By Richard Blow
One would not expect to find U2's Bono,
dressed simply in black pants, an olive shirt, and a military-style cap,
at Cafe des Artistes. The rarefied European-style restaurant, just
off Manhattan's tony Central Park West, caters more to affluent retirees
than to rock stars, and the conversations are so hushed that the place
feels like a library reading room. But Bono, who arrives by foot
from a borrowed apartment 10 blocks away, is at home amid the old-world
atmosphere. "I love this place," he says, and the restaurant staff discreetly
nod and welcome him as a regular with a penchant for privacy. Scanning
a menu, Bono orders a beet salad, steak frites, and a bottle of Cote de
Beaune. "I have a place in France," he says. "I'm learning about wine."
Talk soon turns to world politics. "I'm
not saying I know a lot about these subjects," he insists, though he clearly
does. That isn't the rock star in Bono speaking, but the figure he
is evolving into: a political leader for the new century.
How did you get involved with your organization
for Third World debt relief, Jubilee 2000? It's not exactly a household
topic.
It's a hard sell. That's why you need to
get pop stars in a photograph with a pontiff before people will pay it
any attention. You have to create drama some other way.
For me this goes back to Live Aid and the
song "Do They Know It's Christmas." That whole thing affected me
on a very profound level, that this little piece of plastic, vinyl, could
affect the lives of millions. And raise $200 million for Africa.
Later, I found out that Africa spends $200 million a month on its debt
repayments.
So you bought a month?
Yeah. But I was really carried away with
it, and my wife, Ali, and I went to Africa. We worked there for a
month, just following through. Walking in the camps. We swore
to each other that we would never forget our experiences there. And
in the background we were always thinking that we've got to get beyond
just putting your hand in your pocket - it's the structure, the relationship
between the West and the economies that, for our own spiritual well-being,
we'd better come to deal with.
How much progress has been made?
A lot. In the United States, very few people are
aware that the government has canceled the debts of 36 countries.
That's an extraordinary step. It has forever changed the relationship
between the developing and the developed world. Once the president
of the United States said that it is immoral for a man to repay loans rather
than feed his starving children, everything changed.
President Clinton has mentioned you in speeches
on this subject at least twice. Does that make you at all uncomfortable
- the president of the United States citing a rock star about a policy
that involves billions of dollars?
Part of the smartness of this administration is
their openness to new ideas, no matter how you're dressed. So I walk
into the Oval Office in my khakis. They offered me this audience
because they're not looking at me, they're listening to the idea.
And that's smart.
In Ireland, we have a history of poets
and painters involving themselves in politics. Poets and politicians conspired
to create a mythology, a vision of Ireland that probably wasn't true.
The poets created this kind of mythical Ireland that sheltered us from
the sleet and hailstones of colonialism.
When you're meeting with these young White
House aides, how do you know they don't just want to be able to say they
met Bono?
That might be the start of it. But on this
issue, that hasn't been the end of it. And I've been surprised. Not
just in Bill Clinton's White House but in Wall Street, in the Treasury
department; with some Republicans, there's been an openness I really wasn't
expecting. I arrived with lock picks, and they were opening the door.
You didn't expect such good treatment from
the establishment.
We love this idea, especially in rock 'n' roll,
of good guys and bad guys. We're the good guys; they that wear the
suits are the bad guys. But in fact they're just the busy guys. [Laughs]
They don't have the time to see the bigger picture. Which is inexcusable,
by the way, if you're in the seat of power.
And if you don't make the time, you get
[the riots at December's World Trade Organization meetings in] Seattle.
So they were smart to listen.
Yes. We have a constituency.
When you're onstage and you've got 75,000 people
hanging on your words, there's a power that's about more than rock music.
It's almost fascistic.
Sure.
Did you ever stand onstage and think, What
if I told these people to go jump off a bridge?
You know what they would do? Just go home.
Look, we have our share of assholes that come to see us. Onstage
as well. [Laughs] I'm one of them at times. But our audiences are
very smart, and if we abuse that relationship it would simply end.
If I told people how to vote, they would tell me, "Go fuck yourself."
What do rock stars and politicians have in
common?
They're both performers. Both, if they're any
good, have a sense of occasion. But politicians are more like pop stars
than rocks stars.
What's the difference?
Their audience has a short memory.
Which are you?
I am both. But U2 is a rock band.
Are you a politician?
Jim Morrison called himself and erotic politician,
didn't he? [Laughs] I have a respect for the word politician
that is unusual in my world. It comes from having met them, and seeing
how hard they work. I have actually sat with people in bands who
describe politicians as the anti-Christ and are sure that the Capitol is
the domain for all anti-Christs. And I'm saying, You don't understand.
These people get home really late. If they went into business, they'd
be a lot wealthier. We should pay them more and expect more from
them. I have to confess, I've got a respect for them that I really
didn't expect.
Do politicians respect you?
I don't care. I really don't. I care
for Jubilee 2000, or Amnesty International, or whatever. I want them
to get respect. People can get confused and think that because your
issue is worthy, therefore you are. To be in a position where people
expect a lot from you personally, rather than from your work, is dangerous.
But people do expect that. I don't think U2
could behave badly and not have that behavior undermine your politics.
I thought we did a very good job of trashing our
public image. After Zoo TV, people thought, Well, there they
go, they've embraced the cliché. And, partly, that's true.
But we did it in a smart way, because we just didn't like wearing the righteous
shoes. They really slow us down.
Politicians do get [judged by their behavior],
but musicians, we don't. And we mustn't. We're judged for the songs, or
the work.
It seemed a delicate balancing act to change
your old image without rejecting the passionate politics of U2 in the 1980's.
And we never did reject that. Because as a person,
as a performer, you're looking for wholeness. On a spiritual level,
I think that's God's design for us. Wholeness. And that often
amounts to embracing contradictions. So we started to mine our own
hypocrisy, rather than throwing stones at the political system, as we did
in the '80s. In the '90s, we started to have a go at ourselves.
Some people preferred the other way, which was like, rebel throws rock
through the glass case of some obvious evil. But it's the same thing in
the end. Outside of the songs, we continued on the same path of protest,
politically, that we'd always been on.
But the songs did become less explicitly political.
They did. The songs definitely changed.
And that was conscious?
It is now. [Laughs] I mean, I don't write
songs about things I could write an essay about.
Did the fact that songs can be misunderstood
cause you to write less explicitly political songs? You were obviously
uncomfortable with the way some people interpreted "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
as a pro-IRA song.
Right. That was a religious outburst, contrasting
the idea of Easter Sunday with the Easter Sunday when British paratroopers
shot dead 13 protesters. It was naive. A lot of our work in
the '80s was very naive. But I like that now. It's ecstatic
music. It has a sense of wonder and a joy about it. And joy
is the hardest thing. You can create anger. You can achieve
drama easily. But joy...
Do you feel the same way about your politics
in the '80's?
Pretty much, yeah. I can't remember anything
that I regret.
Because you're spending so much time with politicians
now, there must be things that you can't say now that you could have said
then.
I have a kind of Tourette's syndrome, though,
where the very thing I'm not supposed to say just forces its way out of
me gob. The foot is destined for the mouth. So in that sense
I'm probably not a good politician.
At least you never said U2 is bigger than Jesus.
No. Jesus has made us big.
Isn't there a risk of being co-opted by politicians?
By someone who wants to be seen with you, to associate themselves with
your fame or moral authority, but they're not necessarily going to come
through for you?
I can't worry too much about that. In Guyana
people have a life expectancy of 47 years. And they're spending as
much on repaying their loans to the West as they are on educating their
people. So I don't think I can be too worried about who I'm sitting
down with. Conservative Republicans - they want to talk the scriptures,
I can talk the scriptures.
How long have you known Clinton?
We met him when he was campaigning in 1992.
Politicians and rock stars have a similar touring schedule - they travel
at night and then they work through the day. So we would cross
paths. And there was an incident in Chicago where we were in the
same hotel. At, like, three o'clock in the morning, we were all eating
pizza and drinking wine, and somebody said, "Where's Bill Clinton? Ask
him if he wants some pizza." We were being cheeky.
It was a reasonable question.
[Laughs] For some reason, we were politely
turned away. But the next morning he came up to our room and wanted
to talk about Ireland. That's his curiosity for new ideas and new
people. But the relationship between politicians and musicians is
always going to be amusing. I can walk out of the White House and
praise the president for what he's done in Ireland or with debt relief.
But the next year I might be chaining myself to the railings.
That seems particularly important with Bill
Clinton. There are a lot of people who have felt that they knew where
they stood with him and later felt betrayed by him.
I have a different point of view. I'm a European;
I see an America that's rehabilitated in a way that was unimaginable to
me 10 years ago. Back then the U.S. was the neighborhood bully, inept in
foreign policy, beating up on the wrong guy everywhere. With The
Joshua Tree, we were writing about Central America and the dark side
of the United States. Now America looks smart and, dare I say, sexy
again. During [the war in] Bosnia, when this Muslim population was
living with genocide and a united Europe couldn't agree on anything, it
was the Americans who came to rescue them.
Is it tougher, in a way, to have somebody like
Clinton as president, rather than someone who had clear differences with
you?
It's a lot different, especially in musical terms.
Rebel rock has a certain romance. Arriving with your statistics and
bowler hat is never going to ring the same.
Have your own politics changed much over the
last 20 years?
I'm what you call a champagne socialist.
My father was from the left; I grew up on labor ideas. Simple adages: housing,
health, education. I thought having a family would actually take a lot
of my energies away from such passions. I'm surprised that it did
rather the opposite. My children have made me more aggressive about
the world that they're about to inhabit.
Has your political work infused the record
you're making?
The record is in no way a political record.
It's a very personal record. But it has a certain fire to it that you get
when you're all where you're supposed to be. I would go off to America
and come back and I'd have songs in my head.
How is the album coming?
We've got all the songs now. An we've just got
to put them into arrangements. I mean, we have the songs, and we
just haven't quite finished them. Some great songs in there.
Can you characterize the album?
If we had only one record to make, this would
be it. That's the way we're looking at it.
Are you a role model for younger musicians?
[Groans] Oh, don't. I think a lot
of people out there just think, Oh, yeah, weren't they the band that had
all those ideals in the '80s, and then they started dressing up in shiny
suits and got all artsy? I don't think people see us as a role model,
and I rather like that they don't. We're going after the soul music
now. That's where the battle is won and lost for me politically - in the
deep waters of the soul. |