The Edge on Bono being embarassed at his voice: ”It never even occurred to us to lower the key”
The singer admitted last year that he “turned scarlet” whenever he heard his own voice on U2’s early songs.
Image: Han Myung-Gu / Getty
The Edge has addressed Bono’s recent admission of being embarrassed of his voice in early U2 songs, admitting the band could have done more to help the singer.
Speaking to Guitar Player about the singer’s admission last year that he “turned scarlet” whenever he heard his own voice on U2’s early songs, the Edge admitted that the band could have done more to suit their sound to the singer’s voice. “Bono kicked up a pretty serious media furore recently when he admitted that some of his early vocal recordings were a source of a certain amount of embarrassment for him,” he said.
“You can hear the strain in his voice. Mind you, it never even occurred to us in those days to lower the key to better fit his range. Today, with each arrangement, we were able to go, ‘Where do you want to pitch this one?’”
“I was able to take some good guesses for what would work for him. It was like tailoring the songs to suit him as a singer. … That was the ultimate goal: to serve the song by serving the singer,” the guitarist concluded, before revealing that the band have a trove of new material in the works. “I’m finding myself for the first time in a little while getting very excited about the electric guitar again,” he hinted,
Starting later this month on 16 April, a Spring 2023 run of eleven dates to celebrate Bono’s Stories of Surrender memoir will be taking place at New York’s Beacon Theatre. Get tickets at U2.com.