All I want for Christmas is -- this bass.

U2 bassist Adam Clayton has teamed up with Fender to create a new signature bass. Fender’s new bass is a take on Clayton’s 1965 Jazz with a few tweaks.

“I played (my Sherwood Green 1965 Jazz Bass) a lot on the ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’ tour and I really love it,” Clayton said in a press release. “It had a great sound and the pickups were really, really punchy.

“I got Fender to clone the bass I had, but rather than make it an exact replica of my beat-up Sherwood Green bass I said, ‘Let’s make it pretty; let’s make it as beautiful as we can and make it all new.’ So, they put this together for me.

“This is a great bass. I’ve been using it on the new album and I’m going to be playing it live.”

Ah, mention of live dates -- the shape of things to come!

For anyone else interested in this, the Fender Adam Clayton Jazz Bass features an alder body finished in Sherwood Green. Its maple neck, which has a custom “C” shape made specifically for Clayton, is topped with a 20-fret rosewood fingerboard inlaid with custom pearloid block markers.

Clayton is clearly proud of U2’s newest album, Songs of Innocence. In a wide ranging interview with Hot Press writer Olaf Tyransen, Clayton says, “It absolutely represents where we are. As a band that’s been around a long time. I’m always a little bit wary of looking back and trying to rationalize where you came from, but I think, in certain ways, it revitalized some of the things that made us.”

In the interview, Bono clearly enjoyed stirring up his critics who refuse to stop howling over the invasion of their digital privacy after the band and the Apple dropped the new album into iTunes accounts across the globe.

“I almost like all this. I must just need a row to get up out of bed in the morning,” Bono tells Hot Press, "because I keep finding myself in them. If you repeat behavior, then you must like it. It's like a bad relationship. 'I don't know how that happened! I met that girl and she ran off with all my best friends… but it happened to me three times.’ You might have something to do with it. So I've just gotta accept that that's who I am.”

Bono does acknowledge that his ability to wind his critics up can make life difficult for his bandmates.

“I feel sorry for the band because I do tend to get them into these controversies. But isn't it great to be part of the conversation? In the zeitgeist. People talking about you. People arguing about you. It's kind of a great compliment.”

For anyone who misses the experience of paying for their U2 songs, well, the band can accommodate that as well! A deluxe edition of Songs of Innocence is on iTunes, which includes acoustic, stripped-down versions of “Every Breaking Wave,” “California,” “Raised By Wolves,” “Cedarwood Road” and “Song For Someone.”

With the exception of “Cedarwood Road,” which benefits from a stark and stripped reading, the other versions are fairly pointless. They’re just slightly quieter versions of the originals that reveal nothing new and are recommended for the fastidious collectors only.