In a new interview with Pitchfork, Brian Eno and his studio compadre Daniel Lanois talk about their work on The Unforgettable Fire, the most shimmering and bearable of all U2 albums, released 25 years ago.

"[The band] wanted to do something different," recalls Lanois. "U2 [had] been listening to New Gold Dream by Simple Minds as a point of reference, a record they liked. The panorama of the ambience appealed to them. I think that Bono wanted to get to a place that was wider than stripped-down rock’n’roll, so we allowed ourselves the flexibility to embrace the colours that Eno and I had been developing."

Eno adds: "I had this phone call with Bono – he is the greatest salesman of all time, you have to bear that in mind – where I said to him, look, what I’m worried about is that I might change things rather unrecognizably…And he said, well, actually we want to be changed unrecognizably…"

Read the full interview here.

In related news, Bono has been whining about the fact that U2 have only sold 1 million copies of their latest album, No Line On The Horizon. Diddums.