Bono: Even More New U2 Music Coming Soon

Irish rockers planning to release companion album to No Line on the Horizon later this year

By Josh Grossberg Mar 04, 2009 7:10 PMTags
U2, BonoAlexandra Wyman/Getty Images for Thelonious Monk Institute

Turns out there's even more on U2's horizon.

Still in the thralls of a virtually unprecedented publicity blitz to hype yesterday's release of No Line on the Horizon, the Irish rockers have announced they are already planning to drop another album of new material later this year.

The sister work is titled Songs of Ascent and is described as having a mellower vibe.

"We're making a kind of heartbreaker, a meditative, reflective piece of work, but not indulgent," Bono says in a new Rolling Stone interview. "It will have a clear mood, like [Miles Davis' masterpiece] Kind of Blue. Or [John Coltrane's seminal] A Love Supreme would be a point of reference, for the space it occupies in people's lives, which is to say, with that album, I almost take my shoes off to listen to it."

While no official release date has been set, Bono says that he, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. already know the track they plan to issue as the disc's first single, the anthemic "Every Breaking Wave, " which ended up on the cutting-room floor during Horizon's sessions.

The band has a track record of cranking out follow-up material soon after major releases: Rattle and Hum came out right after The Joshua Tree, and Zooropa was a quickie sequel to Achtung, Baby.

Additionally, U2's singer and chief songwriter discusses the operatic tunes he penned with the Edge for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the musical hitting Broadway next year from acclaimed director Julie Taymor and starring Across the Universe's Jim Sturgess as Peter Parker. Bono says he's hoping to pitch Clayton and Mullen the idea of releasing the music as a U2 album in the spirit of classic rock operas.

"If we do, it'll be a monster, ‘cause it's the most accessible music we've probably ever written, " he says. "It could be our Tommy. We could do it with guest stars and everything." But Bono appears to have an uphill battle, with Mullen expressing his reluctance in the interview.

U2 is in the midst of a five-night stand on CBS' Late Show With David Letterman. To mark the residency, yesterday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg temporarily renamed 53rd Street and Broadway, site of Letterman's HQ at the Ed Sullivan Theater, U2 Way.

The band isn't going away anytime soon. Aside from playing Good Morning America, the Grammys and the U.K. Brit Awards in recent weeks, U2 has also lined up a rare club gig in Boston on March 11 and plans to launch a worldwide stadium tour in July.

Poll

U2 Overkill?

Is U2 going overboard to hype Horizon?
No way. It's what fans have been looking for.
88.6%
Yes. Leave the plugging behind.
11.4%