The Edge

The Edge was born David Howell Evans in Barking, England, in 1961, to Welsh parents, and raised in Ireland, where in 1976 he, his older brother Dik and a handful of classmates at Mount Temple Comprehensive School started the band that became U2. Punk gave them the permission; the Edge gave them the sound. His guitar doesn't strut, it rings: chiming tones, rhythmic delay, drones and harmonics stacked through a wall of effects units until a few notes fill an arena.

That understated style became U2's signature, and it went everywhere the band did, from The Joshua Tree in 1987 to Achtung Baby in 1991, soaking up American roots music, industrial and alternative rock along the way. He plays keyboards and sings backing vocals in the band too, produced Zooropa in 1993 and Songs of Surrender in 2023, and occasionally helps with the lyrics. "Heroine" is the song that put his own name on rock radio's countdowns, and he has made one solo record.

Outside U2 he co-founded Music Rising to help musicians hit by Hurricane Katrina, and with Bono he has written songs for Roy Orbison and Tina Turner and music for the stage musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. He has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2003 and again in 2014, and with U2 he has won 22 Grammys and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.