Bono on U2’s New Album: ‘Everyone in the Band Seems Desperate for It’

Almost ten years since the release of their last album, Songs of Experience, U2 is back in the studio. The band is cooking up new music and very likely gearing up for a whole new tour. If you hear it straight from the group's frontman, Bono, it's a matter of life and death.

"Everyone in the band seems desperate for it," Bono told Esquire's Madison Vain in our new cover story. "It’s like their lives depend on it ... And, as I tell them, they do."

In between discussions of family, politics, health scares, and slowing down—including the story of Bono learning how to sit on his couch and binge-watch Chef's Table and Fleabag—the singer confirms that U2 is working on new material for a new album, which they may greet with a whole new tour. The album is reuniting the band with producer Brian Eno, who also produced The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and Zooropa.

While the album doesn't yet have a title, at least one song is tentatively titled "Freedom Is a Feeling." Bono said this of the still-in-development piece: "The thing is, I don’t just want to be singing about freedom. I want to be freedom, the feeling. That’s what rock ’n’ roll has to be."

Bono also strongly hinted at plans for a tour. "I just like to play live," Bono said. Though Bono enjoys his cozy dwellings in Côte d’Azur, which Esquire explores with Bono in the piece, he's looking to get out of the house in the right circumstances. "You want to have some very good reasons to leave home," Bono said.

U2's last album, Songs of Experience, was the world's sixth best-selling album of 2017 and was supported by the Experience + Innocence Tour in 2018. More recently, U2 enjoyed a buzzy September 2023-March 2024 residency at Las Vegas's cutting-edge venue, Sphere. The production earned critical acclaim, with outlets like Billboard, The Telegraph, and The Guardian observing how the marriage of U2's artistry and vision with the venue's technical capabilities creates a show that forecasts the future of live entertainment.

Still, for U2, it's about the music, and even Bono admitted that he's unsure what the future holds. "I hope they’re going to still be there for us," Bono said of his band's fans. "We’ve pushed them to their elastic limit over the years. And now it’s a long time that we’ve been away. But I still think that we can create a soundtrack for people who want to take on the world."