Suffering Of Palculia, U2 Drummer Larry Mullahn Jr: Counting Birama Is Like Climbing Mount Everest

U2 Drummer, Larry MULL Jr (Instagram @u2)

JAKARTA - Larry Mullen Jr has had a successful music career as a U2 drummer for more than four decades. But he revealed that he had to fight against scalculia for years.

Meanwhile, scalculia is a condition when a person has difficulty understanding and learning basic mathematical concepts, be it memorizing numbers, calculating, grouping numbers, and understanding numbering systems.

MULL Jr. revealed that he realized that something was wrong with how he handled numbers.

"I have a numerical challenge," said Larry MULL Jr in a recent interview with Times Radio.

"And I recently realized that I was suffering from scalculia, which is a sub-version of dyslexia. So, I can't count (and) I can't add," he continued.

For Mulell Jr, the distraction makes it difficult to count the music taps, which greatly affected his performance when performing with bandmates at U2, namely Bono (vocals), the Edge (guitar), and Adam Clayton (bass).

"When people watched me play, they said, 'You look in pain,'" he said.

"I'm in pain, because I'm trying to count the beer. I have to find a way to do this and calculate beer like climbing Mount Everest."

In the interview, Mullen Jr also talked about his work on Anna Toomey's Left Behind documentary soundtrack, which tells the story of five mothers who work to establish a first school in New York for people with dyslexia.

The documentary story touched the heart of the U2 band member. Because one of his sons also struggled with the inability to learn. 'Creating music from the point of view of my son who is disabled feels personal and deep.'