There was a band in Australia named Midnight Oil, and they were a very, very political, and they literally hit you over the head with a hammer. U2 sometimes can hit you over the head with a rubber hammer.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
U2 are a great band; they've given us an unbelievable body of work, and all of us musicians owe them at least something. I can honestly say that every time I have played the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, as soon as my drums are set up, I go into the beat of 'Sunday Bloody Sunday.'
Hanging out with politicians and corporations is very unhip work. But I think that the U2 audience have turned out to be incredibly subtle in their understanding.
I don't like the name, U2, actually.
U2 have a lot of religion, also people like Johnny Cash and Elvis. Those people weren't shy about it - it's nice there are people who've come before that were open about it.
I just don't get that new hot music. I don't know anything about all these groups like U2.
I'm still digging long-established bands like U2 - they're new to me!
The great music for so many artists - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones - was always at the moment when they were closest to pop. It would be easy for U2 to go off and have a concept album, but I want us to stay in the pop fray.
Rock 'n' roll is ridiculous. It's absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we're wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.
There's only one band that could ever even pretend to assume the mantle of what the Beatles did, who have been so pre-eminent and world-dominating that they could effect a paradigm shift in the culture, who have been willing to leverage their success into musical change, and that is U2 - regardless of what the result of that is.
U2 - that's a band that never should have existed. There's no life experience in any of their songs.