July 26, 2007: 08:05 PM EST
Jul. 26, 2007 (Investor's Business Daily delivered by Newstex) --
In accepting the Grammy Award for best single in 2001, U2 lead singer Bono made it clear the band still had grand ambitions even though critics had written it off in the past.
U2, he said, was reapplying for the job of the "best rock 'n' roll band in the world."
It wasn't so much bravado as conviction. Because he believed so strongly in the band, Bono was willing to set the highest standards, challenging himself and his U2 cohorts to achieve greatness.
That attitude typified Bono's approach to making U2 a success. The band was formed three decades ago by a bunch of Irish teenagers with dubious talent. Bono set his sights high from day one and worked hard to make the band more than a one-hit wonder.
His constant striving for success pushed U2 beyond the bounds of most other rock bands, landing the group 20 Grammy Awards.
The group in 2006 grossed $96 million on its Vertigo tour, good for fourth place among global bands.
U2 has become so successful in part because of one of Bono's key traits: not being afraid to fail. Born Paul Hewson into a middle-class Irish family, Bono joined the band when he could barely hold a tune, play an instrument or write a song. His desperation to get out of his hometown and prove himself drove him to try his hand at music.
"Bono's guitar playing was unexceptional to the point of being superfluous," wrote Eamon Dunphy in "Unforgettable Fire." "His singing was loud, rough and tuneless. But he possessed the courage of the really desperate. He wasn't afraid to fail."
Rather than shy away from criticism, Bono took it as a challenge. "Bono was prepared to stand upfront and present a target for the derision that might otherwise be aimed at them," wrote Dunphy.
That trait proved crucial to the band as U2 sought to find its voice and, in later years, reinvent itself. With Bono at the helm, the band was not your typical cookie-cutter rock group.
Bono and his band mates weren't concerned about giving people what they wanted. The band stayed true to itself. Over its history, the band managed to inject its political and religious beliefs into its songs without alienating its audience.
In a 1989 interview with Mother Jones magazine, Bono said he didn't copy anyone's formula for success.
"OK, so you want to design a great rock 'n' roll group? So you're gonna choose guys from Ireland, right? No, you're not. You're gonna choose people who talk about religion and politics? No, you're not. I mean, we're a fluke. Rock 'n' roll bands are about giving people what they want. And what they want often is 'Wow! Yahoo! Let's dance!' and 'Do you think I'm sexy, do you want my body,' that type of thing. And that's not what U2 are about."
U2's success comes from the band's ability to take risks and bounce back from setbacks. Rather than break up or simply feed the fans what they want, U2 has taken lumps for some of its musical attempts and then carried on with trying new things.
Bono says the ability to be bold has been crucial to U2's success. "My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them. ... You see, we are unlike all the great rock 'n' roll bands in that their records generally get worse, whereas our records are getting better."
U2 drummer Larry Mullen says Bono deserves credit for pushing U2 to take risks. "
Bono's) got an extraordinary capacity to deal with blows and to rebound, an incredible instinct. There are very few people like that, and there are very few bands who are prepared to take the risks that U2 takes, and that's because of the way he is." Bono demands perfection, from himself and those around him.
In earlier years, Bono would fly around the stage during U2's concerts to stir up the crowd. His moves came from hours of work plotting the exact route he'd take during the performance.
Early in the band's history, Bono would "be scouting routes for his nightly plunge into the audience," Dunphy wrote. "Bono would enter the empty arena in the afternoon from the back. He would look and listen to check that everyone who paid could see and hear."
Bono insists on the same level of commitment from everyone associated with U2. On tour, the lights must be at a certain level so that Bono can see the audience.
At one concert years ago, the band was overcome with floodlights. The rest of the band thought the show had gone great, but Bono demanded to know what went wrong.
"Bono was the pusher, as hard on everyone else as on himself," wrote Dunphy. That applies to his song-writing, too. Bono will often agonize over lyrics for weeks.
When Bono sets out to do something, he gives it his all, and his commitment isn't short term.
Bono took a day off from U2's 2001 tour to meet Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Sen. Jesse Helms on the subject of debt cancellation to Third World countries.
"I refused to meet him at first," O'Neill told Time magazine. But their scheduled half-hour session ended up lasting 90 minutes.
"He's a serious person," O'Neill said. "He cares deeply about these issues, and you know what? He knows a lot about them."
This story originally ran March 5, 2002, on Leaders & Success.