoy it. First of all, that’s not how I work as a guitar player. I compose using the instrument, I don’t really sit down and play for the sake of playing stuff. So the idea of jamming – endless, directionless noodling around some nondescript chord progression – I really find very boring. Obviously a great song is fun to play, but U2 were never really in that phase of The Beatles in Hamburg or Van Morrison in showbands or Dylan in the folk clubs, of knowing and learning a big collection of classics. We never did that, and at the time we were forming as a band there really wasn’t a large collection of songs that we felt like learning. It was actually a moment where the past was being thrown out the window, so its very much part of our DNA as a band not to be too reverential, as a general rule, and to try and look forward all the time. Invention being what we value most highly as opposed to emulation – which is what a lot of musicians feel is important, being able to play like the greats.
So what did meeting Jimmy Page mean to you, because at the time of U2’s origins, at the beginning of punk, Led Zeppelin and the so called dinosaur rock bands were almost seen as the enemy, something to be rebelled against.
Before meeting Jimmy, I listened back to some Zeppelin stuff and realise it has stood the test of time. It has the hallmark of timeless music, it hasn’t dated, while so much from that era really did date and in fact has completely vanished. It was really dynamic, the visceral power of it was pretty thrilling still, and it brought me back to when I was 14 or 15. That was a nice realisation. And also meeting the man and realising we had so much in common, and actually we are kind of brothers in arms rather than antagonists in terms of musical philosophy.
So what did you find that you had in common?
I think what has come through, after all the dust has settled on the music of that era, is that everybody assumed that what was important was improvising and having a dexterity with the instrument, so that Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, the gunslingers of the time, were highly revered, but it turns out it was actually always about composition, always about idea and themes and stuff that you actually had to write. And that where I think Jimmy Page scored, is that his guitar playing was a lot more composed than any of the others of that era and much better for that. And although it’s probably uncool to admit it – and I don’t know if he would ever admit it – but even his solos were really well composed and thought out. I don’t think he was just a guy who would sit down and play the first thing that came into his head, like a Gary Moore, Jeff Beck or Eric. I think he really had the chance to figure things out. It’s the discipline of the work. Its really sharp, really hard, not fuzzy. That was one of the realisations for me.
If you were to listen to a collection of the best selling singles of the last year, the guitar is almost noticeable by its absence. When it comes to pop music, its all about synths and electronically treated sound, so even where there is a guitar, its not necessarily recognisable, or the featured instrument. What do you think is the future of the guitar?
I don’t think it’s in jeopardy. It seems pretty bright. There’s always somebody on the horizon who seems to be really able to make the instrument their own, and find ways to use it that haven’t been heard before. The biggest band in America right now, in terms of profile and records is The Kings Of Leon, and before them it was The Killers, so there seems to be still a huge interest in guitar music. I’m looking forward to the next Arcade Fire album, and I think Nick Zinner from Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a guitar player who’s really done some interesting things. Ok, the electronica movement seems to be very much in vogue at the moment, probably MGMT kick started that, then you’ve got Justice and the Bloody Beetroots and all that hard dance stuff, but the guitar is managing to hold on, its one of the essential ingredients in contemporary music, like drums. Them Crooked Vultures is also quite cool. I’m not sure it’s on the level of classic but it’s a very interesting guitar record.
It’s been a strange year for U2. You had the biggest tour in the world and sold about four million of your album No Line On The Horizon, but it never really caught fire the way other U2 albums have. Indeed, its perceived as a flop.
Yeah, there is that smell in the air. We allowed ourselves to think about having a big hit record when in fact it’s a very interesting record but it’s quite a dark record, it’s not really radio friendly. Even ‘Get On Your Boots’, which is high octane, its not a slam dunk of a hit song. I think everyone just got caught up in the plan as opposed to sitting back and thinking about the record we’d made. But I feel OK about it. Often U2 are accused of being more successful than we deserve, in this case I think this record is less successful than it deserved. I think its got some of the best songs we’ve ever written. ‘Moments Of Surrender’ is right up there, and ‘Unknown Caller’.
What about the new album, the long rumoured ‘Songs Of Ascent’, which is supposed to be based around more low key material from the Horizon sessions.
Well that’s what I’m working on this week, actually. I’m songwriting. In fact, I wrote something this morning just before getting on the phone with you, it sounds great. So on that level we’re pushing forward, we’re not taking it easy, but we won’t really know til the new year what we’ll be able to achieve. There’s a certain sort of practical window of opportunity to release the record that we are operating within. If the material isn’t ready for the early new year we’ll probably have to put it on hold. But I’m looking forward to the idea of playing some of the songs live before they’re released. That would be my consolation prize if we don’t get the album done. We’ve never done it, we’ve always talked to all of our producers about the idea, but I think it would give the tour a little frisson which I think it needs. If you have two or three new songs no one’s heard before thrown in from time to time, I think that would be very exciting, for us as well, to try them and see how they get on.
So we can expect to hear new U2 songs at Glastonbury.
Glastonbury is going to be fun. I’ve never been.
I think Adam is the only member of U2 whose been to Glastonbury. He went with the Waterboys in the Eighties
We’re busy men! We’re often actually doing U2 tours when Glastonbury is on, or working on a project, so its not so strange that we’ve not been. But what is interesting is the way people talk about it, its got this semi-religious aspect. Bono and I were talking about our last record, one of the sub plots is pilgrimage, and in some ways that’s exactly what Glastonbury is. So we’re going to make our pilgrimage.
And what about Spiderman, the musical you have been working on with Bono, which seems to have run into a few funding problems?
It’s in this hiatus and were just waiting for word on the fundraising to get the production back on track. All the songs are pretty much written, we’ve got a bunch of lyrics to finish off, but all the music is pretty much there, and its all sounding really convincing. It’s a great script, great director, great choreographer. It will happen.
So 2010 is shaping up to be another busy year for U2
And they’re shooting the film of your book (Killing Bono). That’s great news. I was talking to the director about who should play me, and I think we agreed on Brad Pitt.
by Neil Mc Cormick
source:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk
