Bono (28 page)

How did he react?

I wasn't there, but I'm sure it was a groan. It's a sore subject. We're always asking for more, but we're right. United States, in the list of the twenty-two
richest countries in the world, comes in at twenty-two in the percentage of national income spent on the poorest countries. And fifty percent of that goes to two countries: Egypt and Israel.

And what about private philanthropy?

Well, counting private philanthropy—and Americans are very generous privately—and adding to it the otherworldly generosity of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who are doing more on this than anybody ever, the United States still comes in at number fifteen. Now you tell that to Americans and their jaws drop open in disbelief.

So would you reckon America's about to change?

Well, I think Americans are about to re-describe themselves, re-brand themselves through some of these development problems.

How's that?

These AIDS drugs are great advertisements for what we in the West do best: our ingenuity, our science. For a small price, you can transform communities, millions of lives. I told President Bush: “Paint them red, white, and blue if you like, but where they go, they will also transform the way these communities see us.”

America has been re-branding itself in Iraq. Isn't brand USA in trouble?

There is deep suspicion, not just in the Islamic world, but in the rest of the world about what we in the West stand for.

The problem is that way too often they think we don't stand for anything.

As the United States got richer in the eighties and nineties and reached unimaginable prosperity—it's the richest most powerful nation ever—it gave less and less per capita to the trouble spots in the world. The feeling was:
Our military is keeping the world safe for democracy. We paid at the office already.
But you can't talk tough on terror and not talk tough on poverty. They balance each other, they're a perfect rhyme. Colin Powell has been saying this for years, and he's a military man. Maybe we should pay attention when the military admit the war against terror cannot be won by might.

It seems to me, with perspective, that 9/11 actually revealed a phenomenon a minority was actually paying attention to: how widespread the disliking, even the hatred, for the U.S. was.

America received two shocks that week—the shock of an attack, and the second, that there was so much support for that attack in certain quarters of the Islamic world. Pictures from Palestine, Indonesia, Pakistan, of regular men and women jumping up and down, celebrating the Twin Towers turning to dust will, I believe, be seen as a turning point. After the disgust, after the anger we all felt, there was some questioning: how did it come to this? Greatest nation on Earth, the country that fought fascism and sacrificed so much for freedom was
so
despised.

Do you think war in Iraq—I mean its objectives—has a chance to make the situation any better someday?

There are those who believe in the long term that establishing a beachhead for democracy in the Middle East is the only way to bring peace in the region. I'm not one of them. I only have to look to my own country to see what the presence of a foreign military can do for swelling the ranks of terrorism. The pictures of mistreatment in Abu Ghraib will have convinced
many reasonable young Arab men and women that if they take up arms, they are the ones fighting for freedom. That makes me so sad and sick to the very pit of my stomach.

So I'm asking you for the last time. Do you really like George W. Bush?

We get on very well. As I told you, I couldn't come from a more different place. We disagree on so many things. But I'm telling you he was moved by my account of what was happening in Africa. He was engaged. I think, when I'm sitting two feet from someone, I could tell if this was just politics. This was personal. I think, for all the swagger, this Texan thing, he has a religious instinct that keeps him humble.

You mean that right-wing fundamentalist neo-con scary stuff?

Actually, he's a Methodist. It has to be said that most of the people in the Cabinet are not religious extremists.

But you must have disagreed with him at some point.

He banged the table at me once, when I was ranting at him about the ARVs [AIDS drugs] not getting out quick enough. You see, I'm Irish. When we get excited, we don't pause for breath, no full stops or commas. He banged the table to ask me to let him reply. He smilingly reminded me he was the president. It was a heated debate. I was very impressed that he could get so passionate. And, let's face it, tolerating an Irish rock star is not a necessity of his office.

Many heads of state have tolerated you in their office. Let's review them while we're at it. Did Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Shröder catch on to a melody you sang to him?

I only met him a few times. We drank beer the first time. I had the impression that on another occasion he might be fun to have beer with. He was relaxed, smiling. On other occasions, he wasn't so relaxed. I suppose it's hard to relax when someone like me has their hand in your pocket. He guards Germany's wallet after all. His finance minister's a legend: Hans Eichel. He seems to have the chancellor on a very short leash. But East Germany cannot continually be blamed for lack of German leadership in development issues. The way they talk, you think it's them that needed foreign assistance. On a serious note, I implored him not to be on the wrong side of history here. There are moments when a country has to step up to the plate for people outside of their borders, and this is one of them. I think we're getting somewhere now. Fischer, the foreign minister, is an inspiring character, and I've had a lot of encouragement from the corporate sector. They think it's time for Germany to take its place in the world again.

Have you tried to put your hand in Putin's pocket? I hear he's a black belt of karate.

He did ask me to go to work for him on Russia's debt. He was joking, and I laughed, creating one of the worst moments for me ever captured in a photograph. Tony Blair had introduced me and Bob Geldof to him. It was a G8 meeting in Genoa. The city looked like a war zone. A lot of people got hurt in riots. A young man lost his life to an Italian policeman, and I was documented the other side of the riot line, laughing with the politicians. I did not know about this tragedy at the time, but it is an example of how my glad-handing and discussion approach can be badly misinterpreted and how sometimes I'm not as smart as I think. He was an expert. He was meticulously turned out, not a nose hair out of place, obviously a very big brain, and very charming. I wasn't there to talk about Chechnya. Maybe I shouldn't have been there at all.

Do you get a lot of flak from the aggressive Left? In those moments, you're a long way from the barricades.

I know it would look much better for me to be standing handkerchief over my nose and a Molotov cocktail in my hand. But, you know, my deepest conviction is that making our intellectual case rigorous and keeping our support broad by a large peaceful grassroots movement is the only way we'll get this job done. It doesn't belong to the Left or the Right.

But isn't the Left more your friend than the Right?

Not necessarily so. The Left may offer more money to fight AIDS or deal with the debt burden, but they scuttle off when we talk to them about trade reform. The CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] of Europe so supported by the Left denies African products access to our supermarket shelves while we flood them with subsidized produce.

Speaking of the CAP, I wonder what you make of my president [Chirac]. He certainly defends the French agricultural rights.

Trade is a touchy and complicated issue. French farmers enjoy a lot of protection for their way of life. French cows have more money spent on them per day than most Africans earn. But you know what? This is one issue this rock star just cannot take on.

Why is that?

Cowardice. They'll be throwing sheep over the walls of my nice villa. I don't take a fight I can't win.

So you diplomatically avoided the topic when you talked with Chirac. Or maybe he pretended not to hear you on that.

No. He acknowledged some things are going to have to change. My question was: “When?” He didn't reply to that. What he promised me was that France would continue to act as interface between Europe and Africa. He seemed to know the terrain well. He has visited Africa many more times than any other non-African head of state.

That's for obvious reasons: former colonies.

Yes, he admitted that. He seemed to genuinely have a feel for what was happening, and understanding. He rarely turned to advisers in our meetings. He was passionate. I told the assembling press corps outside that the purpose of my visit was to turn that passion into cash.

He was passionate. But was he optimistic?

Yes.

Was he serious?

Yes.

So who's your favorite politician?

It would have to be Gorbachev, a genuinely soulful man who, following the courage of his convictions, left himself so open to criticism in what was the USSR. Some people despise him for the dismantling of that old giant. But without him, the twentieth century might have had a very different end.

How often have you met him?

Lots of times, and we talk every few months, even now. He came to Ireland once, and I forgot to tell Ali he might call. It was Sunday lunch in Temple Hill. Sundays, it's like a train station in our house. People call over to sit around, eat lunch, drink wine. The front doorbell rang upstairs. Ali answered the door, not expecting to see the former head of the Soviet Bloc standing with a giant—I mean
giant—
teddy bear, his present for baby John.

She had no idea he would be visiting?

It was a loose arrangement I'd completely forgotten.

So you forgot about Gorbachev. Now I'm giving you absolution for the many times you've forgotten about me. I know Ali does a lot of work in Russia, “The Children of Chernobyl” . . .

Yes, she does. She made an extraordinary documentary there,
Black Wind, White Land,
and regularly drives convoys of supplies from Ireland to Russia.

She actually drives?

Yes, ambulances. She drives all the way.

I'm glad it's not you.

[ignoring me]
Her organization is led by a great woman, Adi Roche, and they bring back sick children for holidays in Ireland. The really mad thing was one of her most favorite children of Belarus, Anastasia—Ali is her godmother—was staying with us at the time.

You're joking.

No. We were all sitting around the table, with President Gorbachev nursing an Irish whiskey, some old friends—Quincy Jones, his girlfriend Lisette, Dean Ornish, the famous heart doctor, his wife, Molly, and acting as President Gorbachev's interpreter Nina Kostina—when in walked on her calipers Anastasia. She was born without legs from the knees down, part of the ongoing problem of radioactive land where she grew up in Belarus, and of course stopped everything. Gorbachev couldn't believe what was happening to him when we explained who she was. He was visibly moved. He lifted her up onto his knee, and told the table that he could divide his life into two halves: before and after Chernobyl. It was the moment he realized the Soviet Union couldn't continue as it was.

I presume you couldn't help thinking that that man had had his finger on the second-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

I asked him about that. I asked him: did he ever come close to opening that box? He looked at me straight in the eye and said there could and never would be an occasion to use that power, and that from a very young age he had known this was madness.

Is there anything else Gorbachev said that stuck in your mind?

I asked him: did he believe in God? He said: “No, but I believe in the Universe.”

I was surprised when Bono's assistant, Catriona, told me that Bono wanted to talk to me on his birthday. He was in New York on business, and had brought the family along. May 10, 2004, was also the birthday of his oldest daughter, Jordan, who was turning fifteen.

When he called, it was ten A.M. in New York. He had been up for a few hours already; he said: “I get up at six-thirty. I see my kids in the morning. I love it. And if I'm in France, I get up and I swim, which is incredible. That's when my head is clear. And if I won't write, I read. And then, at nine o'clock, you start the business of the day, and open your letters, and start to read your e-mails, and all that awfulness. But those two hours, from seven to nine, that's when my imagination is most awake. Anything feels possible. In fact, it's downhill for the rest of the day.”

His mood seemed jocular. He told me later that night he planned to take Jordan to the premiere of
Troy
, which she was particularly excited about. “We're quite a gang when we hang out together,” he said with some pride.

[singing] Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me / I was born in a zoo.

How pathetic it is to randomly call some number in France, and wish yourself a happy birthday. I really pity you.

You know, you're not wrong.

So has your birthday become a public holiday in Ireland already?

Well, no. I'm all for it. Like, why wait until I'm dead?
[laughs]
Do I have to die on a cross, or die at my own hand, jump out of a window? Or finally The Edge shoots me in the back of the head? Actually, with Edge, it'd be the frontal lobe. Why not get all that stuff that happens to dead people now? I could come up with a deal. Maybe we could let the tourist buses in.

I could arrange that.

Run a few tours. There's where he will die, and there's where he will be buried. What sort of funeral would you like? You'd probably like a very discreet kind of affair, would you?

I think that would be more tasteful, yeah.

No, no. Taste is the enemy of a good death.

It's very hard to argue with that.

I would like lots of weeping and wailing. The music would have to be good: Bob Dylan singing “Death Is Not the End.” I think I'll have Pavarotti singing
La Traviata.
I'd like lots of Uileann pipes, a boys' choir.

Could you speak more slowly, please? I am writing down your list of demands.

Seven vestal virgins, please. I really would. I'd like to have Ali and six other girls to all dye their hair blond, including their pubic hair. And I'd like them to carry the coffin. They might have to go to the gym for a while. Prepare for this death! But lots of crying. And then a few rows afterwards in the reception. “He was a bastard! Could nobody just get up who would say he was a
bastard
?” I'll have Gavin Friday, who finally cracks: “He never gave me back those Brian Eno albums in the seventies. And when they came back, there was jam all over the vinyl.” You know, in the Maori tradition, they have a thing called a Tangi [short for Tangi-hanga], and I've been to one. You lie in an open casket. For three days, people sleep in the room with you, and they get up and they talk to you. They're supposed to get out any sort of bad thoughts or ill will they've had. They've to confess it to you and get it out, not to apologize, but to go through with it. If somebody has borrowed money and not given it back, get angry and shout at the corpse! Honesty, to make your passage easier into the next life. Always true, sadly.

Do you know what that reminds me of? Remember that part in
The Brothers Karamazov
? Starets Zosima, the old priest who raised Alyosha in his monastery, dies. While his body is being watched over by the monks, it gives off a horrible smell. And before that, you had only heard wonderful things about his holiness. But all of a sudden, people start saying: “He smells like a rotten fish!” I think it is a great symbol of the things that you cannot dare to say about someone who is dead—but that eventually come out anyway.

Steady on, Michka. It's my birthday.
[laughs]

Sorry, but
you
started it.

And by the way, can I just say for the critics? This idea of only giving the plaudits to people when they're dead—you should take note. All the kindness up front . . .

Didn't you mention “those journalists who follow you into the bathroom to ask those annoying but important questions” in a speech you made recently in front of Chancellor Shröder? I don't know whether you noticed any strange sounds last night, but I was busy setting up a webcam in the bathroom and putting mikes under your mattress, Soviet-style, taking a sample of your piss for the laboratory.

Listen, they don't have equipment sophisticated enough to deal with my urine. That's a 1982 Margaux, I do believe.

In light of the fact that today is a special day, do you have any memories of birthday celebrations way back in Ballymun, when your mother was still alive?

Oh, I don't seem to remember any. I don't have very many memories of my childhood.
[Pause]
I think I can remember my eighteenth birthday, because I wrote a song on it, called “Out of Control.” I remember holding the guitar, my brother's acoustic guitar. The fret action was a little out of whack, and I had to press quite hard on it. It wasn't a great lyric, but it was like:
Monday morning, eighteen years of dawning / I said “How long?,” I said “How long?” / It was one dull morning / I woke the world with bawling / I was so sad, they were so glad / I had the feeling it was out of control.
It was just about realizing on your eighteenth birthday that the two big events of your life, which is your birth and your death, you don't have any say over.

Each time you discuss your childhood it seems like things only come out in a kind of haze. For obvious reasons, the strongest memory seems to be your mother's funeral . . .

Yeah. I'm just trying to think. I have some strong memories about that railway carriage my granddad had, out in a place called Rush, on a beach.

Oh yes, you told me that story.

I remember the strand and the sand dunes, and wandering around. I don't really remember being very social. I wasn't intent on making friends, so I spent a lot of time on my own.

It's hard to imagine you were so shy.

Yeah. Whereas, on Cedarwood Road, I had very good friends with Guggi, when we were kids. Although I don't remember any specific birthday, I do remember that whenever it was Guggi's birthday, which is three days after mine, he, whatever he got from his family, or whatever in cash, he would split with me fifty-fifty. And he sort of taught me one of the fundamentals, which is about sharing. He was amazing like that, because when you're kids, you don't share and you hold on to things, but he'd been taught that no, whatever you have, you give half of it to your friends. And you know, he continued that when I was in the band and I was broke. My friends continued to pay my way. Ali too. The community in Dublin has always been a bit like that. That's what I remember about birthdays; I remember Guggi's birthday. But that's it. I don't seem to remember anything else.

Do you remember the first time you heard music that really hit you hard?

Oh yeah, I can remember that. Those memories are very clear to me. I mean, very much. Now that you mention it, I'm probably getting lots of these things back now,
[laughs]
because I remember very clearly hearing the Beatles' “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on the radio. That would have been probably '63, would it? At three or four years old.

Are there any images that come to mind?

I was in the back garden. There were trees at the back, at that time, but they were cutting them down. I used to love hiding in the trees, I climbed up to the top of them and enjoyed hearing my mother shout my name when she was looking for me. I wanted to hold her hand. I just remember the transistor radio was on, and everybody was talking about this group—they were such a phenomenon. I loved the Beatles. I only recently realized, like last month, that “Beatles” was a bad pun, as in “beat.” I remember Christmas, getting up with my brother, watching them on Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas. On that morning,
A Hard Day's Night
was being put on, and then
Help!
, and then
Yellow Submarine.
So their music made a real impact. And later, as I got a bit older, Elvis.

Elvis, really? But for our generation, it was the late-period, Las Vegas Elvis, and you were supposed to find him naff.

No, I loved a lot of his films. I didn't think they were naff or crap. And then, of course, there was a work of God-like genius: the '68 special.

Did you see the live program?

I didn't see the live program. I don't know when I would have seen it, but that was a pivotal moment. I dressed like him in Zoo TV. We even set up a small B stage. Yes, Elvis. And then, John Lennon, when I was eleven years old, listening to
Imagine
. That album really got under my skin, the blood of it.

Was there any music around in the house?

Yes. My father used to play opera all the time. He played it really loud. This working-class man used to stand in front of the speakers with my mother's knitting needles.

[laughs]
Conducting.

Conducting, yeah. He used to do that.
[laughs]
And we kids would be saying: “Turn that down!” When he listened to it, he was completely lost in it.

It's a wonder you haven't ended up hating opera.

I don't remember liking it at the time. But at some point, it got into me. And now, with a bit of hindsight, I see that my dad was probably going through his own opera. No one has a simple life, that's what's great about opera. And he was holding on to this music very tightly. But that was what we listened to. Then my brother's music, of course, because he was seven years older than me. He would play The Who, Jimi Hendrix. Then he introduced me to this “duo”: it was “David Bowie and Hunky Dory”! I thought it was a duo, like Simon and Garfunkel, and so I used to tell my brother I liked “them”!
[laughs]
And Bowie, those high notes that he hit and the way they would resonate in your skull, that made a great impression. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: I guess he was the first artist I became a giant fan of. Marc Bolan and T. Rex, glam-rock. But it was after John Lennon and Bob Dylan. At eleven and twelve I was listening to them, whereas I was thirteen or fourteen when I got into dressing up.

Cross-dressing?

A woman? No. Even in a frock, I look like Fred Flintstone.

I have never read anything about your mother's taste for music. Did she ever sing?

No. My dad sang.

So she didn't sing. But did she enjoy music?

I can't remember.
[suddenly]
Oh yeah! Now, I'll tell you what. She was a fan of Engelbert Humperdinck. So she did like music, now that I think of it. She must have, because she was an Engelbert fan—and a Tom Jones fan. But between the two, there was a big rivalry. It was not Beatles and the Stones, it was Tom Jones and Engelbert.
[laughs]
I just wrote a song, by the way, Michka, for Tom Jones. It's a fun song. It's called “Sugar Daddy.” I wrote it with my friend Simon Carmody. We've had such a laugh. It's great. It goes:
I've got male intuition / I've got sexual ambition / I'm the last of a great tradition / Let me state my position / The older I get, the better I was / And it's all just for show . . . bom-bom / It's all just because / The show must go on / What else can it do? / I'm gonna drop the lot on you! / Boom-boom . . . Sugar . . . dee-dee-dee / Sugar daddy / Dum . . . dee dee dee / Sugar daddy,
and it's got this really amazing bass part, which goes: “Boo-boo-bom boo-boo-boo-bom.” It's great.

Now I'm hearing Tom Jones in your voice!

Yeah. He's incredible. Again, watching him on TV, as a kid, I do remember sitting in, with my mother and father, watching Tom Jones, and the excitement of his performance. He lost himself in it. This white guy with a black voice, and the sexual charge of it. I remember, nine, ten years old, going, “Wow!”

Tom Jones was a singer for grown-ups. Actually, in the sixties, you had this very big distinction between music for adults and music for kids. He appealed to housewives.

Oh yeah, everybody. It was amazing. His performance was very physical, I mean, for white people. You didn't see that. Elvis had brought that kind of abandonment.
[breaks off abruptly]
Come over here! I've got a beautiful birthday present. The most beautiful girl jumped up on the bed beside me, my daughter. Happy birthday to Jordan! You know we share the same birthday. Here's Michka.
[hands the phone to her]

Happy birthday, Jordan . . .

[Jordan speaking]
Thank you.

How old are you?

[Jordan continuing]
I'm fifteen.

It's hard to believe you, but I do.

[Jordan laughs]
OK, thanks.
[Bono takes back the phone]
There you go.

Fifteen! Now she's a woman!

She is a gorgeous girl. That was the best present I ever got for my birthday—when Jojo was born.

Speaking about birthdays, which ones have been the most special for you as an adult? Is there a special memory of what you did on a birthday?

I remember one particular night. Maybe it was for my twenty-first birthday, in the Paradiso in Amsterdam. I love the Dutch. One of my best friends is the photographer Anton Corbijn. The Dutch are so progressive. I remember the most extraordinary, transcendent night on my birthday. That was at the Paradiso, a great club, and it was one of those occasions
where time and space just disappear, and you are just involved in people's lives and they in yours, in a way only music can bring about. I also remember my fortieth birthday. That was pretty amazing, because Ali took me on a kind of trip with forty friends and we traveled in an old World War Two–like airplane around Europe. She wouldn't tell me where we were going. We flew to different places. It was just for a weekend, and there were very surreal things happening along the way. Ali's very good at surreality. Also, my thirty-third birthday was amazing. We were building a swimming pool in our back garden. For a guy from the North Side of Dublin, it's a big deal. It was a big swimming pool, and there was no water in it. So she made a table at the bottom of the swimming pool. We had music played, and a marquee.
[Ali's voice in the background seems to arise in protest]
Actually, she just interrupted. What are you saying? I can tell Michka! Hold on a second.
[Bono hands over to Ali, who takes over the conversation]
God! He's unbelievable.