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Dialogue with Bono
Feb. 21, 2003
NEW YORK -- Tonight, the MusiCares foundation is set to bestow its person of the year honor on singer/activist Bono of U2. The band has been a force in the music industry since the early 1980s, selling more than 100 million albums and winning 14 Grammys. Between touring and recording, Bono has stepped out of the rock-star role and taken briefcase in hand: He has successfully lobbied international politicians and organizations to bring debt relief to the world's poorest countries and help fight Africa's AIDS epidemic. Bono recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter music editor Tamara Conniff.
The Hollywood Reporter: How do your activism and your music complement each other?
Bono: When people are educated, they'll make the right decisions. That's what I see my job as. Our music is rooted in the feeling that much more is possible than you think. We've always punched over our weight. We're from the north side of Dublin. We formed a band before we could play. We formed it around our friendship, and we used to look at bands who could play better and look better, and we used to say, "They have everything but 'it.' " We had nothing but "it." We really did. We used to go on (the U.K. television show) "Top of the Pops," and our records would go down the charts.
THR: How did U2 persevere?
Bono: I suppose just believing in your gift. In U2, I have to sell songs; that's what I do, and some of the time, I do it door-to-door when we go on the road. I am from a long line of traveling salespeople on my mother's side. I feel like I have to sell songs, sell melodies. But I also sell ideas in my other life. A great idea and a great melody have a lot in common -- a certain clarity, a certain inevitability. The best way to sell something is for people to see that you buy it.
THR: You saw firsthand how terrorism tore apart Ireland. What are your thoughts on the United States' current terrorism crisis?
Bono: These are nervous times -- that's clear. I think people often say that you first have to learn lessons from history, but history is just a bunch of screw-ups. But there are some screw-ups to learn from. I think perhaps the way terrorism in Ireland was encouraged by a very over-the-top British response in the '70s and '80s is a good example. You had 300 active service members of the provisional IRA around that time, and they sent in 30,000 troops and interned everybody who was suspicious without fair access to trial lawyers. Internment was the thing that actually grew the military wing of the IRA movement. It would be wise at this moment in time to think about the mistakes that were made. Irish people have a little bit of experience with terrorism, and America has none.
THR: U2 has long been embraced by legions of fans Stateside. What is your relationship with the United States?
Bono: I'm just a big fan. I mean, Irish people and America, that relationship is a very different relationship than most Europeans. To Irish people, America is the promised land. And it has a mythic position in our psyche. We spend a lot of time in New York. I love Los Angeles also. More people live off their imaginations in Los Angeles than any other city in the world. I'm bored with people who are bored by L.A. I'm a fan of America. But being a fan turns you into a critic. It's like following a band -- you hate when they get their hair cut.
THR: How did U2 come to write the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated song "Hands That Built America" for Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York"?
Bono: We'd been talking to Marty for a long time. We were surprised that he let us in the door but delighted and desperate not to screw up and wondering, I suppose, if the Academy will know that the lyric and the tune came out of the story and the character and that it wasn't just another pop song put in a movie. I think everybody's a little fed up with that, and I think the Academy probably more than most. I hope they won't just see, "Oh, U2, rock band -- that's another one of those marketing exercises."
THR: How was U2's musical voice integrated into the film?
Bono: (Scorsese) wanted me singing. I sing actually in the middle of the picture, though you'd never know. There's a street scene, and I sing an ancient Gaelic melody -- he wanted me to do it so (that) when my voice came up at the end of the film, it wasn't strange. The Oscar nomination is a big deal for us.
THR: What was the Irish reaction to the Dublin premiere of "Gangs of New York"?
Bono: It was the most remarkable occasion. The story came home. The story of these people who had left came home. For Irish people, it was very emotional. The Irish and the blacks are the only two races that didn't come to America because they wanted to -- they had to. They were brought -- one by the slave ships and the other by starvation. There's something about singing that song that connects me to people that I will never meet but somehow know from my DNA.
THR: What are your thoughts on being this year's MusiCares honoree?
Bono: They can be kind of excruciating affairs, getting awards. I turned it down last year just out of embarrassment. This year, I was told you just can't do that. MusiCares is an amazing thing, and you just have to roll with that. I just hope for the people who come that it's not a cringe-making affair. It seems like the sort of occasion that you should be dead to be there. It would be better if you were a ghost. I'm glad I'm not, by the way. That's one rock-star cliche too far.
THR: Who are your musical heroes?
Bono: My heroes are all alive. I never have worshipped at that altar of burnt-out youth. I always thought it was an amazing gift to be given, to be in a band and to wake up with a melody in your head and a few weeks later to hear it played on the radio in Tokyo. I love what I do. I don't want to die stupid. My heroes are people like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, who have the courage to live an ordinary life and not try to live up to people's expectations.
THR: Do you keep your rock stardom in check by grounding your life in reality?
Bono: I don't know how real it is sometimes. We live in Dublin. Living in Dublin prepares you for being in a band because it's just a den of argument. It's unbelievable. When you're in a band, that's your situation. You're just going to be with all these people that you love and scream at each other. And the racket that comes out of the friction is called rock 'n' roll. But real -- I think Dublin has something in the people that keeps you closer to the ground than you'd like most of the time, like nose-on-the-pavement.
THR: What will happen to the song you, Dave Stewart and the late Joe Strummer wrote for Nelson Mandela's now postponed "SOS" human rights benefit concert?
Bono: Well, I was asked to be part of this concert in Cape Town to honor Nelson Mandela, and I was excited by that, and then I heard that Joe Strummer, who was kind of an idol, might want to do some work with us based on Mandela's prison number. So Dave Stewart, who was organizing the concert and organizing the record that would go with the concert, put it all together. A week before Joe was to come to Dublin to finish the song, he died, which was really a cruel blow. I think we're going to put together an AIDS emergency album centered on Africa.
THR: Africa's AIDS suffering has long been a social cause for you. Why?
Bono: There's more people than you think waking up to what is really a much greater war than the one you're seeing on the news nightly. In this war, 2.5 million Africans are going to die next year. By the end of the decade, you're going to have 25 million AIDS orphans. Think about that: 25 million kids won't have anyone to bring them up. While we're right to be very concerned about what is going on in the Middle East and the swell of terrorism, by fighting this other less-visible war, I think we can actually stymie the malaise of anti-American, anti-Western hatred if we actually get out and show what it is we are capable of. We have drugs in the West that can be printed up for the price of a Las Vegas chip, and these drugs can really transform lives. And they are great advertisements for America, for what we in the West can do -- our technology, our innovation. Forget hearts and minds for a moment. If you're saving people's lives, you're saving the life of their sister, their aunt, their brother, their husband, their wife. If the United States and Europe are doing that, evil-minded ideas will be run out of town. They exist in the void of our inaction. There is a way to connect the two struggles. (U.S. Secretary of State) Colin Powell said, "The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty." It just has to be part of this picture.
THR: You're also an advocate for richer countries reducing debt owed to them by poorer countries.
Bono: When we were doing the drop-the-debt campaign, we didn't argue it as philanthropy or charity. It was a justice issue. We were saying (that) it is absolutely insane to hold children to ransom to the debts of their great-great-grandparents. ... You start to see why there might be some resentment at the West. As an example, for Live Aid, we raised I think $200 million. We were jumping up and down, and then you find out that Africa pays back in debts about $200 million every month. In some countries like Tanzania, they are spending more servicing their debts to us than on health and education combined. The United States has let go of its bilateral debt for 23 countries, and that is something to be really proud of. That problem is being dealt with.
THR: Tell me about your new initiative with Bob Geldof called DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa).
Bono: They are three of the most pressing issues facing Africa. It's not just, let's help the poor people. At the heart of this is, do we really believe in equality and equal opportunity? A lot of Africa's problems are of its own making; we can't sort out every problem. But the ones that are of our making, we must sort out. ... If really we do (believe) in this concept that people are equal, then we're not going to let them die while we have the cure in our hands. This is what equality demands of us. I had a very famous head of state -- not yours as it happens -- say to me, "Look, we know that if these people were not black and African, we would not tolerate this. We have to confront our racism." Basically, what we have to confront is, do we really believe that every man is equal in the eyes of God? And even if we don't believe in God, do we believe in each other?
THR: Why is it that so few people use their celebrity power to speak out politically and evoke change?
Bono: I'm aware of the unhappy juxtaposition of spoiled rock star talking about poor people. I'm uncomfortable with that. A lot of people wouldn't be so outspoken because they'd have more sense -- they could see the custard pies coming. I just think celebrity is ridiculous and silly, but it's also currency. Spend it wisely. I'm probably at the outer limits of people's tolerance.
THR: What is the key to getting your activist voice heard?
Bono: You need to bang the dustbin lids outside the walls of indifference. When you can, you need to bridge those walls and get into those back rooms and whisper coherent arguments. It is a lot more glamorous to be on the barricades with a handkerchief over your nose and a petrol bomb in your hand. If you're in a rock 'n roll band, we call that glamour. It's not very glamorous to be standing with a bowler hat and a briefcase.
THR: You mean meeting with the International Monetary Fund is not every rock star's dream?
Bono: I've had some amazing meetings with them and some good old rows.
THR: Does the rest of the band always say, "Go Bono, go" when you engage in social activism?
Bono: There's times where it's been, "Don't go, Bono. Can we please finish the song, Bono?" In the end, it's their time I'm spending.
THR: Do you consider yourself a realist or an idealist?
Bono: I am not a hippie. I'm not even idealistic. I came from punk rock; I was never a hippie with flowers in my hair. It was always about the deal -- getting the record deal, going with the band and getting it done. In the business that I'm doing now with DATA, it's to get checks out of governments. It's hard-headed. It's not about dreaming, it's about doing. You start with your imagination like John Lennon did, but then you have to walk out onto the street and actually make it happen. You can't fix every problem, but the ones you can, you must if you're the overdog. I certainly can't live up to the songs I'm singing. I want to make that clear.
Dialogue with Bono
Feb. 21, 2003
NEW YORK -- Tonight, the MusiCares foundation is set to bestow its person of the year honor on singer/activist Bono of U2. The band has been a force in the music industry since the early 1980s, selling more than 100 million albums and winning 14 Grammys. Between touring and recording, Bono has stepped out of the rock-star role and taken briefcase in hand: He has successfully lobbied international politicians and organizations to bring debt relief to the world's poorest countries and help fight Africa's AIDS epidemic. Bono recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter music editor Tamara Conniff.
The Hollywood Reporter: How do your activism and your music complement each other?
Bono: When people are educated, they'll make the right decisions. That's what I see my job as. Our music is rooted in the feeling that much more is possible than you think. We've always punched over our weight. We're from the north side of Dublin. We formed a band before we could play. We formed it around our friendship, and we used to look at bands who could play better and look better, and we used to say, "They have everything but 'it.' " We had nothing but "it." We really did. We used to go on (the U.K. television show) "Top of the Pops," and our records would go down the charts.
THR: How did U2 persevere?
Bono: I suppose just believing in your gift. In U2, I have to sell songs; that's what I do, and some of the time, I do it door-to-door when we go on the road. I am from a long line of traveling salespeople on my mother's side. I feel like I have to sell songs, sell melodies. But I also sell ideas in my other life. A great idea and a great melody have a lot in common -- a certain clarity, a certain inevitability. The best way to sell something is for people to see that you buy it.
THR: You saw firsthand how terrorism tore apart Ireland. What are your thoughts on the United States' current terrorism crisis?
Bono: These are nervous times -- that's clear. I think people often say that you first have to learn lessons from history, but history is just a bunch of screw-ups. But there are some screw-ups to learn from. I think perhaps the way terrorism in Ireland was encouraged by a very over-the-top British response in the '70s and '80s is a good example. You had 300 active service members of the provisional IRA around that time, and they sent in 30,000 troops and interned everybody who was suspicious without fair access to trial lawyers. Internment was the thing that actually grew the military wing of the IRA movement. It would be wise at this moment in time to think about the mistakes that were made. Irish people have a little bit of experience with terrorism, and America has none.
THR: U2 has long been embraced by legions of fans Stateside. What is your relationship with the United States?
Bono: I'm just a big fan. I mean, Irish people and America, that relationship is a very different relationship than most Europeans. To Irish people, America is the promised land. And it has a mythic position in our psyche. We spend a lot of time in New York. I love Los Angeles also. More people live off their imaginations in Los Angeles than any other city in the world. I'm bored with people who are bored by L.A. I'm a fan of America. But being a fan turns you into a critic. It's like following a band -- you hate when they get their hair cut.
THR: How did U2 come to write the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated song "Hands That Built America" for Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York"?
Bono: We'd been talking to Marty for a long time. We were surprised that he let us in the door but delighted and desperate not to screw up and wondering, I suppose, if the Academy will know that the lyric and the tune came out of the story and the character and that it wasn't just another pop song put in a movie. I think everybody's a little fed up with that, and I think the Academy probably more than most. I hope they won't just see, "Oh, U2, rock band -- that's another one of those marketing exercises."
THR: How was U2's musical voice integrated into the film?
Bono: (Scorsese) wanted me singing. I sing actually in the middle of the picture, though you'd never know. There's a street scene, and I sing an ancient Gaelic melody -- he wanted me to do it so (that) when my voice came up at the end of the film, it wasn't strange. The Oscar nomination is a big deal for us.
THR: What was the Irish reaction to the Dublin premiere of "Gangs of New York"?
Bono: It was the most remarkable occasion. The story came home. The story of these people who had left came home. For Irish people, it was very emotional. The Irish and the blacks are the only two races that didn't come to America because they wanted to -- they had to. They were brought -- one by the slave ships and the other by starvation. There's something about singing that song that connects me to people that I will never meet but somehow know from my DNA.
THR: What are your thoughts on being this year's MusiCares honoree?
Bono: They can be kind of excruciating affairs, getting awards. I turned it down last year just out of embarrassment. This year, I was told you just can't do that. MusiCares is an amazing thing, and you just have to roll with that. I just hope for the people who come that it's not a cringe-making affair. It seems like the sort of occasion that you should be dead to be there. It would be better if you were a ghost. I'm glad I'm not, by the way. That's one rock-star cliche too far.
THR: Who are your musical heroes?
Bono: My heroes are all alive. I never have worshipped at that altar of burnt-out youth. I always thought it was an amazing gift to be given, to be in a band and to wake up with a melody in your head and a few weeks later to hear it played on the radio in Tokyo. I love what I do. I don't want to die stupid. My heroes are people like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, who have the courage to live an ordinary life and not try to live up to people's expectations.
THR: Do you keep your rock stardom in check by grounding your life in reality?
Bono: I don't know how real it is sometimes. We live in Dublin. Living in Dublin prepares you for being in a band because it's just a den of argument. It's unbelievable. When you're in a band, that's your situation. You're just going to be with all these people that you love and scream at each other. And the racket that comes out of the friction is called rock 'n' roll. But real -- I think Dublin has something in the people that keeps you closer to the ground than you'd like most of the time, like nose-on-the-pavement.
THR: What will happen to the song you, Dave Stewart and the late Joe Strummer wrote for Nelson Mandela's now postponed "SOS" human rights benefit concert?
Bono: Well, I was asked to be part of this concert in Cape Town to honor Nelson Mandela, and I was excited by that, and then I heard that Joe Strummer, who was kind of an idol, might want to do some work with us based on Mandela's prison number. So Dave Stewart, who was organizing the concert and organizing the record that would go with the concert, put it all together. A week before Joe was to come to Dublin to finish the song, he died, which was really a cruel blow. I think we're going to put together an AIDS emergency album centered on Africa.
THR: Africa's AIDS suffering has long been a social cause for you. Why?
Bono: There's more people than you think waking up to what is really a much greater war than the one you're seeing on the news nightly. In this war, 2.5 million Africans are going to die next year. By the end of the decade, you're going to have 25 million AIDS orphans. Think about that: 25 million kids won't have anyone to bring them up. While we're right to be very concerned about what is going on in the Middle East and the swell of terrorism, by fighting this other less-visible war, I think we can actually stymie the malaise of anti-American, anti-Western hatred if we actually get out and show what it is we are capable of. We have drugs in the West that can be printed up for the price of a Las Vegas chip, and these drugs can really transform lives. And they are great advertisements for America, for what we in the West can do -- our technology, our innovation. Forget hearts and minds for a moment. If you're saving people's lives, you're saving the life of their sister, their aunt, their brother, their husband, their wife. If the United States and Europe are doing that, evil-minded ideas will be run out of town. They exist in the void of our inaction. There is a way to connect the two struggles. (U.S. Secretary of State) Colin Powell said, "The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty." It just has to be part of this picture.
THR: You're also an advocate for richer countries reducing debt owed to them by poorer countries.
Bono: When we were doing the drop-the-debt campaign, we didn't argue it as philanthropy or charity. It was a justice issue. We were saying (that) it is absolutely insane to hold children to ransom to the debts of their great-great-grandparents. ... You start to see why there might be some resentment at the West. As an example, for Live Aid, we raised I think $200 million. We were jumping up and down, and then you find out that Africa pays back in debts about $200 million every month. In some countries like Tanzania, they are spending more servicing their debts to us than on health and education combined. The United States has let go of its bilateral debt for 23 countries, and that is something to be really proud of. That problem is being dealt with.
THR: Tell me about your new initiative with Bob Geldof called DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa).
Bono: They are three of the most pressing issues facing Africa. It's not just, let's help the poor people. At the heart of this is, do we really believe in equality and equal opportunity? A lot of Africa's problems are of its own making; we can't sort out every problem. But the ones that are of our making, we must sort out. ... If really we do (believe) in this concept that people are equal, then we're not going to let them die while we have the cure in our hands. This is what equality demands of us. I had a very famous head of state -- not yours as it happens -- say to me, "Look, we know that if these people were not black and African, we would not tolerate this. We have to confront our racism." Basically, what we have to confront is, do we really believe that every man is equal in the eyes of God? And even if we don't believe in God, do we believe in each other?
THR: Why is it that so few people use their celebrity power to speak out politically and evoke change?
Bono: I'm aware of the unhappy juxtaposition of spoiled rock star talking about poor people. I'm uncomfortable with that. A lot of people wouldn't be so outspoken because they'd have more sense -- they could see the custard pies coming. I just think celebrity is ridiculous and silly, but it's also currency. Spend it wisely. I'm probably at the outer limits of people's tolerance.
THR: What is the key to getting your activist voice heard?
Bono: You need to bang the dustbin lids outside the walls of indifference. When you can, you need to bridge those walls and get into those back rooms and whisper coherent arguments. It is a lot more glamorous to be on the barricades with a handkerchief over your nose and a petrol bomb in your hand. If you're in a rock 'n roll band, we call that glamour. It's not very glamorous to be standing with a bowler hat and a briefcase.
THR: You mean meeting with the International Monetary Fund is not every rock star's dream?
Bono: I've had some amazing meetings with them and some good old rows.
THR: Does the rest of the band always say, "Go Bono, go" when you engage in social activism?
Bono: There's times where it's been, "Don't go, Bono. Can we please finish the song, Bono?" In the end, it's their time I'm spending.
THR: Do you consider yourself a realist or an idealist?
Bono: I am not a hippie. I'm not even idealistic. I came from punk rock; I was never a hippie with flowers in my hair. It was always about the deal -- getting the record deal, going with the band and getting it done. In the business that I'm doing now with DATA, it's to get checks out of governments. It's hard-headed. It's not about dreaming, it's about doing. You start with your imagination like John Lennon did, but then you have to walk out onto the street and actually make it happen. You can't fix every problem, but the ones you can, you must if you're the overdog. I certainly can't live up to the songs I'm singing. I want to make that clear.
