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#1: Boy
Where they were: Barely out of their teens, struggling to get a record deal that would
transport the fledgling band beyond Ireland's parochial confines.
Where they went: Prostrating themselves before
the cynical salary-men of the UK music industry, the gauche quartet finally got to make their debut album.
Paul
McGuinness (U2 manager): We found it very difficult to get signed. Indeed, everyone had passed on U2. There wasn't any
bidding war. Island were literally the only label that wanted to sign U2.
The Edge: We were wildly inconsistent.
Certain shows were fantastic and others were Godawful, and we were capable of both on any given night and never really knew
which way it would go. An A&R guy could see a great show, then bring his CEO to the next gig and we'd be f--king dreadful.
Fortunately Island's A&R man was allowed to sign us without the CEO's approval, because there was no corporate boss at
Island.
Adam Clayton: We were tremendously green, but mixed with a kind of self-assuredness. I remember feeling
what we were doing wasn't in isolation. It was part of what Echo & The Bunnymen were doing, the Comsat Angels, Associates,
The Sound. It was about a generation getting a voice. And it was a way of getting out of Dublin, out of the suburbs. It was
stepping into another life.
Gavin Friday (ex-Virgin Prunes, long-time U2 friend, collaborator, 'consultant'):
The first jump, musically, was [debut Island single] 11 O'Clock Tick Tock. Martin Hannett was like a womble from hell, smoking
spliffs: his hair, the smoke, and this extraordinary sound.
Adam: He was absolutely bonkers. In a lovely way.
Knowing what I know now I'd guess he was an addict of some sort. And we were pretty naive. Couldn't understand what he was
saying. And I don't think Martin really understood us. He probably thought we were a little different to how we were, that
we'd be a little more savvy. The only thing we knew how to do was play live. Once you put us in a recording studio we just
couldn't play. He was scratching his head and complaining to Edge that the rhythm section couldn't play in time. And that's
pretty much true.
Gavin: Then they went and did Boy with Steve Lillywhite. And the jump then was incredible.
I wouldn't talk to Steve then, 'cos he sat in a swivel chair and had a Duran Duran haircut. But musically, he was right.
Adam:
Steve made recording Boy such fun, which we hadn't experienced before - we'd hated studios. We recorded the backing
tracks in two weeks, and they never changed after that. When we play those songs now, they're just so simple and compact.
It's taken us 13 records to get back to that point.
Bono: Rock music loved to celebrate the end of innocence.
It's about sexuality in its basest form. Rarely did it ever celebrate the complexity of those decisions. And what's extraordinary
about Boy is it really did. When you're in your teenage years, the cool thing has you in such a grip that it's a dare to be
that vocal, to whisper those thoughts about the world and the way you're watching your body change. Boy was the opposite
of machismo. I do think it's very unusual.
The Edge: I always thought some of our best music from that era would
survive. And I think now you can say it has. There's still records from that time I prefer to our first record but I still
think it's a great debut. I Will Follow is still a great tune.
Bono: I would like to do that album again, if
nothing else to stop singing like Siouxsie Sioux, who I was listening to a lot at the time. And I wasn't even thinking about
lyrics - they're just sketches. I'm definitely the person who let that album down. It's one of the best debut albums ever.
And if I'd sung it in my own accent and finished the lyrics it might have been really good.
#2: October
Where
they were: Critically acclaimed for debut album Boy, U2 entered 1981 with a rep as the hottest new band in the
world, thanks mainly to their fervent, evangelical live shows.
Where they went: On the first major US tour,
with second album October due to be recorded in six weeks time, Bono's suitcase was stolen - he lost his money, his
passport and the lyrics for the new album. This calamity soured an already uneasy atmosphere, as U2's Christian majority (Bono,
Edge and Larry) underwent a very real crisis of faith over whether their membership of a charismatic sect called Shalom was
compatible with being in a rock 'n' roll band.
Bono: All I remember was two girls in our dressing room in 1981
in Seattle, and we were either so in awe of these women that we didn't notice them taking my case or we just left the case
somewhere, but whatever, it disappeared. I actually got the lyrics back in the last six months and I'd love to say that they
were genius - they're not. They're shorthand. But 24 years later, I can't remember what those word association games are!
What is striking is there's a 'things to say from stage' section, and it's pretty hilarious. "Hello. My name's Bono. We're
called U2. We're now going to play a song we've never played before and we're going to make it up." Hahaha! The others always
reckoned I was hyping the value of the lost lyrics to explain the blank sheets of paper when they were recording October.
The
Edge: We didn't' have any songs before we started recording, which most people would think was a little rash. So we wrote
the entire album in the studio. I'd go in with Larry and we'd say, "OK, that's the backing track," and it would just be some
guitar riffs and some chord patterns. [Producer] Steve Lillywhite said about one of the songs, This bit and this bit are great,
but this bit is just awful - why don't we just chop it out?! So we took a scissors to the multitrack. And it became Is That
All? It was unbelievably precarious.
Bono: Songwriting was this very improvisatory thing where we really felt
we could conjure things up in the moment. We went in to make October with that in mind: we can do this on the spot.
The Spirit will inspire us. We will speak in tongues and words will form and songs will appear. And, y'know, they did! It's
questionable how great all of those songs are, but it is truly ecstatic music. October the song still stands up, it's a beautiful
picture. It's juvenilia but still with a strong idea at the heart of it. For all its naivete and for all its stained glass
approach to lyric writing, if Joy Division were mining the gothic end of a very large cathedral, October was the folk
mass/rave - 'cos it was ecstatic.
Adam Clayton: It was a very bleak time, because we'd come back from touring
Boy, and in those days we didn't have hit singles or anything, so we had just kept the record alive by being tenth
on the bill at various festivals over the summer and playing pub and club gigs in America. There was no money in the kitty,
we were pretty much living at home - I don't think any of us even had cars at that stage. We had part of Gloria, I think the
verse, which had been inspired by an Associates guitar part, and we may have had some of the piano for I Fall Down. (Doubtfully)
We maybe had the riff of I Threw a Brick Threw a Window [sic]. It was a case of, "Well, we'll make it up as we go along."
I think we probably would have pulled it together OK if, in the middle of it, we hadn't had Bono, Edge and Larry going, "Maybe
this isn't what we want to do."
Bono: We were very involved in a Christian community, where we started to question
the value of music and art versus civic duty, and changing the world brick by brick rather than by putting songs on the radio.
It was like a commune, really. No cash. We studied the scriptures and learnt a lot. And as it is with a lot of people at that
age, you see how wicked the world is and you wanna do something about it. You see excruciating poverty and you want to give
your money away. And so there was a moment, and I think it was Edge who kicked it off, where we thought, How much can we achieve
through rock 'n' roll, this - to use a classic line from the scriptures - vanity of vanities? (Laughs) There was a
sort of bonfire of the vanities going on at the time. Which may explain the horrendous haircuts and fashion faux pas! Because
truly, that's not where we were looking. Our eyes were elsewhere.
Larry Mullen Jr.: My memory of it is that
Edge did have difficulty around that time. And I do remember having a meeting about whether we should continue or not. I got
out [of Shalom] before anybody else. I'd just had enough, it was bullshit. It was like joining the Moonies. So I left, then
Bono left and then Edge left. And there was a period of time where Edge was really conflicted about whether the band could
continue or not. There was a pretty robust conversation, and Paul [McGuinness] was involved in it and so was Adam. I think
Paul was like, "This is ridiculous - don't be stupid. You've actually got something going on here. What about all the people
that you employ, what about all the people who believe in you?" Paul's argument, in the end, is what kept the band going.
I was happy enough to go on. Bono, I think, could have swung either way. We made the right decision.
Bono: We
realised that it would be a very unusual, maybe even perverse, God that would ask you to deny your gift. At some level we
did give up our band then, only to get it back even more so.
Adam: I suppose it was the first time I was able
to go, "Hang on, maybe these people are a little less stable than I thought!" Whereas up to that point I had always assumed
that music and spirituality were on the same page - I didn't necessarily see it as a conflict. Having got a record out there,
having toured it, they were prepared to go, "Actually this isn't what we want." Whereas I, having tasted it, went "Whey wouldn't
you? This is a more interesting and ultimately more satisfying journey than just staying in Dublin." So it was pretty baffling
to me. And when I say baffling, I mean I really couldn't understand it - in the one sense, because it was hard to identify
what was actually being said.
Bono: We wouldn't have survived this period were it not for our manager, who I
think was a voice of reason, and indeed Chris Blackwell, who was used to some spooky spiritual stuff. Bob Marley had prepared
him for it. What was unusual was white, Irish boys, 20-year-olds who are supposed to be writing about girls, undergoing spiritual
doubt. So that record's important for that.
Paul McGuinness (U2 manager): It could have ended with the band
being dropped. But Blackwell had the belief to realise it mightn't be until the third or fourth record that they began to
make money. I can't think Island were delighted by October's overtly religious themes, but they got behind it.
Gavin
Friday: The thing I love about them is this was what they believed in and this is what they were going through, and they
went out and made a f--king record. The title track is fantastic, it's beautiful. Even graphically, the cover is probably
their most un-art-directed cover, but there's something unique about the whole thing as well. It's like showing their pimple
before it bursts.
#3: The Unforgettable Fire
Where they were: With 1983's War, U2 achieved
commercial breakthrough: their first UK Number 1 album, it spawned their first Top 10 single (New Year's Day), and relentless
touring saw them breach the defences of heartland America.
Where they went: Instead of settling for more of
the same fail-safe formula, they asked ambient guru Brian Eno to produce their next album.
Bono: It wasn't contrariness.
It was just that, if we get too straightahead the band loses something. So that's why we went to Brian, we knew we needed
more information. We knew that we were still students, we needed to be around people who would stretch us.
Larry
Mullen Jr.: There were people in the record company tearing their hair out, going, "Why are you doing this?" Everybody
wanted more War! We're very greedy, we wanted to experience new things. And Eno was the perfect candidate for that.
I was surprised that he agreed to do it. We were just four Irish guys, we'd got reasonably successful in Britain, become very
successful in America, but we weren't exactly hip. Eno was extremely hip. And what he and Danny Lanois did for U2 - just look
at Unforgettable Fire. It's an amazing record. Danny spent a lot of time encouraging me to do things that I would have
been afraid to do before.
Daniel Lanois (co-producer with Brian Eno): I had been working in Canada with Brian
Eno for a few years, making a lot of instrumental ambient records. Then Brian got the invitation to work with U2. He agreed
to have a meeting, but he said, "I'm gonna bring Danny Lanois along." And the ploy was, he didn't want to do the record but
I did! As it turned out, Bono talked Brian into doing it, so it became a co-production. I thought they were very smart. Smart
enough to look outside of themselves to get some inspiration. You have to admire somebody for being that humble, even though
you're at the top of your game, to be humble enough to accept outside input.
The Edge: For the first few days
it was a bit, "Whoa!" I was a big fan of Brian's solo work, and he'd made some great records that we really respected - Talking
Heads, the stuff with Bowie, obviously Roxy Music. But he's a very down-to-earth character in many respects. He's not pretentious.
We were slightly nervous but Brian loved the fact we'd only half the album written, it played into his approach really well.
Bad came together in an improvisation session with Brian. It was a thrill. I did enjoy making that album a lot.
Daniel
Lanois: Brian is a master of interpretation. He will take a song, play around with it, and make it so the band can see
it in a different way.
Adam Clayton: I remember it being a pretty uneasy session. War had been great,
but you knew it was time to move on. We always have this struggle with Danny and Brian to try and produce the uptempo rock
tunes, which are the hardest things to write, and they're the ones that Danny and Brian aren't particularly interested in.
Because they find the innovative, improvisational side of the band much more liberating. I know people tend to talk of that
as a classic record, but I just think Pride was the standout track. You hear that still, and it sounds so rich and so fresh.
Daniel
Lanois: I mastered the record in London, in the basement of Chris Blackwell's office (laughs), and the next thing I knew
I was driving on the bridge going into New York City and it was on the radio. And I thought, Wow, that sounds great! In the
words of Jimmy Iovine, the bass always sounds better when you're in the Top 10! I thought, Wooh! The bass is sounding nice!
I'm a Canadian kid from a small town and then the next thing you know things are on the radio and it's all going to the top.
It's amazing.
Gavin Friday: They could have gone with whoever was producing Bruce Springsteen in that era, but
they didn't, they went with Eno and Lanois, and that's when they really crystallised a sound. I remember it was during the
Unforgettable Fire tour when Bono comes over to me and says, "It's a bit mad - I think we're quite rich now."
#4:
Achtung Baby
Where they were: The biggest band in the world at the end of the '80s, but as hip as herpes.
Blame Rattle and Hum, an overblown album/movie concept watching U2 tour the US in search of the blues. Well-intended,
but the execution whiffed like a stale enchilada.
Where they went: U2 bade farewell to the '80s with Bono's
on-stage announcement that they were going off "to dream it all up again." Decamping to Berlin, to the legendary Hansa Studios,
they watched the Wall come down and, after much struggle, delivered Achtung Baby - U2's very own revolution in the
head.
Larry Mullen Jr.: The original idea for Rattle and Hum was a really great idea - it would be a
road movie and it would be released in a hundred cinemas around America. We put up the money for it. Then all of a sudden
Paramount were involved. And they'd given us our money back, and it was now theirs. And then it was a train off the tracks.
We were going to premieres all around the world and it was being billed as "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Movie." It was enough
to make a lot of people throw up. And y'know what? It made me throw up too. I really regret it. I think as a road movie, whether
you like U2 or not, you woulda gone and thought it was really special. But it was all lights, action, Hollywood. We f--ked
up.
Bono: I have a strong survival instinct. For instance, if I was to say to the band there's a bunch of skinheads
coming round the corner who are going to kick all our heads in, Edge will go, "Let's quicken the pace the, shall we?" I just
sensed it. I could see that we were starting to look like the music we were making, and the stoic nature of some of the subject
matter and Anton [Corbijn]'s photography were starting to overpower the humour of the band. We started out as this art guerilla/punk
rock group, with our friends the Virgin Prunes, so dramatic staging and surreal acts were part of the band, and I think we'd
lost that in the '80s as we were pushing our rock up the hill. We wanted a route back to silliness and m our more surreal
sense of humour.
Gavin Friday: I remember talking to Bono, him saying, "I can't wait for the '80s to be over."
We were in the midst of all this dreadful Thatcher-ised shite. The music industry was f--ked. All the promises we'd made in
our head just seemed to blow away with all the vacuous MTV blow-wave hairdos. And then they went into Achtung Baby,
which is my favourite U2 album. I think it's a masterpiece.
Bono: We wanted to recognise ourselves more. And
wanted to own up to our ambitions, wanted to own up to our sexuality, wanted to own up to our own hypocrisy. So the hypocrisy
of the human heart became the subject of this series of songs, which is really one song: it's a lover's row. On Achtung
Baby it didn't look like it was gonna get patched up at all.
Gavin Friday: Dramatic change was going on
in everyone's lives. Break-ups and babies being born, life-changing moments. At the same time, as Irish people, there were
a lot of changes going on in our country, culturally. The Holy Roman Empire of the Catholic Church was beginning to crumble.
The entrepreneurial Paddy was beginning to dominate the world. The Irish grasped Europeanism far quicker than the British.
I've always been a Europhile more than an Americanist, so when U2 started moving down that road, I was, "Go! Go!"
Daniel
Lanois (co-producer with Brian Eno): As Europeans, they wanted to go to a place of rock 'n' roll, but they didn't want
to go to North America. Some of the rock 'n' roll that had inspired them had come from Berlin. Specifically, David Bowie records,
Iggy Pop, and Eno: we actually ended up in the same studio Brian had worked in with Bowie. So that was the idea - let's get
out of Dublin, no distractions, and go to a European place of rock 'n' roll. And I'm trying to remember whether that was a
good idea or not!
Larry: It was really traumatic. Because there was real conflict. We were all expecting different
things. And Edge had very clear ideas about what he wanted to do. He was listening to dance music, to hip hop, and had ideas
about using machines. I wasn't listening to that. I was listening to a lot of the older rock drummers, people I'd never listened
to before. People like Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, a lot of that really visceral stuff. Became really intrigued with what they
were doing, the free-flow of it. It inspired me. So I was listening to that and Edge had all his ideas. And I was like, "Well,
I don't understand this."
Adam Clayton: It was just confusing. And I don't think it was intentional, it's just
family life. On paper, the idea of making a more rhythmic, more industrial record, and connecting with what was happening
in British rock music coming out of Manchester was a great idea and we were all on the same page, it's just that nobody really
knew how to do that. We were in a situation where the quality of the jamming wasn't up to representing the sound that Bono
and Edge were imagining, and they weren't able to say how they wanted to achieve that sound. We were doing it completely arseways.
Larry:
Edge was driven, absolutely. That's why it became even more disorienting. Because he was so focused on it, and unswerving
to a large degree. But in the end, the story of One is probably the best - after weeks and weeks, there was this guitar riff,
and it was recorded within a couple of hours, and it was quite amazing.
Daniel Lanois: The Edge came up with
a great chord sequence, and Larry laid down an amazing beat. Then we took a break, and Brian Eno and I returned to the studio
early. There's this little repeating blues riff in the song - Brian and I laid that down, we surprised the band with a few
new ingredients. Which is always a great thing to do for Bono because then he picks up the mike and lashes one down in an
inspired moment. I think One is a fine example of great collaborative effort.
Gavin Friday: I have one very
fond memory of Bono ringing me up from Hansa and saying, "It's rough, Gav, rough." I used to live near the airport, and he
would always be dropping in with cassettes, about eight in the morning. We'd have sausage sandwiches. And he came in one morning
saying, "We've got this song, and I think it could be one of the best things we've done." It was a rough version of One, and
I said, "f--k!" It was like something John Lennon would have written.
Larry: After we recorded that we moved
back to Dublin, and things just flew. It was good experience, I'm glad for that experience. We all learned from that.
The
Edge: There's a nice tension with Brian and Danny, because we don't' always agree, and they have strong opinions. We thrive
on that kind of thing. Brian would say of us that we would make our albums a lot quicker if we didn't talk so much about the
process!
Daniel Lanois: After The Joshua Tree I said to The Edge I felt we had one more left in us. Everybody
was still wearing the innovative hat and looking to make a record that nobody had ever done before. That was the driving force.
Sure, we wanted great songs, and great success, but it was largely about, "I think we can make a record that nobody's ever
heard before." You need to enter the arena with that kind of thinking. And we pulled it off. In my opinion, it's the most
sonically inventive U2 record.
(c) MOJO, 2005.
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