U2 by U2 quotes

[last unicorn]

Feelinnumb, your Bono bashing is getting really annoying.

 

[bonocomet]

No kidding. Where's that ignore button?

 

[kellyahern]

Doesn't Bono know that no one is allowed to say that Sian is the one who's ill?????

Edge does, in the book. People who have read the book have already commented on it.

I think you need the kitten picture again.

 

[greety]

again..and again and.. again...

 

[JCOSTER]

Everyone hit that ignore button.....so we can be numb.

 

[digsy]

Amazon.....boohoo....but then someone else heard a rumour that the late release date is because the books will be numbered and SIGNED!!! OMG I really hope it isn't just a rumour!

the deluxe edition is bound and boxed with a replica early poster. its also limited and individually numbered but NOT signed. there's going to be between 5000-10000 of them so i really dont think having them each hand-signed is feasible.

 

[Galeongirl]

Doesn't Bono know that no one is allowed to say that Sian is the one who's ill?????

So you're assuming you know something better than Bono, because of what?
Get a life, he's one of Edge's best friends, and THE BAND made this book... do you REALLY think that if Edge didn't want this to be in the book, he'd let this be published?

because it is, I think it's safely to say that it IS allowed to confirm it was Sian, and that YOU are wrong here in getting the wrong conclusion.

 

[yeter]

The book talks about Sian's illness in relation to the tour and making the decision to go on tour. All the band members and Paul Mc Guiness comment on that aspect of it. Her illness is not identified nor is there any information about specific treatments she was receving.

 

[lauramullen]

Yes. I'm going to get mine in 11 days.

 

[last unicorn]

I do NOT for one second believe that Bono would reveal any such personal information without Edge's knowledge and permission. This book is about them as a band and they obviously agreed to say certain things and to have certain things published in this book. As for Sian's illness, I think it has been common knowledge among the fans, but just not made public and "official". It's no one's business, anyway. It's tragic enough that she or any child has to suffer from a serious illness, and I think it's more than rude from anybody to specualate about anything related to this issue.
Having said that, I really really hope that the girl is better now and that everything will be okay.

 

[patic]

http://www.times online.co.uk/article/0,,8802-2359599.html


Once upon a time in Dublin
30 years ago four schoolboys in Dublin decided to form a band. The fact that most of them could'nt play a note didn't hold them back: a spark ignited and the U2 family was born. Here, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr tell the story of how the world's biggest band began


BONO

Sometimes it comes across as if I got into U2 to save the world. I got into U2 to save myself. I meet people out on the street who approach me like I’m Mahatma Gandhi.

And when someone says, “Hail, man of peace,” I can hear Larry laughing under his breath: “You’re lucky he didn’t nut you.” The band are very bemused by my attraction to non-violence, because they know you couldn’t get further from the songs than the singer. They understand the reason I have been so attracted to these characters, the subjects of my songs – because in life and temperament I am so far from them. There is a rage in me, and it is not all injustice. I have developed good manners to disguise it.

Your nature is a very hard thing to change; it takes time. One of the extraordinary transferences that happens in your spiritual life is not that your character flaws go away, but that they start to work for you. A negative becomes a positive. You’ve got a big mouth: you end up a singer. You’re insecure: you end up a performer who needs applause. I have heard of people set free from addiction after a single prayer. But it was not like that for me. For all that “I was lost, I am found”, it is probably more accurate to say, “I was really lost, I am a little less so at the moment.” And then a little less and a little less again. That to me is the spiritual life. The slow reworking and rebooting of a computer at regular intervals. It has slowly rebuilt me in a better image. It has taken years, though, and it is not over yet.




THE EDGE

It seems impossible now to contemplate an existence outside of music, but I honestly don’t know if I would have become a professional musician if U2 hadn’t made me believe it was possible. We have been together all our adult lives, which demonstrates an incredible level of commitment and solidarity between four people who decided to form a band in 1975.

The chemistry of the personalities is a big factor. Bono is chairman and founding member of Over-Achievers Anonymous. He has an irrepressible drive to be great. He wants to achieve it all, which actually makes him very vulnerable. I am driven in different ways. I might have to take the 12 steps at Workaholics Anonymous. I have a curiosity that compels me to find ways to make music that are fresh and new. Adam and Larry are the counterparts to Bono and myself. Adam has incredible soul, the unlikely conscience of the band. Larry is the nuts and bolts, a practical, solid and deeply cautious person who is always going to rein us in when we get too excited. We grew up together, we learnt how to play music together. In many respects the way we think is almost telepathic.




ADAM CLAYTON

I always wanted to be a rock star. When I got my first bass guitar at the age of 15, that was it for me. I didn’t have a whole lot else going on in my life. If U2 hadn’t worked out, God knows where I would have ended up.
I wouldn’t describe it as fun recording with U2; it is work. Sessions are not exactly filled with laughter and joviality. Frequently, we’re being told how crap we are by Bono – and he includes himself in that assessment. Without a doubt, Bono is the driving force. No matter how you might try to describe him, the words would be inadequate, because there’s so much more to him. He has what you might describe as classic Alpha Male programming. He doesn’t see limitations, he only sees possibilities. In some ways, he is the psyche of U2, he represents things that are very much a part of all of us.
Edge is also very ambitious and driven, but you might not see that unless you know him well because it is slightly obscured by his humanity and kindness. Larry is a very sensitive guy and a loyal friend. He thinks about the world the same way he thinks about drumming: something is either in time or out of time. I can’t say what I bring to U2. It is not necessarily my bass playing. But something takes place when the band gets together. It is unquantifiable but it has always been the thing that excites me the most. It’s the thing that we built U2 on.




LARRY MULLEN JR

You might say I chose the wrong career, and you may be right. Playing drums and being creative in the studio are my drugs of choice. When I started out doing this, any idea of becoming rock stars was laughable.
You could say U2 are a democracy. The decision-making process is the same now as when we started. Those with the ability to debate, argue and articulate their views win the day. If you are in a band with someone as talkative, argumentative and persuasive as Bono, well, things can be kind of difficult for the rest of us. We are four very, very different people with diverse personalities. If there is something special about U2 it has nothing to do with us as individuals. When we play music together, something happens.

PATHS COLLIDE

ADAM I was born in 1960 into a house full of women and full of music: two forces which have pretty much dictated the shape of my life. My dad was an RAF pilot. When I was four years old, dad found work in Kenya flying for East African Airways. By 1965, it was getting quite dangerous to be a white person there. My dad had job offers in Ireland and Hong Kong, but Ireland seemed closer to the family, so we came here, settling in Malahide, a suburban coastal town about eight miles from Dublin. I went to the local National school and it was there that I met David Evans, The Edge, for the first time, although I have no real memory of it. We didn’t really bond until we came to know each other again in the band.

At the age of eight, I was sent to a boarding school over on the other side of Dublin Bay. I moved school again when I was 13, [and] early on I fell in with a boy called John Leslie, who could play guitar. John persuaded me that we could start our own group. He wanted to play electric guitar, so he said I should play bass. So there I was, 15 years old, with a dark-brown Ibanez-copy bass guitar and no amp. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. It just sounded good to me. Deep and fat and satisfying.

My grades were so bad the following year that my parents said they were not prepared to keep me at this expensive school. I thought that was it, the musical career was over. And so I was dispatched to Mount Temple, a comprehensive school in north Dublin.

BONO You don’t become a rock star unless you’ve got something missing somewhere, that is obvious to me. If you were of sound mind or a more complete person, you could feel normal without 70,000 people a night screaming their love for you. 

I was a freckle-faced kid who was difficult to tie down from the very beginning, a messer full of life and mischief, noisy, maybe a little too much testosterone. I should admit to my first family nickname: the Antichrist. It wasn’t completely wide of the mark. I haven’t met many other kids who were nicknamed the Antichrist!

My father was a very strict man, but his severity was wasted on me. He was an autodidact and a very bright fellah. He taught himself Shakespeare and listened to opera all the time. I never thought of singing as a career, but I remember singing hymns and it stirring up this really strong feeling of being moved by the music. When it was time for me to go to secondary school, my mother took me down to be interviewed by the headmaster of St Patrick’s grammar school. It was linked to St Patrick’s cathedral and it was well known for its boys’ choir. I spent a year there, not being happy, and basically they asked me to leave. I was caught throwing dog shit at the Spanish teacher. I did not have a high opinion of her, and I suspect the feeling was mutual.

So I left St Patrick’s and went to Mount Temple. The moment I arrived I felt alive. It was very progressive, co-educational and non-denominational. There were only two such free schools in the country. It was an amazing place, and we all felt privileged to go there.

I remember waking up and my mother wasn’t around. I was told, “Something has happened with your grandfather.” The next time I saw her was at the graveside, watching her father being buried. And then she collapses. She had suffered a brain haemorrhage. She stayed alive for about four days, I think. Some powerful things happened in those few days, very powerful things. I read the Bible and I prayed to God not to let my mother die. Then there were just three men living on their own in a house. It ceased being a home. It was just a house, with three men killing each other slowly, not knowing what to do with our sense of loss and just taking it out on each other.

Questions filled my teenage head. My mother’s death just threw petrol on the fire. The big questions built to a crescendo. I felt hopeless. I thought about suicide. I was sent to a psychologist who lived round the corner, and she was very cool. She listened to me. And after a few weeks she said, “I really don’t think you need to come back here. You’re fine. You just had some kind of trauma.”

It was 1976, and two things happened in the same few weeks and they both saved my life. The first thing is that I had a vision of my future. I remember I’d seen this girl when she first came to the school, very early on, and thought she looked Spanish, a rose for sure, dark with blood-red lips. She looked like she was in a pool of water, walking through it. There was something so still about her, and to a person who is not still, it was the most attractive thing in the world. And that was Ali, who within a few weeks would become my girlfriend, and within a few years my wife. And then another amazing thing happened. I joined a band. Nothing much has changed since then. I’m still with Ali, and I’m still with the band.


EDGE I was in St Andrew’s for a very brief period with Adam. Then he was shifted out to a posh prep school. So he disappeared off the radar when I was about seven and we didn’t meet again until he appeared in Mount Temple.

My best friend Shane started at Mount Temple, and he told me about this wild kid in his class called Paul Hewson. There was some story involving a small fire, and some rivet-gun caps. So I heard about Bono a couple of years before I even met him. You could say his reputation preceded him. I’d been playing guitar for a while, and I saw Bono on one of the lunchtime breaks, sitting down with a guitar trying to impress some girls. We didn’t hit it off particularly, but I couldn’t help but observe that I was a better player and yet he was more popular. I made a mental note that perhaps the way you carried your guitar was as important as how well you could play it.

Before the new school year, during the summer of 1976, my mother said, “You remember Adam Clayton? He is going to your school this year.” So I was actually looking out for Adam, but it was literally about halfway through the term that I realised this weird hippy kid who was sporting a very brave Afro hairdo (which made him look like an albino Bootsy Collins) and an Afghan coat was, in fact, the kid I had known when I was seven. Larry, I had seen around. Then one day my music teacher, Albert Bradshaw, told me that Larry Mullen played drums, and wanted to form a band.

LARRY It was my father who suggested I put a notice up on the school board for fellow musicians. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but through it all he was still watching my back. He was figuring, “OK, the kid wants to play drums, how do I help him survive and navigate this because he’s never going to be a brain surgeon.” So I put the now-legendary notice up. I think the wording went something like: “Drummer seeks musicians to form band.” I just thought of it as a bit of fun. After the notice went up, people asked if I knew, “Yer man Paul Hewson, he plays guitar.” I said I didn’t, but it turned out everybody knew who he was, so it didn’t take long for me to discover who I was going to have to deal with. I knew of Edge and Adam, so on Saturday September 25, 1976, this odd group of people convened in my kitchen in Artane. ­

A BAND IS BORN

edge It wasn’t a particularly auspicious beginning. There was a lot of talk, a lot of people playing songs they knew very badly trying to impress one another, trying to figure out if we had similar musical tastes. I remember thinking that I liked everybody, which was the most important thing; a sense that actually these are cool people.

ADAM The strategy was to find a rehearsal room at school. Let everyone know we were in a band.

EDGE Larry and I could play a bit, but Adam really couldn’t play, he kind of pretended. But by virtue of owning a bass there was no doubt he was going to be the bass player. Bono didn’t even have a guitar, but he seemed to think he was lead guitarist.

LARRY It was obvious from the beginning that Bono was going to be the singer, not because of his great voice, but because he didn’t have a guitar, an amp or transport. What else was he going to do?

BONO I had a few chords, a few songs I could play. The idea of wanting to sing, I don’t remember when that happened.

EDGE Progress was slow and for a very long time we tried unsuccessfully to play a song, any song, from start to finish. I’m sure it was very comical, but we thought we were very cool.

ADAM There was going to be a talent show in the school gymnasium at the end of term, and that was where we would make our debut. The gig was really the thing that we worked towards.

LARRY I think we only had two songs, so that was our set. Peter Frampton’s Show Me The Way and, as a joke, Bye, Bye, Baby by the Bay City Rollers.

BONO We walked on that stage, I was playing guitar, and when I heard that D chord, I just started to levitate. Forget about what we played, because that’s not important. I was singing, it was emancipation. That was a very special concert.

LARRY After that, I think we were a band. We had managed to play in public without disgracing ourselves. It was as if my identity changed. I was no longer the blond kid hanging out in the corridor, I was now the kid in the band.

WHAT’s in a NAME?

LARRY We had a name for the band before we really had anything else. “Feedback”. Terrible name. Ask Edge about it.

BONO I liked the name The Hype. But it was the name of a punk group in our heads, and it was clear that wasn’t where we were going. U2’s appeal was its ambiguity. It had open-ended interpretations. In my mind’s eye, I was thinking more of a U-boat than I was of Gary Powers and the spy plane, and I quite liked that. Strangely, it turns out that the train line in Berlin that took you to Zoo Station was called the U2 line. You see it everywhere you go in Berlin.

EDGE It was the least bad of the bunch. We thought about it for a few days and said, “Well, it’s better than The Hype, why don’t we just go for it for the moment?” So we picked U2.

ADAM The exact point of becoming U2 was a talent competition sponsored by Harp Lager in Limerick on St Patrick’s Day in March 1978. There was prize money of £500. We had entered as The Hype, and we realised that if we won it, then we would be stuck with The Hype. So we had to change the name before the competition.

BONO There were bands there that could play in time and with great confidence, all of which we couldn’t pull off. But, you know, some bands have everything but it. We had nothing but it.

EDGE I just remember we hit it.

ADAM I remember the significance of us becoming U2 that night. It was a feeling of OK, now we’re where we should be, playing our own material and everything is in place. Next week: Top of the Pops!

GETTING SERIOUS

PAUL MCGUINNESS I went to Trinity College in Dublin to study psychology and philosophy. I lost interest in psychology almost immediately. At the end of my third year, I got a letter saying I wasn’t able to sit exams because I hadn’t been to any lectures. I had to leave.
Bill Graham was a friend of mine at Trinity. We often used to listen to music together, go to nightclubs and dream about the idea of taking an Irish band to the very top. I think Bill mentioned U2 in March 1978. The way I recall it, they hustled him into going to a rehearsal and played some songs and he said, “But those are Ramones songs!”

Then I started to get phone calls from Adam. Eventually, after a couple of missed opportunities. he came round to see me with a demo tape. Listening to it subsequently, it really was pretty rough, but it must have had something, because I agreed to go and see them.

LARRY Paul made a big impression with his refined accent and well-groomed look. I remember he was very taken with Bono’s stage presence. And I assume he must have thought the rest of us were OK, because we talked about management.

BONO Paul had an air of confidence about him. One of his great gifts is he makes something normal by saying it. An idea that seems difficult to envision becomes possible because he’s talking about it.

ADAM We did our first demo at Keystone Studios, which was part of the Limerick competition prize.

BONO I walked down into the basement of Keystone and there was the most beautiful girl in the world, with the most beautiful voice, sitting in reception. It was Mariella Frostrup. I remember the excitement of looking at the equipment. And then Larry Mullen Senior arrives and pulls Larry out of there because he was only 15.

LARRY I had exams the next day, so we could only record for a few hours, then my dad came through the door and said, “I’ve got to take him home. He’s at school tomorrow.” And I was gone.

EDGE School came to an end. We did a gig in the school car park, our farewell, and then it was time to decide what to do.

BONO My dad gave me a year. He said, “Right, you can live at home for one year.”

PAUL There was a period at the start of the summer where we circled each other. The band used to come round to my flat in Waterloo Road and we would have lots of meetings about how to take over the world. It took us a long time to secure a record deal, which I found frustrating and puzzling, because I thought U2 were so good, though probably those early tapes weren’t very impressive.

DEAL OR NO DEAL

EDGE Paul was taking the first demos around with mixed success. I thought he felt we weren’t necessarily ready, but Bono was adamant that with the second set of demos he wanted to get a deal.

BONO Paul was not coming up with the van, and I’m just getting a bit tired of this. My old man is pointing out that my year at home is almost up. The heat is on. I can’t afford not to get a record deal, so I want to go to London and stir up interest.

ADAM As we moved from being outside contenders to most-likely-to-succeed, record companies were coming to see us, but it was nerve-racking – there was always a hitch.

PAUL An A&R scout called Chas De Whalley at CBS London picked up on it. He came up with some demo money and came over and produced some tracks. I suggested that we release the track as a single in Ireland only and in return CBS would have the right to release U2 records in Ireland even if we signed to somebody else. So in September the U23 EP was released as a seven-inch with a picture bag and a limited-edition numbered 12-inch.

EDGE It was an amazing feeling, to actually have your first record and hear it being played on radio. I was also frustrated – I knew that we could do better.

ADAM We were at an impasse and conscious that in terms of keeping our momentum in Ireland we had to create another stepping-stone in our career. The idea was to do a club tour in England

PAUL I borrowed some money, and between us, we scrambled together enough to make the trip.

ADAM We were on two quid each a day. We would pool our money and go to the local bad Italian restaurant, exotic stuff for us.

EDGE Some of the shows were really good, some a bit of a mess. We did the Moonlight Club, the Hope and Anchor, the Rock Garden, Dingwalls, the Electric Ballroom supporting Talking Heads, and we saw a lot of record companies.

BONO On that tour they were going to decide whether to sign us or not. This was a make-it or break-it situation.

ADAM We were coming home for Christmas in a state of shock. London was a huge city, and the venues we had heard of as legendary gigs were really kind of toilets… and we weren’t able to fill them. It was pretty grim because we really had failed.

BONO We had one last idea, which was based on the sense that the Irish press has a history of colluding with Irish people who cause a stir in the outside world, and fanning those sparks into a forest fire.

ADAM We did a tour of wherever we could play in Ireland that was a big gig. The culmination of that tour was the National Stadium. It held 2,500 people, and it was where the biggest foreign bands would play. Booking ourselves in there was considered pretty cheeky.

BONO And at that concert arrives an A&R man from Island Records who answers to the name The Captain, Nick Stewart. This is our homecoming gig and all our families are there.

LARRY Nick Stewart came backstage after the show and offered us a record deal. It couldn’t have happened at a better moment. Later, hanging on in London, waiting for the deal, we all went to a gig one night at the Lyceum. Paul turned up with Nick Stewart and said, “I have the contract.” So we went into the girls’ toilets and signed our names.

THE FUTURE

BONO I don’t think anyone thinks this is a job for life. I always say two crap albums in a row and we’re out. That, and a fat arse, can close this operation down. I need this band. The truth is I need them more than they need me. That is the way I am wired. They raise my game.

EDGE I think we’ve been able to keep it together because we’ve all grown up with each other. We know how it works. I think we all know, deep down, this is the forum in which we really excel. The day that U2 ends will be a sad day for all of us.

PAUL It’s very odd for the same five men to have been working together for nearly 30 years. It’s been very difficult sometimes, but I’m also proud of what we’ve achieved in business. We always agreed that it would be pathetic to be good at the music and bad at the business.

ADAM I don’t think I was destined for any kind of greatness in my life before U2. The best decision I ever made was to be part of U2, and I guess I haven’t needed to make another serious decision since then. I am eternally grateful that this band came along when it did. BONO I feel much more of a whole person now than I ever did. I seem to have resolved a lot of feelings for my father. That feels great. The reason why Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own is not a miserable song is because it breaks open with the line “You’re the reason I sing, you’re the reason the opera is in me”. He is the reason I have this life, or at least a very large part of the reason. So I certainly have got to a place of peace with him.

I thank God on a daily basis for my life in U2, because not only did this job put my talents to use, it put my insecurities and weaknesses to use. That’s the miracle for me. U2’s definition of art is breaking open the breastbone, open-heart surgery. I wish there was an easier way, but, in the end, people want blood, and I’m one of them.

LARRY I gave these guys their first job when I put the note on the school noticeboard. After 30 years, it’s a cool thing to still be making music with your friends. There is a lot of laughter in U2. Sadly, that rarely comes across. We are like a dysfunctional family, with all the laughter and tears that go with that. Personalities will not break up U2. Musical differences will not break up U2. We’ll break up because somebody squeezed the toothpaste from the wrong end.

© U2 2006

Extracted from U2 by U2, to be published by HarperCollins on September 22 at £30. The book is also available from BooksFirst priced £27 (RRP £30), free p&p, on 0870 1608080;

Thanks to Victor

pics from the gallery

 

[patic]

more pictures

I hope I post it in a right place

 

[Jeannieco]

Ok so why doesnt God just give us all the answers and cures? Why must we work for them? Why is that fair to the patients in the present with a week left before the cure arrives that they die on day 4? It doesnt make any sense to me. Its cool that weve had advances in medicine but I dont think God has any hand in it. I see it as a puzzle thats soley for humans to figure out.

Because, in this life God put us here to learn! The world is a giant classroom full of light and dark and lots of shades in between. We are all here for a purpose and a grand plan that only He knows.
He gave us free will to manifest that plan in our lives and hopefully in His reflection. I believe that means to help others with our individual gifts. Your gift may be to find that miracle cure or it could be a simple as helping a friend through a crisis or just making someone smile. All these things are of God. That's what I believe anyway.
Love is God.

 

[U2isthebest]

I can't freakin' wait for this book!!!! I love the quote from Bono about the spiritual life and the comparisons he makes. God Bless!!

Currently Listening: Album/Artist: Songs About Jane/Maroon 5
Song: "She Will Be Loved"

"What no man can own....No man can take.": Yahweh-U2

 

[Slopsy]

I'm actually disciplining myself and not reading/looking at anything from the book until I get it, from now on.

It's hard!

 

[Gluey]

I'm actually disciplining myself and not reading/looking at anything from the book until I get it, from now on.

It's hard!

Slopsy!! Wow, good self control!! I can't do that though.....I'm a sucker for previews.....anyway I read my books 10 million times over.....hehe

 

[Cassandra]

the deluxe edition is bound and boxed with a replica early poster. its also limited and individually numbered but NOT signed. there's going to be between 5000-10000 of them so i really dont think having them each hand-signed is feasible.

Actually the copy I bought was signed but it's the photocopy signatures. My book is just the normal version, no poster and not numbered.