The only prog rock band The Edge ever liked: “They had a few good ideas”
After decades of reinventing the guitar, The Edge was never one to think of himself as a virtuoso.
He had some great moments playing in U2, but when looking at the raw mechanics of what he was doing half the time, not all of the licks that he played were meant to be the most face-melting rock and roll guitar solo that anyone had ever heard. It was more about finding the right sound and running with it, and that meant him always keeping his ears open to all flavours of rock and roll.
Even when he got into the 2000s, no one in the band forgot the importance of trying to outdo the band next to them. The band had officially graduated to be a dad band for most of their time together, but given the bands that they were working against at the time, you can tell that they were listening to what people like The Strokes were doing when tearing through songs like ‘Vertigo’.
That may have been back to basics, but The Edge was always one for looking forward instead of scaling back. He knew that there were a lot of opportunities to push the guitar in ways that no one had seen before, and even the modern innovators of the instrument, like Tom Morello, probably wouldn’t be here today were it not for The Edge flirting with what digital delay could do on some of their best records.
But judging by the way that he uses his effects, there was bound to be an influence from genres beyond standard rock and roll. The geniuses of the genre always knew to dream bigger than the bogstandard limits of the guitar, and while the thought of them being prog was enough to send a chill down Bono’s spine, it’s not like The Edge was above listening to a few progressive acts to see if he could nick a few ideas.
Genesis and Jethro Tull might not have been the biggest inspirations to them, but when listening to Yes perform, The Edge could at least see what could be done on guitar, saying, “In terms of guitar music, a lot of it didn’t reach me. I was such a Beatles fan, [but] I really didn’t like the progressive rock of that time. I quite liked a band called Yes because I think they had a few good ideas, but most of it just left me completely cold.”
And when listening to the way that The Edge plays, there are more than a few riffs that are indebted to what Steve Howe did. He was never going to put together a song as epic as ‘Close to the Edge’ or anything, but looking at the way that Howe used harmonics on a lot of his tunes, you can hear The Edge do the same thing by making his guitar sounds like bells going off whenever he plays.
But in terms of his own sound, U2 were never going to make the same mistakes of stretching their songs out too far. They certainly had their moments when they would disappear up their own ass occasionally, but when looking at the way that the guitars sounded, it was like listening to the beginnings of a prog rock band if they were given the same artistic fire that The Clash had at the dawn of punk.
So, really, what The Edge managed to create was the sound of two opposing genres smashing into each other half the time he played. There was never a need for him to go above and beyond the realm of guitar shredding or anything, but when listening to his approach to guitar alongside the rest of the band, it’s the sound of when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
