The six-track EP arrived on Good Friday, the follow-up to ‘Days Of Ash’, which landed on Ash Wednesday
U2’s The Edge has opened up about why the band felt the urgency to surprise-release their
Expanding on the two EPs arriving on key Christian festive days, he added: “There’s no doubt this collection of songs have a kind of seasonal bent but I wouldn’t get too carried awa with the religious calendar here. The point is there are ceremonies and rituals some of us are missing in this most material of times.”
Elsewhere in the 54-page Propaganda e-zine, Bono shares a conversation with the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, The Edge explores the inspiration behind each of the six new tracks, Adam Clayton discusses the EP’s artwork and its connection to recovery and producer Jacknife Lee gives an insight into the recording process. Check it all out here.
In his interview, Jacknife Lee, who has worked with U2 since 2004’s ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’, said that after the release of ‘Days Of Ash’, the band realised that “the album is not the work, for now. The work is about reacting to events in real time. Rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t do that often anymore.”
“So about two weeks ahead of Easter, the band said: ‘If we’re doing a record about the external world at the beginning of Lent, when you do fasting and contemplation and all those things, let’s put an Easter EP out on Good Friday that is more about the internal response to things’. We were discussing faith and hope so we leaned into that.
Propaganda has been running since 1986 and was inspired by the “punk-era DIY zine culture that embraced attitude, ideas and dialogue”.
