U2 Writing New Music for <i>Spiderman: The Musical</i>

BY Josiah HughesPublished Jan 8, 2009

There's been a lot of talk about U2's upcoming "rock-reinventing" album No Line On The Horizon, especially from the band. But the reality is that Bono and the Edge have been secretly at work on another project leftfield enough to make five release formats seem like nothing. That project is none other than Spiderman: The Musical.

In a recent interview with Q, the Edge opened up about the project, revealing that he and Bono have already written numerous songs with Tony Award-winning director Julie Taymor, who previously worked on the Lion King musical.

The Edge revealed some details about the musical set-up for the web-slinging show, saying that "there won't be a full orchestra; it'll be something like 18 or 20 musicians: string players, brass, some woodwind. The core will be a rock'n'roll band. But it is going to be interesting to write for other people. We have already written a lot of songs that are for women to sing. That's a whole other set of challenges, to write in the right key and all those technical things."

Of course, all this talk about Spiderman: The Musical doesn't mean they can't hype up Horizon. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Bono describes the Edge's guitar work on the new album as "real molten metal" and "very hardcore." While it's uncertain what exactly that means, it's possible that the new U2 album will have some serious metalcore breakdowns.

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