U2’s Larry Mullen Jr. diagnosed with dyscalculia: “I can’t count, I can’t add”

U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. has revealed he has been diagnosed with dyscalculia.

• READ MORE: U2 live in Las Vegas: a dazzling opening night at the $2 billion Sphere

The musician opened up about his recent diagnosis in an interview with Times Radio, revealing it also explains why he makes a “pained” face when performing, as he finds counting along to music extremely difficult.

“I’ve always known that there’s something not particularly right with the way that I deal with numbers,” Mullen Jr. said. “I’m numerically challenged. And I realized recently that I have dyscalculia, which is a sub-version of dyslexia. So I can’t count [and] I can’t add.”

“I am pained because I’m trying to count the bars,” he said. “I had to find ways of doing this — and counting bars is like climbing Everest.”

U2 perform live with Larry Mullen Jr. Credit: David Jensen/PA Images via Getty Images

According to the British Dyslexia Association, dyscalculia “is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can lead to a diverse range of difficulties with mathematics”. It occurs across all age ranges, levels of education and abilities and affects around 6 per cent of the population.

Mullen has also said that  U2 were working on new material that would mark a change in sound for the band, who he hopes will tour in 2026. “I don’t think it will be what we normally do,” he said. “ I would hope it would be something different,” he said. “But I’m excited to get back in some capacity.”

Last month, guitarist The Edge revealed the band were finally back in the studio with Mullen Jr., who was forced to sit out of the band’s historic Las Vegas Sphere residency due to injury and recovering from surgery.

The Edge continued: “Definitely U2, with Larry which is wonderful, we’ve got him in the studio… he’s good, he’s taking it easy but he’s back in the saddle on the drums still doing some recording with us and so we’ll be doing a bit more of that before the end of the year.”

The update came after Mullen Jr. cited damage to his “elbows, knees [and] necks”, which he “got a chance to have a look at” during the COVID pandemic. Due to these drumming-related injuries, which he described as “damage along the way”, Mullen said at the time he’d “like to take some time… to get myself healed”. It was then reported that he had undergone surgery to address the injuries.

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