Larry Mullen Jr.

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Larry Mullen Jr. is the drummer and co-founder of the Irish rock band U2. He was born in Dublin in 1961. As a boy he had piano lessons and he began drumming at the age of nine. For a time he played in marching bands and concert bands, where he mostly played the snare drum. At his secondary school, Mount Temple, he put a note on the notice board in 1976: drummer seeks musicians. In the kitchen at his home, Paul Hewson, later Bono, David Evans, later The Edge, and Adam Clayton, among others, came together. According to Mullen it was his band for ten minutes, until Bono walked in. After the names Feedback and The Hype, the group was called U2 from 1978.

Music and breakthrough

With U2 Mullen made fifteen studio albums. His style is recognisable and almost military, a legacy of his time in the marching band. This can be heard clearly in Sunday Bloody Sunday. He uses his drum kit in a way of his own: because the bass drum was not his strongest point, from Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984) onwards he used a floor tom for that low sound. Under the influence of producers such as Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno he began to play more simply and leave more space open. Later, with the producer Flood, he learned to play along with drum machines and samples.

Influence

Mullen stays tightly on the beat, if anything slightly ahead of it rather than behind. His simple, powerful patterns form the foundation on which The Edge's guitar and Bono's voice can float. Outside U2 he made a dance version of the theme from Mission: Impossible (1996) with Clayton.

Listening

In School of Rock

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