Free Bono by Michka Assayas Page A

lot of respect from us to them, and from them to us.
    But have Paul and Adam tried to talk you out of this zealot attitude over the years? Or did they remain silent and respectful?
    No, they were very respectful. I remember Paul saying, when we put out our second album, October [1981], which was a kind of religious experience of an album to make, very un–rock ’n’ roll: “Look, these are not questions I’m asking, but they’re questions I’m interested in. Anyone with a brain should be interested in these questions. And though you won’t find many people in rock ’n’ roll who are prepared to be so open like you are on this album, you look to black music, it’s full of songs like this. Look to Marvin Gaye, look to Bob Marley.”
    That’s a case you’re often making. You’re presenting ideas of what U2 did or what you yourself are doing now by pointing to black artists. It’sinteresting, because very few black artists have had a big impact on the rock audience, apart from Bob Marley or Prince.
    Yeah, it’s the Irish, we are the white niggers. Paul had the overview, because he was a few years older than us. Chris Blackwell, who had founded our record company, Island Records, also discovered Bob Marley. So he was very supportive. So you have your manager and your record company who are totally supportive of what looks like completely eccentric behavior in white rock ’n’ roll. But if you look to writers and painters and poets, then you’ll often find the search for the ecstatic, the trauma of religious experience.
    Which writers, painters, and poets are you alluding to here, specifically?
    Well, in music, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, the list is endless. Poets: Kavanagh, * maybe an even greater poet than Yeats, John Donne, William Blake. Emily Dickinson—she was a great influence on me. All the Renaissance painters, torn between God, patronage, and the desires of the flesh.
    Have you discussed Marley with Blackwell? And would you say, based on what you learned, that Marley went through the “trauma of religious experience”? What is it that ultimately keeps black and white artists apart? I mean, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash went through that as well.
    Chris Blackwell was—is—a real support on this level. Again, another critical character in our lives. Like Paul McGuinness, he seemed to understand that sometimes the best influence you can have is not to try to have any. I mean, Chris was this great producer of music; he could easily have turned up in thestudio and asked us the hard musical questions: “Where’s the single? What are you on about? Why doesn’t that groove?” He had faith we would find our own way. I think in an odd way he had faith in our faith. But as regards Dylan and Cash, they nearly were exceptions. White music is so much more uptight spiritually. Most black artists came from the Church anyway.
    In a nutshell, what did you find out about yourself from your manager, Paul McGuinness?
    I found out what I was capable of.
    Which was?
    I mean, more than anyone in my life, he is a person who believed in me and gave me the confidence to realize my potential as an artist. He has an enormous and sharp intellect, and mine was very unschooled and haphazard. On many occasions, he would sit me down and say: “You have what it takes. You must have more confidence in yourself and continue to dig deeper. And don’t be upset or surprised when you pull something out from the depth that’s uncomfortable.” [laughs]
    So you discovered things that, on first glance, you’d rather have kept hidden? What were those?
    The gauche nature of awe, of worship, the wonderment at the world around you. Coolness might help in your negotiation with people through the world, maybe, but it is impossible to meet God with sunglasses on. It is impossible to meet God without abandon,