Hugh: Did you work with Steve Lillywhite before you recorded with him?

Adam: No. Our first producer was Martin Hannett who did the first two Joy Division albums and New Order. I'm not sure what he's doing now.

Did you do any demo tapes?

Yeah.

They must have got you a recording contract?

Well, I remember one night Larry came and said, "Have you seen the evening paper?" and there was a competition for the best pop band with a prize of £5,000 and a recording deal. He said we should enter and see what happened. I said OK and applied and sent off all the bullshit. This was when I was 17 and he was 15.

Then we got the forms back, the date was arranged and we had to get the train to Limerick. We had a show the night before in the Project Arts Centre. It was St. Patrick's Day and it was a late night gig. So we didn't get off 'til 3 a.m. We got four hours' kip and had to get off to get the train.

We arrived there and had to do some kind of heats. We got through the first one and Bono's voice was completely sharp from the night before. So he said, "Sorry, I've got laryngitis and my voice is a bit rough but the songs are good," and we played three songs.

We got to the final which was in front of an audience, not just judges. We did our set, then sat and watched the other bands. They were all showbands, doing other people's songs. Really impressive - the sort we wanted to be like. We thought, "We don't stand a hope." The results were announced in reverse order and sure enough one of the showbands, a band who sang in Irish, came second - and we actually won it! To this very day I can't really figure it out.

Perhaps because you were playing your own stuff?

No, at the end of the day I think it's because there's a spirit in the band that comes across. I don't really know what it is. I don't think it's Bono, I think it's the band - the combination of the four of us.

We got promised this contract by CBS Records and it was a bullshit contract. We were naïve and young but we still weren't prepared to take it. The guy from CBS was well meaning. But the problem with CBS in Ireland is that they're there as a marketing corporation, not to sign new bands. This guy had a bit of flair and he wanted to sign bands, Irish bands. The rest of the companies weren't interested but he offered the best he could. He actually talked CBS into paying for our first demo tape. It was our first time in the studio and I think his first time as a producer. He told us to set up as we would do for a live show and play the set. It was all done on 2-track. He thought that was a good way to do a demo. Then he took the tapes off to London to try to talk them into signing us and they just laughed.

Did you get a chance to hear them beforehand?

Yeah, they were awful. We didn't know at the time, we had nothing to compare them with. We thought that was the way punk bands got signed. We were giggling and saying, "Yeah, next week, millionaires" - and it didn't happen. So then an English A&R guy from CBS came to check us out. He was fairly interested and said they'd pay for a proper demo. He produced it. He wasn't particularly hot as a producer then. And CBS turned it down.

Then we said, "You've paid for the tapes. We need to put a single out in Ireland. Can we use the tapes?" That's what we did. We put out an EP called U2 - 3 which was three songs from that session: "Boy/Girl," "Stories for Boys" and "Out of Control."

Did you use those later?

Yes, we put "Stories for Boys" and "Out of Control" on the first album, Boy. But they were re-recorded with Steve Lillywhite. The EP was a bit crude but at that time it was the biggest local Irish single to be released. There wasn't much of a domestic market. Most of the other singles around were traditional Irish singles or showband singles. We were actually a young punk band and we had a single that did extremely well.

We'd done a small London club tour, the Hope and Anchor and all that, to try to get signed and nothing happened. So we then went back to Ireland and decided that we either had to break up or do a massive tour, and we did a tour.