Bono has revealed that U2 almost called it quits after recording their second album October.
The Dubliner, whose real name is Paul Hewson, told how the band had a "crisis of faith" and "just wanted to stop."
Speaking to Hozier on the Global Citizen, Cry Power podcast, he explained: “There was a moment when our band nearly ended after our second album, October.
“We had a crisis of faith in our band and its usefulness. We looked around us and said ‘This world is completely up its arse and so are we’. It’s broken.
“How can a rock band play any role in the fixing of it? It’s such, in one sense, a vainglorious thing to go about. We just wanted to stop."
But after the Edge began to write Sunday Bloody Sunday, the band rediscovered their passion and decided they could use their music as a message.
Bono said: “The stark contrast between people who take lives to support what they believe in and those who give their life. That’s the dialectic at the heart of Sunday Bloody Sunday.”
The lead singer also revealed that he thinks being a celebrity and being famous is "nonsense" and he uses charity work to keep himself grounded.
He said: “(It’s about) making sense, or trying to make sense of the nonsense of being famous. Why is it nonsense?
“Because it’s nice to get a seat in a restaurant and not thrown out of pub after hours. But it upends the real order of things.
"In the real view of the world – in God’s view or the view of social justice – a mother or a fireman or a school teacher, they’re incredible people who are not given the kind of recognition that people who can remember their lines - actors, singers, musicians – get.
"We do what we love and it’s a strange thing to have us so regarded. We need to know the nonsense of that.
“So celebrity is nonsense but it’s currency. U2 and I wanted to spend our currency well. We had to make sense of it. We had a prayer in our band – to be useful."
