U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. has been diagnosed with dyscalculia, which makes it difficult to count bars of music.
“I’ve always known that there’s something not particularly right with the way that I deal with numbers. I’m numerically challenged,” Mullen 63, recently told the Sunday Times Radio. “I realized recently that I have dyscalculia, which is a sub-version of dyslexia. So I can’t count, I can’t add.”
Dyscalculia is a learning disability that affects an individual’s capacity to comprehend arithmetic, tell the time or read music, according to the Cleveland Clinic. For Mullen, the diagnosis explains why his face often looks “pained” during concerts. (Mullen cofounded U2 with Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton back in school in their native Ireland.)
“When people watch me play sometimes, they say, ‘You look pained.’ I am pained because I’m trying to count the bars,” Mullen added. “I had to find ways of doing this — and counting bars is like climbing Everest.”
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Mullen had struggled with numbers for years until recently getting his dyscalculia diagnosis. He will also address the journey in the upcoming Left Behind documentary.
“You know, it’s a political movement in a kind of odd way,” he told Deadline of the doc last month. “I was introduced to the film through Chris Farrell. He and I had done some work together before, and he had been working with Anna [Toomey] on this before he and I were involved.”
Mullen added, “He showed me a very early cut of the film, and he knew I had a dyslexic son, and he just asked me: Would I be interested in helping him out? And so that’s how it started. It’s about a year and a half ago now.”
Mullen and his longtime partner, Ann Acheson, share three children: Aaron, 29, Ava, 25, and Ezra, 23.
“I brought the documentary to my son, who is dyslexic, and he watched the film with me,” Mullen added to Deadline, without mentioning which son struggles with the learning disability. “I could see how he was reacting to it, and I just came up with an idea of his intensity and how he was feeling. I just literally took the idea, went into the studio and recorded what I thought he felt like now.”
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He continued, Oh, he laughs at me and says, ‘Oh, you think that you understand how I feel.’ And I say, ‘Well, I’m imagining what it feels like.’ I was inspired by him, and that’s where the idea grew from with the music.”
In addition to producing Left Behind, Mullen wrote songs for the soundtrack alongside GAYLE.
