...ON MUSIC

Edge: I'm known for my use of echo, especially after the Boy album came out. But it was really only luck that got me into it. I was growing tired of the same old sounds and I wanted some more colours for my palette. This was in our early days, when money was scarce and I know that whatever effects unit I bought I'd be stuck with it for months before I could afford another. I tried phasers and flangers but I wasn't particularly thrilled with any of them until I stumbled onto the Electroharmonix Memory Man in a shop. I took it down to a rehearsal and something about the sound of the thing sparked us all off. It was like adding seasoning to the soup and suddenly we became aware of all these different flavours in our music we'd never known existed. The older songs took on a completely new life while, for about a month, we went through and intensely creative period when the echobox inspired us to write something like two new songs a day! I remember that "I will follow" fell together in under 15 minutes. Somehow or other the Memory man prompted us to work together in a way we'd never done before and I'm sure that Boy would have been a totally different album without it. To begin with it helped us get close to that tough loud sound which we had live but had always eluded us in the Studio. But at a cost. Many of the guitar parts ended up a bit wishy washy and indistinct so we quickened down a little when we recorded October and tried for something a little less hectic and a little more thoughtful. I'm glad we did because it got us all into the idea that U2 should keep progressing and broaden our base, rather than simply sticking with one style and milking it for all it was worth, which as a terrible temptation which lots of bands fall into.

Edge: I get a lot of enjoyment from our music, because I discover things about it that were not thought about, that occur within the music. Lyrically and musically, there are trains of thought, ideas in the music that I know I won't understand until a later date. So in a sense I can relate very closely to what people see in our work. I can relate to their first listening, and I enjoy it. I think it's very rich. So I think that really is what we offer, an extremely rich music.

Bono: A brilliant guitar player, but who completely understates it as a person. He pulls no shapes. He's a man of angles, he's got his chin and his guitar and the elbows, and plays away, and then humbly takes the plug out of the amp and goes home. My respect for him grows and grows.

Edge: I reckon the older and more experienced you get as a player the more you lose your sense of adventure. Some people would argue that technique is a substitute for that sort of natural talent but I don't believe guitar playing is a technical thing at all. It's really about raw creativity.

...ON THE BAND

Edge: We never got into it because we wanted to make a living. It certainly didn't enter my head at that stage. I may have been naive but I'm not that stupid.

Edge: I don't think U2 will ever get to the stage where there's a formula. Our way of writing is always so much a part of experimenting and a feeling at the time. It's not just a conscious thing. Essentially, there are no rules to what we do. That's what people can't understand.

Edge: I think we've reached the point where we have the skill to direct the playing on each song right towards the feeling that caused the song to be written. We're trying to strip away everything till we get to that cause.

Edge: When we formed, splitting everything four ways seemed like the best way of maintaining a genuine band identity. We wanted to avoid jealousy - we're all competitive with each other naturally. But if it ever became connected with a financial and ego thing, I think that would be a great shame. Maybe in a couple of albums we won't do it anymore, but up to now it's been one of the main reasons why we've kept it together as a group.

...ON HIMSELF

Edge: My life revolves around the music, the keyboard. My family should make a difference, but I'm not able to spend enough time with them.

Bono: The Edge is a really, really intense guy, he's got this incredibly high I.Q. he's great at sorting out issues of worldly importance, it's just that he forgets the everyday things like the chords or songs, where he is and so on.

Edge: All religion seems to do is divide. I'm really interested in and influenced by the spiritual side of Christianity, rather than the legislative side, the rules and regulations.

Bono: A brilliant guitar player, but who completely understates it as a person. He pulls no shapes. He's a man of angles, he's got his chin and his guitar and the elbows, and plays away, and then humbly takes the plug out of the amp and goes home. My respect for him grows and grows.

...ON DUBLIN

Edge: We're still very much connected with our lives before we were successful. Things have changed, but we haven't abandoned the values and ideas that we had at the earliest stage of our career . In Dublin itself and in Ireland, people enjoy celebrities, but they're certainly not going to become sycophantic lunatics if they meet somebody who's famous