|
|
|
|
|
Home
The Ongoing History of New Music: Part One
Part One - Part Two - Part Three
On March 2nd, 9th, and 16th, 1997, 102.1 The Edge, a Toronto based radio station, took a look at the history of U2, on their weekly program called 'The Ongoing History of New Music.
Also available in Real Audio format
They’ve sold more than 70 million records, gross revenues are equal to 1.5 Billion dollars, they are one
of the most important and most exciting bands of the last 20 years; they are of course U2,
one Irelands most important industries. They own lots of real-estate, restaurants, etc.
And the Irish government gets a large portion of their tax revenue. If music has a conscience
its name is U2.
At age 14 Larry Mullen posted a notice at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, in
Dublin, Ireland, which said that he wanted to
form a band...
"I spent all my pocket money on drum kits, and suddenly you get to the
stage after playing in your bedroom for 6 months, so you wonder where to go, y’know. I had heard of this fellow called Paul Hewson, he
was very notorious. And there was Adam, cos Adam was the new boy in town. And he used to where this fantastic afghan
coat, that’s how I knew Adam" -- Larry Mullen Jnr.
At the time, Paul Hewson (Bono), 16 at the time, was working at a Petrol Station as an attendant. Between pumping gas he would scribble songs. He had seen the note on the bulletin board, and being in a band intrigued him. Larry was interested in having Paul in his band.
They all plugged into Adam’s amp and everyone wanted to play the guitar. Bono wanted to
become the lead guitarist, but that didn't work out. So then they put him on rhythm
guitar. And then they tried to make him the manager of the group, which they called 'Feedback', because that's something they made. Dik Evans, The Edge's brother,
got bored with their amateur antics; he didn’t think that they would amount to much. People other than Bono, Edge, Adam, Larry, and Dik that attended the first rehearsal were: Peter Martin (a friend of Larry’s), and Ivan Mccormick (Peter’s friend). They didn’t make it past the first rehearsal.
In the Fall of 1976 Feedback won a talent contest at school playing their version
of Peter Framptons "Show Me The Way". Paul Hewson called himself Bono, after the Bonavox hearing aid company, and Dave Evans was now known as "The Edge"…it has something to
do with the edge shape of his skull (Bono gave him the name).
The band renamed themselves "The Hype", as that was something they wished to create,
and also, it was the name of David Bowies' backing band; they were always influenced by
bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols and Bowie.
The Hype’s first professional gig was at a Dublin Club called "Mcgonnigals" in
early 1978. They opened for a band called Revolver, with covers of The Clash and Sex
Pistols. On March 17th, 1978, The Hype won 500 pounds in a talent contest in Limerick,
Ireland. At this time Dik Evans was still a part of the band. He didn't bow out
until a couple months later. Anyway, as a part of winning this contest they got to
do a short demo session. One of the early songs they did was called magic carpet.
The first official U2 release was a 3 track LP, on 7" and 12" titled "U2-3",
and it came out in 1979. The tracks included: Out of Control,
Stories for Boys, and Boy/Girl.
"What I like most about being in a band is the feeling of writing a song, one
day it doesn’t exist, the next day it does exist, then you make it
into a record, then the record is played on the radio all over the world, and then you
go to some far off place, and you come in in the airport and you hear your song on the
radio, and that’s a really special feeling; that kind of pays your wages more than
anything" -- Bono
Adam was the first manager of the band. He placed an ad in some of the English music
papers that read "Manager seeks the whereabouts of 'The Hype' after an amazing gig, please
ring Brian - It was great lads!" There was no Brian, the phone number was Adam's. They attracted the attention of Paul Mcguiness, through a music
journalist contact, and, after seeing the band live couple of times he was impressed, and he
has been the groups manager ever since.
The next name change of the band was credited to a guy named Steve Averill. Adam was
looking for a good, marketable name for the band, Steve suggested U2, it stuck.
In the Spring of 1980 U2 had gathered so much momentum that they figured it was time
to release a full album. CBS Records had passed on them, but Island Records took at shot.
"You’re intimidated by the process of recording when you start out.
I remember I used to go home, I was 19 or 20 at the time when we were making Boy, and I was living with
my father. I would come home at three or four in the morning and I’d sneak up the stairs
because I didn’t want to wake him up cause he’d be in a bad mood. And he’d wake up and he’d
say 'what are you doing, what time is it?', and I’d say 'it's 1:00' and he’d say 'how long
have you been working on that record?', and I’d say 'a week' and he'd say 'and how long is
the record?' I said ’40 minutes’ and he said ‘geez, have you not got it right yet?’…" -- Bono
For the first three weeks the record got a big yawn from just about everybody. But
after a quick tour of the UK and N.A Europe, the album started to catch on.
The reaction was particularly strong in North America. After I Will Follow started
getting air play - it was Bono, speaking about what it was like when his mother died, there
was just 2 chords on this very sharp-sounding guitar, and then the drums started bashing,
and in less than 5 seconds people knew, ‘this was something different’...
I Will Follow
On March 22, 1981, U2 played a very hot gig at "The Foghorn" which is a club in
Portland, Oregon. After the show 3 young girls made it backstage to talk to the guys. They
hung out for about half an hour, and then left…they took with them Bono's briefcase. Inside
the briefcase was $300 in cash, and more importantly ALL of Bono's Lyrics for the next album.
12 months of work walked right out the door in that briefcase. This was a BIG crisis because
U2 were committed to go into the studio to record the second album in just 12 weeks. Bono was
frantic as it had taken him 3 years to write the lyrics for Boy, and he had a year invested
in the lyrics in that briefcase. There was a lot of panic, and a mini nervous breakdown, and
then everyone just pulled it together, and pushed ahead…"
Producer Steve Lillywhite just had one bit of advice: "You can write a song in five
minutes! DO YOUR JOB!!!". So a confused and desperate Bono was forced to improvise many of
the lyrics on the spot.
One song was inspired by an album of Gregorian chants that manager Paul Mcguiness was
always playing. Bono got his friend Jeremy and one his old high school teachers to help him
out with the Latin bits, and, when it was done, you can almost hear he panic in his voice…but
it sure made for a passion song…2,3,4
Gloria
Gloria. Part Catholic mass, part tribute to Bono's heroes Patti Smith and Van Morrison.
Both of them, of course, who had recorded songs named Gloria. That was the first single off
an album that was supposed to have been called "Scarlet", but that title was changed to "October"
because that's when the album was released; October 12th, 1981. And, bye the way, it was released
unscheduled too. Once it was out, U2 hit the road again, and audiences got bigger and bigger as
word spread about this Irish band with the passionate and animated singer who would do everything
and anything he could to get the crowd going. He would dive into the audience, he would climb the
PA stacks and sing from up there, he would run all over the stage…whatever was necessary to get
things happening. They played a lot of gigs over those 10 months, but they also made some time
to write some new material.
The third album was written, recorded, and mixed at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin with
producer Steve Lillywhite who had done the previous two albums. It was released on Feb 25th, 1983,
and it was full of political and social comment, while at the same time sounding mature and confident.
They called it "War", and by the end of the year Rolling Stone magazine was calling U2 the "best band
on the planet".
Now, this was one of the big songs from the album; it was the sixth or seventh track written
for the record. Adam Clayton came up with the bass line one day at sound check, and The Edge took it
and mated it with something he was messing around with on the piano. Once they had the basic structure
of the song it was Bono’s job to come up with the lyrics. Unfortunately, he had real problems crystal-
lizing what he wanted to say. He had all these images in his head but he didn’t know how to put them
into words in the context of the song and the music. So, once again he improvised…again…and again…….and
again. The band went through the song like "a million" times, they were just totally sick of it. In
fact, at one point U2 had decided that this was just too much trouble and we’re going to leave this
record off the album. In the end the group settled on this: …so what’s it about? Well some people will
take it to be some sort of serious political comment..uh-uhh…when Bono was singing these words he was
trying to write a love song to his wife….
New Year's Day
One song on War was serious political commentary. On Sunday, January 30th, 1972, people were
taking part in a civil rights march in Londonary(sp?), Northern Ireland. For reasons that are still
unclear, members of the paratroop regiment of the British army opened fire and killed 14 unarmed people,
another 14 were badly injured. One of the TV images of that day was of a Catholic Bishop, waving a white
handkerchief as a flag of surrender, crawling towards one of the injured. When Bono wrote the words he
wanted to make it clear that this song wasn’t in support of either side, he wanted to capture the feeling
of the young people of Ireland. The people that were sick of the fighting and the dying. And whenever
the band performed the song live Bono would often wave a big white flag, symbolizing not surrender, but a
clean slate. Not the green, white, and orange of the Irish flag. Not the red, white and blue of the
Union Jack. It was a protest song against politics, and the cycle of violence that seemed to have no end.
"It was Edge’s idea, Sunday Bloody Sunday, the idea to write to approach that issue was his idea
nobody ever thinks it’s (his?) idea, they think it’s me, I’m the guy with the flag….."
"There’s been a lot talk about this next song, maybe many too much talk. This song is not a rebel song.
This song is…" -- Bono.
Sunday Bloody Sunday
With the War album U2 became known as the band with a conscience. By the time U2 was ready to start
recording their fourth studio album they knew that they had taken things to about as far as they could go.
If they were going to remain relevant in a changing world they had to change themselves. They were also
getting concerned about sounding shrill and preachy. The "Bono is god" perception was getting way out of
control, and besides, the War tour had been very tense and the group needed to chill out abit. After taking
a little time to regroup they went back at it. But this time with a new producer. A producer runs a record-
ing session, much like a director runs a movie shoot. And after 3 albums with Steve Lillywhite, U2 realized
that it would be best if they found someone with a different perspective on things. That’s why Brian Eno was
brought in. And for back-up, Eno brought in his Canadian assistant Daniel Lanois. Everyone got along really
well.
Most of the early sessions took place in an old Irish castle using a mobile recording unit. There was
very little tension and, everyone’s playing loosened up loosened up a bit. Lanois was especially good with
rhythms; encouraging Larry and Adam to get a little funky from time to time. And slowly, everyone began to
have fun again. One day everybody decided to spend recording in the neud! for an entire day. The only guy
who was struggling was Bono. As usual he still didn’t have all of the lyrics together. And he had less than
10 days to write and record his parts because after that the band was scheduled to go on the road again. But,
as always, he got the job done.
One of he highlights of The Unforgettable Fire was a song that was based on a mistake. On November 16th,
1983 the band was in Honolulu, Hawaii. During sound check they were just jamming around, when either Larry or
Adam, they don’t remember which, screwed up their part of the rhythm section. But, instead of stopping the band
just kind of rode it out. Meanwhile, Joe, the sound engineer had a tape rolling. A year later that tape was
used to piece together a new song. Here’s Bono with his version of he story:
"When we put that together it was just a situation; we were on stage. Adam plugged his guitar in and he
put the strap around his neck. And he and Larry just in a moment, were playing what is the root notes to the
song. And I began to sing over it, and I was playing the guitar at the time, and Edge started to contribute.
And at the end of a 5/7 minute period the song was complete, in all it’s entirety: the melodies, verse, chorus,
solo…complete. And when we stopped, some people around there were all asking about this, and I said I have my
tape recorder and I got it here. So everyone came around and I said ‘look I think this is, this is…’, I pressed
the button, buzzzzz, the batteries were flat. And I had to go at a later date, I had to decipher the white noise.
And the we worked the song in." -- Bono
Pride (In the Name of Love)
Part Two
Media /
Discography /
History /
Interact /
Pictures /
Guitar /
Information /
Tours /
Links /
Search
|
|
|
