Bono has given what he has insisted will be the last interview on the promotional cycle for his memoir Surrender and its spin-off Apple TV film Stories Of Surrender.
It’s a wide-ranging conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe during which the singer touches on his heart surgery, family and faith. He also talked about how writing the memoir, and promoting it, and the film has been a cathartic experience for him.
“At some point you have to let go of those demons,” he told Lowe. “And I feel like I’m walking a little different now. I feel free-er and I feel like my voice has come into something different...
"I feel like my voice has got to a place where I’ve never been before and I thank the project of writing the memoir and the play and the book and the film all the rest of it for getting all that out, ready for the future and the sound of the future.”
He also revealed how the singer’s family had attempted to get him to slow down after his surgery in 2016. “They said things like ‘you need to change your life. You need to relax’. (I said) I am not taking up golf! What do you mean exactly? Then they were saying ‘well just do normal shit. Do you watch TV series and streamer?’” It seems his children got him into The Crown and Succession.
The heart surgery also prompted him to take a step back from activism. “I’m there, I’m not going anywhere, but I’m backstage (now). I’m not front of house. And that means I can be more of a servant to...I want to serve Edge, Adam and Larry while they still will let me, and Ali (his wife).”
The U2 singer also hinted that the band’s next album – whenever it does finally emerge – will be a ‘looser’ band record. “Rock n’ roll has gotten quite tight,” he suggested. “We got a little tight for Songs Of Innocence, Songs Of Experience. And then, I felt I want to feel the room. I want to feel the way these musicians bump up against each other. With Nirvana you feel that, Wunderhorse – you know them? You hear them in the room.”
“So that will be part of our future. It doesn’t have to be all of it, because there are moments when you want to disappear into sounds you haven’t heard before. But at the heart of our band is...three musicians. And a salesman,” he said, depositing yet another of those seemingly-effortless trademark Bono quips.
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