U2 bassist Adam Clayton says the band's next album, Songs of Experience, is done.
He tells Variety, "[It] has been ready to go for awhile, because it didn’t require a lot of surgery, so to speak — it was a little bit of cosmetic surgery. So we said, 'We could put this record out this year, or we could celebrate The Joshua Tree and put out the [new] record when all that’s done, and then plan a tour around it and all the things that go along with a new album.'"
As for what we can expect, he says, "The new album is really part of a suite of songs that relate to [our 2014 album] Songs of Innocence, which was primarily designed as an indoor tour that had two halves — 'Songs of Innocence' and 'Songs of Experience' — and they were kind of bookends. We planned Songs of Experience as an indoor tour; we just don’t think it’s something that would work outdoors. The Songs of Innocence [arena] tour two years ago was really powerful and really touched people and touched us. We wanted to continue that intensity and I think that’s what we’re going to try to do."
While Clayton is not saying when it will be released, a source close to the band tells us it could be out in the fall.
U2 is in Toronto on Friday and Boston on Sunday.