The moment The Edge wanted to break up U2: “He’d had enough”
The music business is always different from what it appears to be on the surface. Many people can try their hand at making the greatest music possible so that fans will want to hear it, but there are only so many times that people will actually care about music before they start thinking about profit margins or money they’ll be taking home after a tour finishes. And for as much as U2 may have been the punching bags for that kind of lavish rock and roll star life, The Edge was far from the happiest camper when the band started being treated like gods.
Because looking at the rest of the band, the guitar genius may be one of the most normal artists in the record industry. Yes, he does have some sounds that feel like they’re being beamed in from the other side of the world, but there are also moments in his daily life that make him feel like one of the most average people on Earth. But inside is a caged beast, and that normally comes out a few too many times.
Bono has always been one to share the story of when he got into a fistfight onstage with the guitarist and left with a few scrapes and bruises, and the recording of a song like ‘Love is Blindness’ will forever be remembered as the moment the guitarist assaulted his instrument. He has that furious energy in him, but when U2 first came out, that felt like the exact right approach.
They had followed in the footsteps of bands like The Clash, so the idea of being some pompous rockstar was the opposite of cool for them. They instead channelled all that energy into songs like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ or ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’, but before the band gained traction from their first album, The Edge had had enough and seriously considered hanging the whole thing up.
And for as much as people have taken a few jabs at Bono for his overindulgent personality, he really is the reason why The Edge is still in the band today, saying, “I’d like to remind the room that The Edge was the first one to break up this band. We’ve all had it go since, but in 1982, aged 21, that man there decided that he had had enough of the music business with its inflamed egos and pumped-up personality. I asked him, ‘Will you make an exception for me?'”
But there was always more than the egos at play every now and again. All bands can fight like brothers in that respect, but given the Edge’s fascination with artists like Yes with their strange guitar effects and complex melodies, there was always bound to be a rub between Bono’s punk rock aspirations and the guitarist’s prog dreams.
And yet, The Joshua Tree might be one of the best cases of them taking the best of each of those styles. Bono’s voice still has the same passion that he had when he was listening to the post-punk he grew up on, but when The Edge opened up the playing field with the beginning of ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, there was suddenly a path for him to make something new that wasn’t necessarily the same block chords played up and down the neck.
Every one of the Irish legends was looking to make something new, and along the way, they managed to pave the way for what the future of rock would eventually sound like. Whether for better or for worse is up for you to decide, but there’s hardly any band adding some reverb and delay onto their guitars that isn’t going to end up sounding a little bit like The Edge.
