The guitarist The Edge said could outdo him: “I could not even begin to do anything like that”
When it comes to guitar heroes, it’s hard to really get a read on what The Edge brings to the table.
Many other guitarists may have had the more aggressive approach to their guitar whenever they played, but if they were looking to build up their chops, The Edge was interested in creating sonic worlds in the same way that Andy Summers from The Police had been doing. He was never interested in being that kind of guitar hero, but he willingly admitted when some of his contemporaries could leave him in the dust.
To his credit, though, the U2 guitarist did at least try to improve his skills past the rudiments when he started. As much as Bono might chastise him for it these days, the prog-rock phase that he went through was integral for him to become the player he is today. A band like Yes might not fit anywhere within the U2 oeuvre, but if you listen to the way that Steve Howe used his guitar to create strange sounds that people wouldn’t have thought of, The Edge was most certainly taking notes.
There was still a punk rock attitude to the way that all of them played their music, but when The Edge started making waves in the guitar community, it was always more for the single note melody lines or his effects. The solo in ‘New Years Day’ might not have the most complicated structure to it or anything, but given how much of the song was building to that moment when he starts playing, it serves its purpose perfectly.
But if there’s one thing that you don’t hear in U2’s music that often, it’s the blues. There are definitely bluesy tracks that they like to incorporate into their repertoire time and time again, but even if they were taking inspiration from that medium, it’s hard to look at a song like ‘Desire’ as a true piece of blues music. They did have BB King around to cosign their music in their early days, but The Edge wanted to be the opposite of that.
Because realistically, how the hell was he supposed to focus on his effects and worry about playing like Eric Clapton all the time? It would have been impossible even if he was playing like the singer-songwriter version of ‘Slowhand’, but while he could still learn the occasional lick every now and again, he didn’t want to even attempt to try and dissect everything that Gary Moore could do.
Moore was a fantastic blues troubadour, but even with his more downtempo material, The Edge had no problem saying that he would get absolutely clobbered by him, saying, “I could play in any style, but not to a very high standard. The most important thing with this group is that with everything we do, we try to maintain a certain originality, a certain challenge. Nothing with this band comes without a lot of work. But it would be no contest to put me against a fast player like Gary Moore or any of those guys; I could not even begin to do anything like that.”
And if you want a good idea of what Moore could be like, it’s best to look at some of the lower lights of his catalogue half the time. Anyone could put all of their heavy hitters on their albums, but the fact that he was good enough to knock out a song like ‘She’s My Baby’ by the Traveling Wilburys on a whim should give you a good idea of the guitar legend that the world was really working with.
Moore was in another league and could have easily gone to bat with the greatest players on Earth, but The Edge knew that wasn’t for him. He could certainly appreciate the dexterity and the pure energy that went into every performance, but it was more important for him to have his own voice on the instrument.
