Rock Group U2 Despises Attempt to ‘Label’ Music

Drummer Larry Mullen shuns labels—especially the one that reads “new wave”—and says he’ll leave it up to the Oklahoma City audience to decide what kind of music U2 plays.

“I wish they would throw the words ‘new wave’ out,” said the 20-year old Dublin native Monday in a phone interview from Houston. “They seem to want to use it to describe every new-sounding band that comes along anymore.”

The group’s name, U2, is intended to be “ambiguous,” he said, like their music. When the four members—all right around the age of 20—got together four years ago at Dublin’s Mount Temple School, it was the with the idea of coming up with something new, something that would defy easy definition.

“We try to approach those instruments in a way that hasn’t been tried before,” Mullen explained. “We try not to play clichés. Like, say, on October [U2’s second album on Island Records], there were some moments when we took the slide guitar past its established limits. Do you follow what I’m saying? I try to take basic drums to their limits. We build our songs differently.”

Indeed, both of the group’s LPs—the first being the critically acclaimed Boy—are marked by unusual melody structures that are accessible and infectious to the average ear.

Mullen’s distinctively rough and strident-drumming is an unusually prominent element of the U2 style as well, rather than a mere rhythm-keeping device. His percussion becomes part of the melody, a quality which is rare among current-day rock drummers.

“That’s very important when you’ve only three instruments,” he stressed.

The rest of U2 consists of bassist Adam Clayton, a guitarist known simply as The Edge, and a lead singer with the singular name of Bono.

Their song-writing methods together (all tunes are written as a unit) are as unorthodox as their music and their names.

“Most of our music is written around the bass and drums,” Mullen revealed. “The Edge comes in with a few things of his own and Bono starts working out a melody. It’s sort of like chipping away at a stone.”

Many of U2’s songs are marked by emotions zig-zagging between hurt, anger and desperation. Mullen is quick to point out their subject matter is seldom political, despite the tense social climate of their native country.

“Only one of our songs deals specifically with Ireland’s problems [‘Tomorrow’], and that one is about how we feel on a personal rather than a political level. The reasons for it.

“We’re not immediately exposed to the violence that goes on. We’re in Dublin and all of that is 60 miles away.”

As for America, Mullen had nothing but high praise.

“In Europe, the audiences are concerned with who’s in fashion. It’s not like that over here. We don’t care about fashion, either. We come to play to our audience. It doesn’t matter what’s in fashion. It’s what sounds good to them.”

“So far,” Mullen added, “the reaction has been great.”

© The Daily Oklahoman, 1982.