Why the decision to experiment with dance culture?
A certain amount of it was just reacting to the situation we were in, where Larry couldn’t play for a couple of months. He’d hurt his back and was told he couldn’t really play for a couple of months, so he was exercising and all of that. Anyway, we didn’t have Larry so we thought, well, let’s just start writing with loops and drum beats. I mean that’s how I generally start anyway. Dating back to the War album, you know, I always worked on my own with drum machines and four-track cassette machines and got something going. The available technology has moved on quite a lot from 1983… It has a bit, yeah (smiles). But, at this point, I suppose it was the first time we were using loops. And Howie B. was coming in with stuff he’d prepared. And some of the best stuff that came out of those sessions were actually the live jams that we would set up, where I’d be on guitar, Howie would be on loops and Bono would be on voice. And Adam, I suppose, would be on bass sometimes as well. But there’s a
