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Interview: Michka Assayas meets Bono
I’m going back to my day job, honest
I first met Bono in 1980. I had come over from Paris to interview a score of new bands but nobody made an impression on me like he did. He was totally unreserved, unlike most of the British new wave, bouncing around, eyes darting, talking fast and full of energy. He was the first Irishman I ever met. Only later did I realise that his bonhomie was a national trait.
At that time U2 were sharing a tiny flat in Collingham Gardens in London that resembled the sort of spartan lodgings a cold war spy might have used. We crammed into the small kitchen, drank tea and talked politics, philosophy and music. We were young and pretentious, but even then Bono had a capacity to get the measure of a man in seconds. It’s a skill that has stood him in good stead.
With hindsight, was it inevitable that this skinny 20-year-old with his jeans and frizzy hair would go on to sell 130m records, campaign on African debt, gain the ear of presidents and prime ministers and even get nominated for the Nobel peace prize? Perhaps. Bono always thought big.
Although we met a few times over the years (I once tried to take him to Notre Dame but got lost), when I turned up in Dublin to interview Bono in 1997 we had not seen one another for more than a decade. The spartan lodgings were long gone; this time our rendezvous was at a lavish recording studio after which we adjourned to the pub. Superfame sat easy on his shoulders, perhaps because, as he says nowadays: “Celebrity is currency and I want to spend mine well.”
But something about Bono had changed. The expansive clown-like young man I had first met — born Paul David Hewson in Ballymun, Dublin, to a Protestant mother and a Catholic father — had become a little more hidden, more distant, taking greater care with his words. His stare was more focused and he scanned the room carefully. This caution, a kind of wariness, seemed to be the price of his fame. Later we decided to work on a book together (Bono on Bono, Hodder) a record of our conversations which happen every so often. This is my account of our most recent one which began with Bono singing a snatch of a John Lennon song.
I laughed at him. Didn’t he think it was a bit inappropriate to take Lennon’s part in Sgt Pepper on stage at Live 8 last year? “Oh, I don’t think like that,” he laughs right back. “I have the immodesty of foolishness. I was proud to stand in his shoes.”
Were you proud of everything that day? How about the lack of African artists on the bill? “There were a few of us worried about it,” he sighs. “Geldof gave up his life for a year working on this stuff. No sleep and a lot of grief. Some balls were going to be dropped. Most went in the back of the net. Personally, yes, I think it was a mistake not to have more African artists. There were a few of us worried about it. Bob was being protective of the ratings because the ratings, he felt, would in the end be the thing that protected Africa. I wasn’t so clear-cut, though. But it was Bob’s show . . . many African artists performed in Jo’burg that day. Most of the world cameras chose not to cover the concert there which maybe proves Bob’s point.”
To read the full interview, please go here.
I’m going back to my day job, honest
I first met Bono in 1980. I had come over from Paris to interview a score of new bands but nobody made an impression on me like he did. He was totally unreserved, unlike most of the British new wave, bouncing around, eyes darting, talking fast and full of energy. He was the first Irishman I ever met. Only later did I realise that his bonhomie was a national trait.
At that time U2 were sharing a tiny flat in Collingham Gardens in London that resembled the sort of spartan lodgings a cold war spy might have used. We crammed into the small kitchen, drank tea and talked politics, philosophy and music. We were young and pretentious, but even then Bono had a capacity to get the measure of a man in seconds. It’s a skill that has stood him in good stead.
With hindsight, was it inevitable that this skinny 20-year-old with his jeans and frizzy hair would go on to sell 130m records, campaign on African debt, gain the ear of presidents and prime ministers and even get nominated for the Nobel peace prize? Perhaps. Bono always thought big.
Although we met a few times over the years (I once tried to take him to Notre Dame but got lost), when I turned up in Dublin to interview Bono in 1997 we had not seen one another for more than a decade. The spartan lodgings were long gone; this time our rendezvous was at a lavish recording studio after which we adjourned to the pub. Superfame sat easy on his shoulders, perhaps because, as he says nowadays: “Celebrity is currency and I want to spend mine well.”
But something about Bono had changed. The expansive clown-like young man I had first met — born Paul David Hewson in Ballymun, Dublin, to a Protestant mother and a Catholic father — had become a little more hidden, more distant, taking greater care with his words. His stare was more focused and he scanned the room carefully. This caution, a kind of wariness, seemed to be the price of his fame. Later we decided to work on a book together (Bono on Bono, Hodder) a record of our conversations which happen every so often. This is my account of our most recent one which began with Bono singing a snatch of a John Lennon song.
I laughed at him. Didn’t he think it was a bit inappropriate to take Lennon’s part in Sgt Pepper on stage at Live 8 last year? “Oh, I don’t think like that,” he laughs right back. “I have the immodesty of foolishness. I was proud to stand in his shoes.”
Were you proud of everything that day? How about the lack of African artists on the bill? “There were a few of us worried about it,” he sighs. “Geldof gave up his life for a year working on this stuff. No sleep and a lot of grief. Some balls were going to be dropped. Most went in the back of the net. Personally, yes, I think it was a mistake not to have more African artists. There were a few of us worried about it. Bob was being protective of the ratings because the ratings, he felt, would in the end be the thing that protected Africa. I wasn’t so clear-cut, though. But it was Bob’s show . . . many African artists performed in Jo’burg that day. Most of the world cameras chose not to cover the concert there which maybe proves Bob’s point.”
To read the full interview, please go here.
.....If not....
