Bono has confessed that he and each of his U2 bandmates have contemplated walking away from the band at some point.
“It is the right instinct to question whether this should still be going and what it demands of all four members,” the singer says in the new streaming doc A Kind Of Homecoming. “But the reason why I want to go forward is something is stirring in my voice and my singing and the desire to write songs we don’t have yet. We are chasing the dragon of the song we can’t get.
“The real magic of U2 is that everything we needed, the people we needed, were always right there.”
Guitarist The Edge agrees. “The fact we are still together is a remarkable thing. We kind of grew up together and learnt how to be people of the world via the band,” he says. “We are probably a little institutionalized by being in this thing a little too long. There are many times in the past I think we were pushing our luck a little too far. It was hard for us. There was a lot of tension.”
Bono says he knows over the years his political activism has tested the patience of The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.
“Friendship is deeply part of who we are, but you could lose that along the way. We had to work on it,” he explained. "“Yes, I embarrass the band. I accept my activism is fairly unhip work. If you are in a rock and roll band, you don’t want to be in the photograph with some people who might have polarizing opposite values you hold dear, and I did that to them.
“I am turning what we created as a band into currency that I chose to spend in these areas. By and large they support me, but I do know I test their patience.”
A Kind of Homecoming debuts on Disney+ on March 17, the same day U2 released Songs of Surrender, a collection of re-recorded and reinterpreted versions of their songs. The band, without Mullen, is scheduled to launch a new residency in Las Vegas.