U2 are working on some new music.
The Edge tells Rolling Stone, "We’re doing some demos [in Dublin] and recording some tunes that we’ve been working on. [It's] just Bono and myself, but it's] a lot of fun...
"We're working on so many different things. During the whole COVID lockdown, I just went crazy into creating tracks and song ideas. So we’re starting to go through some of those, and we’ve got an awful lot of material to wade through to see what it is. And I guess we’re at that great honeymoon period of a lot of experimentation, and looking at all kinds of possible themes musically. I think the guitar will be a big part of the next record, but I don’t think it’s going to be a heavy rock album. I think it’s going to be a very different kind of use of the guitar, not a straight-up rock thing...
"It’s almost like we’ve got to find our way into the counterculture, and it’s bringing that to the masses rather than ever trying to find what’s happening, what’s fashionable, what’s going on. So the same is happening with us right now, and the songs will tell us the direction of the album. Music starts to come into focus."
Drummer Larry Mullen has also been chipping in following back surgery that required him sitting out their Las Vegas residency at the Sphere. The Edge adds, "He’s in great form. It’s lovely to spend time with him in the studio in a creative environment."
Asked when they might tour, Edge says, "We can’t really think much about the tour. There’s been some conversations about what we might do. But for us...it’s like how one album seems to respond to what has happened before. So I think we’ll respond in some way to what we’ve just done, which is the Sphere, with something quite different. But what that is, we’re not really sure just yet...
"I can’t wait to get something out, and hopefully get on the road."
U2's last album of original material was 2017's Songs of Experience.
Until then, U2 will release a deluxe edition of their 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, now titled How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb, on November 22nd.