Joe Hebert

It was 1981 and I was musically entrenched in the world of New Wave music and loving it. Along with some ska that I was enjoying, bands like Ultravox, Human League and Yaz (as they were called in the States) were dominating my record collection at the time. I had sworn off the guitar and was convinced that synthesizers were the way to go.

That all changed the day a friend of mine threw on a guitar-based record that caught my attention. It was very intriguing and melodic, and whoever was singing was pouring more emotion into that performance than I had heard before. Whoever he was, he was capturing the feelings that I had as a teenager at that time. He claimed to be 'Out of Control' and I longed for that freedom as well. We bonded right then and there and while I still enjoyed synthesizers, I embraced the sound of the guitar once again and started to look for more bands of the day that had that sound. As much as I enjoyed and continue to enjoy bands like The Alarm, Simple Minds and Echo and the Bunnymen, only The Alarm approached the passion that U2 put into their music. I finally had a chance to see U2 play on the War tour at Pier 84 in New York City along with The Alarm. The show was awesome. The bond I shared with the band was now cemented with the pledge that if they continued to write about topics and feelings that I could relate to and continued to give everything they had in their live performances, they would be 'the' band for me.

All this time later and despite shaky moments on both sides, our agreement is still in place.

Email Joe