YAHOO CHAT with BONO on March 13, 2000
Bono talks about new album, new movie in online chat

Location:  Clarence Hotel, Dublin

Yahoomc:   OK, folks...

bono_live:  test

Yahoomc:  The moment has arrived!

Yahoomc: Bono is joining us LIVE!!!

bono_live:  Help!   I'm at Adam Clayton's 40th birthday, and, as they say in Dublin, I have drink taken!

bono_live:  Everybody, the whole band, is here, and a lot of friends, a lot of people we've grown up with, a lot of people from he family, Elana Christensen, Daniel Lanois...

bono_live:  Just a lot of people here, and I might not be making much sense because we have been celebrating since midday and it's now aobut 10 PM, so patience..!

bono_live:  Adam, oddly enough, is the only one not drinking!  He's resting, having a bit of sleep.

bono_live:  Edge is about two feet from me now, he's down on his hands and knees with a screwdriver drinking to make sure that the telephones work

bono_live:  Gavin Friday is here, Googie, Dick Evans, all the people from the family, if you like.

magnus_sjoeholm:  I was a bit surprised when I heard that the film really was on it's way.  I must have heard about this title and you writing it, several years ago.  Has it been a long process from the idea to finished product or is it just as it always is?  Have you been involved a lot during the process or did you just leave the script and left?

bono_live:  Originally the Million Dollar Hotel was to be a stage play. 

bono_live:  Set on the roof, in the lobby and one room of the Million Dollar Hotel.

bono_live: In the twenties it was the swankiest hotel in Los Angeles.

bono_live: In the   Golden Era of Hollywood, it was the place to be.

bono_live: Now it's a halfway house for a lot of different kinds of folk.

bono_live: People who have come to LA and who need reasonable accomodation (sic) at a reasonable price..

backstage_guest:  sebastian

bono_live:  There are some people who would not fit in with most hotel management policies - they're pimps, hookers...

bono_live: Some of the outcasts.

bono_live:  I discovered it in 1988.

bono_live: Began the story on the roof.  While I was talking with Edge.

bono_live: The idea was about a character who jumps off the roof...

bono_live:  The first line of the movie is "After I jumped, it occurred to me. Life is perfect.   Life is the best.  It's full of magic and beauty, opportunity."

bono_live:  And from that opening line began the script.

yahoomusic:  How did Wim Wenders get involved?

bono_live:  Usually I'm used to singing our own songs.

bono_live: To write a song for somebody else to sing was a new experience for me.

bono_live:  My thinking was, if you are going to give your song to somebody else to sign make sure it's Frank Sinatra.

bono_live: Or Miles Davis.

bono_live:  Well Wim Wenders is both.

bono_live:  In the audio visual world he's Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis.

bono_live:  I hooked him by asking for his advice on the script.

bono_live: What did he think?

bono_live: Did he think I had something going here?

bono_live: And the more he read, the more he felt disappointed that he wasn't involved.

bono_live:  It was a trap, and I set it.

bono_live: And he fell into it.

Sinatra121215:  Bono, what did Frank Sinatra mean to you and do you ever think there will be a fitting tribute to him?

bono_live: I love Frank Sinatra.  I loved singing with him.  I worte a song with Edge for him called Too (sic) Shots of Happy One Shot of Sad.

bono_live:  He never covered the song.

bono_live: But I sang it into his ear one night in a Mexican restaurant in Palm Springs.

bono_live: He could outdrink, outtalk, out maneuver most Irish, and most Irish people, in fact most people.

bono_live: He's the reason I swore and used bad language at the Grammy's in 1990-something, after he fixed me a very, very, very, very strong drink.

bono_live: There will never be a tribute that could equal the man.

bono_live: Interestingly enough, I rode with him once in a limousine.

bono_live: We were being filmed from the passenger seat.

bono_live: When Frank leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Bono, roll down the window about an inch."

bono_live: I rolled down the window about an inch and I looked at him.

bono_live: Like, What are you getting at Frank?

bono_live: And he said, you need some fill, not just key lighting.  It's an Irish face.

bono_live: And I burst out laughing to think that Frank Sinatra, even his late seventies as he was then, was art directing an Irish pop star.

bono_live: And he was actually trying to make me look -- he was lighting me!

joyce_ic:  What do you sing in the shower?

bono_live: Joyce, I do sing in the shower.  I sing in the bath.  Like my father and his father.

bono_live: I wake up pretty much every morning with a smile on my face.

bono_live: Sometimes I struggle to keep it there.

bono_live: But in the shower, which is a natural echo chamber, I sing like I never have sung on a record.

bono_live: But the way I always try to sing on records.

bono_live: Completely bollocks naked!

amibugginyou:  Hi Bono, I was just wondering, was there any particular reason for not releasing Ground Beneath Her Feet as a single?  And is there a chance that any other song from the MDH soundtrack (Stateless perhaps) will be released as a single?

bono_live: The record label, as much as they love Ground Beneath Her Feet, as much as they love the soundtrack to the MDH, are afraid that people will think it's the next U2 album.

bono_live: So, we've had to make it's release very discrete (sic).

bono_live: I understand this.

bono_live: Having been through passengers in 1997 or 1998, but never the less, I'm disappointed because the Ground Beneath Her Feet is such an extraordinary song.

bono_live: I think it would do well in the pop charts.

bono_live: But on another level, it's incredible to me and the band that it's so popular without being commercially released.

bono_live: That there is so much interest in this soundtrack album.

bono_live: In fact the soundtrack album has had been reviews than any U2 album.

bono_live: It's something all of us are very proud of, but we understand it's got to be a quiet release because the next U2 album is going to be very noisy.

bono_live: It's bursting with vitality and life force.

yahoomusic:  When should we expect the next U2 record?

bono_live: Our problem is that we love starting things and hate finishing them.  We have 15 of the best U2 songs ever written.  But we get bored with the technical side of things, like finishing the lyrics.  But in the next two months we've committed to choosing the best 10 or 12 songs and to have them out by September-October of this year.

rockstar_79:  I've heard that the forthcoming U2 album is a return to a more acoustic style.  Any truth to that, or are you going to make us wait and see?

bono_live: We have no reverse gears on our tank.

bono_live: So the idea of "a return" to basics is not on the cards.

bono_live: We advance towards simplicity.

bono_live: We advance towards a stripped down sound.

bono_live: That is the essence of U2.

bono_live: On pop we're interested in assimilating the music we were all listening to in clubs, at home, at house parties...

bono_live: with the music U2 made as a band.

bono_live: On this record, it's not about assimiliation, it's about differentiation.

bono_live: Stressing the differences between dance music, club culture, and being in a band.

bono_live: There is stuff that we can do that no DJ can touch.

bono_live: And vica (sic) versa.

bono_live: It was a DJ, Howie B, who was listening to us rehearse on the last tour, who kept reminding us how unique the band was.

bono_live: And how we didn't need to connect with a hip hop or a dance audience.  That within both, there was a U2 audience.

bono_live: That U2 was an original of the species at a time of karaoke, a time of parody and pastiche.

bono_live: That gave us the confidence to make this next record.

bono_live: A record I don't have a name for.

bono_live: But I dare anyone to make a better rock record this year.

bono_live: What do you think Edge?  Edge says, Right on!

bono_live: Daniel Lanois, what do you think?  I'm going to put you onto Daniel Lanois?  As Bob Marley would say, he's the dread at the controls.

bono_live: Don't ask too personal questions....

bono_live: D. Lanois: Hello!  We're here celebrating!

bono_live: I guess we have something to live up to after that comment!  We're well on our way!

bono_live: We certainly are going to give it our best, we have a lot of inspiration already in play, and now we need to flseh them out.

bono_live: It's usually a combination of fund and hard work.

bono_live: We've had fun, we have more hard work ahead of us.

yahoomusic: Are you going for a specific sound on this album?

bono_live: Personally, I'm very selfish about the approach.  I wanted to make sure we heard Larry on the record.

bono_live: The presence of hand played drums is very important in these times of canned beats and easy access to them.

bono_live: What's become a rare commodity is the presence of humanity and the feeling of people in a room playing off each other.

bono_live: We ant to make sure we get that.  Of course, the technology is there and is part of the technology.

bono_live: But when you got four people in a room who can give it hell, we want to get it on the hard drive!

bono_live: Bono has gone to the bathroom, here's Edge!

Yahoomc:  Edge is joining us now...

bono_live: Edge:   Hello?!?

bono_live: Edge:   I'm very, very excited about the work.  I think it's some of the best things we've done in many, many years.  And I'm just dying to finish the record and get it out there.

bono_live: Adam is 40 today, he's the first grown up in the band!

bono_live: We got him a piece of art, made by an Irish artist, Louis Lebrocquay.

luvu2abe:  Hey Edge, was imitating Neil Diamond the highlight of Popmart for you?

bono_live: Edge:   Good question!  The highlight of the tour was playing Sarajevo.  I met Neil Diamond in the lift in New York.

bono_live: I was leaving the 23rd floor heading for the ground floor, he got on at 17.

bono_live: And I was dumbstruck.

bono_live: We both got out at the ground floor, but I traveled 17 floors with him in the elevator and couldn't pluck up the courage to say anything to him.  Not a word!

sah383steve:  Hey Edge, your singing is good nowadays.  Lessons?

bono_live: Edge:   LOL!  I had about 20 years lessons watching Bono.

bono_live: I'm back to the beanie hat at the moment.

crissyboylan_90210: Edge, do you have a new signature hat these days?

bono_live: I'm back to the beanie hat at the moment.

Yahoomc:  Bono is rejoining us now...

Bonofyd:  Bono, first I'd like to thank you for all that you do for humanity.  I'm sure it's being noted.... Anyway, how is the World Debt gig going?  Any progress?  Anything I can do?

bono_live: With regards to debt cancellation that I've been involved with the last couple of years, it has gone beyond my own wildest dreams.

bono_live: In the United States on Wednesday of last week, a committee of six Republicans and five Democrats recommended unanimously, to drop the debt for the US of 41 of the poorest countries of the world.

bono_live: Which is an increase of five from where we stood the week before.

bono_live: Italy, Canada, Norway, the UK, everybody is rising to the challenge.

bono_live: Of the Millenium (sic) year.

bono_live: I can assure you that by the end, by December, we will definitely have cancelled $100 billion of debt.

bono_live: If things keep going this way, maybe twice that.

bono_live: The way you can help is by calling your local congressman, politician, MP, and telling them this is important to you.

bono_live: By (sic) beautiful wife Ali has just walked into the room.  I'm going to pass you to Anton Corbin (sic), who, more than anyone knows, has designed the way U2 look, and sadly - feel!

bono_live: Here he is!

bono_live: Anton:   Hello everybody!

yahoomusic:  Hey Anton do you have a website?

bono_live: Anton:   The website is designed, but I'm a little slow in making the text for it.  It will be up by the first of April.

bono_live: The address is www.corbijn.co.uk

yahoomusic:  are you working on any film projects at the moment?

bono_live: I am just doing photography, I have a large exhibition coming up of 25 years of photography.   Bono is doing the opening.

bono_live: On the 8th of April, in Holland, in a museum called Groninger Museum in Groninger.

keerwallis:  Anton, which is your favourite photo of the band?

bono_live: It's heard, because different periods have different favorites.  But the museum will have a separate room of 18 years of photography of Bono and the band.

bono_live: I think the highlight is a photo of Bon on a golf cart in Mexico with a haircut like Robert Deniro in Taxi Driver.

The_Ryan_King: Anton, will U2 have a new look on this tour.

bono_live: We are still discussing that.

bono_live: But I've worked with them now for 18 years.  Which is, I think, in music photography unique.   I've never heard of a photographer who worked for this long a time with a particular band.

bono_live: And I'm very grateful for it.  They've allowed me to grow within their framewrk.

bono_live: Adam is here!

bono_live: Hi this Bono, Adam won't actually pick up the phone...

celia_from_eze: I'm reading Rushdie's book at the moment: what stroke you most: the pop world in which it was set or the identification of great pop artists with the myth of Orpheus?

bono_live: Good question.   What I was surprised by in the novel was not the minutia, the detail, of the so called Pop Life, which was pretty good considering Salmon (sic) Rushdie is not know to hang out at raves or own a Marshall stack.

bono_live: But what he captured was the heady confusing between the real and the surreal, between the imagined and the actual.

bono_live: Of a songwriter's and performer's world.

bono_live: This is really impressive.

bono_live: And believe me, I would love to tell him if he flunked.

bono_live: Somebody has just walked in and poured me a glass of wine...one of the most beautiful women I've ever met...she happens to be my wife...I'm a lucky man!

nooga01: Bono, you've had great success in your campaigns lately.  Does it make you feel uneasy that your voice is stronger that any politician, who is elected to look after their people?

bono_live: Well, I have a new found respect for politicians.  I think they work very hard.  They're not as corrupt as I thought.  They'd make much more money if they went into business, a lot of them.

bono_live: And - shock, horror - a lot of them genuinely see their role as public service.

bono_live: The boring thing about them is their lack of imagination.

bono_live: That's where we come in.

bono_live: At first I thought musicians, artists, novelists, painters should not be in the same company.   Now I think we need each other.

bono_live: In fact, as an Irishman, I've learned the importance of such connections in the success of Ireland coming out from under the hoof of colonization and Great Britain.

bono_live: It was painters, poets, that gave us a sense of who we were.

bono_live: We are part of the family.

bono_live: Politicians shut us out at their peril.

ms_pitstop: Will you be running for mayor of Dublin when you retire from your position of international rock god?

bono_live: I wouldn't move to a smaller house!

bono_live: Adam is unable to come to the phone himself, because he's dressed in pajamas somebody gave him as a birthday gift.  The Hugh Hefner Playboy look is not something I'd recommend!

bono_live: But he's beaming from ear to ear...

PopUlrick:  Is Israel Goldkiss a symbolic character that represents in the film the person of Jesus Christ.  Because the film says, speaking of Israel, that his life was like shit but his death seemed to bring everybody together?

bono_live: It's an interesting question.  But Israel, Izzy as he's known in the movie, is more Barrabas than Jesus.  Tom Tom is the Christ-like character, the accidental Christ.

bono_live: Tom Tom played by Jeremy Davies, is the one who loves Eloise, played by Milla Jarovich (sic) so purely, that the bruises and callouses (sic) of abuse that she has suffered in her past, seem to melt away under his gaze.

Miss_Terious_Ways:   Did you have any specific actors in mind when writing the script?

bono_live: No.  In fact, when Wim Wenders called me and said Milla Jarovich (sic) would be his choice for Eloise I was nervous.

bono_live: I thought to myself, she's too beautiful, she's a model, she's a super model, she won't be believeable in downtown LA on 5th and Main.  She'd look like she was just slumming it.

bono_live: It's a credit to her as an actor that that question never comes to mind.

bono_live: She has the thing that makes a woman so beautiful.  She's not vain.

bono_live: Almost an impossible achievement for an actress.

bono_live: Who looks that good.

poloshore:  How did Mel Gibson get involved?

bono_live: Mel Gibson heard about the script through somebody who worked in his office, and he offered to be our bodyguard, our 365 pound gorilla.

bono_live: His company, Icon, were prepared to pay for the making of the movie.

bono_live: The cream on the cake was when Mel Gibson, not just a star but a great actor, offered to play the role of Skinner, the detective.

bono_live: For considerably less than he's normally paid.

bono_live: A minor role, it's a much more michievious (sic) role than you've ever seen him on the screen.

etrit:  Your work for erasing debt is honorable.  Are you going to get involved in freeing political prisoners as well, such as Kosovars in Serbia, Chinese dissidents, and others?

bono_live: I've never thought of myself as a celebrity.

bono_live: I like to believe that I'll be a rock n roll star as long as I don't become a celebrity.

bono_live: So, if I'm going to throw a punch in a worthy direction, I think carefully about it.

bono_live: The debt issue was an issue that affected almost a billion people on this earth who live on less than $1 a day.

bono_live: I'm involved in Amnesty International.  We are, as a band, involved in Greenpeace, but it is rare that you have a chance to affect the lives of so many people.

bono_live: I couldn't walk away from this one.

bono_live: I think I'm getting too much credit for the success.

u2conga: Bono what do you think of Pinochet returning to Chile?

bono_live: Pinochet, I have a lot of thoughts.  And having played in Chile in 1998.  And having addressed Mr. Pinochet directly from stage with the Mothers of the Disappeared standing behind me, live on national television, we asked him a simple question.

bono_live: Where, tell us at least where, are the bodies buried?  We know you can't bring them back to life.   But you alone can tell us, can tell us, can tell these mothers where their sons are buried.

bono_live: God alone is your judge, but you alone can give them can give them a corner of peace.  Why won't you?

yahoomusic:  Are you still involved in Amnesty?

bono_live: Amnesty International is a very practical and simple way of being politically effective.

bono_live: You send a stamped addressed postcard of your point of view to a political prisoner, saying we know where you are and won't forget you..

bono_live: The more that arrive, the better the conditions that the prison rewards the prisoner.

bono_live: It is a remarkable thing to think that we can, if we get up off our ass, change the world.

bono_live: Make it better.

bono_live: For more people.

bono_live: It's laughable people will point their finger at you as you walk down the street, it's extremely unfasionable and unhip, but it's true.

paceyloverinthehouse:  bono, do you believe that aliens exist?

bono_live: I'm going to pass you onto Helene Christiansen who is the nearest thing....

bono_live: Helena:   If we exist they probably do too.  Do we exist though?!?

yahoomusic:  What did you get Adam for his birthday?

bono_live: I got him a pajamas.  Really, comfortable pajamas, and silk slippers.

bono_live: He got three pairs of pajamas, and three hammocks,  HE's a very lucky guy!

hargreae:  Helena, what's your favorite U2 song?

bono_live: Night and Day.

bono_live: It was on Red, Hot and Blue, and October.  Oh, God, I can go on, but I must say Night and Day, that was the most beautiful version of that song ever.

randy_greencorn: Helena, what have you been up to lately?

bono_live: Well I had a baby!  So that's what I've been up to lately.  And I have been up - all night long!

bono_live: Five months now!

bono_live: This if my first night away from him.

y_boland: Helena - have you ever had a broken heart like normal girls?

bono_live: LOL! Oh yes, have I ever!

bono_live: I mean suffered.

bono_live: But it's a good thing, especially when you do meet the one you feel is your soul mate, it means all the broken hearts.

ethan_strange: Helen...How do you describe the U2 guys all togheter (sic)...crazy kids?

bono_live: Helena: They can be both  They can be totally crazy, like kids hanging around, they are very honest and real guys.

bono_live: It's always a joy being around them, their wives and friends, a great bunch of people.

bono_live: They can also be serious, and you can have wonderful conversations with them.  They are very intelligent and very knowledge.

bmohin:  Do you believe in love at first site (sic)?

bono_live: Helena: LOL! Yeah, I do.  If it happens, then I definitely believe in it.  Sometimes it just happens.  It took two hours with my boyfriend, so I think that's pretty much at first sight.

babyirisheyes:  What did you name your baby?

bono_live: Helena:   Mingus.

bono_live: Mingus Lucien Reedus.

bono_live: Helena: Mingus is for jazz musician.  Charles Mingus the bass player.

bono_live: Helena: I'm heading home, thank you, this is the first time I've ever had anything to do with the Internet!

bono_live: Bono: Hi all!

bono_live: I just passed Adam, I said Adam, you're 40, do you have anything to say?

bono_live: And he said, obscurely, How long do I have to sing this song?

kid_cyber_rock: Did you really write the "sweetest thing" because you forgot your anniversary?

bono_live: That's the story I told everybody.

bono_live: It's close to the truth, not exactly the truth.

rafiki_8404: bono, do you ever sell your art

bono_live: No.  I love to paint.  I don't think it's just the fumes, but it might be.

bono_live: My best friend, Googie (sic), is one of the best painters in Ireland right now.

bono_live: My father was a great painter.

bono_live: Tonight we had one of the greatest painters, Louis Lebraquay, who gave Adam this incredible tapestry he designed.

bono_live: We're at the moment, have you ever heard of a Christian practice of Lent?  After the carnival - carne means meat, flesh, the celebration of flesh, then Lent comes, the denial of flesh.

bono_live: You give up something you love in order that when Easter comes, after 40 days, it comes back at you with new appreciation.  I was following Lent until this afternoon.

bono_live: I have fallen off the wagon the world wide web.  I'm sure God will forgive me, I hope the rest of you will be as gracious.

bono_live: Thank you@

yahoomusic:  And Thank You Bono!

yahoomusic:  That was absolutely amazing!

yahoomusic:  That's all we have time for today!