HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
The `Atomic' Age
By JOHN DALY Tribune correspondent
DUBLIN, Ireland - Dark and ominous clouds are scudding across Dublin Bay as the final preparations are finalized for U2's return to the world spotlight.
While fax machines and telephones clatter and ring within the rabbit warren of the Hanover Quay offices that have housed the Dublin band's hopes and dreams for the last 25 years, Bono looks out on the first spots of a late afternoon shower wearing a straw Stetson and a huge smile.
With everything finally wrapped and ready to ship on the latest album, ``How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,'' he glances around the spartan boardroom and recalls earlier days.
``This place will be demolished early next year; we're moving the whole operation further upriver into a totally different environment,'' he says with a raspy voice. ``Lots of memories here, lots of ideas and moves we wondered about and debated well into many a dawn.''
He draws a hand through his dangling fringe. ``There was just one receptionist here in 1980, and she pretty much did everything - the phones, the press, the coffee from the deli. And now? the place is like the [United Nations] some days. We need more room.''
It's a fair metaphor for the progress of Ireland's most successful musical export.
For the last two years, the biggest band in the world has been deep in the mire of what Bono smilingly calls ``that difficult 11th studio album,'' a collaborative creation that already has reviewers describing it as ``the best U2 for a decade'' and ``a return to `The Joshua Tree.' '' The CD hits record stores Tuesday.
With every U2 album since 1987 having easily achieved multiplatinum status, the pressure to deliver one more time is evident in every detail.
``We pretty much had what we thought was the right album at the end of 2003, but then we worked on it some more, got deeper into it, and bang goes a whole year.''
It's a work ethic that hit high overdrive in midsummer when a master tape of the album was stolen from one of their villas in the south of France (it was later recovered). Nobody in the band was taking any chances with a product expected to hit No. 1 around the world before Christmas.
``The challenge is the same as it's always been,'' Bono says, locking in those piercing blue eyes that, for once, aren't hidden behind the ubiquitous shades. ``To be bigger and bolder and better, to make something the whole world will listen to. We're in a place now where the least we owe is not to be crap.''
Bettering The Band
At 44, the man otherwise known as Paul Hewson continues to bristle with the same knee-tapping enthusiasm he first displayed as a Blackrock College teenager when ``playing music with my mates seemed a better bet than trying for a dead-end job in the bank.''
Clad from head to toe in black, including a pair of well- scuffed Doc Marten boots, his lean physique and muscular arms belie any notions of an indolent lifestyle. With another mammoth tour already planned to begin on March 1 in Florida, the easy days of wine and poses are definitely on hold for the next 18 months.
``It's never about competing with other bands,'' he says of the trials of the road. ``It's about competing with ourselves, not falling into that complacent place where you think something is good enough.
``All this,'' he sweeps a hand to encompass two decades of rock 'n' roll history in the Hanover Quay headquarters, ``is about whipping yourself beyond the ordinary, aiming for a higher level, making it something exceptional.''
After 25 years of fame, money and the other unique pitfalls of the rock lifestyle, the simple fact that U2 is still together and obviously thriving places it in rare company.
Away from the front line of politics and music, the last few years have seen Bono do a lot of growing up, particularly after the death of his father, Bob, in August 2001.
``It's you when I look in the mirror/It's you when I pick up the phone,'' he sings on one track in a parental homage that snakes through much of the album.
``It was like a bomb went off when he died,'' he says quietly. ``I really didn't know how to deal with it, and it's only in this last year that I've felt some ease with it.
``He's the atomic bomb in question because we had our own cold war over the years, me and him. When he died, I really didn't know how to behave. I remember going to Bali for a drink that lasted a week at one point,'' he says, without the hint of a smile.
Bob Hewson had been ill for a number of years with cancer and Parkinson's disease, yet the end still came as a shock.
``We all took turns at his bedside, and I usually opted for the night shift,'' he says. Bono has operated on less than four hours sleep a night since he was 12. Toward the end, when his father spoke less and less, Bono sketched the array of medical equipment around the bed. The results are now framed on the walls of his French villa.
``We talked in a way we'd never really experienced before. We finally got beyond the Irish male thing.'' He smiles sadly. ``I needed to be there, but I still wasn't ready when he left us. I wasn't ready to find tears running down my face on a Manhattan street without any warning two years later.''
No End In Sight
With the band members all in their early 40s and a gaggle of children (ranging from ages 2 to 14) influencing the shape of their creative horizons, Bono hedges at the question of whether there's an end anywhere in sight for U2.
``What the hell would we do?'' he says with a laugh. ``There's nowhere else to go. We've always been a family; all of us are involved in this thing from start to finish. It's a hard place to walk away from.''
He pauses a second before the punch line: ``And besides, it's still the best blast in the world.''
With an equal-shares ethos that extends to all band members regardless of songwriting credits, the machine that is U2 shows few signs of middle-age spread. Each member has a reported $200 million fortune, and all have multiple homes everywhere from Malibu to Manhattan, plus, of course, their Dublin mansions dotted about the city. Bono and The Edge even have neighboring villas in the south of France.
In the downtimes between albums and tours, Bono busies himself with saving the planet - eradicating AIDS and Third World debt being two of his pet projects. In this effort, he continues to harry and hassle President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, two leaders he describes with typical Bono candor.
``I think Blair is one of the greatest prime ministers the [United Kingdom's] ever had, really, right up there. He's done such amazing things for his country, I think his legacy is enshrined.''
And the war in Iraq, surely that's a hard circle for a liberal to square with?
``I was totally against it and told him so; I still tell him when I meet him. But I will give him credit for his complete conviction on it. I think it's pretty unique to have any leader continue to hold a line that's clearly unpopular even with his own party,'' he says.
And despite similar disagreement with Bush's view of Iraq, the rocker, whose sympathies would surely lie with the blue states, carries little ire for the president.
``I have to say George Bush really did deliver on his promise to get more help for AIDS in Africa. I was told it would be unachievable, but it was not. There was a determination and enthusiasm there that I was surprised to find.''
If the public persona that is Bono thrives within the tightly knit family of his band, the private man is equally bolstered by the distinctly low- key presence of his wife, Ali. Having met her at age 15 while they were classmates in school, he describes her as ``sharp, confident and way smarter than I'll ever be.''
He credits their solid longevity in a business notorious for its marriage fatalities to Ali's ``solid management of the family.'' He clearly dotes on her, but in that cool and easy Irish way.
``We're the best of mates, have been all our lives, but, you know, there's so much about her I still haven't figured out. I don't know that I ever will.'' He pauses. ``Maybe that's a good thing.''
John Daly is a freelance writer living in Ireland.
http://tampatrib.com/Baylife/MGBYF1AST1E.html
By JOHN DALY Tribune correspondent
DUBLIN, Ireland - Dark and ominous clouds are scudding across Dublin Bay as the final preparations are finalized for U2's return to the world spotlight.
While fax machines and telephones clatter and ring within the rabbit warren of the Hanover Quay offices that have housed the Dublin band's hopes and dreams for the last 25 years, Bono looks out on the first spots of a late afternoon shower wearing a straw Stetson and a huge smile.
With everything finally wrapped and ready to ship on the latest album, ``How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,'' he glances around the spartan boardroom and recalls earlier days.
``This place will be demolished early next year; we're moving the whole operation further upriver into a totally different environment,'' he says with a raspy voice. ``Lots of memories here, lots of ideas and moves we wondered about and debated well into many a dawn.''
He draws a hand through his dangling fringe. ``There was just one receptionist here in 1980, and she pretty much did everything - the phones, the press, the coffee from the deli. And now? the place is like the [United Nations] some days. We need more room.''
It's a fair metaphor for the progress of Ireland's most successful musical export.
For the last two years, the biggest band in the world has been deep in the mire of what Bono smilingly calls ``that difficult 11th studio album,'' a collaborative creation that already has reviewers describing it as ``the best U2 for a decade'' and ``a return to `The Joshua Tree.' '' The CD hits record stores Tuesday.
With every U2 album since 1987 having easily achieved multiplatinum status, the pressure to deliver one more time is evident in every detail.
``We pretty much had what we thought was the right album at the end of 2003, but then we worked on it some more, got deeper into it, and bang goes a whole year.''
It's a work ethic that hit high overdrive in midsummer when a master tape of the album was stolen from one of their villas in the south of France (it was later recovered). Nobody in the band was taking any chances with a product expected to hit No. 1 around the world before Christmas.
``The challenge is the same as it's always been,'' Bono says, locking in those piercing blue eyes that, for once, aren't hidden behind the ubiquitous shades. ``To be bigger and bolder and better, to make something the whole world will listen to. We're in a place now where the least we owe is not to be crap.''
Bettering The Band
At 44, the man otherwise known as Paul Hewson continues to bristle with the same knee-tapping enthusiasm he first displayed as a Blackrock College teenager when ``playing music with my mates seemed a better bet than trying for a dead-end job in the bank.''
Clad from head to toe in black, including a pair of well- scuffed Doc Marten boots, his lean physique and muscular arms belie any notions of an indolent lifestyle. With another mammoth tour already planned to begin on March 1 in Florida, the easy days of wine and poses are definitely on hold for the next 18 months.
``It's never about competing with other bands,'' he says of the trials of the road. ``It's about competing with ourselves, not falling into that complacent place where you think something is good enough.
``All this,'' he sweeps a hand to encompass two decades of rock 'n' roll history in the Hanover Quay headquarters, ``is about whipping yourself beyond the ordinary, aiming for a higher level, making it something exceptional.''
After 25 years of fame, money and the other unique pitfalls of the rock lifestyle, the simple fact that U2 is still together and obviously thriving places it in rare company.
Away from the front line of politics and music, the last few years have seen Bono do a lot of growing up, particularly after the death of his father, Bob, in August 2001.
``It's you when I look in the mirror/It's you when I pick up the phone,'' he sings on one track in a parental homage that snakes through much of the album.
``It was like a bomb went off when he died,'' he says quietly. ``I really didn't know how to deal with it, and it's only in this last year that I've felt some ease with it.
``He's the atomic bomb in question because we had our own cold war over the years, me and him. When he died, I really didn't know how to behave. I remember going to Bali for a drink that lasted a week at one point,'' he says, without the hint of a smile.
Bob Hewson had been ill for a number of years with cancer and Parkinson's disease, yet the end still came as a shock.
``We all took turns at his bedside, and I usually opted for the night shift,'' he says. Bono has operated on less than four hours sleep a night since he was 12. Toward the end, when his father spoke less and less, Bono sketched the array of medical equipment around the bed. The results are now framed on the walls of his French villa.
``We talked in a way we'd never really experienced before. We finally got beyond the Irish male thing.'' He smiles sadly. ``I needed to be there, but I still wasn't ready when he left us. I wasn't ready to find tears running down my face on a Manhattan street without any warning two years later.''
No End In Sight
With the band members all in their early 40s and a gaggle of children (ranging from ages 2 to 14) influencing the shape of their creative horizons, Bono hedges at the question of whether there's an end anywhere in sight for U2.
``What the hell would we do?'' he says with a laugh. ``There's nowhere else to go. We've always been a family; all of us are involved in this thing from start to finish. It's a hard place to walk away from.''
He pauses a second before the punch line: ``And besides, it's still the best blast in the world.''
With an equal-shares ethos that extends to all band members regardless of songwriting credits, the machine that is U2 shows few signs of middle-age spread. Each member has a reported $200 million fortune, and all have multiple homes everywhere from Malibu to Manhattan, plus, of course, their Dublin mansions dotted about the city. Bono and The Edge even have neighboring villas in the south of France.
In the downtimes between albums and tours, Bono busies himself with saving the planet - eradicating AIDS and Third World debt being two of his pet projects. In this effort, he continues to harry and hassle President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, two leaders he describes with typical Bono candor.
``I think Blair is one of the greatest prime ministers the [United Kingdom's] ever had, really, right up there. He's done such amazing things for his country, I think his legacy is enshrined.''
And the war in Iraq, surely that's a hard circle for a liberal to square with?
``I was totally against it and told him so; I still tell him when I meet him. But I will give him credit for his complete conviction on it. I think it's pretty unique to have any leader continue to hold a line that's clearly unpopular even with his own party,'' he says.
And despite similar disagreement with Bush's view of Iraq, the rocker, whose sympathies would surely lie with the blue states, carries little ire for the president.
``I have to say George Bush really did deliver on his promise to get more help for AIDS in Africa. I was told it would be unachievable, but it was not. There was a determination and enthusiasm there that I was surprised to find.''
If the public persona that is Bono thrives within the tightly knit family of his band, the private man is equally bolstered by the distinctly low- key presence of his wife, Ali. Having met her at age 15 while they were classmates in school, he describes her as ``sharp, confident and way smarter than I'll ever be.''
He credits their solid longevity in a business notorious for its marriage fatalities to Ali's ``solid management of the family.'' He clearly dotes on her, but in that cool and easy Irish way.
``We're the best of mates, have been all our lives, but, you know, there's so much about her I still haven't figured out. I don't know that I ever will.'' He pauses. ``Maybe that's a good thing.''
John Daly is a freelance writer living in Ireland.
http://tampatrib.com/Baylife/MGBYF1AST1E.html
