Slane Castle with his engineer Shelly Yakus and engineer Randy Ezratty, whose mobile recording studio U2 would be using once again. However, at the last minute, McGuinness informed Ezratty that they would be proceeding with different producers. U2 instead had turned their attention to hiring musician/producer Brian Eno. Guitarist the Edge had long admired Eno's music, particularly his ambient and "weird works". The group were also fond of his collaborations with Talking Heads. Eno was hesitant to work with a rock band and when contacted by U2, he told them he was considering retiring from music production to become a video artist.McCormick (2006), pp. 148–149 Reluctantly, Eno agreed to meet with the band in Dublin and brought along his engineer Daniel Lanois with the intention of recommending he work with them instead; Lanois had his own ambitions of producing a rock band. When the band played Under a Blood Red Sky to Eno, his eyes "glazed over". The Edge said of him: "I think he was intimidated by the lack of irony in what we were doing. He'd come from Talking Heads, the Rhode Island School of Design, living in New York, and here was this Irish band hitting everything full on, completely earnest, hearts on sleeves, no irony at all." Eno also thought that the group were "frightened of being overpowered by some softness". His doubts were resolved by Bono's persuasiveness and his increasing perception of what he called "U2's lyrical soul in abundance". Eno was impressed by how they spoke, which was not in terms of music or playing, but in terms of their contributions to the "identity of the band as a whole". The band's discussion about pursuing different recording techniques and capturing the ambience of a recording space also piqued his interest. Ultimately, Eno and Lanois agreed to produce the record with the understanding that if Eno's working relationship with U2 was not fruitful, they would still have a solid producer in Lanois on which they could fall back. Island Records boss Chris Blackwell initially tried to talk U2 out of hiring Eno, believing that just when they were about to achieve the highest levels of success, Eno would "bury them under a layer of avant-garde nonsense". Nick Stewart, also of Island Records, thought the band were "mad". Blackwell instructed him to dissuade U2 from working with Eno; Stewart recalled Blackwell telling him, "You better sort