Welcome to our collection of quotes by The Edge. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for The Edge
David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), better known as the Edge or simply Edge, is an English-born Irish musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing vocalist of the rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 14 studio albums with them as well as one solo record. His understated style of guitar playing, a signature of U2's music, is distinguished by chiming timbres, use of rhythmic delay, drone notes, harmonics, and an extensive use of effects units.
Born in England to Welsh parents and raised in Ireland, the Edge formed a band with his classmates at Mount Temple Comprehensive School and his elder brother Dik in 1976. The band would later evolve into U2. Inspired by the ethos of punk rock and its basic arrangements, the group began to write its own material. They eventually became one of the most successful acts in popular music, with albums such as 1987's The Joshua Tree and 1991's Achtung Baby. Over the years, the Edge has experimented with various guitar effects and introduced influences from several genres of music into his own style, including American roots music, industrial music, and alternative rock. With U2, the Edge has also played keyboards, co-produced their 1993 record Zooropa, and occasionally served as co-lyricist. The Edge met his second wife Morleigh Steinberg through her collaborations with the band.
As a member of U2 and as an individual, the Edge has campaigned for human rights and philanthropic causes. He co-founded Music Rising, a charity to support musicians affected by Hurricane Katrina. He has collaborated with U2 bandmate Bono on several projects, including songs for Roy Orbison and Tina Turner, and the soundtracks to the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and the Royal Shakespeare Company's London stage adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. As a member of U2, the Edge has won 22 Grammy Awards and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Several music publications have ranked the Edge among the greatest guitarists of all time.
Rock and roll isn't a career or hobby -- it's a life force ... it's just something I have to do.
Clarity of vision -- what you've been looking at from the wrong angle and not seen at all.
If there is a perfect book to start the year with it has to be Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch.
I'm a minimalist at heart. If a song doesn't need a solo, I'm not going to force one into it.
A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that's true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there's something about the guitar -- the range of possibilities is much broader.
Music is such a great communicator. It breaks down linguistic barriers, cultural barriers, it basically reaches out. That's when rock n' roll succeeds, and that's what virtuosity is all about.
What a song is is a subjective thing. There's no one real definition for it.
Jazz came out of New Orleans, and that was the forerunner of everything. You mix jazz with European rhythms, and that's rock n' roll, really. You can make the argument that it all started on the streets of New Orleans with the jazz funerals.
One of the good things about globalization is it has created a single international music community, and I feel very much part of it.
I have a curiosity that compels me to find ways to make music that are fresh and new.
Bono is chairman and founding member of Over-Achievers Anonymous. He has an irrepressible drive to be great. He wants to achieve it all, which actually makes him very vulnerable.
For me, my awkward phase corresponded to an interest in rock n' roll. From experience, I'm guessing an insecure childhood is probably quite a common thing among people who start a rock band.
Running my hands really fast up and down the fretboard... I mean, anybody can do that. It's the Guitar Olympics, and I can't think of anything more pointless.
Weirdly enough, if I'm having trouble with a guitar part -- not the playing of it but the writing -- I'll mess around with echo and other effects, just turn everything up and make it as crazy as can be, and it winds up taking me somewhere. I've found so many guitar parts from echo. It's limitless.
Jamming is really the most awful, excruciating experience for me; I really don't enjoy it.
You see, rock and roll isn't a career or hobby -- it's a life force. It's something very essential.
For me, looking back is akin to being on a tightrope and looking down. It doesn't help you in the present moment to deal with what you have to deal with in order to move forward.