Bono: I am Bono and I get sick of Bono.
Bono: History will judge us on how we respond to the AIDS emergency in Africa... whether we stood around with watering cans and watched while a whole continent burst into flames...or not.
The Edge: I think my moustache actually was the thing that caught me in the 'Leather man' gear. After that it was every man for himself.
Bono: I don't actually like the name U2 and I honestly never thought of it as 'you too'.
Larry: It's an amazing place, with its own character. You can get immaculate drum sound in the hallway, which is solid stone walls with a really high ceiling. I set my kit out there, and they put mics all the way down from the very, very top of the stairwell. I've recorded many songs out there.
Adam: I don't think U2 should be in the business of providing any answers. I like to think that our job is to get people thinking about issues in novel ways.
Adam: I simulate love-making by beating a piece of wood with a metal wire on which it vibrates.
Adam: We definitely went in saying we're not going to make heavy weather out of this. If a song is happening, we're not going to mess with it too much and we're going to try to get it down on tape as fast as possible.
Bono: There are four members of U2. If there is a fifth, non-musical member it is Paul McGuiness. Either that or Adam's willie!
Bono: Some artists become dull when they stop drinking or drugging, but Adam's not one of them. He's his old self. He loses none of his rubber-band-shooting,water-gun-squirting, public-disrobing spirit when he doesn't drink.
Adam: I'll tell you, you learn a lot about women from dressing up in women's clothes! You learn that when a woman asks you "Do I look alright?" what she's really saying is "I have just spent a lot of time making myself uncomfortable. If I go out in this condition will I look foolish, or is it worth it?". When you ask a woman to go out to dinner it's not like asking one of your mates. She has to stop and think, "Hmm, dinner. That will be four hours of being uncomfortable." And if she says yes and then after four hours you say, "Lets go dancing, let's go to a club," and she says "No, I want to go home," it's because she has figured on four hours and now those four hours are up and she can only think of getting home and out of those clothes!"
Adam: I like the anonymity of being able to seek out things and reel them back to my life, and then be able to create from that.
Adam: You see Larry, you let an outsider taste your food for you. I'm not jealous, but if you need someone to eat off your plate you should always go to your bassplayer.
Adam: Making love involves two people, having sex only involves one.
Bono: Adam is a very melodic bass player. He doesn't play the usual lines.
Bono: Adam literally got me by the scruff of the neck and roped me into U2. I didn't really want to be in a band. I was only into it for the sake of the sound of electric guitar, drums, bass and singing. So when he started talking about actually playing gigs I thought,'What, y' mean playing gigs in front of other people?' The thought had never dawned on me. But Adam believed in the band before anyone did - he'd made up his mind at 15 or 16 that rock 'n' roll was what he was going to do.
Bono: Bono just wanted to meet Sisqo because he thought he was one of the few singers in the world who is shorter than he is. He was wrong by an inch.
Bono: The band insisted we meet them at one of the aftershows. You go into the innersanctum and the whole room is formed in a semi-circle around Bono, all paying court. My God, he could charm the leaves off the trees in summertime. When he looks you in the eye, you just presume everyone else in the world is dead and you're the only one living. He's still Jesus in a leather jacket.
Bono: If there are any journalists in the crowd, please note that neither my father nor my mother know I smoke. I tell my old man that I just smoke cigars and I don't inhale and he says, "Apparantly" that will lead to stronger things
Bono: 'I think it would be great to have Prince Charles come to Ireland and actually say: "There has been a terrible tragedy here and we're a part of it and let's try to work out way out." I mean something like that would do. What else are royalty good for?
Bono: My own dad didn't encourage me much, maybe to save me from being disappointed. And my way of rebelling has been to prove I can go out and win the love of the whole world. But it's a funny need for compensation that makes you need fifty thousand screaming people telling you they love you in order for you to feel normal
Bono: Honey we're home! And look what we've brought you - a forty foot lemon. Now don't go bitin' my ear off ya'll. Pump it up now!
Bono: You work in a knicker factory! Lingerie! That's ok, in Sweden we don't wear underpants.
Q: What's the best thing about you? Bono: My nose. Q: And what's the worst thing about you? Bono: My nose.
Bono: No matter how much we wrap it up in tinsel and television, I'm still the geezer with the white flag.
Bono: It's the job of rock'n'roll stars to set fire to themselves, and to, you know, sell flagellation, get up on a cross if they can, but definetly to die at 33.
Bono: Actually '78 was a really exciting time for U2. We had just discovered F sharp minor. So we had the fourth chord and we'd only had three up to then.
Bono: The only place in my life where I am completely honest is in the song.
Bono: I do enjoy being in a number one band, and I do enjoy the jet so I can get home while on tour, and I do enjoy hearing the record on the radio, so I don't want to come across as being down-in-the-mouth about being number one. I am on top of the world, it's just that something else is on top of me.
Bono: The Joshua Tree is the best record we've made to date, but it will not be our best record by a long shot.
Bono: It's not all of our beliefs and not everyone in the band believes in the same way. There are things I just don't want to talk about. I'll talk about them in music, the way I feel about things comes out on-stage. There are things that don't go well coming indirectly from other people.
Bono: Death is a real cold shower and I've had a lot. It's followed me around since I was a kid and I don't want to see any more of it.
Bono: People expect that because I am a believer that I somehow have all the answers.And I was saying that really I have more questions, as a result of being a believer, and the road I am going down is a road with many side roads, and you get lost along the way and I don't feel that Im a very good ad for God, y'know. If ever there was a sinner there is one here.
Bono: What I like most about being in a band is the feeling of writing a song, one day it doesn't exist, the next day it does exist, then you make it into a record, then the record is played on the radio all over the world, and then you go to some far off place, and you come in in the airport and you hear your song on the radio, and that's a really special feeling; that kind of pays your wages more than anything.
Bono: It's a funny thing but rock'n'roll bands know an awful lot about hotels and we spotted one in Dublin which was in danger of closing down. It was the only place in Dublin which would serve Gavin Friday when he used to wear dresses in the hay day of punk and we have a sort of sentimental attachment to it, so we bought it. It's called The Clarence.
Bono: The only music I'm interested in is music which is either running towards or away from God.
Bono: I believe that there is a logic and a reason for everything. If I didn't believe that and thought that everything was simply down to chance, then I'd really be afraid. I wouldn't cross the road for fear of being run over.
Bono: U2 is just natural, we're reallly just four people within ourselves we have a very strong relationship, like a love between the band which spreads to the crew, our sound engineer, to the management, even to the record company, and then spreads into the audience.
Bono: The concert in the RDS was the most successful ocncert of its size I've ever been at in Dublin. There was such an atmosphwere of celebration, from the front rows to the back. That kind of feeling between band and audience always leaves me breathless.
Bono: I'm like a clown, calling people to the stage.. it's like putting a magnet to iron filings, drawing them in. And once they are in position, you can feed them, give them what you have. We give and people look, and we give all... and that can affect people's emotions; so we get a sensitive audience, people who are aware. You see, I might be a hero on-stage, but off-stage I'm an anti-hero. So you've got this hero image, which is r&r, and the reality, where I meet the fans afterwards and I can't talk 'cause I get embarrassed.
Bono: I also see Charles Bukowski in my head and the kind of advice he gives like, "always give a false name!" But whatever lyric I finally put to it, the music strikes me as very sad. What I'm saying there is 'make it better, son.' The feeling I get is that the father has fucked off, or something like that. Then again it may end up being about Gorbachev!
Bono:There's a station in Berlin, Zoo Bahnhof, which was the link between the East and the West. And it was where all the immigrants came through on their shopping sprees into West Berlin. It was also where a lot of hookers hung out and a lot of deals were done. And it just so happened that one of the lines running into the tube-station part of it was the U2 line and we couldn't resist the chance to follow that line.
Bono: The album wasn't an easy ride for listeners, when they first bought it. But, isn't that what r&r should be right now, is a bit awkward, a bit hard to digest. I mean, we live in this junk food generation, where everything is so nice, and it's air brushed and you, you know, it's easily digested and the way I look at it, it's just as easy to spit it out. And I think that rock'n'roll shouldn't be so easily explained - it should take a while. You know, it shouldn't be on a plate.
Bono: I wish SBS wasn't in the film in one sense. In another sense I stand by everything I said because it was the truth. It was the way we felt, on that day, on that night. It's more of a tribute to Phil Joanou than it is to me 'cos he talked us into it and, personally, I'm not sure that we'll ever play that song again. That's the way I feel about it. I've just about had it up to here with Sunday Blood Sunday as a song and the weight it carries
Bono: Hawkmoon's my favorite, the last few seconds of that scare the shit out of me. And God Part II, the Edge's guitar.
Bono: I'm dependent on music in a way. In writing words and music I'm attempting to idenfity myself. We're all trying to find out who we are and music is like that for me.I find that I almost hold on to it in a very desperate way. I want to reveal the dark side as well as the light side of who I am.
Adam: It's taken us fifteen years to get an image together, or indeed torealize that image is important. And not important.
Bono: A man so handsome, he will never be let sing in this group!
Bono: Larry looked like some kind of porn star, Edge looked like his sister Jill; I looked like Barbara Bush and Adam hasn't taken the dress OFF.
The Edge: So basically your criticism is: too much bass, too many words, not enough drums.
Larry: We were four guys from Dublin who didn't have a clue. We were uncool and unhip.
Larry: Live is where we live.
Larry: I sometimes get the odd twinge that I wouldn't mind playing lead guitar, just like a couple of notes, but that's about as near as I would want to get to the front.
Larry: It doesn't matter what songs we sing. I'm a drummer. Chicks dig me.
Larry: I can't even say the bloody word: ACHTUNG BABY!
The Edge: I think the version we released was the first take-one of those real magical moments in the studio. It was a very minimalist piece; the idea that a pattern is repeated over and over for a period of time builds its own momentum and character. This would be quite high for me.
The Edge: I have no trouble with Christ, but I have trouble with a lot of Christians.
Bono: What I like most about being in a band is the feeling of writing a song, one day it doesn't exist, the next day it does exist, then you make it into a record, then the record is played on the radio all over the world, and then you go to some far off place, and you come in in the airport and you hear your song on the radio, and that's a really special feeling; that kind of pays your wages more than anything.
Bono: Actually it's hard to find four people this good-looking who are willing to write and record and perform together.
Bono: Grace overpowers karma. Grace rewards where rewards are not justified.
Bono: You have no choice of subject matter. You write what's in your heart and on your mind--unless of course it's crap,in which case it means you've thought about it too much.
Bono: Now we get all kinds of racist jibes because we wrote a song for Martin Luther King, or pinko jibes because we did the Amnesty International Tour. Wherever you look we're a target for the loony fringe. So the second night, we're on stage and I'm singing 'Pride' thinking, 'If someone is going to do it it will be during this number.' So I crouched down on the stage, shut my eyes and for a moment the thought of death crossed my mind. When I looked up I just saw Adam standing over me, between me and the crowd. It was a good, good moment.
Bono: It's good to be back in Boston... I usually get my hair cut in Boston.
Bono: Our music never had a roof on it. It's music that likes to float. I think that's one of the reasons why we enjoy these big open spaces, because it can't contain the music.
The Edge: I suppose ultimately I'm interested in music. I'm a musician. I'm not a gunslinger. That's the difference between what I do and what a lot of guitar heroes do.
Bono: A lot of photographers feel their art is to discover who you are. Anton is about who you might be.
Bono: We've been trying to work out how to get all the Achtung Baby sounds live. Basically we can do it if Edge plays something different with every one of his appendages.
Bono: Yes, true, we made it hard for people to love, you couldn't put out a more mixed up record. I mean we really worked hard at that. We worked hard at messing it up for the masses and they still went out and bought it. It is an amazing feeling that the audience is kind of as hip as you are.
Bono: People say we take ourselves too seriously and I might have to plead guilty to that. But I don't take myself seriously, we don't take ourselves seriously - but we do take the music seriously.
Bono: Adam pretended he could play and used words like 'gig' and talked about things like 'action' on the bass and we thought 'this is a guy who can play!' He was a liar. He actually couldn't play a note. Dave was just playing away on the acoustic and people just kept on coming up and saying 'there's something wrong' and we couldn't figure out what it was until suddenly we thought - It's Adam! Adam can't play. He had his own distinctive style from the start - at first it was called BLUFF, but then it began to work.
Adam: If you believe in a cause, you must be willing to put yourself on the line for that cause.
In the 2007 NHL All Star Game every time the Western Conference team scored a goal the song Elevation played.
The album, Original Soundtracks 1, also known as "The Passengers Album", has often been the topic of controversy amongst U2 fans and is usually not included with discography. However, one of the tracks, Miss Sarajevo, is included on The Best of 1990-2000 album.
U2 play the following instruments: The Edge - Guitar Bono - Vocals and Guitar Larry Mullen - Drums Adam Clayton - Bass.
Discography: Boy (1980) October (1981) War (1983) Under a Blood Red Sky (1983) The Unforgettable Fire (1984) Wide Awake in America (1985) The Joshua Tree (1987) Rattle and Hum (1988) Achtung Baby (1991) Zooropa (1993) Melon (1995) Passengers Soundtrack (1995) Pop (1997) The Best of 1980-1990 (1998) All That You Can Leave Behind (2000) 7 (2002) The Best of 1990-2000 (2002) How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004) U218 Singles (2006)
Bono's favorite color is Amber.
Bono is the only person, who has been nominated for an Oscar, Grammy, Golden Globe, and a Nobel Prize.
U2 Singles: U2-3 - Another Day - 11 O'Clock Tick Tock - A Day Without Me - I Will Follow - Fire/R.O.K. - Gloria - A Celebration - New Year's Day - Sunday Bloody Sunday - Two Hearts Beat as One - 40 - Pride (In the Name of Love) - The Unforgettable Fire - With or Without You - I Still Haven't Find What I'm Looking For - Where the Streets Have No Name - In God's Country - One Tree Hill - Desire - Angel of Harlem - When Love Comes to Town - All I Want Is You - Island Treasures - The Fly - Mysterious Ways - One - Even Better Than the Real Thing - Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses? - Lemon - Stay - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss me, Kill Me - Miss Sarajevo - Discoteque - Starin at the Sun - Last Night on Earth - Please - If God Will Send His Angels - Mofo - Sweetest Thing - Beautiful Day - Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of - Walk On - Elevation - Electrical Storm - Vertigo - All Because of You - Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own - City of Blinding Lights - Original of the Species.
Some charity organisations supported by U2 include: Amnesty International, Greenpeace, African Well Fund, Support for Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa), Chernobyl Children's Project, Jubilee Debt Campaign, The ONE Campaign, Live 8, Make Poverty History.
U2 are almost as well known for its humanitarian work as it is for its music. Bono is perhaps the best-known advocate for finding a cure for AIDS and helping the impoverished in Africa.
Following the many of the themes from Achtung Baby album and Zoo TV tour, U2 went back into the studio to record their next release during a break in the Zoo TV Tour.
In November of 1991, U2 released the often experimental and distorted Achtung Baby in which the band had used influences from dance music.
U2 was the fourth rock band to be featured on the cover of Time magazine (following The Beatles, The Band, and The Who), who declared that U2 was "Rock's Hottest Ticket".
In March 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree. The album debuted at #1 in the UK, quickly reached #1 in the U.S., and would go on to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and second Grammy for the video "Where the Streets Have No Name".
U2 participated in the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium for Ethiopian famine relief in July 1985, which was seen by more than a billion people worldwide.
The band released their fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire, in 1984 with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois receiving producing credits.
The band has won 22 Grammy awards, the most for recording artists.
While the Bible has remained a major source of inspiration for Bono’s lyric writing, October is U2’s only overtly religious album and is generally held to be among their least.
The album, October contained spiritual lyrics with Bono, The Edge and Larry being committed Christians and made little effort to hide that fact.
The release of the album Boy is considered by many one of the best debuts in rock history.
U2 made their first appearance on US television on Tomorrow hosted by Tom Snyder. It aired on June 4, 1981, and the band performed "I Will Follow" and "Twilight", followed by an interview.
In December 1979, U2 performed in London, their first shows outside Ireland, but failed to get much attention from audiences or critics.
Dik Evans announced his departure in March 1978.
Since U2's album, The Joshua Tree U2 has been considered one of the best rock bands in the world.
"All Along the Watchtower" was recorded in Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco in front of what many consider to be the ugliest sculpture in the city. Bono's spraypainted words required a formal apology from the band and were removed within days.
U2 were in Berlin for three months and they delivered two songs, Mysterious Ways and One.
The 1987 single release, Where the Streets Have No Name, is a different mix than that appearing on The Joshua Tree. It features additional backing vocals not heard on the album release.
In November 1993, Bono recorded the vocal for his duet with Frank Sinatra, I've Got You Under My Skin in a Dublin studio.
Adam Clayton was born in Chinnor, Oxfordshire on March 13, 1960; Paul Hewson (Bono) was born in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin on May 10, 1960; Dave Evans (The Edge) was born in Barking Maternity Hospital, east London, on August 8, 1961; Larry Mullen Jr. was born in Artane, Dublin on October 31, 1961.
In 1996, The Edge and Brian Eno played on a little known album, Undark 3396. The Edge contributed chase guitar.
U2 named their latest album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb because Bono envisioned the bomb as his father and the songs as efforts by him to deal with his father's death.
The album Pop is named so because for U2 it was a tribute to popular music, art and culture.
U2 appeared on the cover of Time Magazine with the headline of Rock's Hottest Ticket in April of 1987.
There are differing versions as to why Dave Evans is called the Edge. One is that Bono named him becuase he was always on the fringe, or "edge" of things. The second is that as a teenager, The Edge had sharp lines and angles on his face.
Larry actually started U2. He posted an ad on a bulletin board at his high school in Dublin looking for musicians to start a band. Bono soon responded to the ad telling him that he could sing and play the guitar. Adam responded next, and wound up being the only bassist to get back to him. The Edge, along with his brother, responded and went to Larry's house to jam... and the rest is simply history.
Bono has four kids (two girls and two boys); The Edge has four daughters and a son; and Larry has two boys and a girl.
Bono was an excellent chess player as a kid.
Bono actually wears his fashionable shades becuase he has an allergy to salicyclates.
Grammy Awards: 1988: Album of the Year - The Joshua Tree; Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group - "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." 1989: Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group - "Desire"; Best Video Performance, Short Form - "Where the Streets Have No Name." 1992: Best Rock Group Performance - Achtung Baby. 1994: Best Alternative Album – Zooropa,. 1995: Best Music Video, Long Form - "Zoo TV Live From Sydney." 2000: Nominated in Best Music Video, Long Form - "PopMart Live from Mexico City." 2001: "Beautiful Day" wins in three categories: Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. 2002: Record of the Year ("Walk On"), Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("Stuck In a Moment"), Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal ("Elevation"), and Best Rock Album (All That You Can't Leave Behind). 2005: Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal, Best Rock Song (songwriters award), Best Short Form Music Video (all for "Vertigo"). 2006: Album of the Year - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, Song of the Year ("Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own"), Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With vocal ("Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own"), Best Rock Song ("City of Blinding Lights").
U2's first ever release came in 1975 with the release of their first single, I Will Follow.
U2 and its members are very good friends with the members of Coldplay, who also play a large part in making poverty history.
U2 have performed in Live Aid and Live Eight.
Bono did an interview with Andrew Denton, on Enough Rope, in Australia. This interview gave a real insight into his political career.
U2 but especially Bono and The Edge, are huge horse racing fans and punters.
The last leg and last 10 shows of the Vertigo Tour have all been postponed due to Edge's sick daughter.
They performed their songs One and Vertigo at the 48th Grammy Awards.
Bono and his wife Ali Hewson owns a clothing named EDUN (spelled Nude backwards) together.
The video for The Sweetest Thing was voted the 33rd greatest music video of all time in a Channel 4 (UK) poll.
They performed The Hands That Built America at the 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003.
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