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U2 has released its 12th album “No Line on the Horizon,” which topped charts around the world. / Courtesy of Universal Music
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
Nearly 33 years after the band was formed in Dublin, U2 has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments that most rock bands can only dream of: selling more than 145 million albums, receiving 22 Grammy Awards, sold out concerts around the world and even a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for lead singer Bono.
U2 shows no signs of slowing down. Its 12th album, ``No Line on the Horizon,'' was released earlier this month and topped charts around the world. The band is preparing for its much-anticipated ``U2 360 Tour,'' which kicks off June 30.
While many of its contemporaries have fallen by the wayside due to drugs, alcohol or just plain bad music, U2 has stayed strong. The secret to the band's longevity and success? Bono says it's simply the chemistry between the members of the band, which also includes Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr. and The Edge, who all met as teenagers in 1976.
``The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. People tell me that, when U2 walks out on stage, even if they don't like the band ― they've been dragged along, involuntary hairs go up on their neck and that everyone in the crowd just has this involuntary action. What they don't know is that so do we, which is quite mad. I don't understand what that is, but I think that's called chemistry and we have it between us and it's a hard thing to live without,'' Bono said in an email interview released by Universal Music.
The band still has its share of disagreements but has found a way to deal with it so it doesn't cause a breakup.
``I think that's down to the fact that we were mates before we formed the band, or at least before we became a professional outfit, and we figured out early on that, for us all to win, we had to check our individual egos in at the door when we go to work. It's much more important that the band wins than that any one comes out looking like a hero. … I feel very fortunate to be in a real band and we all know that, for it to be a U2 record, everyone's got to show up and give absolutely everything that they have to offer, because if that doesn't happen, we're not gonna get anything,'' The Edge said.
U2 is aware that its strength lies not in the individual members, but in the group itself. ``You eventually come to a point where you realize that you are enabled and empowered to do so much more collectively than you could possibly have done singularly and I think that's the promise of being in a band with great people,'' Clayton said.
U2 has been a part of history, performing at events such as Live AID, Live 8 and recently, U.S. President Barack Obama's inauguration, where it performed ``Pride (In the Name of Love).''
``We're playing a song that we wrote 23 years ago about this black reverend from Atlanta (Martin Luther King), and we're now performing it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where he gave his 'I have a dream' speech, and a black president is being inaugurated, and he's asked us to play. That's bonkers,'' Bono said.
It's the music that keeps the band relevant and popular, and U2 knows it. ``You know there's a roar of a U2 show. It's like a 747 taking off and people think it's for the band, but it's not. It's for the songs, and, really, it's for them, the lives they have attached to songs. … I think we are the ultimate weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals band. Times of great joy for people, times of great despair and the odd party,'' Bono said.
Despite all the band's success, the members don't let it go to their heads. ``At the end of the day, it really is, 'How good are the tunes?' Because that's what people remember,'' Clayton said.
cathy@koreatimes.co.kr
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