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The Edge
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David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known by his nickname and stage name The Edge (or simply just Edge), is a British-born Irish musician known best as the guitarist, keyboardist, and main backing vocalist for the Irish rock band U2. His distinctive electric guitar timbre and percussive style of playing, along with his innovative use of digital sound processing — delay in particular — have been instrumental in defining U2's unique sound.
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David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known by his nickname and stage name The Edge (or simply just Edge), is a British-born Irish musician known best as the guitarist, keyboardist, and main backing vocalist for the Irish rock band U2. His distinctive electric guitar timbre and percussive style of playing, along with his innovative use of digital sound processing — delay in particular — have been instrumental in defining U2's unique sound. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine named him #24 on their list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Biography
David Howell Evans was born in London, England to Welsh parents Garvin and Gwenda Evans. When he was a year old, his family moved to Malahide in County Dublin, Ireland where he attended St. Andrew's National School. The Edge received piano and guitar lessons and often performed with his brother Dik Evans before they both answered an advertisement posted by Larry Mullen, Jr. at their school, Mount Temple Comprehensive School, seeking musicians to form a band. This band would go through several incarnations before emerging as U2 in March 1978 (Dik Evans left the band just before the name change). U2 began performing in various venues in Ireland and eventually began developing a following. Their debut album, Boy, was released in 1980.
In 1981, leading up to the October tour, The Edge came very close to leaving U2 for religious reasons, but he was persuaded to stay. During this period, he became involved with a group called Shalom Tigers, in which bandmates Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. were also involved. Shortly after deciding to remain with the band, he wrote a piece of music that was to become "Sunday Bloody Sunday". The Edge married his secondary school girlfriend Aislinn O'Sullivan on 12 July 1983. The couple had three daughters together: Hollie, in 1984, Arran, in 1985, and Blue Angel, in 1989. The Edge and O'Sullivan separated in 1990 but could not divorce due to Irish law; divorce was legalised in 1995 and the couple legally divorced in 1996.
During U2's groundbreaking Zoo TV Tour, The Edge met Morleigh Steinberg, a professional dancer and choreographer employed by the band. The couple began dating in 1993, and had their daughter, Sian, in 1997, and a son, Levi, in 1999. Steinberg and The Edge were married on 22 June 2002.
The Edge's hair started thinning in his early twenties, and as a result, he has worn hats or caps on stage, in photo shoots, and on album covers since The Joshua Tree album and tour. From the period of The Joshua Tree up until Achtung Baby and early Zoo TV, he had very long hair. He now wears a toque at all times in public, and even wore one at his wedding to Steinberg in 2002. He has since made very few public appearances without a hat or cap, such as during the 1995 "Pavarotti and Friends" concert where he performed "Miss Sarajevo" and "One" with Bono. This cap has become part of his distinctive "look". He has also been distinguished by wearing shirts with numbers during the Elevation Tour, and by a cowboy hat and Fu Manchu moustache during the PopMart Tour. He is currently focusing his humanitarian efforts on Music Rising, a charity that provides musical instruments to those who lost instruments in Hurricane Katrina. He also owns the 140ft $12million Codecasa yacht called The Cyan.
Nickname
There is considerable speculation as to how Evans received his nickname "The Edge". Bono made reference to the name in the commentary track of the movie The Million Dollar Hotel, saying that The Edge tends to stand close to the edges of buildings because of his comfort with heights. In another, book-length interview with Michka Assayas, Bono mentions both the sharp profile of his face and nose, and the "insane love he had for walking on the edges of very high walls, bridges, or buildings". The book U2 by U2 states that the name originates from his angular facial features, which is then supported by The Edge's claims himself. During an interview with Channel 4's weekend television programme T4, he was asked how he got his nickname and replied "it's the nose," referring to both his nose and angular facial features.
Music
Guitar playing
As a guitar player, The Edge is recognised as having a trademark sound typified by understatement, a chiming, shimmering sound (thanks in part to the signature sound of classic VOX AC-30s) that is achieved with extensive use of digital delay effects, reverb, and a focus on texture and melody. To achieve an "Edge-like" sound, the digital delay's delay is set to a dotted eight note (3/16 of a measure), and its "feedback" adjusted until the number of repeats is about 2 or 3.
1987's The Joshua Tree is probably the best example of the 'U2 sound', with songs like "With or Without You" and "Where the Streets Have No Name" being among the band's most critically acclaimed and best loved works. The album was recorded at the height of the 1980s "shred-metal" era, but The Edge's guitar playing on it could not be further from the emphasis of the time on technique and speed. The album showcases The Edge's approach to the guitar: rather than trying to push his guitar to the front of the mix and make his contributions obvious, The Edge focuses on the song and the mood, often contributing just a few simple lead lines given depth and richness by an ever-present digital delay. For example, the introduction to "Where the Streets Have No Name" is simply a repeated six-note arpeggio, broadened by a modulated delay effect. The Edge has said that he views musical notes as "expensive", in that he prefers to play as few notes as possible. He said in 1982 of his style, "I like a nice ringing sound on guitar, and most of my chords I find two strings and make them ring the same note, so it's almost like a 12-string sound. So for E I might play a B, E, E and B and make it ring. It works very well with the Gibson Explorer. It's funny because the bass end of the Explorer was so awful that I used to stay away from the low strings, and a lot of the chords I played were very trebly, on the first four, or even three strings. I discovered that through using this one area of the fretboard I was developing a very stylised way of doing something that someone else would play in a normal way."
The Edge's guitar technique has been shaped by many different influences. His first guitar was an old acoustic guitar, with which his brother Dik Evans and he experimented. He said in 1982 of this early experimentation, "I suppose the first link in the chain was a visit to the local jumble sale where I purchased a guitar for a pound. That was my first instrument. It was an acoustic guitar and me and my elder brother Dik both played it, plonking away, all very rudimentary stuff, open chords and all that."
The Edge has stated that many of his guitar parts are based around guitar effects. This is especially true from the Achtung Baby era onwards, although much of the band's 1980s material made heavy use of echo. His influence as a guitarist can be seen on many popular rock bands still active such as Radiohead, Muse, Coldplay, Angels & Airwaves, Dream Theater, and much of the indie and alternative scene.
Vocals
The Edge also supplies the backing vocals for Bono. U2's 1983 live album and video release, Under a Blood Red Sky and Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky are good reference points for his singing (as are the live DVDs from the Elevation Tour, U2 Go Home: Live from Slane Castle and Elevation 2001: Live from Boston). For example, he sings the chorus to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (Bono harmonizes on the final 'Sunday'). U2 used this tradeoff technique later in "Bullet the Blue Sky" as well. His backing vocals are often in the form of a repeated cry. Examples of songs that use this approach include "Beautiful Day" and "New Year's Day". The Edge sings the lead vocal on "Van Diemen's Land" and "Numb", the first half of the song "Seconds", dual vocals with Bono in "Discotheque", and the bridge in the song "Miracle Drug". His backing vocals are often in falsetto, such as "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own", "The Wanderer", and "Window in the Skies". He also sings the occasional lead vocal in live renditions of other songs (such as "Sunday Bloody Sunday" during the PopMart Tour and "Party Girl" during the Rotterdam Zoo TV show when it was Bono's birthday).
Other instruments
He has played piano and keyboards on many of the band's songs, including "I Fall Down", "October", "So Cruel", "New Year's Day", "Running to Stand Still", "Miss Sarajevo", "The Hands that Built America", and "Original of the Species" and others. He plays the organ on "Please". In live versions of "New Year's Day" and "The Unforgettable Fire", he plays both the piano and guitar parts alternately. In most live versions of "Original of the Species", piano is the only instrument played during the song.
Although The Edge is the band's lead guitarist, he has played the bass guitar on at least one occasion. For most performances of the song "40", The Edge and bassist Adam Clayton switch bass and lead guitar.
Solo recordings
In addition to his regular role within U2, The Edge has also recorded with artists like Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Tina Turner, and Ronnie Wood.
The Edge connected with Brian Eno and Lanois collaborator Michael Brook (the creator of the infinite guitar, which he regularly uses), working with him on the score to the film Captive (1986). From this soundtrack the song "Heroine", the vocal of which was sung by a young Sinéad O'Connor was released as a single.
He also created the theme song for Season 1 and 2 of The Batman.
Musical equipment
The Edge plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, piano, bass guitar (on "40" and "Race Against Time") and lap steel guitar. He has also played the banjo during a live studio performance of 'Vertigo' which appeared on a bonus DVD with the special edition version of 'How To Dismantle An Atomic bomb'.
Compared to many lead guitarists, The Edge is known for using many more guitars during a show. According to his guitar tech Dallas Schoo, a typical lead guitarist uses four or five different guitars in one night, whereas The Edge takes 45 on the road, and uses 17 to 19 in one 2.5-hour concert. He is estimated to have more than 200 guitars in the studio.
Guitars/keyboards
When he takes over for bassist Adam Clayton for the song "40", he used the Ibanez Musician in The 1980s and the Lakland Daryll Jones Signature for the more recent Vertigo Tour.
The Gibson Explorer is The Edge's signature instrument; he said of the Explorer in 1982, "I think it's the most distinctive of my guitars. It seems that the body shape affects the sound somehow. It's a very vibrant guitar with lots of treble. I had a Strat what I wasn't that pleased with in those days, and when I was in New York with my parents, I went to some stores to look around. I picked up this secondhand Explorer and played around on it for a while. It was just so naturally good, and it felt right, so I bought it. It was quite cheap as well, about 450 dollars. A lot of people look at it and think it's one of the originals (under 100 of these were made in 1958 and they are very rare) but it's one of the '76 limited edition reissue models."
Amps
- Vox AC30- his 1964 AC30 has been used to record every single U2 album and has been used for every single concert. He has said in interviews that he owns over thirty AC30's.
- Fender Deluxe Tweed
- Fender Blues Jr
- Roland JC120
Pedals and rack
- "Floor board" - Dunlop Wah, Digitech WH-1, Volume Control, Skrydstrup SC-1 (foot controller which controls the gear in rack, and the pedals as well.)
- "Rack" -Lexicon PCM, Eventide Ultra-Harmonizer, TC 2290 Dynamic Delay, Line6 Pod Pro, Korg SDD 3000, AMS S-DMX, Korg A3, Rockton DVC Volume Controller, Line6 DM4 Rackmounted Distortion Modeler (Custom Made)
- "Pedals" - Eventide ModFactor (digital modulation effects), Eventide TimeFactor (digital delay), BOSS CS-2, BOSS FA-1, BOSS GE-7, BOSS PW-2, EHX Big Muff, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Durham Sex Drive, Lovetone Doppelganger, Lovetone Meatball, Skrydstrup Bufferooster, Sobbat Drive Breaker and 3 Boss ME-20 multiple effect floor stations.
See also
External links
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