U2

As a band, U2 has survived longer than some marriages. The group that formed in 1976 has sold more than 145 million records and won more than 20 Grammy Awards.

So how have they kept it together all these years, giving us hit after hit and album after album?

Bono recently said the reason they have survived all these years is because the whole is “greater than the sum of the parts.”

“People tell me that, when U2 walks out on stage—even if they don’t like the band, they’ve been dragged along—hairs go up on their neck and everyone in the crowd just has this involuntary action,” Bono says.

“What they don’t know is that so do we, which is quite mad. I don’t understand what that is but I think that’s called chemistry and we have it between us and it’s a hard thing to live without,” he suggests.

Adam agrees. “You eventually come to a point where you realise you are enabled and empowered to do so much more collectively than you could possibly have done singularly, and I think that’s the promise of being in a band with great people. You can go further together than you could on your own and I certainly think that’s true with us.”

Edge believes it boils down to understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, despite holding differing philosophical views on “politics, religion, the way people tie their shoelaces, their toothpaste, whatever it is . . .”

“It’s not so much that we have arguments or don’t have arguments,” Edge says. “It’s not unusual for bands to disagree. In fact, what’s really unusual is that a band could exist for this long and have figured out a way to deal with disagreements, which doesn’t mean that the band breaks up.

“I think that’s down to the fact that we were mates before we formed the band, or at least before we became a professional outfit, and we figured out early on that, for us all to win, we had to check our individual egos in at the door when we go to work.”

Larry suggests that it’s much more important that the band wins than that anyone comes out looking like a hero.

“In the studio, we all know that to get where we need to get to, we have to rely on everybody’s contribution, everyone’s insight and everybody’s talent,” he says.

U2’s latest album No Line On the Horizon has been described as one of the most “thoroughly Christian” projects the boys have recorded.

Steven R Harmon, an associate professor of divinity at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, says No Line is “more overt in its Christian rendering of the world” than earlier albums.

In fact, Christian themes in U2’s music have been widely recognised since its 1981 album, October, which was ranked #41 on CCM Magazine’s 2001 list of the greatest Christian music albums of all time.

The list also included the group’s 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, at #6.

But does the band see No Line On the Horizon as a gospel album?

Bono is less definitive and says that it is difficult to own up to his faith at times because he says he’s “such a bad example.”

“I confuse the religious community,” he says.

“But I need my faith to get out of bed in the morning and . . . I need some time on my own in the morning to get my head straight, or straighter.”

One of the “very special” moments on the album is “Magnificent,” a song widely interpreted as a worship song in the same vein as “Gloria.”

He sings: “I was born to sing for you/I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up/And sing whatever song you wanted me to/I give you back my voice from the womb/My first cry, it was a joyful noise, oh, oh.”

Bono says the key to the song and perhaps his faith is this: “Only love can leave such a mark but only love can heal such a scar. For me, God is love, and as much as I respond in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion.

“Where things get complicated for me is when I try to live this love. Now that’s not so easy,” Bono admits.