U2’s SiriusXM U2 X-Radio channel will launch live on Wednesday, July 1 at 3:00 p.m. ET with an extensive lineup of programming including unreleased offerings from the band’s vast music vault and new shows presented by Bono. and The Edge.
The Edge show, Near the edge, will present the guitarist chatting with other musicians such as Tom Morello, David Byrne and Carlos Alomar, along with artists and other prominent cultural figures. Bono, meanwhile, will head Calling bonus. According to a press release, that show “will explore seven questions about life, work, hope and the future” with the guests; Chris Rock is the first.
There is also the show on Friday night. Discotheque, presented by DJ Paul Oakenfold, which will highlight U2 remixes and dance-friendly songs. Wish It will be a forum for fans to tell stories and play their favorite U2 songs. Elevation, hosted by Irish broadcaster John Kelly, will air once a week and “celebrate good news and insights from the world of science, medicine, faith and the arts.” Finally, (Guest) Play U2 It will give well-known fans of the band, such as Matthew McConaughey, a chance to play their favorite U2 songs.
SiriusXM President and Chief Content Officer Scott Greenstein says Rolling Stone that the idea of a U2 channel goes back many years. “I first mentioned it to them a decade ago when we started designing channels for artists like E Street Radio, Grateful Dead Channel and others,” he says. “You couldn’t look at that concept without thinking about U2. It will be a diverse and unique platform that will evolve with them over time. ”
The Edge spoke to Rolling Stone on the channel, along with his life during quarantine, the status of U2’s upcoming registration and the possibility of a tour to celebrate the upcoming 30th anniversary of Achtung Baby.
Tell me the back story of how this all came together.
It has been an ongoing discussion for several years. Scott Greenstein is someone we have known for a long time. He is the boss of Sirius. By spending time on the west coast, I’ve been able to dive in and see what’s going on. It was something we thought to ourselves: “At some point, maybe we should make our own channel.”
We made the decision, in consultation with Scott, that this was the time. We had like five years of touring where it was impossible to consider it. This year in particular seemed like an opportunity in terms of our availability, our bandwidth. We said, “OK, let’s do it.”
We had an idea of what it would look like, but then we put meat on the bone and we really dug and said, “What are we really going to do?” That was the fun part: planning and strategizing with each other and with our extended team and Sirius team to figure out what the right offer would be.
It must be that you have to fill the radio waves 24/7 for the foreseeable future.
It is. We’re healing a lot of that, but we’re downloading some of the actual song order assembly to the Sirius team. We are generating song playlists. We are very involved in the content, if not the actual steps to put it together. I have done many interviews for my little one Near the edge show. That has been a lot of fun.
Tell me the type of guests you want to book in that program.
It’s a lot of music people. The first group of guests are all musicians and many of them are guitarists, as expected. I have had excellent conversations with David Byrne, Carlos Alomar, Noel Gallagher, Joe Walsh, Tom Morello.
That is the first phase. But I’m excited about the possibility of opening it to some of the other areas that I think would interest U2 fans and listeners of the station. I think [it would be good to book] people with very interesting areas of experience and knowledge that are not necessarily music if I think there is a general and attractive interest. It could be in literature or science, cinema … any thinker who has interesting ideas that are really worth giving a platform to, would be on the list.
Will not be in the Near the edge show, but one of our first guests will be Bryan Stevenson from the Fair Justice Initiative. I will talk to him for another program that we are going to do on Sunday morning. Elevation. That is an indication. And obviously, Bryan’s initiative couldn’t be more current with what is happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. We are trying to find content that fascinates us personally, but also that we think our fans would be fascinated.
Tell me about the music itself. Are you opening the U2 vault and playing unprecedented concerts and things like that?
We’re. We’re tough.We don’t want it to be just an endless U2 file of weird shots and weird recordings. We will try to keep it at a very high level. But definitely one of the exciting aspects is giving some of the songs a real day in the sun that they haven’t had. Radio over the years focused on certain songs from certain albums, but there are many that really deserve more attention. And we will present some unheard live recordings.
We have shows that will be more dedicated to club culture as part of our work. And since the 1980s, we’ve been generating a lot of mixes designed for clubs. That would be a space on Friday night to get people ready for the weekend.
In fact, I’m working on some little pieces of music for the channel. I’m having a lot of fun with that. I’ve never done before. We’re really trying to customize the channel’s sound and make it sound like it’s coming from us, which it is.
Tell me about the concert vault. When did you start recording each show and actually archiving them?
There are recordings from a long time ago, but what we often had on the day was just the departure from the board. That basically means you have only the dry output of each microphone. There are no recordings of the crowd or the atmosphere of the venue itself. Some of them were made only as references.
With that said, I think there is a vast concert vault in the last 15 years that we can glean from those that have been recorded with audience microphones and all the things a great concert mix would like to do. We have a lot to choose from.
Are you open to bootlegs that sound really good?
Yes. We were a famous band for printing [bootleg] work of art We put out ads in UK music magazines that included artwork for bootleg cassettes from a show we did in Dublin on December 31, 1989. It was on the Lovetown tour that bothered everyone who recorded . There was a great quote where they said, “This is a ridiculous idea. The only people this can benefit from are music fans.” We went, “Yes! You are absolutely correct!”
Did you listen to E Street Radio and the Pearl Jam channel to hear how other artists have done these things?
I did. I heard quite a lot of the above. They are all different, which is fun. My conclusion was that the more engagement the band can get, the better it gets. In this world where we have all these wonderful streaming services with their insanely powerful AI healing, there’s still something really fun about feeling like there’s a real person behind the options you’re listening to, in terms of the songs and the order of performance. and the interstitials, feeling that connection. We really want to make sure that people have an idea of who we are through this channel, really, and a closer connection to the band.
How are you doing your show logistically? Are you talking on an ISDN line?
Right now, with the lock, we rely on digital communications. I’ve experimented with a few options, but mostly it’s just Zoom. I’m trying to organize a backup, a proper recording on each end, and then you marry both of them, but you have this original call roadmap that you can record. And there it is for reference. And if something goes wrong, you definitely have something there.
How often are you going to air new episodes of Near the edge?
I think initially we’re going to start once a month and see how it goes. As I say, this is only unfolding. I love the fact that Bruce [Springsteen] Your level of commitment has really changed. It really turned their channel into a platform to express ideas and thoughts about what is happening. I think it is a great model of how these channels can really offer fans a real direct connection. There is something about hearing someone’s voice. I think podcasts are getting really great for the same reason. It’s a really intimate connection, the power of it.
Springsteen also invites fans to tell their stories, which is something you’re also doing.
Yes. We are excited about that. We are not sure exactly where it will take us, but we are eager to find out. U2 fans are … there is such a wide spectrum. You have the very, very devoted U2 fans and the most casual fans. Then there are some who took activism very seriously and those who just love rock & roll. I’m sure we will have a wide variety of expressions on those fan shows and that will be great. It gives us a chance to meet our fans, which is really cool.
To change gear here, next year is the 30th anniversary of Achtung Baby. Are you going to do something to celebrate that?
There have been several ideas, but I don’t think it’s necessarily fair on the anniversary. It is one of those very important records in our career. We want to celebrate it, but we’ll see. I’m not sure yet.
Do you think you could play directly like you did with Joshua’s tree?
It’s on my list. Let’s put it like this. At some point, I would love to do something about Zoo TV again. It is strange how it turns around. It was very prophetic. We had no ideas at the time the world would become … that was all about cable news and that overhead. Now look where we are. It’s like a thousand times. It is like Moore’s Law applied to data. But it’s not the quality, unfortunately that’s what is really shocking. There is very little quality information out there. Much of this is corrupted.
That’s all the good thing about the [SiriusXM] channel. It is literally directly from the horse’s mouth. We are the ones who speak and people have the peace of mind knowing that they are getting the authentic output of the band.
Final question: Are you working on a new album?
I am always working on new songs. I haven’t stopped since we hit the road, so yeah. The question, I suppose, is whether we have a plan to end it or launch it. Not so far. But a lot of exciting music is being created.
