THE STORY OF U2

INTRODUCTION

[00:00:00] Dave Anthony: This episode is dedicated to the memory of Matthew K., a longtime U2 fan. Hi there, I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the Garage to Stadiums podcast, rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that marked that journey

[00:00:28] Dave Anthony: Welcome to Garage to Stadiums. Today's episode is the story of U2. Incredibly, U2 was started by two 14-year-olds and two 15-year-olds who were barely able to play their instruments and were pupils at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, Ireland. Within four years, they were signed by a major record company, and by the time they were 23 years old, they were international superstars, known for their political and socially conscious lyrics.

[00:00:57] Dave Anthony: U2 would go on to sell 175 [00:01:00] million albums, but never the easy way of staying in their lane and putting out the same sounds. This is a story of a band who was never satisfied, evolving from their origins as a '70s punk band, to '80s arena anthems, to their later brave detours into industrial dance and pop music.

[00:01:19] Dave Anthony: And you'll hear some surprising facts about the band, including an internal crisis, not widely known, that almost ended their dream before it started. To discuss the story of U2 is our guest today, Bradley Morgan, author of U2: Until the End of the World. Welcome to Garage to Stadiums, Bradley.

[00:01:39] Bradley Morgan: Hi, Dave.

[00:01:40] Bradley Morgan: Thanks for having me.

[00:01:44] Dave Anthony: We are going to talk today about, uh, U2, and I guess my first question to you would be, why U2? Is there some sort of background we need to know about this?

[00:01:54] Bradley Morgan: Well, there's a how and there's a why. So the why U2, I mean, it's, it's a band that I've always really [00:02:00] appreciated, um, ever since I was a teenager, so about 25 years, when I bought my first U2 CD, All That You Can't Leave Behind, while I was in Ireland, and that was such a, you know, a great introduction to them.

[00:02:12] Bradley Morgan: But the how it came together was that, yes, I did write about U2 prior to this. My first book that came out in 2021 was a cultural and, and political analysis of their album The Joshua Tree.

[00:02:23] Dave Anthony: It's an interesting subject. U2 has got so many different cross-sections you can attack on in terms of social consciousness, which we'll get to, politics, religion, you know, making it from a high school band.

[00:02:38] Dave Anthony: It's just an incredible story. Let's go back in time, because I cannot believe, and I was reminded by reading your book, how young these fellows were when they started. Can you give us a little bit of a background on each, uh, individual?

CHILDHOOD IN DUBLIN AND THE FORMATION OF THE BAND

[00:02:53] Bradley Morgan: So the funny thing about, uh, U2 is that they're an Irish band, but two of the members weren't actually born in Ireland.

[00:02:59] Bradley Morgan: Uh, Adam [00:03:00] and The Edge came over from the UK, and, you know, in the U2 by U2 oral history, The Edge has talked about how when he was younger, he had to hide his Welsh accent, you know, to avoid being picked on and bullied. And we're talking about Dublin in the 1970s, which Ireland at that time was the poorest country in Western Europe and was going through massive cultural and social changes through the urbanization of the country.

[00:03:25] Bradley Morgan: So you had population centers that had been deeply rooted, then uprooted, and then forced into c- you know, some communities into, like, these high-rise buildings, and then there was a polerf- proliferation of poverty, drug abuse. And then, of course, while all this is happening, there's the sectarian violence that's going on between, uh, with, with the Troubles.

[00:03:45] Bradley Morgan: And so-

[00:03:45] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm ...

[00:03:46] Bradley Morgan: it was a very, uh, difficult upbringing I'm sure, and they all had generally lower middle class, middle class backgrounds. And, um, I mentioned Adam and, uh, The Edge already. [00:04:00] Um, Larry, you know, he lost his mother at a early age and, and p- and performed in various kind of bands. He was, like, in a postal workers band at one point.

[00:04:09] Bradley Morgan: And Bono, he had also lost his mother at a very young age and grew up in a home that once that presence was gone, was just very male-dominated, a lot of anger, a lot of tension. And so they had found each other through this, uh, the, the, this, this common love for music and just for a need to do something that wasn't going to be the already kinda set path for a lot of young men at that time, which would've been straight into some sort of workforce that they didn't wanna go into-

[00:04:40] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm,

[00:04:40] Bradley Morgan: mm-hmm

[00:04:40] Bradley Morgan: or potentially falling into the trappings of becoming further involved in the Troubles.

How Bono and The Edge got their nicknames

[00:04:46] Dave Anthony: And you had an interesting story on how, uh, Bono and The Edge got their nicknames

[00:04:52] Bradley Morgan: Yes. So they, so Bono and The Edge were part of a kind of art collective street [00:05:00] gang called Lipton Village, because with whatever options and limited options there were to young men at that time, fortunately this was a way that they, you know, something that they could pursue that wasn't the common other things that they could do.

[00:05:13] Bradley Morgan: And, and they had, um, you know, uh, Gavin Friday was a part of that, uh, who, who became part of, um, the Virgin Prunes. Yeah. And, um, so they would just kinda put on little artistic skits and little kind of things here and there, and that's, they got their nicknames through Lipton Village. The Edge was called The Edge because of the shape of his head and the particular angle of it.

[00:05:34] Bradley Morgan: And you're right, you know, it's, um, he's got a very distinct look. And Bono, there's a hearing aid shop in Dublin called Bono Vox, which is, like, a rough translation of good voice in Latin, or the name is, like, a mistranslation. But he kind of underwent several different, uh, nicknames. He was Bono Vox and, like, Bono Vox of O'Connell Street, and then another one that's, like, this really long name that I've never [00:06:00] committed to memory, and then ultimately just settled on to Bono

Larry Mullen Jr. 's ad forms the band

[00:06:04] Dave Anthony: And they come together.

[00:06:06] Dave Anthony: I mean, Larry seems to be the one that drives it, the drummer, Larry Mullen Jr. And in '76, I guess we're talking fall of '76, they're what? 14 and 15 years old, these guys. He puts an ad on a school bulletin board, "Drummer seeks musicians to form band." And, uh, the dawn of U2 is here, 1976. That's how long they've been together.

[00:06:31] Bradley Morgan: Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of peo- ten- people tend to think that Bono is the leader of U2 or the founder of U2 because he's the most forward one, but it was actually Larry, the drummer, who was looking just for a musical outlet that wasn't his marching band stuff to, you know, play some rock music. And, you know, he had, uh, quite a, he had several people respond to the ad, and they all ended up meeting in the kitchen of his home.

[00:06:55] Bradley Morgan: You had Adam, Larry, and Bono there all for the first time, but they [00:07:00] were also joined by Ivan McCormick, who was, uh, the younger brother of a friend of theirs named Neil McCormick, who would go on to be the music critic for The Telegraph, and they were also joined by The Edge's older brother, Dick Evans, who was several years older at that point.

[00:07:16] Bradley Morgan: He was already kind of entering into college. And when you're very young, just a few years age difference can be, like, a world away. So he was kind of on his own path, own vibe already, just having been older. But from that moment on in the kitchen, it was always still the core of Adam, Larry, Edge, and Bono, and they just sort of coalesced and got on a similar vibe together.

[00:07:41] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. And Larry has a funny story that I read, um, I think somewhere I read this, but he said, "I thought it was gonna be the Larry Mullen Jr. Band until 20 minutes later, Bono walked in and I realized this guy was gonna lead this thing." I guess the next major event that happens [00:08:00] is, uh, you know, they're influenced by some bands.

Early punk influences and first covers

[00:08:02] Dave Anthony: And can you speak a little bit about the influences? Because I think- You know, for the younger members of the audience, take us back in the music history of what was hot in those days and what these guys would've been influenced by.

[00:08:15] Bradley Morgan: So in Ireland, there weren't a lot of, um, you know, access to music was often limited.

[00:08:20] Bradley Morgan: There was only one national public radio station in, in the country. And so I mean, they, they, they had access to records, and they had access to the punk records that were coming over, the Sex Pistols, The Clash. The Ramones were a very, uh, huge influence on U2, and Bono has talked about in Surrender about the time that they all snuck into the first time that

[00:08:40] Bradley Morgan: They all snuck into the concert where The Ramones played in Dublin for the first time. And when they were starting off as a band, they were initially called Feedback and then The Hype before they eventually changed their names to U2. And they played really covers, covers of The Who, covers of Rolling Stones, Bay City Rollers, and th- they [00:09:00] were, they were fine at that.

[00:09:01] Bradley Morgan: Um, but they weren't that particularly great at that, and so they kind of developed this idea that, "Maybe we need to start making our own songs and doing that," and that's how kind of U2 came into the picture there.

EARLY GIGS AND THE ROAD TO A RECORD DEAL

[00:09:14] Dave Anthony: They win a talent contest in, in Limerick, which is a town in Ireland, and the prize is 500 pounds, and they get studio time to cut a demo with CBS Records.

[00:09:25] Dave Anthony: That's, that's an, quite a prize.

[00:09:27] Bradley Morgan: It absolutely is, and the, the demos sessions didn't really go all that well from what I c- recall. I mean, this was a band that were cutting their teeth live. They had a particular, you know, energy and way of working together on a stage. But in the studio, you're in a much more controlled, confined space, and that took some time to get adjusted to.

[00:09:49] Bradley Morgan: And they hadn't quite found their own sound. I mean, one of the things that's really consistent about U2, especially in those early years, is that, you [00:10:00] know, whatever songs you may love on the albums, they always sound so much better live. They've always had this reputation of just being a really great live band.

[00:10:08] Bradley Morgan: Mm-hmm. And even in those younger days with those demos and them getting shopped around, Bono even went to London to try to go be, um, record representatives and A and AR- and AR- A&R people to pass along his demos. But the r- the reception to it was really cool and, and, and lukewarm, and it wasn't until that they c- you know, they sort of performed their own songs live that they started getting that a- attention.

Boy and the breakthrough single I Will Follow

[00:10:32] Dave Anthony: Uh-huh. Yeah, that's a great point, um, because we'll get to something that happens in a minute here. But, you know, we fast-forward, I guess, to 1980. The first album finally does come out. They're signed by Island Records, Chris Blackwell, the famous Chris Blackwell. Um, Boy is released, and it's got, oh, it's got a hit on it, I Will Follow.

[00:10:55] Dave Anthony: I remember when this song was released, and I was like, "Who are these guys?" It was such a definitive sound.[00:11:00]

[00:11:09] Dave Anthony: Next, we will talk about a strange set of circumstances in U2's early history that nearly broke the band apart

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A RELIGIOUS CRISIS THAT ALMOST ENDED THE BAND

[00:11:30] Dave Anthony: But I wanted to get to, you know, the next album, October. And to your point, on that album, the religious themes and lyrics, I mean, Gloria is, is one of the most religious song. The chorus, "Gloria in te, Domine, gloria exaulta" translates to, "Glory in you, Lord, glory exalt him"[00:12:00]

[00:12:04] Dave Anthony: You've got songs like Rejoice, songs With a Shout Jerusalem. I, I wanna touch on the religious themes, the lyrics, and a moment in time when U2 almost didn't go on because of some religious beliefs. Can you illuminate the audience on sort of that complex issue that strikes this band, or at least affects their, uh, decision-making going forward?

[00:12:29] Bradley Morgan: It was also around this time that their religious beliefs almost derailed them being a band. So three of the members, Bono, Edge, and Larry, were members of a kind of, um, evangelical commune called, uh, Shalom. And these were very, um, committed evangelical Christians who believe that everything you need to be doing needs to be in the service of, of, of, of, of, of Jesus a- and their beliefs.

[00:12:59] Bradley Morgan: And [00:13:00] they were pressuring, uh, these young men about how you could not become a rock band. You cannot focus on your music and on your, on your faith at the same time. And this was causing a major crisis of confidence. Uh, and The Edge had, uh, told Bono that he wanted to leave the band. He just couldn't figure out how to reconcile that.

[00:13:20] Bradley Morgan: And when you're young and, and you're impressionable, and you've got people forcing a lot of ideas onto you, and they're ideas that kind of reflect this environment that you've al- you've always known, I, I can imagine that was a very difficult thing for him. And Bono, in support of his friend, was thinking, "You know what?

[00:13:37] Bradley Morgan: If Edge doesn't wanna be in U2, I don't wanna be in U2." So they call up their manager, Paul McGuinness, and they tell him, "Look, we don't wanna be doing this anymore, uh, for these reasons. We're having a difficult time, uh, trying to balance our faith and our ambitions to be musicians." And Paul McGuinness took that into consideration and said, "Well, do you think God would want you to break a contract?"[00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Bradley Morgan: And they didn't understand what he meant by that. And he goes, "You made, you, y- you made a promise and a contract. You gave me your word, and now you're trying to go back on your word. Do you think God would want you to go back on your word?" So they managed to stay together because of this commitment to their contractual obligations and the fear that God may frown upon on them breaking their own promise.

WAR, POLITICS, AND RISING FAME

[00:14:23] Dave Anthony: That's a fascinating sidebar to this story that I don't think a lot of people know. And, and, and the next album is War, and I remember buying this one, and this is a breakthrough album in my mind. It reached number one in the UK, knocking out Thriller by Michael Jackson. Um, it's the g- the same child whose face is on Boy, which is interesting.

[00:14:48] Dave Anthony: He's a bit older, much more intense looking. It's got great tracks. I mean, Sunday, Bloody Sunday. And mothers' children-[00:15:00]

[00:15:04] Dave Anthony: New Year's Day

[00:15:19] Dave Anthony: Seconds

[00:15:29] Dave Anthony: Like a song, two hearts beat as one

[00:15:42] Dave Anthony: '40. The, this album really marks, I think, a turning point. And, and I was gonna ask you about, it almost as if the religious themes get overtaken by political and activism themes here. Is that, would that be fair in saying?

[00:15:58] Bradley Morgan: Well, there certainly are some [00:16:00] songs on there that have a, you know, political angle to them.

[00:16:03] Bradley Morgan: Sunday Bloody Sunday is a song about the 1972, uh, Bloody Sunday massacre in Bogside, which is an area of Derry in Northern Ireland in which British soldiers murdered over two dozen people at a protest. And certainly you have New Year's Day, which is e- you know, evokes the idea of the lyrics that, you know, nothing changes on New Year's Day.

[00:16:24] Bradley Morgan: That, like, this milestone that we have in our calendar year is not going to make all these problems go away. However, when I think about the legacy of U2 as a, a political, political artist, political group, that really honestly doesn't start coming in until The Joshua Tree. So while they have very politically tinged songs-

[00:16:47] U2: Mm-hmm

[00:16:47] Bradley Morgan: on war, they're not really about anything. You know, they're not about, like, an activism. They're, they're these large, grand ideas about how we should behave and live and the feelings of exhaustion that [00:17:00] come when these things happen. But they don't really convey any strong ideas in the way that songs further down their catalog would.

Under a Blood Red Sky at Red Rocks

[00:17:08] Dave Anthony: Hmm. So, uh, we move on here into, uh, I guess, uh, continued in '83, a pretty landmark performance. Under a Blood Red Sky is a, a live EP recorded during The War Tour. And this live version gets tons of MTV play and sort of brings them to the masses, does it not?

[00:17:29] Bradley Morgan: Absolutely. And it goes back to what I was saying earlier about how everything you can hear on their album is so much better live.

[00:17:36] Bradley Morgan: And just that, uh, iconic, you know, clip of Bono waving this white flag with all this energy, and they're doing this, and it's a little bit rainy, too.

[00:17:44] Dave Anthony: Yeah, it's like a rain-soaked performance, it seems.

[00:17:48] Bradley Morgan: Yeah. It was, it was raining earlier in the day. And so with the lights and then the type of c- cameras that they're using, it's, it's a really fascinating, um, just video.

[00:17:57] Bradley Morgan: But the performance is really spectacular, [00:18:00] and it's, it's up there as one of their greatest

[00:18:11] Dave Anthony: The, uh, it was filmed at Red Rocks in Colorado, which is a pretty stunning backdrop. Next, we'll talk about the impact of what the band thought was a disastrous performance in front of a worldwide audience.

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THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE AND THE LIVE AID MOMENT

[00:18:38] Dave Anthony: The band was, was, was looking to sorta change the sound a little bit. They wanted to get more seriously artistically respected and, uh, my understanding is they liked Roxy Music's blend of progressive sort of music. So they, they call Brian Eno, formerly of, of Roxy, and, uh, he didn't wanna do it at first.

[00:18:59] Dave Anthony: And when he [00:19:00] brought in Daniel Lanois, a, a, a young producer, and they start to kind of influence the band. Uh, the next album being The Unforgettable Fire. This, this does sound different than the previous albums, but it does very well on the charts. Number one in UK, number 12 in the US, and critics, uh, are kind to it.

[00:19:21] Dave Anthony: And this album, Bradley, I'd like your comments on it, but also this album is kinda coupled with that Live Aid performance that takes U2 to another level. They just keep ascending here. Each album is kinda bringing them to a new place.

[00:19:36] Bradley Morgan: So yes, uh, Boy in October and War are- they're very much their kind of post-punk, kinda like harder r- you know, ro- new wave rock kind of sound.

[00:19:45] Bradley Morgan: And they were already feeling like they were running to the end of that and didn't wanna keep doing the same things. I mean, certainly these are guys who were very experimental, even if they didn't come from a background where [00:20:00] they were lot- where most of them weren't really trained as musicians. They kind of learned, um, a l- as they went.

[00:20:07] Bradley Morgan: And I think they kinda saw that, well, we just keep doing this, we're not, we're not gonna grow. And Eno didn't initially want to make the album, so he brought on Lanois to kind of pass over the project for him. But it ended up kind of working out really well because Eno got them to places where they could have experiment more.

[00:20:26] Bradley Morgan: They recorded in s- um, Slane Castle, which offered a lot more ambience in terms of the acoustics and how they could lay things out. They had more space so they could get, uh, you know, have more room and freedom to be able to get the performances that they would need. And you had Daniel Lanois, who was very committed.

[00:20:46] Bradley Morgan: He, he was kind of a rock in that, in keeping everything centered and focused and trying new things as well. But you know, Eno and Lanois kinda complement each other on that. And yeah, there's some really big tracks on that. [00:21:00] Certainly Pride in the Name of Love

[00:21:12] Bradley Morgan: Which as you mentioned, the Live Aid performance was a song that they had wanted to perform at Live Aid but didn't because during that performance, during Bad, which is also an unforgettable fire

[00:21:35] Bradley Morgan: Bono had noticed that there was a, a young woman who was being crushed at the front, uh, f- fence of the crowd, and so he jumped down there, pulled her out, and, and, and, and danced with her. And at the time, the band has no idea what's going on. They think it's just Bono being, you know, um, really out there with the stage antics.

[00:21:54] Bradley Morgan: In, in, in U2's early days, he would kinda take the spotlight and really perform, [00:22:00] um, really exaggeratedly, climb things.

[00:22:03] Dave Anthony: Yeah, cl- climb things with a flag and, yeah, he was quite a showman.

[00:22:08] Bradley Morgan: Absolutely. I mean, he still is, but he, he's toned that down. And they, and the rest of the band thought the performance went terribly, and they just thought their careers were over.

[00:22:17] Bradley Morgan: But it w- wasn't until mu- it wasn't until later that they realized that, uh, people really liked what they saw, and they liked what they heard, and it was just a complete surprise to them. And yeah, it catapulted this band that was successful in the college radio and, and, and charts, and other smaller charts.

[00:22:33] Bradley Morgan: It, it launched them to the world stage, which, which would, uh, give them the platform for the success of The Joshua Tree.

THE JOSHUA TREE AND U2'S PEAK OF FAME

[00:22:39] Dave Anthony: The next level we move to is, uh, you know, this is the sort of almost peak U2 of the '80s here, The Joshua Tree, which of course you've written a book on, uh, Where the Streets Have No Name.[00:23:00]

[00:23:03] Dave Anthony: I still haven't found what I'm looking for

[00:23:18] Dave Anthony: With or Without You

[00:23:32] Dave Anthony: Uh, Running to Stand Still, Bullet the Blue Sky

[00:23:47] Dave Anthony: Red Hill Mining Town[00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Dave Anthony: This album is a killer album that really is taking them, again, to another level

[00:24:07] Bradley Morgan: Well, I really do love that album. Um, but it, you know, it- the way I, the way I had to approach that album when I wrote the first book was that, um, besides it just being an album I love, there's a lot of political themes that came about.

[00:24:21] Bradley Morgan: The album is a response to Reagan and Thatcher politics in the 1980s, and I re- had realized how relevant those themes were during the, during the first Trump, uh, administration. And when they toured for their 30th anniversary in 2017, it really cemented just how relevant those songs continue to be, and they almost, like, came full circle in a lot of ways.

[00:24:45] Bradley Morgan: And it's an album that I really appreciate more than just that, but also d- kind of for the themes and messaging that's on it. Earlier, I was talking about how Bono didn't really put a lot of focus on songwriting, but it's [00:25:00] at this point that he actually starts doing that. You know, he, a couple years prior, he interviewed Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, and they were talking to them- him about, uh, the songwriting process and what are your, um, what are your influences?

[00:25:13] Bradley Morgan: And he talks about how U2 doesn't really have any influences, and they encourage him, "Well, you need to go and kind of reach back into your own history and try to find that." And so they do that. They also, through their t- traveling throughout the United States for their f- earlier albums, are discovering blues and roots music.

[00:25:32] Bradley Morgan: You know, real blues and roots music. Uh, Howlin' Wolf, um, other artists li- uh, other, other artists. I'm drawing a blank right now. But that kind of deep Americana blues and roots music-

[00:25:45] Dave Anthony: Yeah ... 'cause before- Yeah. B.B. King's Muddy Waters.

[00:25:47] Bradley Morgan: Muddy Waters. Because to them, blues music was just the, um, kind of saccharine white blues that they would hear on popular radio in Ireland, and so they didn't really have an accurate [00:26:00] idea of what that was.

[00:26:01] Bradley Morgan: And so with this new influence and this kind of discovery of America through their travels, they blended that new discovery with their own roots as Irishmen. And The Edge has even talked about, while making that album, that they didn't, uh, they didn't understand their, their own Irishness until they went to America, that they had to get out of their own country to kind of feel more at home with it.

[00:26:27] Bradley Morgan: And you, with that, you get a lot deeper songwriting craft. You get a lot deeper musical craft that brings in a lot of different influences. And as far as the, the politics of that album go, I really deeply appreciate this idea that, you know, um, you can admonish what you also love. It's an album that explores the dichotomy of America, this promised land versus, um, um, a reality idea that they discovered that all the things about America that they had learned [00:27:00] about growing up you know, related to the mythology of America just wasn't true, and that there was a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of marginalized communities, that they weren't aware of that.

[00:27:09] Bradley Morgan: But at the same time, they could acknowledge that while also celebrating the aspects of the culture and the country that they felt represented something that was meaningful to them.

Two Americas and the politics behind the album

[00:27:24] Dave Anthony: Right. And the album, I think, was to be titled in that regard. Two-Sided America, I think, was the original title?

[00:27:31] Bradley Morgan: Two Americas.

[00:27:32] Dave Anthony: Two Americas, yeah. Um, that's interesting. The, uh, dichotomy there of, uh, admiring but gaining perspective on your own heritage and, uh, almost seeing the underside of, of things. It's a really interesting sort of viewpoint. That brings us to this Rattle and Hum, which was a hybrid live studio album, and, and I think it was their, you know, their tribute to America in many ways.

RATTLE AND HUM AND THE AMERICAN BACKLASH

[00:27:56] Dave Anthony: They had, uh, BB King, Bob Dylan was on there. [00:28:00] They did, uh, Desire, Angel of Harlem, When Love Comes to Town.

[00:28:17] Dave Anthony: Uh, they did a cover of All Along the Watchtower, which I found interesting. But this kinda forced a little bit of a pullback, did it not? It sounded like it was not received well by critics. Can you sort of illuminate us on, on what, what, what happened here?

[00:28:33] Bradley Morgan: So yes, they did do a documentary, uh, tie-in with the album, both called Rattle and Hum, and it was kind of a tour diary of t- going through the United States performing at shows.

[00:28:43] Bradley Morgan: There's really great, uh, performances on there. There's a fantastic performance of Where the Streets Have No Name from Tempe, Arizona. And it was just sort of this continuation of this group of Irishmen just relishing in all this new influence [00:29:00] and trying to do something with it and share it back. But it was having both blowback, um, in the United States and, uh, across the pond in Ireland as well.

[00:29:09] Bradley Morgan: For the Irish, U2 were now becoming this bloated American show band. You know, The Edge had said that they w- you know, that they discovered their own Irishness when they came to America, but they were going so far into America that they were losing touch in that Irishness. And for Americans, as successful as The Joshua Tree was and as big of a splash that they did make at Live Aid, you know, you've got to think that this is still a relatively new band that just had some recent success.

[00:29:37] Bradley Morgan: They're not the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers we know them as. They're not the biggest band in the world that we know them as today. So I think for a lot of Americans, I, I think to see the posturing of this group of young Irish men who really, really weren't all that tested performing with Dylan, performing with B.B.

[00:29:56] Bradley Morgan: King, really kind of gave this impression like-- [00:30:00] or even covering The Beatles. I mean, the album opens up with a performance of Helter Skelter. I think for a lot of Americans, they-- it seemed that U2 was trying to put themselves on the same pedestal as- Mm-hmm ... these other artists who had accomplished so much and who were already so well-known and achieved a lot and had their own legacies already by that time.

[00:30:21] Bradley Morgan: And Am- Americans didn't need to have their own history shown back to them. You know, it was very much of U2 discovering, "Hey, we like this stuff. We're doing something different with it. Let's give it back to you." But Americans know that sound. They know that story, and they didn't need a kind of carbon copy to, uh, t- you know, to appreciate that.

[00:30:44] Bradley Morgan: And so that l- that created some kind of fracture and a kind of, uh, crisis of confidence within the band about how do we move forward from that.

[00:30:52] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. The, the, the fame that they were experiencing was having some negative impacts. [00:31:00] And you, you, you said that well. They almost had to do a rethink after that.

ACHTUNG BABY AND REINVENTING THE SOUND

[00:31:03] Dave Anthony: Bono said to a Dublin audience, quote, and this was in December, I guess, of, uh, 1989, they did a performance, uh, in December, and he said, quote, "We have to go away and just dream it all up again." And that really brings us to a sabbatical where there's some internal sparring that they need to, to sort of rethink the sound And out of that, in November '91 comes Achtung Baby, which is it brings them back into the fore, but it certainly was influenced by some other sounds.

[00:31:37] Dave Anthony: There was... I'll just mention the songs, and then I'd like your comments on what those sounds were. But it had one which became a massive hit and almost brought them back to, uh, the center of the ring. Warm love

[00:31:50] U2: will get to shiver-

[00:31:59] Dave Anthony: Uh, Even Better Than [00:32:00] the Real Thing, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?

[00:32:15] Dave Anthony: mysterious ways

[00:32:27] Dave Anthony: And several other tracks. Um, what, what, what- Tell us a little bit about the, the internal conflict and, and how that was resolved with, with, with this album

Internal conflict and writing One

[00:32:39] Bradley Morgan: So with going so far into America that they lost their own sense of Irishness, and they were feeling kind of directionless at that point. But there was also a lot that was happening at the time.

[00:32:48] Bradley Morgan: The Cold War was ending, the Berlin Wall was coming down, and these were y- you know, young European men who grew up their entire lives in a divided Europe, and now Europe was re- [00:33:00] reunifying. And this opened up a lot of different sounds and cultures and ideas. In the late '80s, early '90s, uh, Germany is rising up as a kind of, as a techno, uh, electronic, um, dance cultural hub, and this was bring- this was exposing to a lot of interesting musical paths.

[00:33:21] Bradley Morgan: And a new decade was opening up. You know, throughout the '80s, there are these s- you know, there are these kind of somber-looking m- m- men in these stark black-and-white photos, and a whole decade was o- was coming where technology was advancing with the advent of the internet and, and rise of, uh, intercommunications that way.

[00:33:40] Bradley Morgan: You had the reunification of, of Europe and a lot of just kind of this promise, what, what, what kinda turned out to be like almost, almost a false promise, of the world kind of opening up and becoming more bright and more colorful. And I think that was just a really exciting time, and Bono and Edge were really [00:34:00] interested in the music that was coming out of Germany and out of the rest of Europe that had this non-rock flavor that brought in dance, that brought in electronic.

[00:34:08] Bradley Morgan: But Larry and Adam, they weren't so keen on that. They wanted to kinda stay rooted in that rock structure. I'm sure they wanted to, you know, move on and create a new sound as well, but they had firm ideas of what they wanted to be, and they were concerned that, you know, "This doesn't sound like U2," or, you know, "If we go too far in this direction, we won't be U2 anymore."

[00:34:33] Bradley Morgan: And yeah, it did create a l- a lot of problems. Walls were coming up between the members of the band, and there wa- there were conflicts in the recording studio making Achtung Baby. Uh, you know, Bono was very critical of Adam's bass playing, and there's a story where Adam hands Bono over his bass. He says, "You don't like it, you can do it."

[00:34:52] Bradley Morgan: And when things were looking at their most bleakest in the sense that maybe U2 wouldn't be around so long, [00:35:00] they had this, this kind of revelation where they're working on a jam. And that's how U2 works in the studio, is that they just kind of jam together and pick pieces apart of what they like and build from there.

[00:35:12] Bradley Morgan: And about 17 minutes into a jam session that they kind of just titled Sick Puppy in, like, the lore of however their material gets recorded, there was a bridge th- that The Edge played that they really liked, and then there was a second bridge that he played that they really liked. So they pieced it together, and then, um, there was the idea of, "Well, play it on acoustic guitar," and then it's that riff that you hear in One.

[00:35:44] Bradley Morgan: And it was one of those moments where everyone came together and they all realized, "Okay, this is what we've been looking for. Let's, let's see where this goes." And that was the, really the saving grace for that album and for the band. [00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. I mean, those words now make a lot of sense. Uh, we're one, we've gotta carry each other.

[00:36:07] Dave Anthony: Uh, they're a team. They've been together since they were 14 and 15, and, and now in '91 I guess they're, you know, 30-ish. So that's, that's interesting. The... Bono and Edge sort of now do take, it seems, they're kind of the spearheads it sounds like from here going forward, and, uh, it did produce a little bit of conflict I guess with...

ZOOROPA, PASSENGERS, AND '90S EXPERIMENTATION

[00:36:34] Dave Anthony: Like, they start using drum machines and all sorts of things here. That must not have gone over too well.

[00:36:39] Bradley Morgan: No, certainly. Uh, Larry did not appreciate the drum machines at first. When they moved on to their next album, Zooropa, which was meant to be, uh, kind of a surprise EP in between tours[00:37:00]

[00:37:01] Bradley Morgan: Uh, for the Zoo TV tour, but they were running late on it, and then eventually it just became a whole album. But there's a lot less guitar on that album, so The Edge took the mantle of producing that album, and so there's a lot of reliance on drum machines that they took from the tour and however they recorded those, those drum loops.

[00:37:19] Bradley Morgan: And yeah, it did take some time for things to kind of coalesce. I mean, this is a band that the reason why they've been together for so long, and this is the longest-running band i- in rock history that's had no lineup changes. I mean, certainly there's been bands that have had their cores together for longer than U2, like Rush, for example, but Neil Peart's not on that first album.

[00:37:41] Bradley Morgan: I mean, this is, they've been all, they're consistently the same four guys the entire time.

[00:37:46] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. Great, great point.

[00:37:49] Bradley Morgan: Yeah, and you know, but part of the reason why they managed to keep that, that togetherness is because they have this, this agreement among themselves that they won't do anything [00:38:00] unless all four of them agree upon it, and they all share things four ways, no matter who contributes on what.

[00:38:06] Bradley Morgan: And I, and I'm sure there's a lot of compromise on some parts and maybe even a bit of coercion from, from Bono on other parts. But, you know, they're, they're, they're all in it together. And Zooropa, you have more of the drum machines that's making Ph- Phil Larry a little bit left out, and then after that, they p- they make this, this, uh, fake soundtrack album under the, uh, under a pseudonym called Passengers.

[00:38:30] Bradley Morgan: They, they did, they, where they named themselves Passengers and did a kind of a collaborative album with, with Brian Eno, and Larry was n- hasn't been kind about that album as well. He's, he feels it's kind of a bit too, um, full of themselves in that way. And so the '90s were a very interesting period for them, a lot of experimentation that took them to interesting places, but they stuck through it.

[00:38:55] Bradley Morgan: However they did and however, you know, they managed that [00:39:00] as not just band members, but essentially brothers, they got through that.

[00:39:03] Dave Anthony: Yeah. Very interesting because Larry was on the record as saying about that, uh, the Zooropa album that you mentioned in '93, he said, "Edge was experimenting with dance, hip-hop, club mixes, and U2 were his guinea pigs."

[00:39:21] Dave Anthony: That's, uh, quite a statement.

[00:39:24] Bradley Morgan: Well, Larry, a- as we mentioned, he always thought this band was gonna be the Larry Mullen Jr. band. Sure. And so he's had, he's had specific ideas of how this band should be, but you know-

[00:39:33] Dave Anthony: Yeah ...

[00:39:34] Bradley Morgan: you know, it's worked out well for him.

[00:39:36] Dave Anthony: Right. The... I was interested, um, this is almost the U- U2 2.0 period.

[00:39:44] Dave Anthony: Um, a fun question I was wondering is there's a 1970 song, s- 97 song, "Staring at the Sun." I was listening to that, and it's from the Pop album, and, uh, boy, that sounds like it could be an Oasis tune.[00:40:00]

[00:40:08] Dave Anthony: So I guess U2 would have taken influences from everywhere as they evolved. They're, they seem very innovative and open to many ideas.

[00:40:16] Bradley Morgan: Oh, yeah. I mean, Oasis, they came around, well, the early, in the early '90s, and there were some bands that U2 were checking out at that, in the, in the '90s when they were making Achtung Baby, bands like Happy Mondays and Screaming Delica, and they felt it was a little bit too psychedelic for what they wanted to do.

[00:40:34] Bradley Morgan: But they certainly, you know, a- a- appreciated that sound, and it would just, you know, seeing what's new and happening. I, oh, I'm sure that crossed over a bit.

[00:40:43] Dave Anthony: Next, we'll explore the controversy around the band's lead singer's political activities and its promotional activities with the largest technology player in the world.

[00:40:57] Announcer: Want another peek behind the garage door? Check out [00:41:00] garagetostadiums dot com for bonus content on each episode.

BONO'S ACTIVISM AND POLITICAL INFLUENCE

[00:41:08] Dave Anthony: As the '90s are ending, Bono starts to become quite the social activist, political lobbyist. He is, uh, visits presidents, prime ministers. He's lobbying for the third world debt is one of the key ones that he sort of wants that forgiven. How was that received by the rest of the band as he became almost a pseudo-politician roaming the world?

[00:41:31] Bradley Morgan: Well, Bono's activism actually goes further back than that. So after Live Aid and before making The Joshua Tree, he gets approached to, um, by a organization to go to Ethiopia and do some service there, you know, um, hand out food, teach, um, hygiene practices. And he was very wary of that because he didn't want to become one of these celebrities who does it for the PR.

[00:41:55] Bradley Morgan: And when it was, when he was convinced that that wouldn't be the [00:42:00] case, he went there, and that really began this journey for his humanitarian work. And then at the end of the '80s, U2 does that Amnesty International tour. And even in the early '90s, and throughout the '90s, there were other ways that they shared that activism.

[00:42:16] Bradley Morgan: They s- did the Stop Sellafield concert, uh, which was the dumping of, like, nuclear waste off the coast of England.

[00:42:23] U2: Mm.

[00:42:24] Bradley Morgan: Uh, they also had brought the PopMart Tour to war-torn Sarajevo. I mean, these were significant, um, things that... But yeah, so but as we get to the ear- late '90s and early 2000s, Bono is not just an activist, but he's an activist on the world stage, and that's, I think, part and parcel of U2 becoming such a major huge band that he's got a bigger platform, and a bigger platform means more access.

[00:42:51] Bradley Morgan: So he's meeting with, um, uh, various leaders in Europe about st- stopping Third World debt. He's meeting with, with President George W. Bush. And, [00:43:00] you know, I think the rest of the band, they were just ha- they were just happy to get him out of the studio sometimes, I, I think was, I think was the case. As long as, you know, he main- yeah, as long as he kept his priorities straight, like, you, you know, you were in the band, you need to focus on the band, um, I think they were, I think they were just, you know, they were fine with that.

[00:43:21] Bradley Morgan: By the, by the Vertigo tour for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the politics are becoming so involved in the stage show that, you know, there was some criticism on, on Larry's part about that, but and, and since then it's kind of toned down. But- I think they were generally just supportive of that. And I think for Bono personally, I think being just a massively successful rock star and all the rewards and trappings that come through that, you know, that's gotta have massive effect on, you know, your ego and your self-consciousness.

[00:43:54] Bradley Morgan: And, you know, we,

[00:43:56] Dave Anthony: I, I, you know, I- But at the same time, but at the same time, [00:44:00] it sounds like he does have, "Hey, it's my responsibility with all this wealth and impact that I need to use it for good." So it's an interesting dichotomy there.

[00:44:10] Bradley Morgan: And, you know, I think for whatever criticisms that people may have about his activism or the role that plays in the music, he's certainly added a net positive, and that's, and that's what I tend to, you know, focus on.

[00:44:20] Bradley Morgan: That, you know, whether or not it's a problem of who he's meeting and how he's meeting them, as, as long as the results are there, that, that's, I think that's what matters.

RETURN TO FORM IN THE 2000S

[00:44:30] Dave Anthony: Yeah. You mentioned, uh, a, a couple things there. The, uh, as they enter the 2000s, it's kinda like we gotta rediscover our sound again, and they go back to Daniel Lanois and Eno, um, Brian Eno, and they come out with All That You Can't Leave Behind.

[00:44:47] Dave Anthony: Beautiful day.[00:45:00]

[00:45:00] Dave Anthony: Stuck in a moment you can't get out of, Elevation. Um, that's a bit of a comeback album. And then How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in 2004 has what you said, Vertigo

[00:45:22] Dave Anthony: Uh, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, All Because of You. These are two albums that kind of, you know, not bad. They come back with, uh, some pretty big hits there.

[00:45:31] Bradley Morgan: You know, those albums, they have, especially with All That You Can't Leave Behind, they get thought of as that, it, it's, it's U2 returning to their roots.

[00:45:38] Bradley Morgan: And I, and I disagree with that because those early albums are very new wave, post-punk. And maybe it's the sense of, you know, it's, they say they're return- It's said that they're returning to their roots is because they're not into that electronica sound anymore, but you hear influences of that. Beautiful Day opens up like a little bit of a synth note as well.

[00:45:57] Bradley Morgan: Mm-hmm. And N- New York from All That You Can't Leave Behind [00:46:00] is a very electronic-heavy, um, uh, track. And I don't think it's them returning to their roots. I think it's their, I think it's them Going into a new era of, uh, uh, of music, and also they're middle-aged men at this point, you know? So I, I think finding comfort into doing this kind of, this contemporary sound as adults with deeper themes in their music about mortality, about humanness, about what it's like to be getting older and- Mm-hmm

[00:46:28] Bradley Morgan: you know, the, the joys and disappointments from there, I never saw it as a return to anything.

[00:46:34] Dave Anthony: Huh. You saw it as an evolution.

[00:46:36] Bradley Morgan: Absolutely. '

THE APPLE MUSIC CONTROVERSY

[00:46:37] Dave Anthony: Cause now they're, they are, uh, you know, approaching early 40s, so that perspective would be different. In 2014, they, something happens that's just incredible. I mean, it speaks to the, how big this band got, but Apple Music decides that it's gonna give the free gift of a album.

[00:46:56] Dave Anthony: 2014's Songs of Innocence was [00:47:00] preloaded, if you can believe it, for 500 million users, and Bradley, it was controversial.

[00:47:06] Bradley Morgan: Yes, it was. So yes, so, um, in tw- in 2014, Apple had launched Apple Music, which was to be their new music subscription service, and they wanted to make a big splash and create a lot of promotion to generate that.

[00:47:20] Bradley Morgan: And, you know, I'm a U2 fan, and I elevate U2, and I support U2, and I, I come from that experience thinking that that album that was on the, uh, Apple Mus- the iTunes, Songs of Innocence, it got a really bad rap for being a really decent album. It's a, it's a fairly good album, but I think here's the thing I c- I, I would ask people to keep in mind.

[00:47:43] Bradley Morgan: So yes, I'm a fan. I wrote this book. But I'm very even-handed with the band, and I don't do a lot of mythologizing with them. And I think the thing to remember is that, so at the end of 2000s, they released No Line on the Horizon, and they do this big U2 360 Tour, [00:48:00] biggest tour, um, of all time at that point.

[00:48:04] Bradley Morgan: And but the album didn't sell well, and you g- and at that time, you've got the advent of streaming media, which is opening up a lot more access for people not only to hear new music, but to create new music. Rock has been, uh, overthrown as, you know, the, the, the domineering musical force for more, uh, for more of the rise of hip hop and rap, and you have other kind of musical influences coming in.

[00:48:28] Bradley Morgan: And this is a band that's kind of, you know, struggling with relevancy and their, and their place in this new music landscape, and they're not the only band that, that suffers from that. You know, there were several years where certain bands would only tour at major festivals because that was the only way they could make money.

[00:48:46] Bradley Morgan: They weren't making money doing their own tours. And so- When you co-- So with Apple coming in on this one and their goal to kind of release this product, they want whatever, they want a [00:49:00] big name to help sell that. And for U2 and, and understanding that, okay, the musical landscape has changed, we wanna try to find ways to engage listeners better, this was an attractive proposition.

[00:49:11] Bradley Morgan: And I think as far as the, the fallout that comes from it, a lot of people criticized that, you know, this was spam, that you're putting music, uh, and, and content that I did not give consent for onto my devices. And, you know, people who support it were saying, "Well, it's just a free thing. What do you care?" I think the free, the free aspect of it as a level of support doesn't really mean anything to me, but with the criticism of this being, oh, this is unsolicited content, you're talking about proprietary software on a proprietary device that's made by one of the biggest companies in the world.

[00:49:50] Bradley Morgan: What, you know, that terms of agreement, uh, document is like 63 pages long. What, what, what makes you think you have any ownership or, [00:50:00] of these, uh, uh, of the platforms and the content? I mean, certainly you buy digital, uh, music and digital videos off their sites that you don't actually even really own.

[00:50:10] Bradley Morgan: You're leasing them.

[00:50:12] U2: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:12] Bradley Morgan: So I, I think it's a little shortsighted for the critics to say, "Well, this is my library and I've curated this way." You, you don't really own this, and I think that's something that tends to get forgotten in that regard And also, um, whether it be criticisms of, you know, it, U2 specifically, I think if you had had any other artist do that, whether it be Beyoncé or, I mean, Taylor Swift wasn't as big, uh, a decade ago as she is now, I think you would've had a lot of the same criticisms.

[00:50:41] Bradley Morgan: And for U2, I know there's some tongue in cheek apologizing for that, but they did have some, some measurable success because as big of, of a band as U2 is, there's so many more people who don't know who they are. And when that happened, a compilation went be- went into the top 40 on iTunes, several of their studio albums, [00:51:00] um, appeared in the top 40 of their iTunes, and you-- And for as, and for 10, for every 10 people that say, "Well, you know, I don't want this," or, "This sounds bad," you've got, you know, someone there who's, who's thinking, "I don't know this band.

[00:51:14] Bradley Morgan: This sounds interesting. I might wanna hear more." So the success and failure of it is not so, for me, easy to measure. I think it's a very complicated, um, uh, combination of factors of just people really not understanding that it's Apple that's the one that you have to be angry at, not the band itself. I mean, honestly, if I was paid-- I mean, they were reportedly paid $100 million to take this, you know, album and put it on this platform, and, you know, certainly if they're not gonna make that with album sales or tours, I mean, that, that sounds like an attractive proposition to me.

U2'S LASTING LEGACY

[00:51:51] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. Well said. We're getting near the end here. I've got two or three more questions. How do you think U2 will be remembered [00:52:00] in music history? What will be sort of the-- When people think about U2 in years to come, they'll think, "That was the band that

[00:52:08] Bradley Morgan: I think it depends on who you're asking. I mean, there's certainly, you know, even with the fan community, there, there are people who say like, "U2's, uh, peak was Boy in October and War," or, or there are some who say it was Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby, or there, there are some who really love the later stuff.

[00:52:24] Bradley Morgan: And, and, you know, you, you have music critics who kind of chime about how they're not as great as they used to be. I mean, we're talking about a band that's been together for 50 years. There's gonna be a lot of ups and downs. And so as far as, you know, in terms of how they're remembered, a lot of that boils down to taste, and I'm, and I'm not very good at really addressing people's taste.

[00:52:45] Bradley Morgan: Like, if you don't like something, that's not-- Like, I don't care. Like, I don't care if people don't like U2. You know? It makes no difference to me. But I think there's something to be said about the ability to stay together as a cohesive unit for so [00:53:00] long, and for them to go through as many changes as they did.

[00:53:04] Bradley Morgan: I mean, we talked about Achtung Baby earlier. I mean, there are other artists who get, who get, uh, commended for being chameleons, like, um, or changing their style, like Madonna, but Madonna's largely in the, y- you know, in the grand scheme of things, really the same. U2, from going from Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum to Achtung Baby, you've never had a band go through that much of a stylistic and image change with that much cur- commercial and critical s- success.

Describing Bono, The Edge, Larry, and Adam in five words

[00:53:30] Dave Anthony: Uh-huh. That's true. How would you describe each of the key members if you had to say, "I'm gonna explain Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., and Adam Clayton in sort of five words or less"? Just pick some words that would describe. Let's start with Bono. He's obviously the biggest, uh, personality. '

[00:53:51] Bradley Morgan: Cause I love these guys, but I'm also kinda tough.

[00:53:53] Bradley Morgan: I mean, Bono, grandiose, insecure, genuine. I think he's a very genuine person [00:54:00] also. I mean, he-- I certainly, with critics who have an issue with the way he handles his activism, that I, I, I think there's an actual genuine, um, thing there. Edge is methodical, very, very... Yeah, I just think he's just methodical. I mean, that's, um...

[00:54:21] Bradley Morgan: Y- Larry is a rather stoic individual who probably is a lot more patient than he needs to be a lot of times. And Adam, I think of all the members of the group, he had the most to lose of not being in U2. I think U2 really saved his life. But even just being younger, just when, when, uh, they were forming, before they even had the formal manager, Paul McGuinness, Adam was kinda the one wrangling shows and, and doing things, and he, and he put a lot more energy into the m- the management of the band.

[00:54:51] Bradley Morgan: And I, and I think I read some quotes in U2 by U2 where he kind of needed to, 'cause he was a little bit, um, out [00:55:00] there in a way that probably would've been really difficult for a, a young man in 1970s I- uh, Ireland.

Three essential songs for new listeners

[00:55:06] Dave Anthony: Hmm. If you had to pick three songs with a theme, they could be newer songs, underplayed songs, your personal faves.

[00:55:18] Dave Anthony: Um, I know that's tough. This catalog is massive. What, what three songs do you think the audience should give a listen to to sorta get a sense for a theme that you might apply?

[00:55:30] Bradley Morgan: I have three songs that if I were to play people who do not know U2, this- you know, what would I play for them? Beautiful Day, I think is one.

[00:55:41] Bradley Morgan: That was my really... I, I had heard U2 before, I'm sure, just, uh, from growing up in the house that I did and all, and that, you know, their music played on the radio all the time growing up. But Beautiful Day was, like, my first U2 song and my real introduction to U2, and I really, really gravitated towards that because it was [00:56:00] a good entry point.

[00:56:01] Bradley Morgan: I think if I would've started with Pop or Zooropa being much younger, I'm not sure how I would've appreciated that, but so... But some- but being a, a, a younger teenager in the early 2000s, Beautiful Day really did it for me. Um, I also really love One Tree Hill from The Joshua Tree because that's a song that really conveys the, the, the energy and musicality of the band.

[00:56:28] Bradley Morgan: It, it's a very interesting band. It's, it's got a sad story behind it because the song was written about a personal friend of the band's who had, who had passed away

[00:56:47] Bradley Morgan: And Bono does the vocals of that track in one take, and he's, he's feeling a lot of hurt in that song, but the way he carries himself through it and how it sounds, it's, it's [00:57:00] incredible and he just, he couldn't do another take of that. And so I think that's a s- track that really illustrates him as, as a vocal performer in a way that I, I think is underappreciated.

[00:57:13] Bradley Morgan: And then the third song would be the title of the book, Until the End of the World. I kissed your-

[00:57:28] Bradley Morgan: When I, you know, this publisher, their book titles, they want it to be the name of a song. And when I was thinking about what possible title it was, the issue was, you know, I, I, you know, I, I couldn't call the, the book U2 Bad, you know, or something to that effect. But, uh... Or, you know, or, or the titles were too connected to a specific album or, or a time, like U2 One, or they just didn't quite fit, um, i- you know, in a way.

[00:57:59] Bradley Morgan: [00:58:00] But Until the End of the World really fit it with it thematically because when I thought about how this album was a kind of 50-year retrospective, it gave me a lot more room to play with the imagery of that, and I think it just evokes more of that longevity than a lot of the other titles though. As far as the, the song itself, I think it's an amazing track.

[00:58:23] Bradley Morgan: I think it's, um, a, a, a very beautifully performed, well-orchestrated track that has a lot of deep themes in it, and it ends with this cacophony of, of, of, of just noise that, um, not many of their tracks do, but I just really love that.

[00:58:42] Dave Anthony: Those are great picks. The guest we've had on today is Bradley Morgan, and he's the author of, uh, U2: Until the End of the World, and the book is a fascinating book, Bradley.

[00:58:54] Dave Anthony: It covers, as you said, 50 years of this band from its beginnings in high school in Dublin [00:59:00] to its various stages, evolutions. It touches on the political, the social, the religious sides of this band, and, uh, it's beautifully illustrated. That's the other thing, the photos in here. I didn't even know some of these photos existed.

[00:59:15] Dave Anthony: And, uh, what I really liked about it was the objective way you took. Even though you're a passionate U2 fan, you really were objective. You said that earlier, and, and I... and you, you talk about some bad reviews. You talk about some egos. You talk about a lot of things in here. So I wanted to congratulate you on the book and encourage people to give it a, give it a look.

[00:59:34] Bradley Morgan: Thank you, Dave, for reading the book and for having me on your show.

[00:59:37] Dave Anthony: Great to have you.

CLOSING NOTES 

0:59:41] Dave Anthony: Some closing notes on U2. How did they actually choose the name U2? In 1977, they changed their name from The Hype, and previous to that, Feedback was their name. And then in '78, punk musician Steve Averill, who was a friend of [01:00:00] bassist Adam Clayton's family, suggested six different names. And the one the band liked was U2, because it had an open-ended meaning, it had visual strength on posters, and they all agreed the name was the one they disliked the least When U2 played their first gig outside of Ireland in December 1979, only nine people showed up, a handful of locals and a record company scout in a small club in Chippenham, England.

[01:00:31] Dave Anthony: Less than six years later, they played a gig in England that was a bit bigger. They performed at 1985's Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in front of 72,000 fans in person, and nearly two billion watching worldwide. In five and a half years, U2 went from playing for single digits to commanding one of the largest audiences in rock history In 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree, an album that shattered [01:01:00] records, becoming the fastest selling in British history and ruling America's charts for nine straight weeks.

[01:01:06] Dave Anthony: Yet its title was almost Two Americas. During a Mojave Desert photo shoot for the album cover, photographer Anton Corbijn pointed out a lone Joshua tree and told the band its biblical story, a symbol of faith and perseverance. The band had religious roots, as we described in our episode, and Bono was struck by the imagery and renamed the album on the spot, forever tying U2's masterpiece to the spiritual and rugged landscape of America In 1987, U2 became only the fourth rock band to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine following The Beatles, The Band, and The Who.

[01:01:47] Dave Anthony: In 1999, when Bono met with Pope John Paul II to discuss third world debt, the pope put on Bono's trademark wraparound sunglasses during their meeting. Bono is almost never seen in public without [01:02:00] sunglasses, as he suffers from glaucoma

[01:02:04] Dave Anthony: U2's Vertigo didn't just top the charts, it also was featured in an internationally aired television commercial for the Apple iPod. A few years later, Bono found another tech connection when his investment firm, called Elevation Partners, bought a small stake in Facebook that soared in value to hundreds of millions of dollars.

[01:02:25] Dave Anthony: U2's guitarist, The Edge, may be known as a proud Dubliner, but he was actually born in Barking, England, just outside of London. His family moved to Dublin when he was a year old, and though he spent his life shaping Ireland's musical identity, he only officially became an Irish citizen on June 23rd, 2025 at age 62 during a ceremony in Killarney, County Kerry.

[01:02:52] Dave Anthony: A lyric in the song Pride in the Name of Love contains a historical error. It references Martin Luther King [01:03:00] Jr. being shot in Memphis on the morning of April 4th, but he was actually assassinated in the early evening around 6:00 PM Bono's global humanitarian activism has earned him major honors, an honorary knighthood from the Queen of England in 2007, recognition as Time's Person of the Year alongside Bill and Melinda Gates in 2005, and France's Legion d'honneur, presented by President Jacques Chirac in 2003.

[01:03:31] Dave Anthony: His work fighting poverty and promoting social justice has been celebrated around the world. Special thanks to our guest today, Bradley Morgan, author of U2: Until the End of the

[01:03:42] Bradley Morgan: World.

[01:03:44] Dave Anthony: Thanks for making Garage to Stadiums one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platform so you can be alerted when our next episode drops.

[01:03:54] Dave Anthony: Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, [01:04:00] Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from our interviews. Visit us at Garage to Stadiums for more bonus content on all the bands featured and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify.

[01:04:18] Dave Anthony: Thanks to our producers, Amina Faubert and Conor Samson, our program director, Scott Campbell, creative director, Chad Raymond, and video director, Nigel Campbell. You've been listening to Garage to Stadiums. I'm Dave Anthony. See you next time for another Garage to Stadiums story.