Bono News

Bono has warned U2 fans they will "feel the difference" with the material they are working on for their next album.

The singer explained that the band are currently working in the south of France on the follow-up to 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. Following demo sessions in Africa earlier in the year, the singer reckons the new record will surprise people.

"We're just beginning the processes," Bono told The Independent. "We did some recording in Morocco last year. All the band went to an amazing religious music festival in Fez with some incredible sufi singers. It was a real humbling thing for a punk-rock shouter, listening to these people who just close their eyes for 40 minutes and sing the most sophisticated melodies."

He added: "We got this little riad, a small hotel with a courtyard in the middle and set up the band there, with a square of sky over our head. The two great catalysts of U2's recording life, [producers] Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, joined us. We'd record during the day and then disappear into windy streets of the medina at night. It was an inspiring experience and a drummer's paradise."

The singer said the band is now working through those demos during the French sessions and that while the new record is not world music, he promised fans would "feel the difference."

"U2 in dancefloor shock!" joked Bono. "Normally when you play a U2 tune, it clears the dancefloor. And that may not be true of this. There's some trance influences. But there's some very hardcore guitar coming out of the Edge. Real molten metal. It's not like anything we've ever done before, and we don't think it sounds like anything anyone else has done either."

He explained that fans might even get more than they bargained for.

"We have enough material for two albums but it has to be extraordinary," he explained. "And I think we've got that."

The singer, who was speaking to mark World AIDS Day on behalf of the (RED) campaign, insisted the campaign was making a different in Africa and called on the world to increase its efforts.

"Three years ago there was virtually no one in Africa on antiretroviral drugs," he explained. "Now you'll have 2 million by the end of this year."

For more on U2, check out their NME.com page.