The Edge on why The Clash are “the greatest rock band of all time”
When U2 was first starting out, rock and roll looked like a cultural wasteland. Gone were the days of Flower Power, and in its place were the remnants of hard rock and prog bands that were becoming increasingly redundant by the day. Amid all the new wave acts coming out, The Edge singled out one act that set his entire world on fire.
As rock entered its pompous stage, acts like the Sex Pistols and Ramones were ushering in the next phase of rock and roll, relying on attitude more than ability and playing every note as if their lives depended on it. Though each band brought their perspective to the stage, The Edge was always drawn to The Clash.
When inducting them into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Edge mentioned how much their music meant to him, saying: “[The Clash] remain next to The Stones, the greatest band of all time. If they’d arrived ten years earlier, they would have given The Beatles, The Stones, and The Kinks a run for their money”. As The Edge and his bandmates in U2 were starting to create their own songs, he vividly recounted seeing The Clash play in a grimy club. Although much of the tunes played that night came from their early days, such as ‘White Riot’, The Edge was moved profoundly, blown away by their dedication to their craft.
When talking about the gig, Edge cited the spiritual importance of that night, remembering: “It was like they were possessed. It was the most intense thing anyone in that building had ever seen. It was truly shamanistic. For everyone there, that show was a kind of awakening. The revolution had come to town”.
Instead of playing material about love and loss, Joe Strummer used his guitar to create songs of revolution, taking corrupt political leaders to task for the injustices they’d committed. From there, U2 were inspired to carry the torch for their political leanings, crafting albums like War and October, each related to the state of the world.
For U2, amid the destruction just a few years earlier in their native Ireland, The Clash laid the groundwork to create songs like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, which had much more than the catchy guitar riffs in their arsenal. Compared to the other candified pop acts of the day, U2 still understood the power of rock and roll and how it could move them to create something that could change the world.
Even long after The Clash disbanded in the early 1980s, U2 carried on with the same punk ethos that Strummer and Mick Jones had instilled in them, from political songs like ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ to angry fury on ‘Bad’. Years after they had broken up, The Edge still had a bittersweet feeling about how his favourite band would have continued, ending his speech with, “If they had broken out ten years later, maybe they might have been able to resolve their internal conflicts and stay the course. We might have enjoyed a few more records and tours, but they wouldn’t have been The Clash.”
What The Clash brought to the table might have been fairly rudimentary from a musical standpoint, but hidden underneath those loud guitars is the fire that drew millions of fans to rock and roll.
