CHAPTER 4 Introducing U2

In the studio, the band made a tape with the three songs they’d written and performed in the contest: “Street Missions,” “Life on a Distant Planet,” and “The TV Song.” These songs were about their own lives as young men in Dublin. In “Street Missions,” they sang about walking around their town, looking at other people, and wondering what their lives were like.

The demo didn’t get them a record contract but it did get the attention of a manager named Paul McGuinness. Paul wanted to help guide their career. U2 continued to play in clubs all over Ireland and the United Kingdom. They were getting more experience performing in front of a crowd. And sometimes, the audiences were not kind. The guys even had to defend themselves against people booing them onstage. Paul McGuinness introduced the band to experienced musicians who could work with them and teach them more about performing. And he worked to get them more publicity.

One night, in a Dublin McDonald’s, Bono and some friends from Lypton Village met a group of people who called themselves Shalom. Shalom was a group of people who prayed together, sort of like the prayer group Bono went to at school. They were not connected with any one church. They believed in talking to God themselves, rather than going to church. This really appealed to Bono. Soon he, the Edge, and Larry were going to prayer meetings with Shalom. Only Adam didn’t join the group.

In April 1979, Bono and Ali went to London. They visited all the record companies they knew of and left them copies of U2’s demo tape. Most weren’t interested. But someone from CBS liked them. He came to see the band play in Dublin and offered them a contract with CBS’s Ireland division. It wasn’t an international contract, but it was a start!

The band recorded one song for CBS called “11 O’Clock Tick Tock.” The title came from a note left by one of his bandmates on the door when Bono missed a practice that was scheduled for eleven o’clock. CBS made only a thousand copies of the record, but they sold out immediately. U2 went right to work on their first real album. It was called Boy and it was produced by Steve Lillywhite, who had worked with a lot of famous artists. Bono loved how creative Steve was. He was always looking for interesting sounds. Steve broke bottles, tapped spoons on bicycle spokes, and even had Larry play his drums under the stairs to get a different sound. The Edge, too, was experimenting. He ran his guitar through two different speakers to give it a distinct echoing sound.

Bono sang about the innocence of childhood and his fears of losing the sense of wonder that small children have. He made up his lyrics as he stood at the microphone.

Boy wasn’t a huge hit even though the band traveled around the world performing and promoting it. One song on the album, “I Will Follow,” was special for Bono. It was about the love a mother has for her son. Bono wrote the song with his own mother in mind.

On December 6, 1980, U2 played their first show in the United States at a rock club called the Ritz in New York City. The band felt a connection to America because so many Irish people had left Ireland to live there. Still, most of the people in the club that night had never heard of U2. They weren’t interested in their music. But Bono got their attention. He climbed speakers and swung from the ceiling. After each song, more people gathered around the stage to hear Bono sing and the Edge play his guitar. By the end of the show, everyone was singing along.

When the band returned to Ireland, they were excited to start work on a new album called October. Bono, the Edge, and Larry were spending more time with the Shalom group. Adam felt left out. He worried that they didn’t want him in the band anymore. When members of Shalom came to the studio, all work would stop so that they could pray together. Most of the songs on October were about God.

Some of the Shalom members told Bono, the Edge, and Larry that they didn’t think God liked rock and roll. Larry quickly stopped going to Shalom meetings, but Bono and the Edge were confused. Did they have to choose between God and U2?