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"I'm sure there are many levels on which people come into our music. You may find 16-year-olds into the phenomenon of the Edge." -- Bono |
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"I'm sure there are many levels on which people come into our music. You may find 16-year-olds into the phenomenon of the Edge." -- Bono |
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Stealing Hearts at a Cleveland ShowU2 fans learn the stories behind the scenes from U2's design team
@U2,
June 17, 2003
U2 are back in the studio this week, and will spend part of the week sharing the fruits of their recording sessions with the design team at Four5One. The goal: Developing the artwork to fit the songs that will appear on U2's next studio album.
That piece of news was one of many shared this past Saturday evening by Four5One designers Steve Averill and Shaughn McGrath at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. Four5One is the design studio which has developed artwork and imagery for all but one of U2's albums (Rattle and Hum being the exception) since the band started in the late 1970s. Averill and McGrath both informed and entertained the audience with stories behind the projects they've done since U2 was first starting out as a young band. They told the story of U2's first look at the proposed cover for the Pop album, and how Bono and Edge both wanted their colors changed. But Larry, McGrath said, was particularly demanding that he not appear in pink on the album sleeve. "Sleeve or no sleeve," McGrath remembers Larry saying, "there's no f---ing way I'm going to be pink." Laughs also followed the story of The Joshua Tree photo shoot on a very cold December morning in the California desert. Bono insisted, Averill said, that the band pose in T-shirts "this cover's gonna come out in the summer, it's gotta look like it's really warm!" There were more laughs later when Averill and McGrath recounted the discussion about using a heart-shaped logo as a prime image for the Elevation tour. "No GIRLIE hearts!!!" was Larry's demand, they said. (McGrath later confessed, in the evening's most touching moment, that he drew the scribbled Elevation heart in a moment of inspiration after the birth of his first children, twins.) Certainly the biggest news for U2 fans to come out of the presentation was that as far back as 3-4 months ago the band had shared 8-9 new songs with the Four5One team to help get the designers thinking about directions and ideas for the imagery. (The process, Averill and McGrath revealed, usually involves meetings of six people -- themselves and the four band members -- with U2 manager Paul McGuinness taking part in design meetings only occasionally.) On learning that Averill and McGrath have already heard so many new songs, the crowd shouted "Sing them!" -- a request that the designers promptly and politely declined. McGrath did echo some recent quotes from Bono in the press, saying that the sound is very raw and guitar-oriented, and adding that it sounds like U2 feels "it's time to have revenge on the Strokes and the Hives." The 90-minute presentation, titled An Evening With Four5One, included a project-by-project walk-through of much of Four5One's work for U2. It expanded on both the public display now seen inside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's U2 exhibit, as well as the new book introduced in conjunction with the event, Stealing Hearts at a Travelling Show: The Graphic Design of U2 by Four5One Creative. U2 fans were treated to a number of inside stories and information about past projects, including:
Four5One's book, Stealing Hearts at a Travelling Show: The Graphic Design of U2 by Four5One Creative, is on sale now in the music store at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, or can be ordered online through Four5One's web site, www.four5one.ie. (Special thanks to Dan Eliot and Angela Pancella for assistance with this story.) © @U2, 2003.
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