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Bono on Anton
Editor's Note: U2.com has posted the following members-only interview with Bono about the forthcoming "U2 & i" book by Anton Corbijn. Highlights of part one of the interview are below.
To mark the publication of Anton Corbijn’s new book of photos, ‘U2&i’.
Sean O’Hagan, longtime friend of the band, spoke with Bono about the changing nature of U2’s image.
It turned out to be quite a chat ranging from how the band realised that they were only ‘self-conscious was when the cameras came out,’ and how Anton ‘found our masculinity’, to which band member in drag looked uncannily like Dame Edna and why ‘irony is not the enemy of soul’.
Since being sent to photograph the band in New Orleans by the NME in 1982, Anton Corbijn has been responsible for some of the most iconic images of U2. There was lots for Sean and Bono to talk about and it was such an intriguing conversation that we are publishing it for U2.Com Subscribers in two parts, with the second instalment due next week.
SO: Did you know Anton’s work when you first met him ?
Bono: We’d never heard of him! I mean we knew that amazing shot of Joy Division, Ian Curtis sitting on a wall. We didn’t make the connection. We liked him immediately ‘cos he bought a round of drinks. Usually, it’s the record company who pays but he insisted on paying. It’s the little things that matter. He’s an independent spirit, Anton. In a lot of ways he sketched out some of the terrain for us. His famous shots of Captain Beefheart were done at Joshua Tree. I guess there was a kind of Wim Wenders ‘Paris Texas’/ Sam Shepherd ‘Motel Chronicles’ thing in the air, and it was Anton who sent us down that dusty road.
SO: Did he tutor you in terms of look and style ?
Bono: Definitely, he tutored us. Our attitude was, ‘If you didn’t know, find somebody who did’. We knew we didn’t know how to be in a photograph. We knew we didn’t know how to look good. We were acutely aware of that. Remember, this was the New Romantic era. People were dressing up as potted plants to go out for the night. The cravat had re-entered the equation. And you know what ? A lot of people still looked better than us. Anton helped. He organised us as much as anything. We had this expression, ‘everything but it’. That’s what we said about a lot of the bands at the time, they had everything but it. The songs were crap but they looked the part. Whereas us - we had nothing but it.
SO: What about the drag shots, I was there for the shoot, in Berlin, recording Achtung Baby ?
Bono: I remember. I remember your face when we came in the room.
Looking at the drag shots now, what’s great is how badly we came out of it. I mean, The Edge looks like Cilla Black. Adam looks like Dame Edna. I just look… indistinct. Only Larry looks mildly convincing. Well, sort of. He looks like an automaton female out of ‘Blade Runner’. There’s a real Teutonic vibe going on there, just like in his drumming. The irony is, he kept wanting to leave Berlin. Hated it.
SO: The drag photos never really surfaced, except in that ‘FACE’ interview I did.
Bono: And in the video for ‘One’. Then, we got nervous. ‘One’ became a big anthem for HIV sufferers in America. We were raising money for AIDS organisations, saying this is not just a gay man’s disease. Not that cross dressing is essentially gay or whatever, but we didn’t use the image in the end. We bottled it! The thing that was on my mind at the time was this Oscar Wilde quote, ‘The mask reveals the man’. In a way, Zoo TV was a fancy dress party where everyone was more themselves. That’s what tends to happen when you dress up. I remember you coming to a party in my house as an orange.
--U2.com
Editor's Note: U2.com has posted the following members-only interview with Bono about the forthcoming "U2 & i" book by Anton Corbijn. Highlights of part one of the interview are below.
To mark the publication of Anton Corbijn’s new book of photos, ‘U2&i’.
Sean O’Hagan, longtime friend of the band, spoke with Bono about the changing nature of U2’s image.
It turned out to be quite a chat ranging from how the band realised that they were only ‘self-conscious was when the cameras came out,’ and how Anton ‘found our masculinity’, to which band member in drag looked uncannily like Dame Edna and why ‘irony is not the enemy of soul’.
Since being sent to photograph the band in New Orleans by the NME in 1982, Anton Corbijn has been responsible for some of the most iconic images of U2. There was lots for Sean and Bono to talk about and it was such an intriguing conversation that we are publishing it for U2.Com Subscribers in two parts, with the second instalment due next week.
SO: Did you know Anton’s work when you first met him ?
Bono: We’d never heard of him! I mean we knew that amazing shot of Joy Division, Ian Curtis sitting on a wall. We didn’t make the connection. We liked him immediately ‘cos he bought a round of drinks. Usually, it’s the record company who pays but he insisted on paying. It’s the little things that matter. He’s an independent spirit, Anton. In a lot of ways he sketched out some of the terrain for us. His famous shots of Captain Beefheart were done at Joshua Tree. I guess there was a kind of Wim Wenders ‘Paris Texas’/ Sam Shepherd ‘Motel Chronicles’ thing in the air, and it was Anton who sent us down that dusty road.
SO: Did he tutor you in terms of look and style ?
Bono: Definitely, he tutored us. Our attitude was, ‘If you didn’t know, find somebody who did’. We knew we didn’t know how to be in a photograph. We knew we didn’t know how to look good. We were acutely aware of that. Remember, this was the New Romantic era. People were dressing up as potted plants to go out for the night. The cravat had re-entered the equation. And you know what ? A lot of people still looked better than us. Anton helped. He organised us as much as anything. We had this expression, ‘everything but it’. That’s what we said about a lot of the bands at the time, they had everything but it. The songs were crap but they looked the part. Whereas us - we had nothing but it.
SO: What about the drag shots, I was there for the shoot, in Berlin, recording Achtung Baby ?
Bono: I remember. I remember your face when we came in the room.
Looking at the drag shots now, what’s great is how badly we came out of it. I mean, The Edge looks like Cilla Black. Adam looks like Dame Edna. I just look… indistinct. Only Larry looks mildly convincing. Well, sort of. He looks like an automaton female out of ‘Blade Runner’. There’s a real Teutonic vibe going on there, just like in his drumming. The irony is, he kept wanting to leave Berlin. Hated it.
SO: The drag photos never really surfaced, except in that ‘FACE’ interview I did.
Bono: And in the video for ‘One’. Then, we got nervous. ‘One’ became a big anthem for HIV sufferers in America. We were raising money for AIDS organisations, saying this is not just a gay man’s disease. Not that cross dressing is essentially gay or whatever, but we didn’t use the image in the end. We bottled it! The thing that was on my mind at the time was this Oscar Wilde quote, ‘The mask reveals the man’. In a way, Zoo TV was a fancy dress party where everyone was more themselves. That’s what tends to happen when you dress up. I remember you coming to a party in my house as an orange.
--U2.com
