Bono and the man who saved U2’s career: “We can get through this”
A lot more goes into a band than just a bunch of musicians wanting to play together. Rock and roll may pride itself on needing only “three chords and the truth”, but strong business acumen is often what separates iconic acts from those playing to half-empty houses, wondering why they aren’t connecting with audiences. Although U2 likely would have found their way to the top of the rock and roll hierarchy eventually, Bono admitted that it was Chris Blackwell who saved them from complete obscurity after their second album.
For any band cutting their teeth, that second album can either be a skeleton key to the rest of their lives or the kiss of death. No matter how long people have honed their songs as a live act for their first album, there’s only so much time in between the next record that it takes superhuman strength not to crack under pressure.
It’s not like U2 didn’t have an idea, though. They had put together a foundation for how they would sound on Boy, but the vision for October was bound to ruffle a few feathers when Bono talked about it being an exploration of faith. Since staying out of religion and politics was pretty much music PR 101, this only spelt disaster for the Irish band, with many fans thinking they were going to pick it up and get tricked into hearing a sermon.
Then again, October is still a fairly solid U2 project. The religious overtones are certainly there in songs like ‘Gloria’, but it’s a lot more subtle than a lot of people were led to believe. Bono’s more looking to explore his own problems with faith rather than preach to his audience, and if the rest of the world got something out of it, that was at least worth something.
That didn’t stop the record from being tainted before it even came out, with many fans staying away just to be safe. Blackwell stuck by the album while the group was still on Island Records, and Bono was eternally grateful for him taking a chance with his vision.
When discussing the millions of people who helped them at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Bono said that were it not for Blackwell, U2 probably would have fallen apart, saying, “Chris Blackwell, what an incredible man he was to look out for you. Can you imagine it’s your difficult second album, and it’s about God? Everyone was tearing their hair out, and Blackwell was like, ‘It’s okay, it’s like Bob Marley. It’s kind of a tradition. We can get through this.’ Without that long-term vision of Chris Blackwell, there would be no U2 outside of that second album.”
It’s not like U2 were about to shy away from the heavy topics, either. Now that religious turmoil was out of their system, War doubled down by introducing politics into the situation, including some of the greatest tracks they would ever make, like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘Drowning Man’.
For a group that had such an anthemic sound that could appeal to mass audiences, Blackwell knew that the group never saw themselves as that kind of stadium act. They put themselves on the same level as the Bob Dylans of the world, and if that meant testing their audience, then that was what they were going to do.
