U2

This is where I make an admission. I know that "Heartbreak Warfare" sounds like U2's "Bad." I knew it when I wrote it. I always knew it. But I'll tell you why I did it anyway. Trust in that song, that I didn't want to rip off U2. There are tons of time that I bring up idea when I'm writing and I go, you know what, I just got on that wavelength of that song. I thought of that song as I was writing. And I don't let it happen.

I literally never considered that song until after the song was written. And so I let it pass. Cause I could live with it. I could explain it to myself. You gotta be able to explain things to yourself when the lights go off and you get into bed. You gotta deal with you at the end of the day. So I said, you know what, I could deal with having a song that sounds like U2's song, "Bad," which I love.

So anyway, this is—it's "Heartbreak Warfare."

Blackbird Spyplane: Why reanimate that era specifically?

JM: “You and I were there — we know what that dynamic innocence sounded like, and that melodicism. When ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ comes on, to us it represents this incredible innocence and excitement and wonder and promise. And in that era it wasn’t necessarily about inward psychological drilling, it was about excitement pulsing outward: ‘What are we gonna do out in the world?’ I think music got very interior, where it became about the struggle within. When I listen back to Sob Rock now, the lyrics are very inward — which feels very now — and the music is very pump-your-fist-in-a-convertible — which is very then.”