Jim Henke: U2 Academic Conference

The following is a recap/overview of Jim Henke’s presentation — via pre-taped video — at The Hype and The Feedback, the first-ever academic conference about U2. It doesn’t reflect all of his presentation and many parts are paraphrased.

(Henke showed up at work in his WAR Tour t-shirt for these interviews. Too cool.)

Tells story about meeting U2 for the first time on tour in England - when they got bored, the band would start reading their Bibles.

After seeing them on the War tour, I was trying to get them on the cover. Jann Wenner had the final say, but he wasn’t convinced they would sell a lot of copies at that time.

Edge always had a distinct guitar sound, but by the time of The Unforgettable Fire, he had really developed as a player. The whole band developed dramatically over the early years.

Henke bought Bono a copy of an MLK book called “Let The Trumpet Sound.” Led Bono to write “Pride (In the Name of Love),” and Bono cited the connection in interviews and at shows, too. “Of all the things I’ve done in music, inspiring someone to write a song — that’s right up there.”

Finally got U2 on the RS cover with “Band of the 80s” headline in 1985.

On the Elevation tour, the band came to see a John Lennon exhibit at the rock hall. Bono said, “If you ever want to do an exhibit on us, we’d be interested.” Jim: “I was interested.” The exhibit happened in 2003.

“U2 has been very generous to the Hall of Fame.”

(Does a tour showing many of the U2 artifacts on display at the Rock Hall of Fame…)

Clive Davis of Arista — his secretary called and said, “Mr. Davis would like to know who signed that rejection letter” you have on display at the rock hall of fame.

U2 was like The Clash combined with Bob Dylan or the Beatles.

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