THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE

Driving into Heathrow Airport six weeks ago, Island Press Officer Neil Storey played me an advance tape of U-2's "War" Album. "It's going to be a Number 1 album", he predicted boldly, reflecting a feeling which was building momentum within the Island organisation.

I demurred. "War" was definitely destined to be U-2's biggest-selling album yet in the U.K., a certain top ten entrant and a probability for the top five - but predicting it to climb above all other competition seemed too brave, too optimistic a tip.

So much for the supposed advantages of journalistic detachment and objectivity. Overnighting in Bristol, U-2 woke up on Tuesday morning to find that "War" had performed the rare feat of entering the British album charts at No. 1 - the ultimate public accolade for their far-sighted fortitude in organising their affairs their own way. While the trend-sighters had been swivelling around looking for the new movement to start the year, boosted by the crucial success of their "New Year's Day" single, U-2 had slipped through their intelligence nets to land the ultimate prize.

No television sets were hurled from their hotel bedroom. U-2 don't celebrate that way. Speaking last Sunday from London, Bono admitted to a champagne breakfast, quaffed from the bottles sent by well-wishers but the morning's main business had been "to excavate Adam from his bed and throw him in the shower" - the blonde bass-player having been partying well if not wisely till 8 in the morning.

By Bono's account, it was the roadcrew, the "Cork Mafia" of Joe O'Herlihy and Tern Mullally and Dubliner Steve Iredale who were the most demonstrative. "You know those white flags we have at the back of the stage", he recounted, "well we really had to stop them bringing out the tricolour!..."

Nonetheless, the success of "War" must have suprised those who thought U-2 had vanished. It was a false impression, based on the simplistic belief that all creative and commercial activity is suspended once an act is off the front-covers. In fact - and this now makes absolute and indisputable sense - U-2's policy of strategic withdrawal through '82 was both intentional and well-founded.

Having toured exhaustively - and exhaustingly - through Britain. Europe and America, U-2 knew they had made hostage a fiercely loyal audience, certain to immediately support their next album. They also knew that they couldn't sustain the pressure of such touring schedules.

Personally, all four members needed a respite. Otherwise as they grew from "Boy" to men, all their earlier friendships might have been sundered by their global expeditions. Bono's wedding was but the public expression of the need to recover their private lives back in Dublin.

They were also aware that this, their third album, had to be conceived without distraction; the experience of "October" couldn't be repeated. Though a more substantial album than its critics admit, "October" essentially was prepared in pressured studio sessions, hurried on by fast-approaching release deadlines.

"October" certainly had a solid basis in both the band's own early ideas and those discovered in the first thrill of touring outside Ireland. For their third album, they had to start uniquely from scratch. Further touring, besides the few European festival dates they accepted, would have scuppered creativity at source.

They also knew the breed of album they wanted. When all around were cleansing their sound, U-2 refused studio disinfectants. "War" is a slap in the face" says Bono. "We wanted an album that would separate us from our contemporaries".

Even as far back as the recording of "October", Bono was speaking of his own demand for a harsher texture, an album with a more genuine noisome and aggressive style than the sparkling, quicksilver sound they seemed to be framing.

They weren't certain that their long-standing cohort Steve Lillywhite, producer of both "Boy" and "October", would continue working with them. The reasons weren't down to a rift in common purpose. Rather, Lillywhite has his own self-imposed rule that he doesn't work on more than two albums with any one act since he believes the relationship inevitably becomes stale on later collaborations. U-2 also felt it might be beneficial to move on.

But when other name producers were checked out on preliminary sessions, none met the exacting demands they make on any potential fifth creative contributor. Last summer I remember Bono speaking disappointedly of one international luminary whom they found to be essentially an engineer and a personality insufficiently assertive to stand up to them. "We were walking all over him" said Bono, or words to that effect ...

They just couldn't find the individual with the right stuff to lead them through to their vision of the new U-2 sound. After that unrequited quest, Lillywhite's entry was re-assured.

But the innovations on "War" aren't limited to the instrumental sound; the advances in using the Edge's voice are a second factor in changing the U-2 texture.

"He's got a really under-rated voice" Bono reminds me. "After all his father is a member of the Dublin Welsh Male Voice Choir. It's his voice, not mine, that we double-track for harmonies. It's also him who comes in on the chorus singing "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

Edge also has his own showcase on "Seconds", which establishes his credibility in this respect, unequivocally.

Bono also argues that his own singing has developed. "If you listen to "Red Light", there's this blues thing like "Twist And Shout" when I'm singing "Alone in the Spotlight", he says. But his most abiding memory is of Steve Lillywhite "making me sing 'till I bled".

Other fond personal memories are of his wife Alison's support when he was fighting a mental block about his lyrics, particularly on "Sunday Bloody Sunday". "She was kicking me out of the bed in the morning. She literally put the pen in my hand".

And when he adds that "Surrender" has multiple meanings once one "goes beneath the top soil", the reference is clear.

There was much to savour in January's "Top of The Pops" watching U-2, Echo and the Bunnymen and Wah! all scale the charts, the critics ' class of '80, later fickly discounted by the more fashion -conscious among the press gang. It had been forgotten by those who abandoned the good ship, that bunnyrabbits and other creatures of the same breed are prone to hibernation.

Certainly there had been no doubts within the U-2 camp about the band's resolution - those with access to it were convinced all along that "War" would be a major album. Even if this witness retained some scepticism about the likelihood of it arriving directly at Number 1, I had heard enough to realise that it was the genuine article, the epic album they had always been threatening to make. It was also common knowledge that Island would give it unremitting support in the belief that U-2 had built an unfailingly devoted audience, increased to potential major league status by the new fans who had come to the group through "New Year's Day".

"It could be our "Tropical Gangsters" of next year Island Publicity Director Rob Partridge told Niall Stokes back in December - the phenomenal sales of that album indicating just how big U-2's record company were thinking.

Their British tour selling out before it began confirmed the band's chances. Says Bono of their bolstered audience: "You knew something was happening when people were trekking overnight across Britain and sleeping in the back of buses, coming from Bristol, Liverpool, even Holland!".

Inevitably in Bono's words, last week it got "Silly". The anecdotes unfold. After Bristol they journeyed to Exeter and "well, you know us, we have this running battle with champagne", Bono states. They didn't get sprayed on stage - the cork refused to pop!

In Cardiff on Saturday, Bono (wisely) didn't give his opinions on the Arms Park Rout or (unwisely!) on Bonnie Tyler's video. Instead "with the Edge's Welsh heritage, I got the audience to sing "Land of My Fathers" and the 3,000 of them burst into song".

Poole found Island hiring a bus for the company's works celebration outing, an emotional event for their London office whose recent successes have come from New York and Jamaican signings, rather than what’s been developed from their own doorstep. This Sunday, Bono has the time to credit Island's version of the soft-sell. "People always tend to think of people working in a record company as cogs in an evil machine but we've always found the people in Island excellent and helpful to work with", he says.

Plaudits which go to the press office will be confirmed by Hot Press - but there's now a new dimension to be managed by them, as Fleet St. targets in. "There's been a lot of people booking into hotels" insinuates Bono.

He's definitely disinterested in their advances, wary of the warped celebrity that might be on offer: "I refuse the pressure, I don't acknowledge it".

Indeed, worried about overkill, Bono's also thinking of taking himself off public display to allow his fellows come further forward into the spotlight. At the start of our phone-call, he confesses, "Sometimes, I'm actually getting fed up with being Bono" - and you can hear the quotation marks - "It's a group that's made good. I can see people going down to buy a newspaper and saying "it's not that guy on the cover, yet again".

English and Irish newspapers might be wise to expect a slackening of the verbal salvos from his direction.

Nevertheless, while Bono's still bubbling, some further choice anecdotes. Like the one about the backhanded compliment from the black security guard after their Cardiff date: "He was six foot by six and he said he didn't understand why we were a success. He watched just about everybody passing through that dressing room and he said they all assumed a role, they all changed their clothes and their minds from being on and off stage. Whereas we didn't, we were the same people both on and off stage".

Even if he's still leery of fashion, he's alert enough to recognise the rise of groups like Southern Death Cult and the Sex Gang Children and note the badges of the fans who foregather in their dressing room. Having checked out such bands live, his opinion is that U-2's breakthrough "is endorsed by the rise of those bands".

But any such associations are an extra. Bono's proudest boast is that "we're not a Wave. We're not part of anything, we're part of ourselves. Now we know we're on our own and I'm so glad".

What next? Obviously America beckons: U-2 move on over for a two-month tour there, beginning mid-April. Released simultaneously with Britain, "War" is already enlarging their audience in the States too. Radio stations previously resistant to U-2 are adding it to their playlists, the album having registered as the "Most Added" album of last week on the three influential business Tip sheets. Against that optimistic backdrop, a healthy 200,000 copies have already been shipped in its first ten days on release. With "War" already in the top 20 in Scandinavia and the Low Countries. U-2 are moving up and out.

"Two Hearts Beat As One" is the next single, to be released with a free disc which will feature a remix of both it and "New Year's Day" by New York disco-mix ace Francis Kevorkian. The same Kevorkian has further plans for the Edge. Slated to produce Island's latest signing, Jah Wobble, he hopes to lure the guitarist into sessions for the album.

Other extra-curricular activities are planned: while the magnificient success of "War" must sweep them along in its tide, it won't blind them to other possibilities.

So the wind blows. U-2's dramatic emergence should only surprise those who haven't followed their career, who've not noted the qualities of care, determination, nerve and obvious talent by which they've shaped their career. Live, Bono can seem foolhardy but U2 have never run a ship of fools.

Actually, Philip Lynott may have pronounced one fundamental reason for their breakthrough: In an earlier Hot Press interview, his trouper's standards led him to complain that, despite the undoubted studio and attitudinal achievements of the new bands, few if any had shown the same capacity to generate the same peak experiences and live excitement once they quit the clubs for the larger halls. U-2's arrival is partly due to British audiences belatedly realising the point of that criticism: U-2 have worked assiduously on generating that grass roots support in a manner reminiscent of our other career stars, Thin Lizzy and Rory Gallagher. They never shirked hard graft, the punishing grind of extensive touring that builds fans’ loyalties even in obscure places. Now that commitment is being returned to them.

Patently some must ask: will success spoil U-2? Certainly not, if the fear is that they’ll be contracting the most viciously insulating social disease of celebrity. The crucial test, the real initiation for U2, occurred when they were escaping for Ireland to their international contract and proving their worth to their first world audiences. Ego-corrupting influences would have taken hold then, if they were going to … First time out of Ireland, going to L.A. receptions, you learn the basics of self-protection.

Anyway Bono’s on the phone stating the truth that "there’s an awfully big rift between being number 1 and number 2. Beating Michael Jackson – it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy."

Actually, that’s not a back-hander, he does admire the thriller but given the agenda, we weren’t stopping to swop opinions on Michael Jackson. Still I’ll take the liberty and get pushy with my ideal …

Number One in Britain is fine but swopping guest appearances with M.J. is when it really counts!

Bill Graham

Vol 7 No. 5, March 18th, 1983