Bono at the Superbowl Halftime show

"I was there from the absolute beginning. What happened was Larry Mullen had some procedure done on his spine – it's a common thing with drummers, but they wanted to begin a new record. They said to me, 'Howie, we don't have a drummer just now, and we want to start writing, but we need some grooves.' So I was there from day one, and the whole album took just over a year to record." - Howie B. on producing Pop