Adam Clayton
English-Irish bass guitarist and co-founder of U2, a songwriter on the band's catalogue including With or Without You.
- Credits
- 1
- Views across credits
- 61.8K
- Active since
- 1976
Image: wikimedia.org
- Nature
- Human
- Department
- Writing
- Based in
- Chinnor, Oxfordshire, England; raised in Dublin, Ireland
- Active since
- 1976
- 1 credit
Biography
Adam Charles Clayton, born March 13, 1960, in Chinnor, Oxfordshire, is described by Wikipedia as an English-Irish musician and the bass guitarist of U2. His father was an RAF and later commercial pilot, the family lived briefly in Nairobi, and in 1965 they settled in Malahide, north County Dublin, where they befriended the Evans family, including the future guitarist The Edge.
At Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin he met Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. and answered Mullen's 1976 notice seeking bandmates, helping form the group that became U2. The page says he acted as the band's nearest thing to a manager in its early years until Paul McGuinness took over in May 1978, and that he has recorded 15 studio albums with U2.
His playing is described as using harmonic syncopation to drive the rhythm, and he was self-taught until 1995, when he went to New York with Mullen for formal bass training. Outside the band he recorded the 1996 version of the Mission: Impossible theme with Mullen, and Fender later released an Adam Clayton Jazz Bass and a signature amp.
As a member of U2 he has won 22 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, in the band's first year of eligibility. He received a MusiCares Addiction Recovery Award and is listed as an ambassador for the mental health charity Walk in My Shoes. The page records his marriage to Mariana Teixeira de Carvalho from 2013 to 2024.