Bono (7 page)

Which writers, painters, and poets are you alluding to here, specifically?

Well, in music, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, the list is endless. Poets: Kavanagh,
*
maybe an even greater poet than Yeats, John Donne, William Blake. Emily Dickinson—she was a great influence on me. All the Renaissance painters, torn between God, patronage, and the desires of the flesh.

Have you discussed Marley with Blackwell? And would you say, based on what you learned, that Marley went through the “trauma of religious experience”? What is it that ultimately keeps black and white artists apart? I mean, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash went through that as well.

Chris Blackwell was—is—a real support on this level. Again, another critical character in our lives. Like Paul McGuinness, he seemed to understand that sometimes the best influence you can have is not to try to have any. I mean, Chris was this great producer of music; he could easily have turned up in the
studio and asked us the hard musical questions: “Where's the single? What are you on about? Why doesn't that groove?” He had faith we would find our own way. I think in an odd way he had faith in our faith. But as regards Dylan and Cash, they nearly were exceptions. White music is so much more uptight spiritually. Most black artists came from the Church anyway.

In a nutshell, what did you find out about yourself from your manager, Paul McGuinness?

I found out what I was capable of.

Which was?

I mean, more than anyone in my life, he is a person who believed in me and gave me the confidence to realize my potential as an artist. He has an enormous and sharp intellect, and mine was very unschooled and haphazard. On many occasions, he would sit me down and say: “You have what it takes. You must have more confidence in yourself and continue to dig deeper. And don't be upset or surprised when you pull something out from the depth that's uncomfortable.”
[laughs]

So you discovered things that, on first glance, you'd rather have kept hidden? What were those?

The gauche nature of awe, of worship, the wonderment at the world around you. Coolness might help in your negotiation with people through the world, maybe, but it is impossible to meet God with sunglasses on. It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw. That's the connection with great music and great art, and that is why it's uncomfortable, that is why cool is the enemy of it, because that's the other reason you wanted to join a band: you wanted to do the cool
thing. Trying to capture religious experiences on tape wasn't what you had in mind when you signed up for the job.

What about your own sunglasses, then? Do you wear them the same way a taxi driver would turn off his front light, so as to signal to God that this rock star is too full of himself and not for hire at the moment?

Yeah, my insincerity . . . I have learnt the importance of insincerity, the importance of not being earnest at all times. You don't know what's going on behind those glasses, but God, I can assure you, does.

What else did Paul McGuinness encourage in you?

He said to me when I was very young, like twenty-five: “You have something that very few artists have.” And I said: “I don't think so, Paul.” He said: “No. You see the whole equation.” And that is . . . a curse and a blessing. But it's a very interesting thing, and I'm not sure I understood what he meant back then. I've never really discussed it with him since, but I think I know what he means, which is: the gift is at the center of the contradiction, but the circumference is full of other stuff you have to figure out if you want the gift to really grow.

A blessing, I understand. But why should it be a curse?

It's an end to laziness, it's an end to being a passenger on a train somebody else is driving. You are responsible, no one else—not the record company, not the management. You've to develop other muscles in your bodyguarding of your gift.

I don't think you've talked much about your relationship with Edge, Larry, and Adam in terms of their families. How close did you get to the
families of your fellow musicians? You told me that in order to escape your father's sternness, you wanted to go to places where you felt warmth. Was, for instance, going to Edge's place as warm a feeling as going to Guggi's or Gavin Friday's?

Edge's family are extra-special people. They're very laid back, they're cool in the extreme. They're not looking for the obvious. They're both academics, they're not very material. Edge's father was very successful in business. I'm sure he could have been even more successful, but he couldn't be arsed.
[laughs]
He'd rather hang out, he'd rather play golf. He and my father used to play golf on occasion. They got on pretty well, though my dad did complain once that Garvin was a little bit of a stickler for the rules.
[bursts out laughing]
He said: “He's learnt that fucking manual off by heart.” But they both loved opera. In fact, it was a great moment when we played Madison Square Garden some years back, when they were both drunk and singing a duet from
La Traviata,
walking down Madison Avenue. It was the kind of place where you could always crash out. I remember coming back at four in the morning, and Mrs. The Edge would come down, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and ask Edge if he was hungry, and . . .
[gives a bewildered look]
I thought this was just a different universe, completely. I was expecting, like: where is she stashing the weapons, OK?
[laughs]
As soon as he says: “Yes I'm hungry,” she'll bring out the howitzer! But he'd say: “No, no. I'm OK, yeah. You go back to bed, I'm fine.” And then, it was all very easygoing. And his brother, Dick, was a bit of a genius. The government were paying for him to go to college in computer engineering. More than just a scholarship where they pay your studies, they were paying him to study. He was that good. And then he joined the Virgin Prunes. So there were two mad musicians in the house for the Evans family to deal with. But they were very . . .
open
is the word. It felt like an open house. And Mrs. The Edge was always interested in what you were.

Did Edge's mother work?

She was a schoolteacher, and then, I think, she might have just helped Garvin. Her name was Gwenda, and they were both Welsh, so they had this kind of singsong accent, which made it all the more inviting. Then, they had a garden shed that we used to play in, which is about the size of this room, maybe a little smaller, a very small thing, and they let us play in this bunker, which is about 4 foot by 3, maybe 5 by 4, but that'd be pushing it. So you could just fit the drum kit in, you could just kind of stand, but it was great for a while. I just met Garvin recently, and jokingly, he was wondering what it would be worth now on eBay. He said: “Is it the time, Bono, for the garden shed?” I explained to him that we haven't had a whole lot of luck on eBay, trying to unload our giant lemon spaceship [from the PopMart tour].

I'm curious about your first impression when you entered The Edge's room. Was it very tidy, very organized, the way I'd fancy it?

Oh, I don't remember his room. I remember Adam's room. Adam's room was like a nightclub, by age sixteen. He had ultraviolet light—UV, you know—incense burning, albums everywhere, and a soft chair.
[laughs]
Oh yeah, I'd never seen a room like Adam's.

What sort of atmosphere did you feel at the Claytons' place?

The Claytons had a very elegant kind of house. I mean, it was a very large detached bungalow in a nice neighborhood. I had never seen anything like it myself, coming from a just regular lower-middle-class street. They kept it very well.

Was there a garden?

They had a nice garden. I remember they had this white shag pile carpet. I said to Adam: “Wow! If we had a carpet like that in the house, you wouldn't be allowed walking on it.” He said: “You're not. Take your shoes off!
[laughs]
No one's allowed walking on it. We're hardly allowed in here.” But his mother was very glamorous, and his father was a pilot, which is again a very glamorous occupation. He was very wry, Adam's father, liked to go fishing. His eyes are never far from rolling at all the fuss around him. He was from the East End of London, and never wanted to forget that, despite having made it to the officers' mess in the RAF. His mother was very able in an argument. So we had many discussions long into the night about life, death, God, and the universe . . . and why we couldn't walk on that white shag pile carpet.

So what kind of people were the Claytons? As laid back as Edge's parents?

No one could be as laid back as Edge's parents. I think Jo Clayton was ambitious for her son, very worried, because he'd already been expelled from one school, and now he joined a rock band, and was hanging out with some very strange-looking people: us. So she was very sweet to us on the surface, but I think, beneath it all, very concerned that her son had fallen into the wrong crowd.

Had Adam been thinking long and hard about becoming a professional musician? Did he feel like he'd fallen in with the wrong crowd?

Adam was looking for the wrong crowd. There was nothing else he wanted to be other than a bass player. There's a joke in the band that goes: Edge wants to play the drums, Bono wants to play the guitar, Larry wants to be the singer, Adam . . . only wants to play the bass! Adam and his younger brother Sebastian were great. They were always laughing, I do remember that. They had that kind of English potty humor. They'd put socks over their penises and kind of walk around, trying to embarrass their sister
Cindy. I mean, Adam always loved nudity. He's always been that way. He, when we were in school, used to streak down the corridor, naked.

So he was more of an exhibitionist than you. Great!

Yeah, I know. I remember the first time, we were just teenagers. Ali was talking to him, and she felt some humidity on the side of her leg
[laughs]
, and he was peeing, not on her leg, but near her leg. He'd whip that thing out at any opportunity. He wouldn't want taking a pee to interrupt a good conversation. And he might forget to ask.
[laughs]

And how did it feel at Larry's place? I guess it must have been a little more somber.

Yeah, I think. Larry's home life was much more like mine, you know. You had this bereaved man, and in some shape or other, no matter how hard they tried to hide it, you were dealing with their unhappiness.

So Larry was living with his father.

His father and his sister, yes.

His younger sister had died as well. What had happened, exactly?

I can't remember the exact details.

Larry was living in the same sort of house as you. Or was it a different background?

Very similar.

Was his father as harsh on him as yours was on you?

His father was very worried about his son throwing his life away with a rock 'n' roll band. His father thought, if he was interested in music, it should be jazz, you know. Learn to play properly. And the only difference was his father would have wanted his son to achieve more than he did in terms of university and all of that. And Larry wasn't interested remotely. Whereas my father couldn't really care less whether I went to college—and I would have quite liked it. That's the only difference.

Did you use to hang around at Larry's place as much as in Adam's or Edge's?

Occasionally. Our very first rehearsal was in Larry's place.

Was there enough space for that?

In the kitchen. There wasn't much space.

Would his father put up with it?

His mother probably told his father that it was a jazz group assembling. She was a spectacular woman. She was just gorgeous in every way. There was no vanity to her. And she loved her son, and wanted him to be a drummer, because that's what he wanted, and facilitated him by letting her kitchen be used for our first rehearsal. We were all standing there, there were like six of us at that stage, and I remember even then, there were girls screaming outside for Larry. He was fourteen, I suppose, and I remember him taking the hose to them: “Go away! Leave me in peace! Shhh!” He's been doing the same ever since. But I really didn't hang out a lot. We went to rehearsals. Finally we got a rehearsal room—oddly—next door to the graveyard where my mother was buried. A complete accident. A little yellow house next door to a graveyard . . .

Aside from music, what were the things the four of you enjoyed doing the most together?

Nothing at first, but then, we realized we shared the same surreal sense of humor.

I never imagined you'd say that. You mean you'd make practical jokes together?

Yeah, we'd do some mad shit together.

Like what?

I think Edge was with me once when we got into Guggi's car. He was seventeen years old and had a car. His father just collected these jalopies, broken-down cars, and would fix them up. I remember we snuck out of the school into his car and drove to a girls' school with a painting that we had done, and went into the school, and knocked on class doors to sell them the painting. So before they got a chance to call the police, we had hit several classes at the girls' school: “Excuse me. We were round here, we have a painting and we're advised that we might find a buyer here in Class C English.
[changes tone]
Hi, girls!”
[laughs]
Just teenage stuff, but surreal. Or we'd do mad theatrical stuff.

What do you mean, “mad”?

Well, I remember, in one of our early gigs, we put on Christmas concerts in the middle of summer. They were called “The Jingle Balls.” And so we got on at this nightclub and we did it up with a Christmas tree. We just pretended it was winter in the middle of the summer. Childish things . . . In Lypton Village, we gave each other names and we spoke this other
language. Edge fit into that very well in the end, and so did Adam, because they were all very surreal. Larry was just a little more suspicious, but he would be, anyway.