How Simple Minds became the unsung pioneers behind U2’s rise, according to Bono
Every member of U2 has always been incredibly thankful for the music that shaped them. From day one, Bono has always been a student of great rock and roll, and while he does use that as an excuse to have one of the biggest messiah complexes in the industry, it’s not like he’s not still in the business for all the right reasons. He truly believes that rock music has the power to change the world, and he knows most of that firsthand, considering all the bands that helped shape him as a young kid in Dublin.
But given how big U2 have become since their 1980s prime, it’s hard to think that any of them were born and bred in the punk tradition. The Edge may have had his prog rock records that he would keep returning to, but Bono was never satisfied with writing something that had any less passion than what he heard from bands like The Clash and The Who.
And it’s not like the band let go of those ideals when making their own tracks. There are pieces of War that have been played into the ground and heard by almost half of the world’s population, but the messages inside songs like ‘New Years Day’ and ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ about pleading for hate to stop is somewhere between John Lennon’s political activism and Joe Strummer’s righteous anger.
If they were going to be one of the biggest bands in the world, though, they would need a little bit more punch behind the production. Records like Boy sounded like they were ready for the arenas before they had even ditched the dive bar circuit, but as soon as they started working with people like Brian Eno, they started to see the intricacies of production, and people like Simple Minds became one of the band’s clearest reference points.
Although most people know the band purely for their inclusion in The Breakfast Club, many of their classic songs feel like a warm-up for what Bono would be doing. From the massive expanse of their recordings to how Jim Kerr structured his melodies, there are the building blocks of songs like ‘Pride’ or ‘Bad’, and Bono was more than happy to give credit where it was due.
“Without the album, New Gold Dream, I don’t believe there would have been an Unforgettable Fire or a Joshua Tree.”
Bono
Despite U2 having their own distinct sound thanks to The Edge’s guitar, Bono felt that their classics wouldn’t have been possible without Simple Minds, saying, “Without the album, New Gold Dream, I don’t believe there would have been an Unforgettable Fire or a Joshua Tree… Charlie and Mick, you accessed this ecstatic music and Jim had the poetry to paint the picture. You promised us a miracle, and they’re all around us.”
While New Gold Dream isn’t exactly a precursor to ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ or anything, it does have the same adventurous mentality that U2 would take with them on their later records. There are still certain pieces of new wave in their delivery, but listening to the way that Kerr’s melodies float over the top of the keyboards and guitars, it felt like the blueprint for how the Irish legends approached tunes like ‘With Or Without You’ or ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’.
Some may still claim that Kerr and co. did a great injustice by inspiring U2 to make their overblown music, but that’s a far too jaded point of view. They only wanted to make the world a better place through music, and while Bono did manage to smear his ‘Bono-ness’ over things a little bit too much, he wouldn’t have been on his soapbox if it wasn’t for the right reasons.
