"Bono"

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Speaker 2 It's been a minute.

Speaker 2 It's been a minute since we've been able to kind of wrap just us without the

Speaker 2 other guys. And it's really important to me

Speaker 2 for you guys to know how important

Speaker 2 you guys are to me, because the success of Smartless has all just been because of you, the listener. So I'm always just looking to put you guys first.
Oh my God.

Speaker 2 I really got to take this, you guys. Hello?

Speaker 2 I have not renewed my warranty. Why?

Speaker 2 Welcome to Smartless. Smart.

Speaker 3 The only time this guy's on first is when it's his guest. Otherwise, you're late, you're chewing.

Speaker 2 I did a lot of chewing before I just finished.

Speaker 3 Do you have respect for this guest?

Speaker 2 I do have respect for this guest, yeah, a lot.

Speaker 2 Really? On a lot of levels. Yes, on a lot of levels.
Well, we'll see. Yes.
Hi.

Speaker 3 Sean clearly does not have respect for this guest.

Speaker 2 Hi, Sean. Hi, Will.

Speaker 1 How are you?

Speaker 2 I'm good. Are you having some sugar and milk? I am, actually.
What are you having with it?

Speaker 1 Just a little bit of drop of tea.

Speaker 2 I sent Jason this thing. By the way, you haven't had

Speaker 2 your father-in-law, Paul Anka, on the show yet. It's embarrassing.

Speaker 3 Well, I was thinking about that. I was at dinner with him last night, and then I thought...

Speaker 3 Maybe one of you guys. I feel like Michael Grant Terry, our incredible producer, is working on that and that it's a scheduling thing.
I feel like we have officially gone out to him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we have.

Speaker 2 I feel like it's so good. Watch him wriggle.
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 I feel like we've gone out to him when you had dinner with him last night.

Speaker 2 I know. You could have just said, hey.
I feel like it's a schedule.

Speaker 3 He was very excited to hear that you're a Canadian. I'm surprised he didn't know that already.

Speaker 2 Yeah, me neither. I sent you and your wife a nice email about him and about the inspiration for his song Diana, which was a huge hit, which he wrote when he was like 16.
16. Is this the guest today?

Speaker 2 No, no, this is Paul Incom. Paul went down to New York and recorded this, all these tunes, these huge hits.
You know, he wrote My Way, amongst other great things, that song.

Speaker 2 Diana, he was 16 years old. Isn't that crazy? Yeah.
And he wrote about this woman who she just recently passed away, and she claimed that it, like, it

Speaker 2 dogged her for her whole life. I'm like, yeah, it's pretty cool to have Paul Anca writer.

Speaker 1 It is. You know what I was doing when I was 16 years old?

Speaker 2 I was going to ask you through it. Oh, sorry, Sean.
Do you want to get through this? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Go ahead, John. I was

Speaker 2 shoplifting Skittles.

Speaker 1 No, I did. I did shoplift something when I I was...

Speaker 1 I stole a turkey sandwich when I was in college and got arrested for it. Jesus.
But anyway,

Speaker 1 when I was 16, I was in my room and I listened to Wham, and I listened to like wham rap. And I would try, I memorized all the lyrics.
Shocker.

Speaker 2 I mean, shockless.

Speaker 1 And I'm in my room, like, acting like I'm in wham, and I learned all the words. And my mom completely walked in on me.

Speaker 1 Caught me, you know, and then you cover like, oh, no, I was just cleaning my room. Like, it was so embarrassing.

Speaker 2 And she saw you because

Speaker 2 she came in on the right side.

Speaker 3 She had her head turned to the right.

Speaker 2 To the right.

Speaker 1 The door cracked open. Just one eye looked in.

Speaker 2 And you were doing wham because you hadn't learned Frankie Goza Hollywood lyrics yet? Or what's going on?

Speaker 2 You just wanted to go through all the different.

Speaker 3 George Michael and Andrew.

Speaker 2 Ridgefield.

Speaker 2 Ridgely. Ridgely.
Ridgely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Ridgely. It was kind of like, it was kind of like...

Speaker 2 Look how mad Sean get when he said Ridgely.

Speaker 2 God, I hope that's a surprise guest today Andrew Ridge guys of Andrew Ridgely Jason wanted me to tell you about my nerve thing but maybe I'll do that in the next show I wanted to tell you wanted to tell me what you wanted me to tell Will about my neck procedure I did oh yeah I definitely want to hear about that let me carve out some time so I can hear about your neck issues speaking of time did I say that at the party the other night no you said it you should two weeks ago speaking of time we don't have a ton of time because we've all

Speaker 2 started late sorry and uh jason was right i was I'm a little bit I'm very excited about our guests.

Speaker 2 You know, as you think about an intro and how you introduce somebody, you think about what they've done. And I thought about this for a long time and

Speaker 2 where you start because

Speaker 2 we often have guests on who wear a lot of different hats.

Speaker 2 But they start somewhere, but then they do other things. And sometimes it's a hobby, but sometimes it's something that they might be good at.
Our guest today is someone who has started

Speaker 2 almost in concert their art and

Speaker 2 their art was informed by what they saw in the world around them. And it drove their art to incredible heights.

Speaker 2 But in that time, there was always this message about what was going on in the world around him.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he, along with his three bandmates, created a band together when they were very young that was, again, just always a reflection of what they saw and what they felt in the world.

Speaker 2 And then they didn't just do that and just let it be part of their art.

Speaker 1 It's almost like

Speaker 2 their activism became part of their art.

Speaker 2 I'm starting to sweat. And they didn't just lend their name or write a check and wave and say, I gave.
They went and got in the trenches. This person has

Speaker 2 been around the world, whether it's fighting poverty and fighting hunger.

Speaker 2 This person, I think, maybe no single soul human has ever done more to raise awareness and money and serve as an agency for change in the fight against AIDS.

Speaker 2 And all of that, sort of, in a lot of ways, kind of

Speaker 2 it almost overwhelms what a great artist he is. This person is,

Speaker 2 it's so hard. I can't even,

Speaker 2 I'm just bubbling to get it out because he'll tell you everything. He's got a new book out that just came out called Surrender.
guys it's bono oh yeah

Speaker 2 it's elten jaum actually

Speaker 2 you know sean pan

Speaker 2 julie roberts wow

Speaker 3 oh my god this is what an honor to have you join us my goodness i have been such a huge fan of yours for so so long this is crazy so long do you know just like three weeks ago or four weeks ago i had dinner with and forgive me i don't know if i say the edge or just edge the will do Okay.

Speaker 2 That's just the. Just the.

Speaker 1 Uh-huh. And he was, I was picking his brain.
I can't believe I'm, by the way, it's such an honor to meet you. A huge fan.
I mean,

Speaker 1 Josh Richard was like a huge part of my life in high school. It was just massive.
And anyway, I was talking to the

Speaker 1 about that

Speaker 1 at dinner, and he was. singing your praises as of course you would expect, but he was explaining how the how different you both are.
And that's what makes part of the whole band work is that

Speaker 1 he doesn't like the spotlight. He likes to be in the back.
He likes to play. He almost doesn't like to be even seen.
And I thought that was fascinating. And he also said

Speaker 1 that, what?

Speaker 2 Sorry, I'm almost done. This is one of those moments I wish Sean was at a loss for words, but he's not.
Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 1 He also said, I said, Joshua Tree was such a huge part of my life in high school. Tell me about how that happened.

Speaker 1 And he said, you know, during the time of Madonna and Michael Jackson and George Michael and all these kind of amazing people in their own right, you guys came along with this kind of

Speaker 1 out-of-left feel, this band that was just, the timing was perfect for you guys. And that's also what helped make that album so huge.

Speaker 1 It was just another, the option that wasn't out there.

Speaker 3 Huh, at the end of all that, not even a question mark.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Well, I think what you're saying, Sean, and by the way, there's an altar for you in Dingle. And

Speaker 2 my grandparents are just. So you know.
Yeah, yeah, there's an altar there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we brought a bit of black and white to these very, these people were very colorful and very vivid. And we arrived in Anton Corbyn Photography, very, very black and white.

Speaker 2 In fact, so black and white that our manager, Paul McGinnis, used to say, now don't look like the band too stupid to enjoy being at number one now, will you?

Speaker 2 But yeah, the decade taste forgot was very good to us, and I'm very, very grateful.

Speaker 2 And Edge is indeed a kind of anti-guitar hero, which is, you know, he, I mean, he's like the most extraordinary person, forget guitar player, genius, probably the most influential guitar player of the last 30 years.

Speaker 2 The only one who won't tell you is him. And

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 2 it's good to get time with him

Speaker 2 there, Sean. I always treasure it when I get time with him.
And he only lives 100 yards from where I'm sitting right now. In fact, he called me just before I came on.

Speaker 1 He was singing your praises as of course.

Speaker 3 So Bono, about that sort of opposites, and I'm sure that's an exaggeration, but clearly there are some different lanes that each one of you four occupy in the in the band slash family and and Jason loves lanes.

Speaker 3 You love lanes. I love a lane.
I love a bucket. No, I don't actually don't do buckets.
Buckets is overdone today or silos.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 talk to us about how you guys manage those dynamics where everyone kind of has their lane, but then there's good overlap sometimes when you guys need to collaborate.

Speaker 3 Is it something that you guys keep an eye on so that the harmony literally and figuratively stays intact?

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I mean, look, I,

Speaker 2 from

Speaker 2 the podcast, I have overheard, plugged into, enjoyed. You're obviously a band to

Speaker 2 it's a power 3-0, isn't that? Your things like cream or the police or nirvana. Don't be rush.
But

Speaker 2 progressive rock is actually one of the only things myself and Edge fall out over.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 yeah, being in a band,

Speaker 2 it's tricky. And

Speaker 2 the older you get, you know, it gets even trickier because when you grew up together, you're used to taking bits out of each other, you know, and it's because people know where you've come from, you know,

Speaker 2 they know your memories. I think that's the best definition I heard of really knowing someone is you know their memories.

Speaker 2 You know how they got them, and so they will remind you, the band will remind you of how far away from yourself you've gotten.

Speaker 2 And at a certain point, people don't want to be reminded of that, you know, and I'm always amazed that we're still together because

Speaker 2 you know it is you it's rough. I mean, you're as good as the arguments you get, but at a certain point when people are doing well, the male loves to be the lord of his own domain, you know.

Speaker 2 And you can just imagine why people just say, ah, fuck this, I'm out of here. I mean, I really genuinely expect it.
And the band breaks up all the time. It's the truth.
We just don't announce it.

Speaker 2 Then we get back together. You just never fall.
You can't be fucked. I'm very grateful we do.

Speaker 2 You can't be fucked to follow through on it. Well, you know what? It's funny you say that, Bono, because so your book, I mentioned that your book has come out and you've been on tour supporting it.

Speaker 2 You did a date and now you're announcing that you're going to go on tour and do some more dates, which is so excellent. And so I read parts of your book all the way through.

Speaker 2 And actually, I heard that somebody told me that that's kind of of how you want people to do it, kind of dip in and out. So I

Speaker 2 40 short stories. It works, so I constructed it as 40 short stories as well as the sort of beginning, middle, and end arc.
Yeah. And so the challenge.
That's right.

Speaker 2 And there's pictures as well, special pictures, you know, little drawings for you.

Speaker 2 Will, so you can keep it. Well, they're drawings that made it much easier.
So it was a pop-up book.

Speaker 1 I'm all.

Speaker 2 I just stared at them. But these guys, I have to explain what a book is to them.
But you should know.

Speaker 2 So, Bonnam, but you talk about you guys breaking up. So you start, you guys get to know each other when you're very young.
You meet through mutual friends.

Speaker 2 And not only do you guys know about each other, this is what I was getting to, but the world knows as what.

Speaker 2 You guys have grown up together and you've grown up in a world and the world has watched you guys grow up together.

Speaker 2 And it's funny, you mentioned a few times in the book the home in which you grew up, 10 Cedarwood Road. And I got to the point,

Speaker 2 I'm almost embarrassed to say, that I Googled it on Google Maps because I wanted to look.

Speaker 2 And I wanted to kind of get a feel of it as I was reading it, you know, your descriptions of jumping around in the living room, listening to the Ramones,

Speaker 2 and your dad coming home and you being there with Allie, and all these various sort of anecdotes you had that really were such a window into your life and all these different stages.

Speaker 2 And as I put it in Google, it says Bono Vox Childhood House. And I thought, fucking Google knows that that's where you grew up.
The world knows.

Speaker 2 The world knows a lot of your memories. But just on the outside, and now you're sharing all of this stuff from the inside.

Speaker 2 How was the experience of writing this book and kind of bearing it all in a way? It's called surrender. So did it feel like that?

Speaker 2 That's still

Speaker 2 a word I'm ganging up on. I haven't quite got to fully grasp or fathom the title of my own book.

Speaker 2 But I,

Speaker 2 yeah, you know, I really decided to go there and it's, you know, go all the way.

Speaker 2 It's not a confessional, but it is kind of anatomical and if you want to see the band in a rehearsal room or in the studio or the the sort of the the the struggles around it with each other and with the world around us I'm going to write about it in a silly cross-section same as an activist the same in other areas of my life my family life I just decided to go there and then I said I'll afterwards decide if I'd publish it And then I got caught in it.

Speaker 2 And I find myself, the real value of writing a book like this is

Speaker 2 you sort of retrieve memories from the kind of river,

Speaker 2 from the, you drudge them somehow out of the sewer, but you know, you find them. And that's beautiful.
Even the one about my father coming home and I had just brought Ali Stewart.

Speaker 2 I just brought her home. And I was showing her my little box room.
And I swear I wasn't in bed with her. I was on the bed with her.

Speaker 2 And it was the one time my father came home in the middle of the day. It was Wednesday.
And he's like,

Speaker 2 Are you in there? What are you doing home? I said, It's a half day. And he goes, What?

Speaker 2 I said, What are you doing home?

Speaker 2 I can do what I like. And then he, I heard him coming up the stairs.
And I'm like,

Speaker 2 Girl, what are we going to do? And she's looking at me and I say, panic. She's like, I'm not going to panic.
I said, get under the bed.

Speaker 2 And she's like, what? I've nothing to be ashamed of. Get under the bed.
So she gets under under the bed. And the dad comes and he goes, you know,

Speaker 2 are you okay?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, don't be, this is not going to be the day that he asks me how I am doing existentially. And

Speaker 2 then he comes in and he sits on the bed. Oh, God.
So Ali has two usons on top of her. And she's going to stay that way for quite some time.

Speaker 2 But I, if I hadn't written the book, I wouldn't have remembered that. I wouldn't be talking to you about it now.
And the stuff with my mother, you know, because I lost my mother at an early age.

Speaker 2 I just, I found all these, I found her. And then with the show that you mentioned, you know, the half-man show, we call it in the band.
It's not even a one-man show.

Speaker 2 I'm finding that I'm spending time with my father, my mother, because I kind of become my father as part of the show.

Speaker 2 And I'm starting to, I mean, I always loved him, but I'm starting to like him, which is mad. As I become him in the show, I take his voice and

Speaker 2 and i'm i'm he made me laugh um he's made me laugh a lot so the book has given me a lot i will say that so thank you for you you talk bono in the book again and about your relationship with your dad in in about um that moment when you're in the chapel and as and you and you

Speaker 2 you have this really kind of after he's died i found that to be really um something that's

Speaker 2 the ability to sort of i don't know if you i don't know if you said you apologized but you had a kind of almost a conversation with your dad, yeah?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was kind of an, it was an apology. It was a very combative

Speaker 2 relationship. Not without humor, but combative.
And I sort of, I was born with my fists up. So that's why you understand this word surrender does not come natural to me.
And yeah, and

Speaker 2 after a while, I did realize maybe I had, I wasn't there for him when he was going through so much. He'd lost my mother.
There was three Irish males kind of screaming at each other in the house.

Speaker 2 And one of them is a very precocious, you know, annoying one. That would be me.
And I would, you know, I was probably torturing him. And

Speaker 2 after he passed away, I did have a moment where I went up. And I like going to churches.
actually better when there's no service on them

Speaker 2 and especially in the language I don't understand because then I get to feel the things without having to parse them you you know intellectually and I was just was an empty chapel and yeah I apologize to my father and

Speaker 2 my theology doesn't allow me the belief that he was listening but I was listening to myself

Speaker 2 and there's a romantic part of me does believe he was listening and and something did change in me and I

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think my voice changed. You walk different.
After you confess things,

Speaker 2 they say this coming out of the confession box, that's for Irish Catholics.

Speaker 2 But, you know, the Jews have your therapists, we have the priests. But people emerge from these sessions different, walk different.
They, you know, so much lighter.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 yeah, my voice changed a bit around that time. And my father was a tanner.
Jason, anything you want to get off your chest right now, go ahead. Bono's here.

Speaker 2 Falder, Bono is here.

Speaker 3 Well, but talk a little bit more about that, about that process of going through the memories and then writing those down

Speaker 3 in a literal, accurate sense,

Speaker 3 in comparison to the way I would imagine you've been doing it for years and years as a songwriter,

Speaker 3 talking about yourself, your feelings, your thoughts on things,

Speaker 3 your perspective on the world in much more of a metaphorical way, in a poetic way, in a rhyming way.

Speaker 3 Did you find find yourself going through the same

Speaker 3 themes and issues

Speaker 3 and getting more from it in that sort of catharsis exercise by writing in literal terms as opposed to metaphor?

Speaker 2 That's very actorly of you, and I appreciate that question.

Speaker 2 Catharsis is exactly right word.

Speaker 2 But it's very different, you know, writing a book, my own book, what I wrote myself. You know, it's different to writing songs.

Speaker 2 With songs, I tend to find sort of landscapes, emotional landscapes, feelings.

Speaker 2 I want to kind of enter into it. They're very abstract, oblique often.

Speaker 2 And then I'll find a concrete situation, as you referred to, Will, in your very kind introduction. You know, I will use a real-life situation.

Speaker 2 But songwriting for me is primarily investigation, inquiry into

Speaker 2 the emotions around an issue.

Speaker 2 Here with the book, and remember, it's really far-fetched already to write, but you know, it's sort of beyond navel-gazing. You know, why would you foist your memoir? I call it a memoir

Speaker 2 when it should really be a weimoir because I'm in loads of bands, actually.

Speaker 2 But there was...

Speaker 2 It is, I think, okay to share these thoughts because they might be useful to other people.

Speaker 2 And at the very least, they might explain what I've been doing with my life to my family and friends, you know?

Speaker 1 But it is different. You know, I love that you said you apologized to your father because my father just apologized to me about leaving early and leaving us with nothing.

Speaker 1 He didn't apologize. No.

Speaker 2 I was going to say, wait, wait, what?

Speaker 1 But I did, but Bono, I did one of those ancestry shows where they trace your ancestry. And all of my relatives are from.
Dingell and County Carrie.

Speaker 1 And we, my grandfather, on my dad's side, my grandfather, my great-grandmother, my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, they have all this information.

Speaker 1 And every single one of them, I'm not exaggerating, every single one of them arrested for

Speaker 1 drunken behavior,

Speaker 1 beating people up.

Speaker 1 I visited the jail where they all went. I mean, it was an insane, insane ancestry of crazy.

Speaker 2 Sean,

Speaker 2 I'm here to absolve you of that guilt because those were days where the British were responsible for incarceration. And we called those people rebels, okay? Okay.

Speaker 2 And that's why they were being put away. And yes, these are slurs on their reputation.

Speaker 2 And have you asked yourself the question, Sean? Just

Speaker 2 why do my relatives speak in a Jamaican accent? Or the other way around? Have you ever gone, gosh, Bob Marley sounds a lot like he's from Dingle, like my grandparents.

Speaker 2 One, two, three, the whole thing gonna be all right. Oh, yeah.
Because

Speaker 2 that very sing song can be. I can explain it if you want, but you don't have to.
I mean, this is.

Speaker 2 Well, wait, Bono, I do want you to explain it because you do very famously, I've watched it a dozen times over the years, your introduction of Bob Marley into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Speaker 2 Oh, many times, man. I love it.
It's one of the great speeches. I always find speeches like that to be my favorite kind, like induction speeches, things like that, when people really think about it.

Speaker 2 I don't know, there's something about it that kind of,

Speaker 2 and that is one of the great ones. And you talk about the similarities.
Why is an an Irishman inducting a Jamaican? And what are the similarities? And you say to the audience, kind of laugh.

Speaker 2 You say, bear with me.

Speaker 2 But then you, and one of the things you talk about, the British,

Speaker 2 you're like,

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 2 everything all clear now. Yeah.
The green, the herb, you mentioned that a bunch of times.

Speaker 2 And you talk about when the jackboots of colonialism retreat, what it means to, not just to get up, but to stay standing up. There's so many great themes.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's great. Yeah, I will remember that.
It kept it in the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston. And he's from Irish town, of course.

Speaker 2 And it turns out there were some indentured people forcefully taken to,

Speaker 2 Irish people taken to the Caribbean. It's not the same thing as slavery

Speaker 2 or anything like it, but it was rough. And there were at the time of James I and Cromwell up to, I think, I mean,

Speaker 2 it's disputed, but 3,000 to 40,000 from Dingle and from Kerry. Honestly, I'm not joking this.
I'm not smoking Deweed at this point.

Speaker 2 And it is, you know, it's interesting, but I think we are spiritually also quite close to

Speaker 2 that kind of the Bob Marley way of the world where he could sing.

Speaker 2 of his faith, for example, when you two dropped our second album and we missed the bit about singing of songs about girls before we got on to God like Van Morrison and we started off like with God

Speaker 2 and our manager was going this is not going to go well and

Speaker 2 and Chris Blackwell who you know discovered Bob Marley and founded Island Records that we were assigned to he was like oh no you know no no this is this is all part of it you know the whole world and

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 and and sort of Irish people and Jamaicans, I think we're in, I like to think at our best.

Speaker 2 We have this kind of, we work body, spirit, and soul. Wow, that's quite a pretentious thing for your smartless

Speaker 2 podcast. I believe we are.
I believe we are.

Speaker 2 Our listeners are nothing if not pretentious.

Speaker 3 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 3 And now back to the show.

Speaker 2 Bono, I wanted to ask you about speaking great concerts,

Speaker 2 one of the all-time great live records

Speaker 2 with you guys at Red Rocks, you two.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 there's that great beginning of Sunday, Bloody Sunday when you start and you say,

Speaker 2 there's been a lot of talk about this next song. Maybe too much talk.
This song is not a rebel song. By the way, I'm not reading it.
I got to memorize since it came out.

Speaker 2 This song is Sunday, Bloody Sunday. The number of times I've uttered those words and not known.
what they meant and didn't know what they meant at the time when you said them.

Speaker 2 And it was almost impromptu, or it was impromptu. If you could maybe tell us a little bit about that introduction to Sunday, Bloody Sunday.
It was this with his old hangovers

Speaker 2 after a Saturday night.

Speaker 2 This song is a very powerful song. I think of it strangely as like a Marley song.
Always think about it a little bit like that.

Speaker 2 And while Edge was working on it in Dublin, I was working on it in Jamaica, funnily enough, on my honeymoon, having to try and explain to my missus why our honeymoon album is going to be called War.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 yeah, it's a powerful song,

Speaker 2 but it kind of got us into some trouble and where people thought

Speaker 2 we were taking sides in, you know, in a country which was almost at civil war.

Speaker 2 on sectarian lines. And, you know, there's only,

Speaker 2 we say

Speaker 2 there's one and a half Catholics in U2. So you've got Larry Mullen, and I consider myself, because my father was Catholic, half Catholic, but I was raised in the Church of Ireland.

Speaker 2 And then you have the two Brits in

Speaker 2 the band, Adam and Edge. So they came in from the UK.
So we were like a social experiment, U2, at the time.

Speaker 2 And we didn't want to get caught up in this Sunday, bloody Sunday, rah, rah, rah. Let's raise some money for the paramilitaries to go and hurt people and

Speaker 2 worse, you know,

Speaker 2 extinguish lives with these guns that were bought. And, you know,

Speaker 2 all across America,

Speaker 2 people,

Speaker 2 you know, were tin cupping and looking for money for the freedom fighters. And it wasn't as simple as freedom fighting.

Speaker 2 And my father

Speaker 2 was a Catholic, but he was very suspicious of nationalism.

Speaker 2 And he used to say, he had this great line, he'd quote the playwright saying, he'd say, what is Ireland but the land that keeps my feet from getting wet?

Speaker 2 And I'd like, that's a great quote. When I was writing a book, I discovered he made it up.
Singh never said that. And it's a great quote because it's just saying, just be careful about boundaries.

Speaker 2 And, you know, countries are just stories you tell yourself. And you want to be very careful about going to war with your next door neighbor.
And so I used to introduce it.

Speaker 2 And it's, I'm sure it's, it's, it's an annoying sound I make when I'm saying that, because I suffered from a telephone voice

Speaker 2 on stage. Like really,

Speaker 2 I don't know, it's a funny sound. It doesn't sound like me.

Speaker 2 Edge and I went to see a film called Killing Bono. He was going to enjoy it a little more than me.

Speaker 2 And the actor played, I said, he doesn't sound like me though, does he, Edge? And he said, no, he does. He sounds like the the way you speak on stage or on the telly.

Speaker 2 And he's been doing his research on Google. That's a very good bono, but it's your telephone voice bono.

Speaker 2 And so when I hear, there's been a lot of talk about this song,

Speaker 2 I'm like, oh, cool. You just

Speaker 2 turn it down a little bit.

Speaker 2 But that's me in the 80s. And, you know, I still feel as strong about it.
I'm just,

Speaker 2 you know, I just

Speaker 2 hate to bring it to you, man, but it's iconic. So I'm sorry.
I apologize for the rest of the world, but sidebar, are you sitting on the floor? Yeah, he is.

Speaker 3 Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 Keeps it real down there.

Speaker 2 All right, because there's a couch right there. Thanks.
Yeah, I'm bubbling, doubling, man. We sit on the floor.
That's my favorite thing. We eat our children.

Speaker 2 Sean, don't start a kid. You've got a TV behind you that you've never turned on.
So let's go to the other side. By the way, that is so true.

Speaker 3 Puts on the Yule log on that thing. Hey, Bono,

Speaker 3 talk to us about

Speaker 3 your,

Speaker 3 you know, your music is always so passionate and authentic.

Speaker 3 It always feels like you're writing and you're singing from the heart.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 that takes a lot of passion to be that genuine.

Speaker 3 Have you found that the older you've gotten, the smarter you've gotten, the more spiritual intelligence, informational intelligence, emotional intelligence, that the passion for things that don't make sense for you, like maybe when you were younger, that now do make sense for you, does the passion go

Speaker 3 down and make it harder to write and sing more passionately because you simply have more things figured out?

Speaker 3 And that you're just, or you're easier with things, or you're not pushing back against things. You're letting, you know, I just find that as I get older, I'm just like,

Speaker 3 I'm not going to sweat the small shit as much anymore. And it's just sort of a maturation.

Speaker 2 By the way, for Jason, like passion and soul, it's all like a math equation. Go ahead, Bona.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure my IQ is high enough to actually understand that question.

Speaker 2 But my EQ can figure it out.

Speaker 2 You know, yeah, was it, oh my God, I think it was Seinfeld, was it?

Speaker 2 Who said, you know, he's no, when he got to six, he'd no problem,

Speaker 2 you know, just turning people down. He goes, nah, can't do that.

Speaker 2 And he said when he gets to 70, he just won't reply.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I have,

Speaker 2 yeah, I've,

Speaker 2 who's the guy on the villain on James Bond? Doctor No. I'm Dr.
Yes,

Speaker 2 and I try

Speaker 2 to solve problems for people. I shouldn't be necessarily in my activism.
I do tend to help God across the road like she's a little old lady. Come on, God.

Speaker 2 I know exactly what to do here.

Speaker 2 I am

Speaker 2 actually,

Speaker 2 part of the process of writing the book is

Speaker 2 just actually just trying to be in the moment. I'm in more

Speaker 2 and just and listening. I'm really, there's this Franciscan friar called Richard Rohr, who I just, he's just a genius.
He's just a, he's amazing. And I read him.
He's got a place called Center of...

Speaker 2 action and contemplation out there in Albuquerque. The center of

Speaker 2 action and contemplation. And I like that order.

Speaker 2 But I might need to reverse it.

Speaker 2 You know, I might need to do some more contemplating before I act.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I'm getting to that. Yeah, you can't.

Speaker 2 How many more blows have you got to throw?

Speaker 2 And this sort of pushing your shoulder against the door.

Speaker 2 I mean, I was used to it, you know, politically, whether it was, you know, people who didn't want to see me or didn't want to meet the activists that I represent fighting for universal access to AIDS, drugs, or whatever, I'd be ready to put my shoulder to the door, break it down, you know.

Speaker 2 But now I'm sort of thinking, maybe, maybe there's a key in the lock. Maybe it's just maybe just turn it and

Speaker 2 stop fighting. I think, Sean, by the way, didn't in college you say that there were a lot of blows in the Center for Action, which is what you guys called

Speaker 2 behind the soda machine.

Speaker 2 Sorry.

Speaker 2 William, Does your father call you William? Yeah, he does. My mother calls me William.
Be quiet. But I do want to, you know, one of the things, Bono, before I read

Speaker 2 your book, or read parts of your book and read all this stuff about what you've been doing, and

Speaker 2 I had seen years ago, I don't know if you're aware of it, but Frontline did a two-part

Speaker 2 piece, a documentary series on AIDS, the age of AIDS. And I thought at the time, I remember thinking like, oh, we've all read everything about AIDS.
I mean, how much more can there be?

Speaker 2 And it was absolutely illuminated. This is like 2006, I think.

Speaker 2 And a big part of it was they focused a lot on what you did in terms of not just raising money. And this always struck me.
And I've talked about it a lot over the years to various people.

Speaker 2 Anybody who will listen.

Speaker 2 At a time when

Speaker 2 especially this country needed to really step up and help combat AIDS in Africa, you came over here and you reached across lines and you ended up in a meeting with I know you first met with Paul O'Neill and then you went over to Africa and and did amazing things and illuminated him.

Speaker 2 He was then Secretary of the Treasury. But then you also

Speaker 2 you reached across and you appealed to Jesse Helms and in effect you said you're a Christian I'm a Christian and I know that you've publicly stated that you that you know that AIDS is a result of an immoral or life or whatever it was that he said and you said but we have an obligation because this is what God would do and you spoke to him and you and your faith really drove you in that.

Speaker 2 And you got him to completely change his position. And that led to the biggest ever

Speaker 2 amount of money. And

Speaker 2 really just sparked the U.S. getting involved in giving money to AIDS, which continues to this day.
Amazing. Yeah, if you're an American, you're an AIDS activist.
Isn't that amazing?

Speaker 2 I tell some people that, and they go, I don't want to be one. I say, well, you are.

Speaker 2 That's the largest health intervention in the history of medicine to fight a single disease up until this recent pandemic.

Speaker 2 And it was, you know, Bush and people, conservatives

Speaker 2 got involved. It started with Nancy Pelosi, actually.
Her first speech on the floor of the Congress

Speaker 2 as she arrived to the Capitol was about AIDS.

Speaker 2 So many other people work for this. And some of the better meetings I had were actually with staffers and policy wonks.

Speaker 2 And we used to meet you know on Friday nights, I'd find out which pubs they were going to, and I would, you know, I'd meet the people. I'd meet, you know, that's the way to do it.

Speaker 2 It's not all principle to principle, as it was, you know.

Speaker 2 But then, you know, yeah, Jesse had this thing, and he, Jesse Holmes, old cold warrior, but he repented on the steps of the Senate for the way he talked about HIV/AIDS.

Speaker 2 And he actually, and I used, of course,

Speaker 2 the scriptures, which I, you know, as a writer, you know, whether it's Bob Dylan, whether it's Nick Cave, whether it's, you know, it's all my Leonard Cohen, they're my favorite writers, all versed in the scriptures.

Speaker 2 And, you know, and I went after him because my attitude was so, so

Speaker 2 who would Jesus be hanging out with here? You know, and

Speaker 2 what's, you know, where's the judgmental part of Jesus? Jesus didn't speak in judgment about anybody. In fact, the only thing Jesus spoke in judgment about was the way we treat the poor.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he was, you know, stopped in his tracks. And I said, that's, you know, Jesus wasn't maybe, people think that Jesus is like focused on your pants.

Speaker 2 What's going on in your pants? You know, what? I mean, what vision of God do we have? Right, right.

Speaker 2 And it's, it's like, it's, it's, it's like we put ourself or, you know, our, you know, bad relative in the place of God. And of course, God is huge and gigantic love.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's just so obvious. You don't even have to win the argument.

Speaker 1 Also known as common sense, God.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah, I like to think so.
And anyway,

Speaker 2 these drugs are transformative, and I was just lucky to be part of it. And reaching out, though, across the aisle,

Speaker 2 that's a hard thing to do in America today. It's getting harder and harder.
It's gotten harder. You would think that since then it would be...

Speaker 2 And again,

Speaker 2 if anything, a lot of sort of very right-wing Christianity has been weaponized

Speaker 2 what they're saying

Speaker 2 in a way that doesn't seem that's sort of incongruous with the actual notion of Christianity. It's ridiculous.
It is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 From your perspective over there, with fresh eyes of not being immersed in America, does it seem like there might be one obvious thing that you might recommend to us to focus on that would bring both sides together?

Speaker 3 Some sort of thing.

Speaker 2 Or

Speaker 2 can you come back over and say this?

Speaker 3 Yeah, what would you, as you, you know, you put the commonality of faith with Jesse Helms and you. What would be the common thing that might bring both sides together nowadays over here, I wonder?

Speaker 2 America doesn't exist yet.

Speaker 2 That's what I'm pitching at the moment.

Speaker 2 To conservatives and liberals, I say America is the greatest idea the world has ever had, but it doesn't exist yet.

Speaker 2 And for certain communities, it's not there. And the idea that you can write it, that you can create it now, people listening on the podcast thinking, well, what is America then?

Speaker 2 That it's on its way.

Speaker 2 And that's

Speaker 2 the most encouraging I could do. I agree about that.

Speaker 3 Is it an embracing of a coexistence, Sir Sean? Do you think is the general sort of American idea, I wonder, just from your international perspective,

Speaker 3 is it just a...

Speaker 3 to the extent that you are comfortable to coexist with other.

Speaker 3 Is that what the promise is?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's exactly.

Speaker 2 That's a really good definition of it. And America is...
Well, hey Jason just saw a bumper sticker. He said co-existing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sorry.

Speaker 2 But, you know, it's just,

Speaker 2 I mean, I love, as much as this book I've written is a love letter to,

Speaker 2 you know, my missus, to Ali, it's also a love letter to America. And I, you know, came here.

Speaker 2 I mean, I,

Speaker 2 went to City Lights I don't know if you've been to that bookstore and in San Francisco Ferlinghetti Lawrence Ferlinghetti set it up and I I I I fell in love with America reading Ginsburg and Kerouac and the plays of Sam Shepard and Patty Smith I was like wow

Speaker 2 I was sort of I didn't know I'd be getting to write about this America that I was reading about. But I even then just sensed

Speaker 2 this is a mythological place as well as a physical landscape. And

Speaker 2 there were two Americas, really.

Speaker 2 And I wanted to write about both.

Speaker 2 Well, you did, you wrote so much about it. I mean, Joshua Tree was really felt like you were flexing your American muscle.
You were there. You guys were

Speaker 2 absorbing and kind of reflecting back to us.

Speaker 2 You know, well, I was Canadian, but close enough. you were sort of reflecting back to us what you were seeing.

Speaker 2 And you guys were kind of, you were out there at Joshua Tree and you had the hats and you had the thing and you were in the streets and you were doing the concert on the roof, right?

Speaker 2 You did all that stuff in this kind of great way and you, I don't know, there was all, there's,

Speaker 2 there was, there was like a real absorption of American culture. And then you go on.
The pop.

Speaker 2 What record was it? Yeah. What record did you assume the character of the flyer? Actung Baby was the cutting down of the Joshua Tree, so-called.
Cutting down of the Joshua Tree.

Speaker 2 I went to Berlin to record that, yeah. Which is a great record.

Speaker 2 And I always wondered, there always felt like when you were kind of playing the persona of the rock star, it was very sort of Bowie-esque in a lot of ways. But like, did you, it was almost like.

Speaker 2 I thought, and I didn't, I had never met you at that point, but I often thought, like, I wonder if it was almost like a rejection of, because you guys were so famous and you were so big, and it was almost like your way of dealing with fame in that way that it almost

Speaker 2 who Yibono, who was part of the world, was this other entity that belonged to the world. And you were kind of stepping back and watching him as well.

Speaker 2 Was there any truth to that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I mean,

Speaker 2 yes, it was kind of,

Speaker 2 it was some kind of satire. of fame and the rock star.
But I'll be honest with you, you know what I mean? This is quite attractive.

Speaker 2 And I was like, wow,

Speaker 2 I can say shit I would never say.

Speaker 2 I can be this larger-than-life character.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I was dressed head to toe in this kind of, you know, Elvis 68 special, meets Lou Reed, meets Van, you know, not Jim Morrison, the other Morrison.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, wow.

Speaker 2 And Edge said, wow, you know, those plastic pants are starting to fit you a little too well there, dude.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, I mean, I really,

Speaker 2 and the 90s was so great to us

Speaker 2 because it

Speaker 2 unlocked us from being these,

Speaker 2 being just a collection of sounds and ideas. And I also needed just to chill out because, you know, just put the fist down for a while.

Speaker 2 And that's, you know, so you, Edge and myself, have a place in the south of France for the last 30 years. That's where we met you, Will, I think, first.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so,

Speaker 2 yeah, I needed to,

Speaker 2 I certainly needed to chill out. And I got quite good at it, it turns out.

Speaker 2 And then I felt in a way, you know, people say, you know, oh yeah, then you went back to saving the world. The way I see it is

Speaker 2 I was saving my own ass

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 I wanted to

Speaker 2 be useful again. I wanted to be useful to in

Speaker 2 these are these are corny words, but it's service. You know, I wanted, I needed to meet, by the end of the 90s, I'd done enough chilling.

Speaker 2 So I think I needed to be, I needed to get back to being useful. And that's when we did the drop the debt campaign and read and then won.

Speaker 2 But so it really did, it brought me on this other journey that I needed toward adulthood, but I haven't quite got there.

Speaker 2 But it was a fun thing. Nonetheless, this is fun.
But it was a big undertaking. And I know that's when you brought in

Speaker 2 our mutual friend, friend the great Tom Freston who we've mentioned on the podcast before the most interesting man in the world

Speaker 2 there's the best life of anyone in the world or anyone we know yeah totally

Speaker 3 boy if I was Tom Freston and Bono called my life the best life in the world he is I'd feel pretty good congratulations Tom he is

Speaker 1 you got to get him on your podcast he's he's he is a pirate company the night can't book him can't make you steal can can i ask a question i've always wondered which is where did where did your name come from because i'm i don't know your real name i've I've only known you as Bono.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 my oldest friend, Gogi, who's a really extraordinary abstract pain service of some renown around the world now.

Speaker 2 But it was Street Gang. And I've known him since I was three.

Speaker 2 And he gave me the name Bono. And I can assure you, he was not a Latin scholar.
So Bonavars

Speaker 2 was the name of a hearing aid factory. It was not,

Speaker 2 he did not know it meant strong voice. There you go.
Wow, that's fascinating. I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 I didn't know that. Well,

Speaker 3 if you wanted to be of service in the 90s,

Speaker 3 you've got to see

Speaker 3 the clear need for that service 30 years later.

Speaker 3 Are you going to take a walk through our country again soon and give us some

Speaker 3 helpful talks and guidance and perspective?

Speaker 2 I don't think. I mean, I'm amazed that I've got away with it, to be honest with you.
This

Speaker 2 Irish rock star, you know, quoting the Declaration of Independence, like it's the liner notes to his favorite album, following America into the bathroom. Hey, it says this here.

Speaker 2 Why are you doing that?

Speaker 2 And I'm like an annoying fan of America. And,

Speaker 2 you know, I'm thrilled that you let me in to your life, given the incredible life.

Speaker 2 But I'm, you know, I'm yeah, it's it's there's there's a lot to learn in this landscape for me and I've not much much to teach other than one simple thing, which is

Speaker 2 goes back to this Franciscan friar.

Speaker 2 He says, listen, deep listening. That's what America needs to do.
And not listening to the people that we don't agree with. Maybe even listening to people we don't like

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 people who annoy us.

Speaker 2 And if you can do that in your band,

Speaker 2 then

Speaker 2 the rest will be easy.

Speaker 3 I really, truly

Speaker 2 listen to people who annoy us. Sean, go ahead, say something.

Speaker 1 I truly do listen to all new, as many news networks as I can to get all perspectives, even if I don't agree with them. To your point.

Speaker 2 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 Speaking of listening, The Edge told me that you guys are going to go on tour in Vegas and he showed me the renderings of this new theater or something. It's going to be unbelievable.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's a brand new venue, right, that they're building just for you?

Speaker 2 Or are you the product of the value? You are a news network now because that's breaking news. And

Speaker 2 it's not going to be. We haven't signed off on it, but if we do.

Speaker 2 If we do sign off on this,

Speaker 2 I will say that if we can pull off what we're talking about,

Speaker 2 it's not like anything we've ever done before.

Speaker 2 It's not like anything. Las Vegas is a good one.
I know.

Speaker 2 Have you seen some of the plans?

Speaker 1 Yes. He showed me all the...

Speaker 2 It's incredible. Wait, can we see it?

Speaker 2 If this happens, it will be really extraordinary.

Speaker 2 And again, I don't want to... I shouldn't be.

Speaker 3 Whatever it is, it sounds very exciting.

Speaker 2 Blame it on Edge to say, he showed.

Speaker 2 It's not me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 No, no, I mean, he just showed me from my eyes only. But

Speaker 2 it's great.

Speaker 2 You know, there's a lot. I'm interested in Las Vegas for all kinds of reasons.
And

Speaker 2 you kind of always have been, right? Yeah, like I used to say, even going back to the fly and,

Speaker 2 you know, we used to say, call it Las Vegas trash and Berlinish decadence.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I'm interested in the concept of faith versus look. I'm interested in, there's a great architectural manual called Learning from Las Vegas about how don't knock it or laugh at it.

Speaker 2 This sort of fabulous architecture is not overtly male. It's not overtly, it's playful.
And these cities that we live in are very male and big, you know, straight lines. We've lost curves.

Speaker 2 We've lost... And this, you know, Las Vegas in some ways looks like it's been designed by children.
And I think that might be a good thing sometimes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 That's a good point.

Speaker 1 Another sidebar, I'm obsessed with your daughter in one of my favorite shows in the world called Bad Sister.

Speaker 2 She's good.

Speaker 1 She's incredible. And the show is amazing.
And you must feel so proud of her. I mean, you can't stop talking about the show.

Speaker 2 It's one of the things that I'm doing. No, she's got a lot of, she's very, very funny.
And

Speaker 2 she is a comedian. And

Speaker 2 she can do what he wants, but she was playing these very sort of serious auteur-chosen

Speaker 2 sort of muse parts. And then when she got this, she got to be more like herself, you know, a killer.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And then, and she's got a lot of discipline, too.

Speaker 3 You strike me as somebody who would make a very, very good actor.

Speaker 3 And I feel like I may have seen you act in something.

Speaker 2 Don't insult me. What are you doing?

Speaker 3 No, no, no. But

Speaker 3 Sting is fantastic at it. Bowie was fantastic at it.

Speaker 3 Have you ever do you have a yearning for that at all?

Speaker 2 Because I'd love to see it.

Speaker 3 I bet it would be fantastic.

Speaker 2 Not really. I played myself in a film once.
It was really hard. And

Speaker 2 I don't know. When I was younger, yes.

Speaker 2 Now

Speaker 2 I don't know. And I'm starting to realize that the camera loves people who don't necessarily love the camera.
I've spotted that. And I'd be more of a theater actor.
you know

Speaker 2 and i'm i love being in the theater and because that's where i get to break down the fourth wall and I want to be in a theater where the actor just feels like he can walk off the stage, just get into my life, get into my mind, follow me home, mug me on the way home, you know,

Speaker 2 make out whatever. You know, it's it's that's the kind of thing I like.
And it's harder to get off, it's harder to get off the silver screen, isn't it?

Speaker 2 And I would just, I think I look even more preposterous. You know, when you two went on top of the pops, our very first televised appearance on this legendary UK

Speaker 2 you know show the week's charts for music we went on and our song went down the charts immediately because we looked so preposterous and I particularly look like a sort of I look like somebody's given me an electric shock and I'm doing the I'm doing the sort of mad movements you do in a mirror yeah you know and

Speaker 2 And I think I'm seeing myself in a monitor or something.

Speaker 2 So I look cross-eyed as well. And

Speaker 2 I don't think so never we've got an amazing audience in the UK but you know I think there's some people I meet in pub and go yeah you were crap then I saw you on top of the box

Speaker 2 you were crap and I was like how old were you I saw you on top of the pops mate you were crap

Speaker 2 crap that was our that was our second album was a song called fire is that right yeah it was crap

Speaker 2 and and I'll go you know that was as we got better I'm just saying we got better Yeah, right, yes.

Speaker 2 I just saw that once.

Speaker 2 That's so, by the way, that's so Irish and so

Speaker 2 Canadian, too. I have so many people I knew who I grew up with, and I go back and they go, saw that thing you did last year.
Wasn't very good, was it? And I'm like, oh, thanks, man. Thanks for.

Speaker 2 I thought Canadians were much more polite. No, they're not.
No, no, no. They're really, they're really passive-aggressive.

Speaker 3 To fellow Canadians, they show the real the real devil behind curves.

Speaker 2 We're not like Scandinavia. Scandinavia, if you're, you've been to Sweden a million times, I'm sure, and you go go to scandinavia they go they go oh look at you you look quite fat and you're like man

Speaker 2 what do you nice to see you too i'm just saying it you're much fatter than last time i saw you no i got it i got it

Speaker 2 uh one more thing before you i do want to mention i know you mentioned uh your daughter your son also

Speaker 2 how what's that experience been like your son elijah he's got the band inhaler who are doing really well

Speaker 2 uh especially across europe and the uk they queued at number one i think didn't they yeah their album album went in at number one. That's great.

Speaker 2 Which means they must have sold, you know, a thousand copies the way that things are going now. Aren't you so happy to have him off the payroll? Just at least?

Speaker 2 I think I'm going to be on his payroll. It's very annoying.
It's very easy for it's too easy for him.

Speaker 2 First of all, he looks like Elvis, and he's like, you know, he's like, oh, he's in a high school band. They're ridiculously talented.

Speaker 2 And I'm saying, you know, the early gigs, I would say, you know,

Speaker 2 don't you, you know,

Speaker 2 there's some YouTube fans turning up. And he goes, I don't mind the hairy ones.
And then the other guy in the mangles, they're not even hairy now. They're bold.

Speaker 2 And I go, is this a problem for you? He says, dad, they buy the merch.

Speaker 2 And now, of course, they're selling out everywhere. And, you know, and they're very sophisticated band.
And

Speaker 2 he's effortless in so many ways.

Speaker 2 I didn't know he had those pipes. I knew he could play guitar.

Speaker 2 He's got a great voice, and there are so many moments. Of course, he's your son, where he

Speaker 2 sounds like you. I wonder, like, what is Ali? So your wife, Allie, who's just amazing, and you dedicate your book to her, and I've had the good fortune of meeting her a number of times.
And

Speaker 2 what is it like for her?

Speaker 2 I wondered, is there part of her when your son started... you know, playing music, which she's like, great, now you've turned our son into a rock star as well.
Like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 It was eerie for her, you know, because she was going to clubs, sometimes the same clubs.

Speaker 2 And when we were playing and there'd be 10 or 20 people there. And she's seeing her son.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 yeah, I think that it was

Speaker 2 quite a thing. And, you know, she was like, you know, can you get him off the video games? He's on the video games all the time.

Speaker 2 And I remember siding up to me. He was like, I don't know, 14 or 15.
I'm going, he's, I don't know what it was, World of Warcraft or something.

Speaker 2 He's just looking and he's shooting things out of the sky, whatever they do.

Speaker 2 And I'm saying, how's it going? He goes, yeah, good.

Speaker 2 How's it going? How's good? Yeah. You were getting really good at that.
He goes, oh, no, thanks. I said, you should practice that a bit more.
He goes, what?

Speaker 2 I said, if you, if you really work on this, like, you could get, like, you could be one of the best ever World of Warcraft, like, ever. And he goes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I said, yeah, when you're like 21, that's really going to, you're really going to make a big impact on

Speaker 2 women with that. And he stopped.
He just looked at me. He goes, oh, yeah, right.
And I said, no, but you're an amazing guitar player. Just don't forget that.
You're really.

Speaker 2 That's the only advice I gave him.

Speaker 2 And he's never even thought about any other advice. I've tried to give him.
That's so good.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I bet you actually gave some very, very good,

Speaker 3 also crafty,

Speaker 3 parental guidance there, you and your wife, with him and your daughter, when they thought about doing something that might be kind of public-facing.

Speaker 3 You know, growing up as, you know, your children, I'm sure

Speaker 3 there was a moment at least where they were reluctant to, you know, see if they could measure up. And I'll bet you and your wife gave some real good

Speaker 3 daddy-mommy stuff to encourage them.

Speaker 2 Irish people. Irish people were good to them.
And

Speaker 2 because they were probably bored with their father, they really didn't bother these. And then we went to a local school.

Speaker 2 All our kids went to the local school and free school and, you know, progressive school and just a talking school project it was called. And they were treated and mistreated like everybody else by

Speaker 2 their mates. And they just grew up.
It wasn't what would be harder for you because...

Speaker 2 I think fame might mean something different in America.

Speaker 2 I think it's a little harder to endure. Whereas we always escape back to Dublin, to Ireland.

Speaker 2 And sometimes I forget after, you know, say after lockdown, I remember going out and going, oh, shit, I'm famous again.

Speaker 2 And I have to put on that, I have to put on that stupid voice. I have to put on

Speaker 2 the funny walk. And

Speaker 2 no,

Speaker 2 the advice of their friends was as important as ours. And I don't think he's taught much about his father's fame at all.
I think he's just just very focused on what he's doing with his best.

Speaker 2 That's great. That's great.
Well, you guys have certainly cultivated a,

Speaker 2 like you said, your kids all go to the local went to the local school. And I know that in the summertime, you and Ed spend a lot of time

Speaker 2 together and your family's kind of all, everybody together. And there's a real sense of that kind of community and family.
Yeah, community is the right word. Yeah, and

Speaker 2 it's really lovely.

Speaker 2 And then there's always all kinds of artists and people coming in and out, but never, there's never any pretension. It's kind of like everything's very,

Speaker 2 I don't know, very, very real. And in a way that's not what you think it would be.
It's not this kind of like, you know, up there. It's very grounded.
And you see it in your kids and your family.

Speaker 2 So you can hear it in the music, too. And you, yeah, of course.
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 Really, really generous thing to say because it's the most important thing to us. And

Speaker 2 it's that we didn't screw up our kids, but we can still try. No, you can't.

Speaker 2 But thank you. Please keep it going.
Your band is a great band, and you started in lockdown for the right reasons. And we love to listen to you.
And there's been some great ones.

Speaker 2 Will, you talking about breaking back into your old house when you've sellers remorse on the David Remnant caps. So that had me laughing into my cornflakes.

Speaker 2 I really did, really joke on my cornflakes.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that's

Speaker 2 all of you have kept us

Speaker 2 sane in insane time. So thank you.
Very nice of you.

Speaker 1 Thank you for your contributions to the world.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And your contribution to Smartless. Thank you for giving us an hour of your time.
It's really, really an honor.

Speaker 1 It's an honor to meet you. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 Blessings to you three. Bye-bye.
And to your team. All the best.
Bye, Bono. Good luck, Bono.
See you there. Bye-bye.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Of course, Bono slammed it.

Speaker 3 Of course, Bono slams a loud.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to miss a move like that.

Speaker 2 Did it feel like we went into

Speaker 2 a different area of the space-time? Like, did we just go find a little pocket of time? Yeah. And you could have just sat there and listened to him.
Yeah,

Speaker 3 I definitely did. You two clearly have done that before with him.
I mean, like, it's like a fucking Conan party. Fucking Sean's eating with Edge.
You're hanging out with Bono.

Speaker 2 Where am I?

Speaker 3 You know what I'm doing? I'm like down at Witsit hitting balls, you know?

Speaker 2 Well, man, you stop playing so much fucking golf and get out into the world, man. There's a whole world.
I had the good fortune of spending some time with those guys

Speaker 2 down in the south of France. I was working nearby, and they were very generous and invited me over a bunch.

Speaker 2 And Eli and I went over a bunch of times. Yeah, it was amazing.

Speaker 2 How nice is Edge? By the way, Edge did one of the most generous thing. They had this huge party and all these people around, and he knows that I didn't drink.
It's no secret that I've

Speaker 2 been in and out with

Speaker 2 booze over the years and that I don't drink.

Speaker 2 you know, everybody's having a good time. And he went, I said, you know, somebody offered me a drink.
I said, no, no, no, I don't.

Speaker 2 And he came back, he went into the kitchen himself and comes back out with a tray with like four ice-cold bottles of San Pellegrino sparkling water and a glass and stuff.

Speaker 2 He says, Here, I got this for you, and blah, blah, blah. And if you need it, and a whiskey chaser and some Coke.

Speaker 3 Coke is still on the table for you, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, a little bit of weed. Oh, what we call fat rails.
Fat rails. Fat rails.
Yeah. Good for you.
Fat rails. And a bag of shrooms.
And he just

Speaker 2 later.

Speaker 1 But you know,

Speaker 1 when you were introducing him, it was very generous.

Speaker 2 But they're both like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're both like. When you were introducing him, I really did get nervous.
I was like, oh my God, this guy's going to be like, who is this? And of course, it was huge. It was Bono.

Speaker 1 And the first thing I thought of was like, how many bands. It's so rare now that the world creates bands that have such longevity like you two.

Speaker 1 Or, you know, you think of the Rolling Stones or YouTube.

Speaker 2 Like you two.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Sean, did you, it's weird that the, why would they, why do you think that they would name the band

Speaker 2 after a bomber plane?

Speaker 3 Why do you, why, what do you, would, did you ever ask Edge that?

Speaker 1 That you too was a bomber? No. Yeah, yeah, the YouTube bomber plane.
That's not why they named it. Is that why they named it? That's not it.

Speaker 2 No, it's not.

Speaker 3 It means you too. Me, him, and you too.

Speaker 2 Is it really?

Speaker 3 I thought I was going to get him on that one.

Speaker 1 Wait, no, but you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean, though? But like, how, isn't that wild that we live like now? They don't make them like they used to. Like, there's no.
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 He's a proper rock star from a proper super group. It's wild.
It's a good thing. That doesn't exist.
And the other, I have another memory. One time

Speaker 2 we were out here in Long Island having lunch. And

Speaker 2 Chappie was here. And

Speaker 2 I know Chappie gets another men. He's actually showing up today.
I'm really excited to see him. And we come back to the table.
Yeah, Chappie and Conan are coming over. And

Speaker 2 we come back to the table. We went out to have a little visit with the men from

Speaker 2 RJR Reynolds. And

Speaker 2 we come back to the table. And as I'm approaching the table, I'm not kidding.

Speaker 2 The painter who's Julian Schnabel is sitting at the table talking to Bono. I know.
It's a crazy name drop. And as I'm walking back, Bono says to me, hey, Will, we're just having a conversation.

Speaker 2 What do you think about the idea of like being able to put value on art and actually paying money for art and you know value of art and i go

Speaker 2 i'm not bono i'm not answering that you think that i want this to turn into the the story of the time i got punched in the face by julian schnel

Speaker 2 i said no thanks that guy's a hell of a movie director too no kidding yeah

Speaker 3 now were you guys talking about at the beginning is he doing some sort of tour with the book where he's going to be alone on stage kind of playing acoustic kind of like a springsteen type of show thank you so from his book surrender 40 songs one Story,

Speaker 2 he did a show at the Beacon, and now starting in April of,

Speaker 2 actually starting April 16th, he's going to be doing his show where he goes and he talks on stage and he does some songs from you two

Speaker 2 and he tells stories, excerpts from his books, and then he tells stories and interacts with the audience. He did it

Speaker 2 this fall and people went crazy for it. And so he's decided to come back and he's going to do more shows there.
And it's really exciting.

Speaker 3 More shows at the beacon or is he going to go around the beacon? The beacon and then around the...

Speaker 2 the yeah it's just been like

Speaker 2 the reviews of it are amazing. People say it's just incredible.
I love it.

Speaker 2 And like he said, he's sort of sanctioned by the

Speaker 2 band because he's up there himself doing it. And Edge was at his at that show that he did at the beacon.

Speaker 2 I don't know if Adam and Larry were, but anyway, pretty cool stuff. Oh man, I'd like to see that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Again, I'm so,

Speaker 2 you know, it's funny.

Speaker 2 Like, I really, I've always been a fan of the band and their music and all those guys, the guys I just mentioned, Larry and Adam and Edge and Bono collectively, you too, just such a fan.

Speaker 2 And for all of us, their music has played different parts of our lives over the years.

Speaker 2 But it was, I think the thing I'm the most in awe about is his activism and what he's done to actually use that.

Speaker 2 to not just reflect it in the songs and the content and deliver powerful message in his songs, but to actually go out and do it in the way that he has.

Speaker 1 Get off his butt and do it.

Speaker 2 Dude, right after Bandaid, he went to Africa. He and Ali went to Africa and worked in Africa.
And he's just all the stuff that he's done over the years.

Speaker 2 I mean, just countless stories of shit that he's done that people don't even know about.

Speaker 1 In between writing and touring and

Speaker 1 stuff, it's like kind of amazing.

Speaker 2 It's pretty sick. And then I think about, you know, Jason at the fucking Grange.
What are you doing? Yeah. Working on his 7-iron and just thinking, like, why am I, why am I

Speaker 2 finishing? Why am I finishing here? The face is not square.

Speaker 3 I'm not even thinking about helping cleaning up the balls afterwards. No, it's like, you know, I'm just like,

Speaker 2 he's out there traveling to Africa, feeding people, you know? You don't even pick up your own fucking balls.

Speaker 3 I don't even pick up my own balls. In fact, I'm annoyed that I have to look at all those fucking loose balls out there in the range.
I want a clean range to hit, too.

Speaker 1 You're feeding the pond. The balls.

Speaker 2 Fuck me.

Speaker 3 I'd love for him to write a song about that.

Speaker 1 I write a song. It's called.

Speaker 2 Bona's thinking about, like, how can I, what can I do next to save the world? And Sean's thinking, like, how big is the biggest bag of Skittles? Like, do they make a 10-pounder?

Speaker 2 Because I could really hit those.

Speaker 3 So when he comes back out to do a show in April, do you think you can dust off this friendship, Willie, and give him a text? Because I don't want to have to buy the tickets.

Speaker 3 Less.

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