U2 Q & A
Miscellaneous quotes excerpted from BP Fallon's book U2: Faraway, So Close

BP: In your head are you tall or small?
BONO: The stage is but a platform shoe, Bernard.

BONO: Rock 'n' roll is the sound of revenge and for us forming the band was a way of getting back at the blandness. I like extremes, I don't like the middle ground.

BONO: Nobody joins a rock 'n' roll band and decides they want to spend their lives spewing their guts out in front of an audience for a living unless there's something wrong with them. It's incredible to me that you make this music that's very private, a lot of it, it's your notes to yourself, and you put them out on these public address systems. It is an odd kind of exhibitionism.

BP: Is it like taking your clothes off in public?
BONO: ...And turning around very slowly! I don't know how to do anything else at this stage. So the things that drive you to being in a band, leaving your home and traveling onto the road with a rock 'n' roll group, sure there's bits and pieces of unhappiness, that's what Robert Johnson referred to as 'the hellhound at his heels.' Rock 'n' roll's such a selfish thing. You're always thinking about yourself. You think too much. You end up walking differently.

BP: Do you put your family ahead of your professional life?
BONO: Yes, though I'm not always sure they feel that way. Still, if I didn't have an outlet for my own madness I would probably just take it home with me and end up driving them all out.

BP: Do you get lonely on the road?
BONO: Yes but it's the sort of loneliness a spoilt brat has that's been put outside the door. We've got this small town on the road and I love a lot of these people and I think each and everyone of them would let me in if I knocked on their door. That's not loneliness is it?

BP: Bono, do you like you?
BONO: Which version? I'm a nice bunch of guys.
BP: Is part of you a fuck-up?
BONO: From you, I'll take that as a compliment!

BP: How did the folk [in Ethiopia] react to you?
BONO: I was called 'The Girl With The Beard' because I had long hair... I guess it was just the long hair and earring... I hope so!

BONO: Performers, you have to be a bit wary of performers because they lie for a living, they are insincere for a living. That's one way of looking at it. They get up on stage no matter what their state of mind is and climb into songs, songs that sometimes bully them, songs that sometimes get on their back and they make it look natural. We've to make it look normal that we walk onto a stage in front of 50,000 people with 150 trucks following us around. It's not normal, not a normal way of carrying on. It's completely, totally crazy, man. The other way, if you want to take the positive, you can see performing as a step of faith. You might have the flu, you might just have had a row with your best mate, you're gonna go up on stage anyway, you're gonna play a show like it's the best show of your life. That's the only way I can walk on stage. It's a step of faith...

BP: Are the crowd always with you?
BONO: A U2 audience is very affirming - if we don't have it some nights, they do, they carry us. Whether they do or not I've got to take that step, I've got to walk out there but sometimes yeah it doesn't kick in and I feel that I'm living a lie. It's like an actor. Actors pretend they're other people. But it's not advertising, that's a different kinda lie... Sometimes you need a mask... In fact there is just something a little untrustworthy about people who don't, people who try to come off as true... I tried that in the '80s... now when I put on a mask it's in the hope that it reveals more than I ever could without it. The only place that it's important never to lie as a performer is to your makeup artist...

BP: What have you learnt out of all this U2ism? What are your words of wisdom to the masses?
ADAM: It was great fun.

BP: And is it thus frightening?
ADAM: I think that's good for you though.

BP: And have you ever fallen over, over the cliff-edge?
ADAM: I kinda bounce off either side of it from time to time.

BP: Adam Clayton, what is more important: the sun or the moon?
ADAM: The sun. Because it brings life and a new day.

BP: If a Martian landed and was introduced to you and asked you what do you do, what would you say?
ADAM: I simulate love-making by beating a piece of wood with a metal wire on which it vibrates.

BP: If you weren't in U2, Bono, what do you think you might be doing?
BONO: I don't think there's anything else I can do. You see, in U2 I get to do everything I want to do - I get to make music, to play with video tape, to perform. Even the business end of things can be fun. We're in a corporation of five, there's a shit-load of dough that has to be dealt with and sorted out. I'm involved with putting that money to good use. But I'm also involved in spending that money on abuse. (laughs) Y'know, just my own fun or whatever. I even get to wear a tuxedo for Frank Sinatra!

BP: And what'll happen when the day comes, which it may or may not, when there is no U2?
BONO: As soon as we feel we've reached a peak and we're repeating ourselves, that's when we'll knock it on the head. That will be our last album. What I'll do then I don't know. There's loads of things I love to do. I love to write... prose, graffiti... started a screenplay called 'Million Dollar Hotel.' I've been asked to act in movies. We've taken on every other cliché and we might as well have a go at exploding that one...

BP: Some bands go past their sell-by date. What d'you think, Edge?
EDGE: Thanx a lot, Beep! One of the good things about being in a rock'n'roll band, and a successful band, is that you don't have to think too far into the future, you can pretty much make it up as you go along. And that gives you control over your own destiny which is a very rare thing in the world today. We could break up, knock it on the head... we could do another album, go on the road again, whatever. It's simply about the consensus of the four members of the group. So I don't know... maybe we won't tour for another ten years. That's why I'm in a rock'n' roll band and not working in a bank. I like that freedom.

BP: And if and when U2 comes to an end what do you hypothetically think you might be doing with yourself.
ADAM: Well, I don't know that U2 coming to an end would necessarily indicate that I was out of a job. I'm sure there would be other things going on, but it would depend... I would have to see if I wanted to still be creative in a public way or whether I just wanted to be a little bit more private and do smaller things. I don't know how I'll feel at the time.

BP: But like what though? If you were to do smaller things?
ADAM: I've no idea how people survive so I'll have to learn.