In this interview with Mother Jones magazine in 1989, Bono admits having experimented with drugs. It's an excellent interview--one of the best I've read. He talks about drugs, sex and religion, among other things.
http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/culture/bono.html
The '60s generation celebrated both sex and drugs as liberating. Nowadays there has been a lot of bashing of both as evil. You present a fairly chaste image.
We don't.
In the movie we never even see you take a drink. We never see you doing drugs....
The idea that we would hide the drink from the camera is idiotic beyond belief. It's another clich? that redundant minds throw at U2. "You present a chaste image." Oh god!
Do you like being intoxicated?
(Raises a finger) 'Tis better to be drunk on the spirit; however, a bottle of Jack Daniel's is sometimes handier.
Do you ever find intoxicants, including psychedelics, creatively useful?
I am already on drugs. I am the sort of person who needs to take drugs to make me normal. (laughs) I have experimented. No, I don't think that it is something that everybody has to do, one, just to be alive, or two, to write great songs.
I don't mean "have to." But do you have a positive attitude towards drugs?
I'm not going to tell you that I have a positive attitude towards people who are hurting themselves. Drug abuse is a very negative thing.
Do you believe there is such a thing as drug use as opposed to abuse?
I do believe there could be.
In your own life, have you experienced ...
I don't want to talk about that. I'll give you just one example of why it would be irresponsible for me to answer your question in a certain way: I've written so many songs using heroin as an image, it might be interesting for me to tell you that, say, "I've had experiences with the drug heroin." It might be interesting for me to do it, and to own up to it.
If it were misconstrued, somebody who, for whatever reason, respects me, that might lead them to get into it. OK. If I became addicted to heroin, I can afford the trappings. I can afford the Betty Ford clinic. I can afford to have my blood changed. I can afford the trappings of being an addict. But there is some guy who lives in a room in Dublin who can't. And nobody gives a shit about his addiction!
So it is highly irresponsible for rock 'n' roll people to perpetuate the myth of drug addiction. One of the things that I get a good feeling that U2 has done is to break open the mythology of rock 'n' roll. The mythology that wearing a safety pin in your nose means you're a rebel. Shaving your head does not mean you're a rebel.
You're saying those trappings have nothing to do with the true rebellious soul of rock and roll....
Yeah, the rebellious soul. The mythology of "live fast, die young" perpetrated by rich rock 'n' roll stars sickens me. I just want to throw up on these bastards! That's because in our city, Dublin City, I've seen the place truly ravaged by drug addiction. People seriously fucked up, and people inspired by this idea of "living close to the edge."
Is this true or does anyone else know something about this?
