Bono wants U2 to release a “noisy, uncompromising, unreasonable guitar album” before ‘Songs Of Ascent’.
The U2 frontman has revealed the upcoming record – which the group have been teasing since 2009 – is on hold because he is keen to first drop an AC/DC-style rock record.
He said: “We all make mistakes. The progressive-rock virus gets in, and we needed a vaccine. The discipline of our songwriting, the thing that made U2 – top-line melody, clear thoughts – had gone.
“With the band, I was like, this is not what we do, and we can only do that experimental stuff if we have the songwriting chops. So we went to songwriting school, and we’re back and we’re good! Over those two albums, ‘Songs Of Innocence and Experience’, our songwriting returned. Now we need to put the firepower of rock ‘n’ roll back.
“I don’t know who is going to make our f***-off rock ‘n’ roll album. You almost want an AC/DC, you want Mutt Lange. The approach. The discipline. The songwriting discipline. That’s what we want.”
But Bono believes U2’s time for having hits could be over, so he is keen to create a “f***-off-to-the-pop-charts rock ‘n’ roll song”.
He added to The New York Times newspaper: “I would have loved to have a pop song on the radio. Probably we’ve run a road on that.
“So right now I want to write the most unforgiving, obnoxious, defiant, f***-off-to-the-pop-charts rock ‘n’ roll song that we’ve ever made.
“I spoke to Edge about it this week. He’s going, ‘Is it that call again?’ ‘What call?’ ‘The one about we’re going to write the big f***-off rock song?’
“And I say, ‘Yeah, it’s our job!’ We can make songs famous now, but I don’t think U2 can make them hits.”