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- [00:02]
A
Joe Rogan Podcast.
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B
Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- [00:06]
A
Train My Day. Joe Rogan Podcast by night, All Day. I loved the film. It was really great.
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B
You saw it?
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A
Watched it last night. Yeah. It was cool, too. Because I always feel special when I gotta enter in the password because I know that nobody else has seen it yet, you know, I gotta enter in the email and the password. And I watched it and I screen buried it on the tv. It was great, man. And it's. It was so, like, almost like a fever dream. It was wild. Like the way you set it up. All black.
- [00:35]
B
Yeah. Get past the first three minutes. Yeah, I could. Even my own mates are like, oh, don't do that. It's like, wow. And it is like a fever dream.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That opening. But that really happened to me, so.
- [00:48]
A
It was great, man. It's great. And it's also like. I love the way you did it. Like, you played the beginning of some songs and you talked about the origin of the songs. The thing that I have a hard time believing, though, is that you weren't a good singer when you were young.
- [01:00]
B
Well, you know, punk rock, you're a bit of a shout, you know, that's really what you do. You just get up there and shout. I'm shouting at God. I'm shouting at everyone. I'm shouting at the band. That scene in the. When we're doing I Will Follow. Yeah, that's really true. So I'm there and we're improvising this song that becomes I will follow if you walk away Walk away, walk away I'm just like this, wow. We're trying to get. Just do something original. And we're really ripping off. The irony is we're really ripping off Public Image Limited. This. Johnny Rotten became John Lydon again for this band called Public Image Limited back in the late 70s. And I'm singing about, you know, it's a suicide note, really. And I'm singing about this and they're saying, like, what's it about? And I said, I think it's this. It's this guy who's gonna follow somebody into the grave. You know, they're gonna. It's. I think it's about a. It's. It's a. It's a child following their mother, missing them so much that he'll follow them into the grave. And then we realize that our rehearsal room, the little yellow house, is beside the cemetery where my mother is buried. And I have never visited her once or talked about her once. And we're. We've been rehearsing there for months. And it's funny, you know, you can deny somebody in conversation. You can deny somebody to yourself, but in the songs, all that comes out.
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A
Wow. Wow.
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B
But thank you for watching it. That's. That's.
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A
I loved it.
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B
Thank you.
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A
It was such an interesting way you put it all together. I've never seen anybody do that. Like, that, like, you did, like. Like, it's like a documentation of your career, but in this, like, very unique way with, like, talking about things and then explaining these moments. And then the music plays and it's all black and white. It was really cool.
- [02:59]
B
Yeah, there's a. There's a sort of black and white. Lends it a kind of clarity. I did this series of shows in the Beacon Theater in New York, and it was going so well, we thought we should record it. I will tell you, the night before we opened our show in New York, my Mrs. Alley said, I don't think you should do this. Just please, please do not do this to yourself in front of, you know, a New York crowd. Cancel it now. Do what most people do on a book tour. Get somebody to interview them and just. They'll come anyway. Everyone will be happy. And, I don't know, I just went. For once, I didn't take her sage advice, and I did it. And the difference was with an audience, it was funny. And she was like, oh, that's the bit I didn't get in the rehearsals. It's funny.
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A
Oh. So what was she thinking? It was.
- [03:59]
B
It just. I thought it was dull, self indulgent. Here you are. I mean, all these things are a version of here's Another Great Thing About Me. No, I mean, it isn't. I was calling it a memoir. Me book, what I Wrote Myself. It's the meme. And it looked. There's something narcissistic, but it's your material, you know, that's what you get. You know, it's not just your body. Your psychology is the canvas. And, you know, I grew up John Lennon. You know, the Beatles were everything for me. And, you know, John Lennon made a sort of performance art out of his wedding to Yoko. And he did a bed in for peace. And he was ready to look ridiculous for peace. And, you know, I do ridiculous well, I'm told. So that was my definition, you know, of. Of art, really.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Was to just. Just go out there. But the thing that being in U2, which has given me everything, took away, if it took away anything, was, you know, people don't come along to our shows for a belly laugh. You know what I mean?
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A
Right, right.
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B
So as a comedian, you understand that, you know, it's. It's like I, you know, I wrote this line, I came out of nowhere. I haven't put it in a song yet, I don't think. But, you know, I think it's. Laughter is the evidence of freedom. And I don't talk, I don't trust people talk about freedom. Now, I want people to be free. If you are, if you talk, be. Be it, then be it.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And. And so I wanted to be that on stage. I wanted to be loose. I wanted to be myself. I wanted to own up to the ridiculousness of my life, as I've just explained the madness of my family. But turns out it's everyone's family is a little opera, and it is a bit of a soap opera, but it's also. Also a real opera. These are big feelings, you know, you're going after your dad. Like, you're like a young. You know, elk is a romantic word for it, but it's, you know, you're just taking them on.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And this poor man is just. He's lost his. His wife, he's trying to bring up two kids. I'm just an obnoxious kind of thing who some somehow psychologically blames him for the death of my mother because, as Jim Sheridan says to me, it doesn't have to be actually true to be psychologically true. And that kids feel all these feelings, you know, and they don't have to be logical. And I went after my dad, and I, by playing him every night in the Beacon Theater and around the world. I actually learned to love him. I learned to like him, actually. I always loved him. I like him. That was. He made me laugh more. So I got humor. Humor was the gift from that show. And.
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A
And the humor was evident with the audience there. Yeah.
- [07:10]
B
But not evident when my business came, which is why she wanted to pull the plug.
- [07:15]
A
Well, rehearsals are hard. It's also hard when someone is too close to you. They're there with you every day. Like, this is true with comedy as well. Like if someone sees your act too many times, like if someone's traveling with you. Like if my wife went to see my shows all the time, there's parts of it she'd be like, oh, don't do that. Oh, don't do this. Oh, like, that's not. Like you get too close to it. Like, she's too close to you. But to see it with fresh eyes. Like, to see in front of that audience, the joy that they have with when the music starts playing, when some of the songs that they love, it's amazing. Like you could feel it in the show. It's like the pure joy when they get so. Because the people that came to see it were hardcore fans.
- [08:01]
B
Well, what happened was Andrew Dominic, Australian director, and he did some of the shots without any audience, just. He cleared them out on a day off and then some of them came in which were hardcore fans, as you say. And that was, in a way that was. That was the most terrifying because I, as a performer, I'm drawn to spontaneous acts. That's what. When we started out as a band, I was attracted to. To performers who I thought might leave the stage, right, and follow me home, mug me or, you know, you know, tell my fortune or, you know, whatever.
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A
Wild people.
- [08:51]
B
Well, just. Yeah, I mean. And I'm still a child. Iggy Pop when I was growing up was that, you know, Patti Smith. Patti Smith used to enter the stage elbowing her way through the crowd. Myself and Larry Mullen, drummer in U2, we left stage one night in a. Like when we were like 21, 20 years old, elving our way through the crowd to get out. Just got into a taxi in London, fucked off and we felt a liberation. Breaking the fourth wall has been everything for our bands. Trying to smash it by surfing it, you know, by jumping into the crowd. I had the preposterous moment of going into a crowd in the. In Los Angeles. I forget. The Forum or somewhere like that, with the white flag, right? The non violent white flag. The same flag that I'm still on about, the flag of surrender, right, in that show. But back then, I'm 23 or whatever and I'm going into the crowd and I see people who are, you know, pulling at me and all. That's the next thing I'm. I'm throwing a punch. Somebody in our own. In our own audience. That's how much nonviolence meant to me, you know. But I, I'm a. I'm attracted to feral performers, I suppose is a word for it. It's just, it's. It's. You're in it and you're not fully in control of it, right? And Mark Rylance is a great one. Daniel Day Lewis walked off stage one night, saw a ghost of his father, rumor had it, when he was playing Hamlet. But yeah, so having the crowd in, who knew it was going to happen? That unnerves me a bit. Because how do I surprise them? Turns out by Making. I became a sit down comic is that if you're a stand up for a minute, a minute. I was a sit down comedian.
- [10:58]
A
Well, what you're doing, and I think what you're saying that you're attracted to is something that's not contrived, something that's pure. It could be messy, it could be wild, it could be, you know, Patti Smith elbowing people or you running through the crowds. This, it's, it's real. And there's so much in this world that's not real. There's so much that's manufactured, there's so much that's produced and run through a focus group and there's, there's so much that doesn't resonate. Like you don't feel it as a piece of art. You don't feel it as like a real person pouring out their emotions and their soul. But great music, you feel, it gets into you, it gets into your cells. You know, it's. No one can figure out how it works or why it works or why this does and this doesn't. And why. Why does Johnny Cash have such a fucking cool voice? Like it's. What is it? What is it? But there's something about real that's just. It's like a vitamin. It's like going out in the sun when it's been raining. Like ah. Like you soak it in.
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B
Yeah, it is. You know, I mean you can. There's pretentious ways to describe and people say it's we, we first sang to each other before we spoke, you know, like birdsong. I don't know who said that. He's probably on drugs, but could have been a scientist and anthropology might suggest we certainly the goat song, you go back to Greek tragedy. You had a drum and a voice. So it's very primal.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And it is the language of the spirit. We. It is somehow there is worship involved, whether it's God, nature, money. A extraordinary woman has just walked across the street. But it seems to be that music is where we are creatures of awe.
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A
Yes.
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B
And wonder. And you know, you mentioned Johnny Cash. I had the blessing in my life of getting to know him. And as a believer, I don't know if you know, I'm a believer, I'm just not a very good one. But he, there was not a pious bone in his body. And I learned about the company he would choose. He didn't like, he got nervous around people who were too self righteous. And he. This huge spirit in him, you know, prayerful spirit. Myself and Adam Clayton were driving through America, I think, around the time of the Joshua Tree. And I'd met Johnny a couple of years, you know, I found out where he. Where he lived. He had a zoo in Nashville. He had a house in Nashville. And we go into to meet June, his missus, and Johnny, and he shows us this table filled with plates of like, wow, we're coming with just the two of us. He said, no, honey, that's my cookbook. I'm just doing a photo shoot for my cookbook. We're in here, you know, we're having it. So we go into their kitchen and we sat there, myself and Adam and. And Johnny goes, shall we pray? And Adams wasn't a praying type at that time, but he was like, wow, it's Johnny Cash. So, you know, you have to pray. We all held hands, whatever. And Johnny Cash made this beautiful poetic blessing. And I just thought, like, wow, of course he is touched. And then he just turned to Adam and just goes, sure missed the drugs, though. And Adam just fell in love with him, you know, because he couldn't be pious.
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A
Right.
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B
He just. He had to be himself.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Years later, if it's years later. And we read that. Oh, wow. There you go. Oh, that's so. Oh, my God, there it is. That's Adam there. Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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B
He looks like he might have used tequilas and. And I don't know. But. Oh, wow. And I'm giving it the arty, poetic face. I am a poet like you are. And I call Coles. I heard. I heard he was. I heard he was in trouble. He was very ill, years later than this. And I called. I called up and. And June answered the phone. Excuse the poor Texas Saxons, all you Texans out there. But she was like. Or Nashville, in her case. She was like, oh, Bono, Wow. Thank you for calling. It's so good to hear from you. How's Dublin? How's Alley? How's the Burlington? This is a hotel, right? And I was like, great. And we're talking, you know, Frasers with. She said, what's going on with this? And what's going on? And I said, look, eventually I said, look, June, I'm just calling him because I heard John wasn't well, and I just wanted him to know and that we're thinking about him. She said, oh, honey, we're in bed, he's right beside me, and he hands me the phone. Or she hands him the phone. He goes, sorry about that. I'm fine. And bless her, actually, June passed away first. And Johnny called Rick Rubin and Those American Recordings were a result of a conversation he had with Rick Rubin where he said, please, will you work with me? Because if you don't, I will die. And that's why, if you hear those American Recordings. Amazing version of Nine Inch Nails, Hurt Hurt did a version of one. Also Depeche Mode's Personal Cheese. I mean, it's just. What a voice.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Are you a fan of Johnny Cash? What's your.
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A
I used to have a dog named Johnny Cash.
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B
Does the dog bite?
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A
No, he's not anymore. He's dead. He was. He didn't bite when he was alive. He was a nice dog. It's just I had a habit of naming my dogs after famous singers.
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B
Wow. We have a dog called Lemmy.
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A
Oh, wow.
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B
Named after Lemmy from.
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A
Oh, that's awesome.
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B
Yeah. It's a girl, though, and thinks she resents it.
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A
Yeah. I had a dog named Frank Sinatra. And Marshall is named after Eminem.
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B
Oh, man. Well, they're two incredible people. Don't get me started on Frank Sinatra. Cause how long is this, by the way?
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A
As long as we want to go.
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B
Well, no, because.
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A
Why?
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B
Well, just Frank Sinatra. If there's two questions, one of them should be Frank Sinatra because I just. I can go on and on. I learned so much from him and I got to know him and as bizarre as that sounds, he's such a name dropper. Frank. No, but I did. And probably, if you're interested in singing, I could tell you one miracle that I learned from Frank Sinatra, which is a version of My Way. And the original version, you know, it's a boast. And years later he sang it and I have a copy of it.
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A
It's.
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B
And Pavarotti stars in the film, as you know, I play him for a moment, but it's a version of My Way with Pavarotti's the greatest singer on Earth, but shouldn't sing in English, Friends. I do it now. You don't want that. And so I have a version of it without the greatest singer in the history of the world, Pavarotti, on it. It's just Frank singing 20 years after he'd sung My Way as a boast. Same key, same text, same arrangement. Announce an apology. Wow. And that's a. That's a thing about singing. And Johnny Cash had that. And, you know, I wish I aspired to the place when my voice. To try and answer your first question, when I become a singer that can do that.
- [19:52]
A
Sinatra, most people don't realize, had a completely different voice when he was younger. His voice when he was younger, was very high pitched and beautiful. It had so much flexibility to it and so much tone. And then probably all the cigarettes and Jack Daniels over the years sort of hardened his voice.
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B
Skinny kid. He used to. He used to swim underwater to get his lungs expanded so he could get those bigger, bigger.
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A
Really?
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B
Yeah.
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A
And we have his mug shot out there. He got arrested. He was like 125 pounds.
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B
Wow.
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A
Yeah, he got arrested for. What was the term? Seduction? I think it was seduction. I think he seduced a married woman. Yeah.
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B
Oh, my Lord.
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A
Yeah. There he is.
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B
Oh, look at that. Well, he said, I'm the only. He said, you're the only. I don't know if he said cat. I certainly didn't say, dude. He said, you're the only something who wears an earring that I'm ever gonna like. You're the only cat with an earring that I'm never gonna. And I did. I had a. If we're gonna talk about singers, you have to talk about Sinatra. I had extraordinary times with him. He used to send us. Send me gifts every year. I have a gold and sapphire Cartier watch. He sent me.
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A
Oh, wow.
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B
With Francis Albert on the. Just every year he would send stuff and because we did a duet together on his first duets album, I've got you, got you under my skin. Although we had a. Our management received. I hope this is not. I'm not being. I'm in awe of Japan, so please don't take this as a. As a. As a cruel joke, but we did get a. It was a fax back then from Nippon EMI saying, we hear that Bono has done a duet with a Mr. Frank Sinalta called I've got you under my chicken. And that's just the great. The great surrealist anthem of all time. But, yeah, for me, that was an unusual relationship. And I. If I ask myself why I would go after these great singers that perhaps people of my own generation had moved on from, but I hadn't. There is a part of me that wanted the blessing of the older generation and probably the male. I didn't really, by now, the bit of age, I realize I didn't have the sense to go after the same with women, but I was looking for my father in them. You know, whether it was Willie Nelson, you know, whether, you know, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Pavarott, all these people. I mean, I would. I kind of. I became their students, really. And the band would be like, yeah. And I'm going, yeah. And there's so much for me to learn from these people. So much for all of us to learn. These are extraordinary for a reason. Sinatra had, you know, incredible sense of humor and great timing. What I learned from him was he read the text of the song like an actor. So he would learn it as an actor, would learn a part, then he would. On the piano, he'd kind of roughly, with his, you know, pianist, he'd figure out where. Where to be in the bar and all of that. And then when he went into the orchestra to meet them, you know, Nelson Riddle or whatever, you actually hear him. You hear Frank Sinatra hearing the song in its full arrangement for the first time as he's singing it. And that's. It's fresh paint. You know, it's like any painter will tell you that's just the. It's like Francis Bacon. It's just that first stroke or first touch football, the great players where the ball lands at their feet, they don't stop it and pass it. They. They. They pass it as they stop it. It's. It's. It's really a very high level of. Of artistry. And. And he had that. I learned that from him. I learned lots of other things. I also tried to drink with him on a few occasions, which did not work out well for me.
- [24:47]
A
Was it surreal when you were a young man and you were just starting to achieve success, to encounter these people that were essentially heroes and be embraced by them and hang around them? You know, a lot of people feel imposter syndrome. Like, they feel just. It's bizarre to be around these legendary human beings. Like, they're right there. Like, I still kind of get weirded out by it. Even when I met you today, I'm like, oh, that's Bono. Like, it's still weird, you know, it's still weird to meet people that are, like, hugely famous. And when you were a young man, when. When you two was just blowing up, was it strange that the transit. Like to accept the fact, like, this is where we are, we belong here.
- [25:30]
B
But Bug, you. You. You got it right the first time. There is a part of you that doesn't think you belong, right? And then when you're younger, you. You. You're not admitting that to yourself. And I have a. I have a few annoying, more than a few annoying aspects, depending on who you're talking to. But if I have an annoying gene, part of it is when I'm at my most vulnerable, I give it the most swagger. So we were playing the Super Bowl. We walked on just after nine, 11 big emotional moments. And we're. You got eight minutes, whatever, to switch over. And I've got my ears in because the only way I'm in touch with was what's going on. And we're walking through the crowd. We've got the crowd on the pitch. I think one of the first times that was ever done, and somebody goes, yay. And they. And I can feel my ear come out. And that will mean I'm off air. And if you look at the film, as I've had to, of us walking up to get on stage, I am giving it so much chin. You just go, who is that obnoxious Irish fucking?
- [27:02]
A
What?
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B
Why does he get that attitude?
- [27:04]
A
Here it is right here.
- [27:06]
B
Oh, there it is. I think I'm singing there. So if you just go back a little bit, you. You'll get the real. That's the chin. No, no, just before there. But. But look, not a care in the world. And that's. I mean, bullshit is a word for it.
- [27:25]
A
Yeah.
- [27:26]
B
Swagger is another word for it.
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A
It's a shield.
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B
It's a shield.
- [27:30]
A
Yeah.
- [27:31]
B
And as I get older, I. You know, part of the film was taking off my armor and just dropping the sword, dropping the shield, taking it off. And now in that moment, you wake up, it's a bit like the dream where you're naked in front of the whole school and it's really cold. And then you realize, yeah, your life, as you are realizing yourself now, oh, how did this happen to me? And how did I get to meet these extraordinary people? And so that's why I wrote the book Surrender. That's why I did it, because it was just starting to realize when I was younger, I was like, yeah. You know, Bob Dylan once asked us. I was 24, and he says he was recording there. I was going to interview him, and he said, you want to go on stage or whatever and do a song? And I said, well, he said, leopard skin, pillbox hats, amazing song. I said, oh, look, the lyrics there, too. And I'd been learning to improvise as a singer, and I went out on stage and he said, you know, blowing in the wind. I said, I probably got that one down, but I didn't. And I just walked out on stage, and I could see it was a home crowd, Ireland people. Oh, wow. One of ours is up there with Bob Dylan. Wow. Oh, it's Bomber. Wow. Okay. And he's gonna sing. Oh, my God. He can't say oh. Oh. He's changed the melody. Oh. He's changed the words and he could just see, I mean, go down in flames. And afterwards I see Bob, and I said, look, I'm sorry about that. Just, it's just the way we've been working at the moment, just kind of improvising stuff. And he was like, it's okay, you know, everything. I. I make him up all the time. And he was generous about it. Nothing's fixed in time. Something like that.
- [29:40]
A
That's a great Bob Dylan impression.
- [29:41]
B
Yeah.
- [29:42]
A
One of my favorite moments in the film was when your bandmates were concerned that Pavarotti was going to show up with a camera crew. Yeah, he showed up with a camera crew.
- [29:52]
B
He did.
- [29:53]
A
It was just funny. It was like a. It was a really well timed moment, like. And when you said it on stage, it was so well timed because it's like, here you're honoring this man who's like this incredible, fantastic singer. But your band mates, they've got a good instinct. Like, this is gonna be a big press hop as well. Like, this is part of the reason why he wants to do this. And then that's not gonna be fun because it's gonna be weird. And then boom.
- [30:17]
B
Yeah. One of the great. One of the great arm wrestlers, emotional arm wrestlers of all time. It's interesting that there was a generosity there which, Which. Which he wanted opera, because opera was kind of the punk of its time. Classical musicians look down on opera, you know, really, these are stories from the street. They're too accessible, you know, really. And. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's crazy. I've never was much Ro. And he instinctively knew. And he was constantly trying to make relationships that would cross the divide and make sort of opera popular. And so to the point where, yeah, he did. He used to call our house and say, you know, at first it was with me, but then when he would haunt our housekeeper Teresa and say, like, is God at home? Will tell God he's late on the song. Or, you know, he do this kind of carry on and. And I, again, this. These figures in my life. I knew that I was in On Sacred Ground. When I was near him, I knew this. But the band, they didn't have the. They didn't have the relationship with opera. Well, actually, Edge's dad was into opera, but my dad, I was using Luciano Pavarotti to get to my dad. That was the real thing. And so, as you see in the film, I play my father just by turning my head and I become him. And I was trying to impress him. I'd be in Finnegan's Publisher, where we'd be sitting, not speaking to each other, and I'd try something, and I go, what do you think about Luciano Pavarotti? Call him the house. And he'd go, did he get a wrong number? You know that. And so, yeah, there was an emotional through line because our house was an opera, unfortunately, my dad was going on in him. His life was operatic. But it's also funny.
- [32:42]
A
Yeah, yeah. And it's also this. You are both celebrating the brilliance of this incredible singer, and also you're taking the piss out of this whole cult of celebrity thing that comes along with it.
- [32:57]
B
Yeah. And Princess Diana, the best lover.
- [33:01]
A
That thing with your dad and Princess Diana was hilarious.
- [33:03]
B
So. Because Edge is. Edge is. That. Is. Is Edge's mother and father from Wales. So to, you know, so we're with Pavarotti in Modena, I think it was. And he's. So the Princess of Wales is meeting the great tenor and he is offered to meet, you know, anyone who wants, you know, Edge's family, because they're from Wales, to meet the Princess of Wales. And he says to me, look, does your dad want to go? And I, of course, know the reason. I know the answer and the reason for the answer. But he says, well, just ask him. So I ask him. I just go, dad, listen, we wouldn't want to go meet Lady Di, you know, the Princess. What.
- [33:54]
A
What.
- [33:56]
B
Would I want to meet a member of the British royal family? That. That's like asking me, do I want to meet the winner of the lotto? And I'm like, okay, got it, got it, got it. And then later, she comes into our dressing room and melts him just by reaching her hand out. How do you do? And he's like, oh, oh, very well, thank you. And As I say, 800 years of oppression gone in a second. And if you wonder about the reasoning for having a royal family, and a lot of Irish people do there, I would say that's the reason.
- [34:44]
A
The weight of it. The weight of it overcame him. Yeah, yeah. It's a very bizarre relationship, though. You know, I got one quarter Irish, and I knew the relationship between Ireland and United Kingdom and England. It's like. It's. It's complicated.
- [34:59]
B
Were you. Were you. I've read that you got into martial arts because you felt picked on at some point.
- [35:08]
A
Is that true? Yes. Yeah, yeah.
- [35:11]
B
So you don't like bullies?
- [35:12]
A
No, no, no. I don't like that at all. It's the weakest inclination of the human spirit, you know, to pick on the weak. It's terrible. It's It's a terrible instinct that humans have from. Probably from the time where you had to ostracize weak people because you lived in a tribe of people barely surviving, and you couldn't tolerate any weak links in the chain. I mean, it's essentially probably where it came from. It probably came out of a survival, Darwinian thing. Yes. Where everyone was barbarians and you had to force people to be the hardest version possible because otherwise the genes wouldn't survive.
- [35:49]
B
Yeah. And the survival of the fittest, it's. Yeah. Which is the world we live in.
- [35:55]
A
Yeah.
- [35:57]
B
I mean, this is one of the things that attracts me to Christianity is the idea of the first will be last, the last will be first is so radical. And it's literally the opposite of the survival of the fittest.
- [36:09]
A
Right.
- [36:10]
B
But America, why I love America is, is it has. I mean, the British Empire bullied it and it stood up. I was. We were coming here, I was asking someone in the car about the Declaration of Independence and how many Irish signatures. There weren't that many. I can't remember what they were, but they were all committing treason. They were putting their lives. They were pledging their lives, their fortune and their sacred honor. So America, the very essence of America is this idea of sticking it to the bully.
- [36:51]
A
Yeah.
- [36:51]
B
And I know America can be a bully. We all. We have our moments and all that, but it's the essence of who you are. And it happened again with the geezer with the tasch.
- [37:05]
A
The geezer with the tash. That's a great way, calling Hitler, you know. Yeah.
- [37:10]
B
You know, you weren't. You weren't having it.
- [37:12]
A
Right.
- [37:12]
B
And. And I, you know, as. As a. As an activist, which we can talk about later. But the, you know, I remember going to. It's only a few hours from here, but I was in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Warren Buffett came to one of our. It's called Heart of America tour. We were raising awareness on this pandemic, this AIDS pandemic that killed just, you know, 30 million people at this point. And why might America be interested? And I'm very Irish and very given a lot of that. And afterwards, I ask the sage of Omaha for any advice. And he gives me two pieces of advice, but. Well, the one was don't ask people to do something simple because they won't trust you. He said, ask them to do something complicated.
- [38:10]
A
What did you mean by that?
- [38:11]
B
Well, I said. He said, what are you asking people to do here? And I said, well, I'm asking them to. We're asking Them, the one campaign, we're asking them to send a note to their local congressperson. He said, no, no, no, no, don't. No, don't do that. Too simple. Make them do something more difficult and they'll Trust you. Maybe 10 postcards, it's harder to do. I was like, okay, and anything else? And he said something which really changed my life and changed my conversation with this country of yours. He said, don't appeal to the conscience of America. Don't do that. Appeal to the greatness of America, and you'll get the job done. Americans want to be great.
- [39:04]
A
That is true.
- [39:05]
B
I think it is true. And because Ireland, we work with guilt. You know, you can guilt people. It's a lot of countries, you can work them just, you know, But Americans, not. Give them the chance to be the cavalry.
- [39:18]
A
Yeah.
- [39:19]
B
And they'll. I mean, Omaha beach. The heroism of Omaha beach. The lives poured out, you know, and just to save Europe from tyranny. And that's who America is. And, you know, I gave you the Joshua Tree because I, you know, it's not just as an Irishman, but probably more because I, as an Irishman, fell under the spell of America. Even as kids, you know, coming here, a lot of the cooler bands would just play the coasts, you know, the cooler UK bands or European bands. But I wanted to be all over America. I mean, we played. We opened for a wet T shirt competition in. In Dallas.
- [40:14]
A
What year was this?
- [40:16]
B
81. I was the first. 21. We. We. We in Austin. I don't know if anyone can remember, it was. It was called the Club Foot. It was a bad pun, but there was no ac. And I remember it was a tin roof. And for Irish people, we were just being boiled. But I really, really great memories of just bussing it through this sort of mythical landscape. You know, there's nowhere, nowhere in this country I would want to fly over, but I do now. You know, we got the plane, you got the this. But I, I just remember thinking, this is. There's so many Americas.
- [41:07]
A
Yes.
- [41:08]
B
But the, the mythology of America, I was reading, you know, Sam Shepard. I was reading, you know, on the road. I was reading, you know, all these great writers and just opening up my imagination. That's where the Joshua Tree came from. And yeah, it's. It's a. It's a mythology that then, can you imagine? I get to discover that in my case, it's not just a mythology. I was part of something that was extraordinary. So former governor of this Texas, George W. Bush, conservative, starts to lead the world in the fight against the AIDS pandemic. The greatest health crisis in 600 years since the bubonic plague. And I'm like, people say that's impossible. It's just not gonna happen. And he does, and it becomes a bipartisan thing, and 26 million lives are saved. So it's strange the way you see things. I had this. It wasn't a naive sense of America, but it was a sense that everything could be possible here. It was somehow, the landscape of America was a little more magical than everywhere else. And it wasn't just a country. America. It was an idea.
- [42:51]
A
Yes. Yeah. At its greatest, that is what America is. At its greatest, it's an idea. And it's an idea that was, like I said, was founded with the concepts behind the Declaration of Independence. And those men who wrote that, the men who signed the Bill of Rights, they were so young. They were so young. Some of them were 18 years old at the time, which is so crazy.
- [43:14]
B
Jefferson was 32 or 33 when he wrote that.
- [43:17]
A
He's an old codger.
- [43:18]
B
I mean, that's why. And then, by the way, years later, he's in France. I think he's in Bath. And he loved wine. And this emerged. I found this out because I saw a signature in a book. I was on some tour. I like to drink red wine. I've never been to Bordeaux in my life, but I went with some people who knew their way around wine. And they asked me to sign a book in this particular vineyard, posh kind of vineyard, but this was across the road from the big name sort of thing. And I asked, I said, can I see the first book? There's Thomas Jefferson's name in the first one. I thought, wow, this guy's dreaming of America on some very fancy red plunk. Yeah. Not Plank, actually. Some. Really? But, you know, I know there's lots of contradictions. Sure. In America. And I know there was slavery still and that he had slaves. And I understand. But I'm encouraged that America perhaps doesn't exist yet, that it's still being written. If you think about it as a song, you think about it as a piece of music. It's not finished.
- [44:41]
A
Right? Right.
- [44:41]
B
It's still being written. They started at those signatures. You. And if you let people like me stay, you know, we're still. You know, you're writing it. I'm not writing. I'm the annoying fan who follows America into the bathroom. And with the liner notes, which are the Declaration going, didn't you say this here? And get out who followed me into the bathroom. It's like. But, but I. Yeah, I like the idea that it's. That this is far from finished, this composition.
- [45:20]
A
Yes.
- [45:20]
B
And for some people, the America that is available to you and me doesn't exist yet, but it will and it can. And.
- [45:31]
A
Yeah, we hope that every election cycle like this will be the one that finally makes us what we truly believe we are. But the, the country is just so co opted by this. First of all, you have this genuine issue with the fact that it's essentially a popularity contest, right. To see who gets to be running the government. You have a popularity contest that's fueled entirely by special interests and the military industrial complex and pharmaceutical drug companies. And it's just, it's a, it's all, it's all the opposite of an authentic song.
- [46:08]
B
Right.
- [46:08]
A
The thing about an authentic song where it makes your fucking goosebumps stand up.
- [46:13]
B
Be like, God damn, you think it's an AI?
- [46:16]
A
I'll tell you a story. A long time ago, probably 25 years ago, I was on mushrooms with a friend of mine. And we were laying on the side of this hill overlooking this canyon and we played in God's country.
- [46:32]
B
Oh, wow.
- [46:35]
A
And it was just the peak of the mushrooms and the songs, the melody, the way that song hit, it just. It gave me this insane appreciation for things. Like at that moment, it was like this very unique fusion of the beauty of the music and the love of the experience. Like, the mushrooms bring out this like loving, like communal quality, like happiness and joy. And just lying in this field, looking up at this canyon and hearing that song, it was like, this is what music does. It takes these moments and wherever they're at, it breaks them through the membrane into this new place. Like this moment. It broke through this membrane and brought me to this. I think about it all the time. I think about that particular experience all the time.
- [47:32]
B
We need. The line in that when I'm singing it is a line that doesn't just apply to America, but applies to us personally. Wherever you are is, you know, we need new dreams tonight. And you can't be living on. We've got, we can't be living on secondhand dreams. And that's, I think the renewal, I think, is what, what we're all looking for. And yeah, it's, it's, it's something to be protected and I. Not protected. That sounds like it's, it's like.
- [48:17]
A
I think you're right though, but I.
- [48:19]
B
Think, I think America's more vulnerable now than it's ever been. It feels like America's fallen out of love with the rest of the world. I don't think the world wants to fall out of love with America. It just feels like. And you know, I've 25 years and I'm just a tiny cog in, I suppose, you know, people look at personalities or, you know, even luminous ones or ones that have ideas way above their station and think that will, you know, that that might change things. But it's social movements always change things. And what happened back then with that Heart of America tour was, was mind blowing because I learned a few things that I wasn't expecting. Like, I had grown up with a couple of more than a few bumps with evangelicals, you know, like, whoop. Because, you know, how do you, you can't approach the subject of God without metaphor. Right. So literalism is by its nature anti metaphor. And you know, Jesus, all we know is that he spoke in parables because they're not literal. How do you explain these as poetry? It's music. And I found it really difficult to be around evangelicals because they were so, you know, just literal about everything. And then on that same tour where I met Warren Buffett, I ended up at a college called Wheaton College, which is like a big. In Chicago, it's a big evangelical thing. And they were like, they were really helpful. And there was like. I realized that these were kind of. And this is not to be at all dismissive of some incredible people, but it was like I felt it was. There were sort of narrow minded, sort of, what would I say? Just sort of narrow the vision. If I could just open the aperture. Their vision just a little bit wider. Yeah, that they could be the most incredible force for good because they just worked harder. They didn't tell lies. They, they were just great people. And I think they, they led part of this movement that ended up saving 26 million lives, you know, and called PEPFAR that George Bush started and Obama continued. Then I go to Catholics, I'd end up in Notre Dame. I had a few bruises with the Catholics over the years too. And I'm meeting these people and they're like, no, no, we believe in the value of human life and if we can do this, how much does this cost? And I'm like, well, you know, all of foreign aid is probably just less than 1% of government spending, but the part that keeps people alive is half of that. So it's like half a percent now. It's not my money. It's up to you. If you want to do that, but they did. And lots of people came together. It was priests and punks. You know, it was the wildest collection of people. And just recently, like in. In the last three months. And this is not about politics, because I've worked with conservatives, I've worked with liberals. I don't care. You know, I don't have those. I'm Irish. I don't have a chance to vote. But all of that was torn down without a heads up, without any notice, because people thought foreign aid was like 10% of the budget or 20%, and it was doing things that it shouldn't have been doing. And I'm sure there was some waste, but I can tell you, as a person who saw what the United States was doing around the world and saw this, I saw America display itself at its finest. And I remember being in the Oval Office with President Bush and these antiretroviral drugs, I said, paint them red, white and blue, Mr. President. These are the best advertisements for America there'll ever be. And he's looking at me thinking I'm taking the piss, but I'm not. And he wasn't, as it turns out. And he spoke about the least of these, which is a wild concept. I don't know if you know this, but it's like the. It's in Matthew, I think it is. It's the only time that Jesus speaks of judgment. It's not like what's going on in your pants. It's not like what's going on over here or over there. The first time Jesus Christ speaks in kind of force of judgment. Is the way we treat the poor, the poorest of the poor. And he says, well, in the way that you're treating these, the least of them, the sick, the blind, the people who are suffering from malnutrition. That's how you treat me. I am them. And so now when we cut to the people, like, you went to Boston University. You taught at Boston University.
- [54:03]
A
I taught martial arts there, yeah.
- [54:05]
B
So just recent report, it's not proven, but their surveillance enough suggests 300,000 people have already died from just this cutoff, this hard cut of usaid. So there's food rotting in boats, in warehouses. There is. This will fuck you off. You will not be happy. No American will. But there is, I think it's 50,000 tons of food that are stored in Djibouti, South Africa, Dubai, and wait for it, Houston, Texas. And that is rotting rather than going to Gaza, rather than going to Sudan. Because the people who know the codes are for the warehouse are fired, they're gone. And so this, I don't know, I just. It's. What do you think? What is that? That's not America, is it?
- [55:12]
A
Well, they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Right, Right. This is the problem. The problem is, for sure, there have been a lot of organizations that do tremendous good all throughout the world. Also for sure, it was a money laundering operation. For sure. There was no oversight. For sure. Billions of dollars are missing, in fact, trillions that are unaccounted for that were sent off into various. They don't even know where because there's no receipts. The way Elon Musk described that. He said if any of this was done by a public company, the company would be delisted and the executives would be in prison. But in the United States, this is standard. When Biden left office, when it was clear that Trump won in the 73 days they spent $93 billion from the Department of Energy on just radical loans, just throwing money into places. And there's no oversight, no receipts. Like, the whole thing is, there's a lot of fraud, a lot of money laundering, but also we help the world. And when you're talking about making wells for people in the Congo to get fresh water, when you talk about food and medicine to places that don't have access, like, no way, that should have been cut out and that should have been clear before they make these radical cuts. Like, there's gotta be a way to keep aid and not have fraud. And you can't have. You can't say we're gonna kill everything so that there's no fraud, but then you're killing all the good and you're doing it without letting anybody know it's going to happen. So no one's. It's not like they had three years to prepare. Let's build a new infrastructure. Let's make sure that everything's set up. They wanted change, and they want to change quickly and do the nature of American politics. They have about two years before the midterms. Right. So everything has to get done as quickly as possible. You have to show a growth in gdp. You have to show that the economy's booming again under these ideas. Make America first terrorists for the World bank, bring back American manufacturing and this mad rush to do it all as quickly as possible while cutting out as much waste as possible.
- [57:22]
B
Yeah.
- [57:22]
A
But the ironic thing is, even though Elon Musk has proposed all these things and the Doge Committee has proposed all these things, they've Made no cuts in terms of the budget. They've cut nothing. They vote against it.
- [57:34]
B
It's such a tiny part. I mean, if, if, if, if it's big government or whatever, people want to shrink. I get the instinct. But this, the life saving part, it's like the little finger of the giant, right?
- [57:54]
A
Exactly.
- [57:55]
B
I mean, and I've met all these people, and I'm sure there's part of it, you know, there's, I think about 10% of it goes to things like governance and, you know, human rights organizations. You might say that's political and we shouldn't be involved in that. And there's reforms, I imagine, that might have been necessary, but to have the reforms, but to destroy, to vandalize. I mean, it felt like with glee, these life support systems were being pulled out of the walls. And I was reading Today, you know, is like. I think it's in Christianity today, and they're just talking. I think it's called Christian Relief, one of these organizations, and they're dealing with malnourished kids. And they are having the conversation now about, we don't have the funds. We have to choose which child to pull off the IVs. And it just seems to me like a kind of. I don't know if evil is a strong words, too. Strong words. But what we know about pure evil is it rejoices in the deaths, you know, of the squandering of human life, particularly children and suffering. Yeah, it actually rejoices in it. And I just, you know, whether it's incompetence, whether it's unintended consequences, it's not too late for people. Like, I had conversations with Marco Rubio. He's convinced people aren't dying yet. I don't know who's telling him. Not telling him, rather, but his instincts are correct. He wants to die. He used to wear a one campaign armband. Americans, no matter what political color, they just, they just, they just, you see them just the size sort of. They just grow in stature when they know they're being useful. I had a truck driver on that same tour. He'd, like, tattoos all over his head and whatever. And he was just saying, can I drive? I heard 50% of all truck drivers in Africa are going to die. Is that right? Because of this disease, aids? I said, yeah. He said, can I give you my number? I will drive. Like, that's America. And yeah, the bureaucracy, the pen pushers, I get it. I get people's frustration for it. But I just want to remind Americans of the Size of their country. And I'm not talking about the geography, the impact. I'm just the size of the idea. You know, it's just. It's just an extraordinary thing. It's an idea, I think, big enough to fit the whole world. And when it becomes a continent, you know, when it becomes an island rather than a continent, I think it's a subcontinent. I should have gone to geography lessons more. But, you know, you know what I'm talking about. When it shrinks, America seems to stop being America. And I know you don't want to get into wars and you shouldn't, but that don't concern you. But there's this word, freedom. Land of the free.
- [61:34]
A
Yeah, that's.
- [61:37]
B
And the brave. This is. This is who we look to you for. And we look to you for these qualities. And I believe they're everywhere. And I don't believe any one party has a. Has a hold on them. No, on these. On these qualities. But, you know, it's a. It's a funny one for me. I. One of the reasons I came on the show, I wanted to. On the show was I wanted to interview you. I wanted to. I just wanted to get your take on where America is at the present time. Because you're talking to everyone. You know, this is a compliment to you, but my book, you know, wrote this book, surrender, and sort of. If there's a point to it, at the very end, it's just, I'm. I'm shouting at God, I'm having my wrestling match with my maker, and you just get this thing of. And you've probably picked it up by now. Shut up and listen. And I need to listen more. You are an amazing listener, and I don't know who it was or someone who said listening doesn't grant the other side legitimacy, but it grants them their humanity and restores your own. You sit in this room and you listen to everybody, and that makes you very valuable to the country. And I wanted to just get your take on it. What would your advice be to me and people like me who are not part of the big industrial complex? We just want to serve the idea of America and the people who depend on that idea.
- [63:44]
A
Yeah.
- [63:45]
B
What would your advice to me?
- [63:46]
A
I would give you zero advice. I don't know if I'm qualified to give advice, but I would say that America goes through these great periods of overcorrection. It goes these great periods of like, you saw it during COVID during the lockdowns and the authoritarianism, and we fell into a Kind of state of tyranny where there was just massive oppression of free speech, including government sponsored oppression. They were contacting different social media platforms and banning legitimate doctors and scholars because they had different opinions about how things should be handled. There was wide scale censorship, a push for a changing of the First Amendment. The First Amendment means to be overhauled. The First Amendment doesn't apply to hate speech or to disinformation. There was all these like new ways of talking about censorship in this country and condoning censorship. And it's very dangerous because it's all about money. It had nothing to do with protecting people.
- [64:46]
B
That's what I worry about. The argument about free speech is that it seems to be sponsored by a lot of people who you sense don't really respect it so much. But it is very economic for them to not have to live with the consequences of a story. I think, is it the communication? I think it's that it's 1996. This is a long time ago. Communications Act, Decency Act. That meant the Internet did not have to apply by the same rules as the rest of the media.
- [65:26]
A
Right.
- [65:27]
B
So we could say anything we wanted. And at first that felt like liberation, but I'm not so sure anymore. And so, I mean, you can tell me more about this. I am not a free speech absolutist, but I like, I do want to believe in free speech, but I'm nervous that the people who are supporting free speech and using their bots and their own activists are people from countries who would not at all respect are you're mine ability to express ourselves. And that's what I worry about is I think the, the old interweb is being played like a, like a harp, unquestionably like an orchestra. And the people you know behind the curtain would surprise us I think if.
- [66:29]
A
We knew worse than that. I think it's programmed like an EDM concert. I think it's not even an orchestra. I worry, and this has been substantiated by data that more than 50% of the interactions going on on the Internet and social media are not real. And there was a former FBI analyst sounds like, yes, former FBI analyst that said it might be as much as 80%. It's bots, as you said. And this is a problem with the concept of free speech. I completely, wholly in favor of free speech. Just like the ADL was back in the day when they let the Ku Klux Klan march. They like, look, you got to. The way to combat bad speech is with better speech. The way to find out whose arguments are correct is to let them debate in the marketplace of free ideas and expose these people for what they are and have the people that are on the sidelines that are letting these great thinkers have these discussions say, okay, this guy makes sense. This guy is clearly a grifter. This guy has ulterior motives. This guy has an ideology that's very toxic. And he's trying to push this on the whole world for control, for power, for money, to benefit the special interest groups that he's a part of, or whatever it is that the problem with free speech is. You're also going to get a lot of ugliness, because there's a lot of ugliness in the world. You're going to get a lot of people that say horrible things. And I think the only way we sort through all that is you have to let them. And then you have to let people rise up that oppose those horrible ideas, and those people become heroes. Those become the Martin Luther Juniors. Humor helps.
- [68:07]
B
Like, humor helps. One thing we know about the Ku Klux Klan is if you mentioned the silly costumes. They don't like that. They, you know, it's like they want you to be afraid or you want to be nervous, but it's like, dude, look at the stage gear.
- [68:26]
A
You're a ghost.
- [68:27]
B
It's like, come on.
- [68:28]
A
Do you know who Daryl Davis is?
- [68:30]
B
No.
- [68:30]
A
Daryl Davis is a musician who. He was a traveling blues musician and did some shows where afterwards he met some people that told him that they were in the Ku Klux Klan. And he was like, are you kidding? And the guy shows him his fucking Grand Wizard ID card or whatever the hell it is, he becomes friends with this.
- [68:52]
B
Here's my card.
- [68:53]
A
Daryl's black. Darrell's a black man and becomes friends with this guy. Goes to his house, meets his family. The guy throws the robe away, gives up his membership in the kkk, renounces his membership and gives Daryl the rope. Says, I want you to have this. Daryl has done that personally. The last time I talked to him was a few years back. He'd done this personally to over 200 people. Just by being an amazing human being, by being a brilliant artist and hanging out with him, just being kind and talk and as an example of just a great human. And they were like, I guess I'm wrong. I guess I'm wrong. This idea that black people are inferior and the white man is a superior race, that can't be true because I love this guy. And so they would just quit. They'd quit and he has this smartest theory. It's a terrible theory. But if you're in a place with only terrible theories, and that's what you grew up. There's Daryl, and they give him all his.
- [69:53]
B
You know, good man. He's a great, good man.
- [69:56]
A
And he's a kind like, very peaceful. Like when you speak to him, he's.
- [70:02]
B
But real.
- [70:04]
A
He's amazing.
- [70:04]
B
One of your, you know, again, one of the reasons I'm, I'm here is the. I think there is a sense that people just want to be part of something. And, you know, when we were growing up, there were clubs you could be a part of. You know, there's people you could hang out with, and you knew where that was going. But if you wanted to belong and have a sense of purpose, you ended up there. And so I think that it's okay to. For men to admit that in this moment, they are probably, you know, we're, we're a little adrift. I hear this from my daughters, I hear this from my wife. And it's like that's where this feeling of being dislocated. So you're attracted to these simple ideas. You know, the concept of the gang or America, like it's a team sport between the reds and the blues. America's the team. That's all. Yes, that's. And, and, and this thing. And look, I'm vulnerable. We were. We are all. Especially when you're growing up, teenagers, you know, you are very vulnerable to, to those points of view. Yes, I, you know, early on we had sort of. Yeah, I would say I had a. I got close to what you might call fundamentalists. And this is all versions of fundamentalism. It's all a very narrow view. And what you see going on in Gaza is you see Palestinian people being held hostage by Hamas. It's not just Israelis that are being held hostage by Hamas, Palestinian people and the fundamentalists in Israel, in the cabinet, these far right fundamentalists, because at a time, you remember a few years back, everything was kind of wishy washy and kind of the new age and whatever you have in yourself. And now these strong, clear points of view have arrived.
- [72:49]
A
It's the great overcorrection.
- [72:50]
B
It's the great overcorrection.
- [72:51]
A
Yeah. There's a real problem with ideology and there's a real problem with fundamentalism. And there's a cowardice in it, and there's a cowardice in. I'm the only one that's correct. There's a cowardice in not listening to any other ideas. Not listening to any other positions. And we're being played against each other in this country. The thing about the bots and the social media stuff is it just accentuates this dividend between the left and the right, which I think is mostly bullshit. Most people are good people. Most people just want to be happy and healthy and have friends and family and do what they want to do for a living and have the freedom to pursue those things. Most people aren't trying to victimize people. Most people aren't trying to destroy other people's lives and destroy. Destroy society. They just want to live their life, but they're being sucked into one side or the other, which is radically opposed to each other. The great overcorrection.
- [73:45]
B
Did you think that President Zelensky was being bullied in that meeting in the Oval Office? Like, is that just. Just to think about it as a playground. This is a guy, his maybe, maybe his life depend, but certainly the life of many, many people he knew depend on and he had to listen to that.
- [74:04]
A
Well, the whole thing is strange, right? I mean, the argument in the White House like, you don't have the right hand of cards. And you know, just the fact that this is all being done publicly is very strange, right, that there's cameras and photographers. Like, I don't like live podcasts sometimes. I've done them before. But there's something about having an audience where you're playing to an audience, having, you know, these conversations should be just a couple people in a room. That's what I think. I think that's the ones that resonate with me the most. Yeah, this is. I just think it's the best way to do it. The way that resonates the most. I think the kind of conversation that you're going to have. The world leader shouldn't be performative and it certainly shouldn't be with a bunch of people snapping photographs and pointing cameras and then pushing each other back and forth. You know, you don't have the right hand, hand of cards. This is not cards. You are playing cards. And it's just a crazy. It's a crazy way. And each calling each other disrespectful. It's a crazy way to handle any world events. It's just terrible platform for it.
- [75:09]
B
Yeah, just think of again, I think of America, the Americans of Omaha beach, the people who like the level of courage. And I think of these people on the front line in Europe. I mean, I haven't really spoken about Europe with you, but. But, you know, if America is The melting pot. I would say Europe's the mosaic. You know, it's all these different people who speak with a different language but are trying for one voice in Europe, which can sound like cacophony. They call it Eurobabble in Brussels. But I'm really now realizing how romantic it was, you know, with the Enlightenment, with the Renaissance. You know, we've got a lot to offer and Europe has. Europe's under threat. And those bots, every election now where this candidate is pro Europe and pro European unity, they are just getting a shitstorm of disinformation. And I just think, wow. But it's. I think Europe is. And America are just sexier than these people. Is that a trite thing to say? But it's like they're, they're so kind of unsexy, you know, that's. I mean, that's. Sorry, I have trivial.
- [76:45]
A
Unromantic.
- [76:46]
B
Unromantic. That's right. It's just these very dull, not funny people and are trying to take over the world. They're not funny. Lukashenko, Belarus. That dude is not funny. We don't have to go further. We don't have to go further.
- [77:06]
A
Who do you think is the funniest world leader?
- [77:08]
B
Oh, my God. Yeah, that's a really good question.
- [77:11]
A
It's gotta be Trump. He's the funniest.
- [77:14]
B
Well, he has the thing that a lot of stand up comedians have, which is he can say the thing in the room that no one else is gonna say.
- [77:27]
A
Right.
- [77:28]
B
And that generally creates a laugh. And. But I also think he mightn't be able to take a joke.
- [77:38]
A
Well, he's not good at that. He doesn't enjoy a joke coming his way. No, he doesn't.
- [77:43]
B
I mean, Zelensky's actually a comedian, right. I met him before he became president.
- [77:48]
A
Played piano with his penis on television.
- [77:52]
B
It was quite a piano.
- [77:55]
A
I mean, it's funny to go from playing piano with your penis to becoming the president of Ukraine, becoming the president.
- [78:02]
B
Of the United States by all accounts. But he came to Ireland as a comedian. He told me, I didn't know. And he played like small towns. I think he played Dundalk or Draught or somewhere in the east coast of Ireland. But comedians can read a room. I mean, performers. I think comedians are at the top of the food chain because you don't have a band, you don't have a fucking tambourine. You don't. You just have the reader of the room and the material has to be really funny. I use this sometimes with our Band. A lot of our music is just experimental and innovative and we improvise and then we try to turn it into songs. But sometimes we'll write a pop song and we'll end up with a pop song and I'll say, well, the thing about a pop song is it is empirical. It's like it either is or it isn't. It's like a joke that doesn't have a punchline. It's like a comedian does not walk out on stage and tell a joke. And if people don't laugh, go. They just don't get. Just means the joke isn't funny. So I. It's not a popular theory in our band, by the way, but I hold onto it very tight. I just say, if you can't go out and play this song and it just connect, then it's not a pop song. We don't. We only do a few pop songs every decade, probably because a lot of what you two does is different kind of rock and roll. But I do think there's something empirical about. Some songs are better than the others. I witnessed a. I witnessed one of the most ridiculous moments in. In my life, but it was kind of funny. Oasis, you know, Oasis aren't amazing.
- [80:05]
A
Love them.
- [80:06]
B
To just love them. And so I witnessed this. It couldn't be a more childish fight between two of my friends. Liam Galler was a friend at that point. I know Noel better now, but. And Michael Hutchins, who was the singer of In Excess. And they really were doing the. My song's better than your song.
- [80:33]
A
Oh, no, no.
- [80:34]
B
What about. No, no. And. And I was thinking. I was laughing to myself. And then I thought, it's interesting. Both of them have a point. That song of theirs might be better than that. And it started to think about it. And comedians don't get a chance to have to be subjective. It's not like Prince walks out and plays a whole new album and can go. They just don't get it. It's like you're either funny or you're not.
- [81:10]
A
Right.
- [81:10]
B
You're going down flames. Have you gone down in flames?
- [81:12]
A
Oh, sure, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [81:14]
B
Where's. What was your worst gig?
- [81:16]
A
Oh, I've had so many, especially in the early days. You're trying to figure it out. And, you know, the thing about material is material is essentially like a calf that's newly born and it has awkward legs and it has to develop into a bull. But it takes a long time. It takes crafting. You have to sit with it, you have to go over The. Some ideas come to you in full form, and some ideas, you have to believe in them. You know, there's something there and you have to dig and, you know, trust the muse and find it. And, you know, sometimes those bits will just fucking bomb and you have to just like, go, gosh, I abandon this. Should I keep working on this?
- [81:59]
B
Do you have a team of writers?
- [82:00]
A
No.
- [82:02]
B
Wow.
- [82:02]
A
No, I just write everything myself.
- [82:04]
B
You're kidding.
- [82:04]
A
No, Always? Yeah, always have. Always write my. I just like my. My view on stand up, the kind of standup that I do is supposed to be. Here's the world through my eyes. This is how I'm thinking, seeing things from the most ridiculous, awestruck and laughing at everything. Perspective. And I have to. It has to be through my lens.
- [82:23]
B
Well, that's amazing. I mean, because I've seen, you know, on Saturday Night Live when we do it, or I've seen some of the talk shows see these geniuses, you know, crunching jokes and coming out with material.
- [82:36]
A
And that's a different thing.
- [82:37]
B
It's a different thing.
- [82:38]
A
Yeah, like a Saturday Night Live monologue or, you know, Tonight show monologue or any of that kind of thing. It's a. That's a different thing. The real stand up is clubs.
- [82:46]
B
You know, I went with club with Dave Chappelle to club he brought me to. It was amazing. Are you still friendly with him?
- [82:53]
A
Oh, real good friends. Yeah. I love him to death.
- [82:55]
B
Yeah, he's. He's. He's incredible. That's jazz.
- [82:58]
A
Yes. He's a real artist.
- [83:00]
B
He can go there. Well, you know, it's like. Yeah, no, I think. Why am I talking about this? I'm talking about this. Oh, yeah. Because people can't take a joke, right? And some people, I mean, we don't need belly laughs out of our leaders. We just need vision.
- [83:17]
A
You need vision and kindness.
- [83:18]
B
But to deal with the Ku Klux Klan, humor helps to deal with the fascists or whatever. I mean, certainly Hitler in, I think, late 30s was getting rid of the daddists and the surrealists because the language of fascism was to fight back, but they liked that language. And I mean, the language of resistance against, you know, Hitler was to fight back, but that suited them. They did not like being laughed at. Sa Fu did not like being laughed at.
- [83:54]
A
Well, because if you can mock something, like, you can have a position or an opinion on something and someone can disagree strongly, but if they make everyone laugh at that position, now you're. Now they've made a real point because it's actually an opinion that you might not have even agreed with has caused you a belly laugh. Like, oh, God. Like, that's how you really get. Because if you go on stage and just have a bunch of opinions and just lecture people, there's people in the audience that go like, well, fuck you. I feel differently. But if you could go on stage with that opinion and make people laugh at something they know they shouldn't be laughing at, like, oh, my God. And you're like. Then you're introducing ideas into a person. It's a spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.
- [84:37]
B
Yeah. No, you're certainly the cause with rock stars. And again, I honestly feel like I'm just impersonating one. I don't think I am the material, really. But people, when they see me coming, they sit in their wallet, you know what I mean? They're like, oh, here he comes. And he's gonna have a sign up. And it's like. Whereas comedians, people are much more open. People will. People are just more open. I think that's a. That's. That it's a responsibility, but it's. It's something to be valued. It's just. I was saying to somebody recently, I'm not sure I trust people anymore who aren't a little bit funny.
- [85:22]
A
Yeah.
- [85:23]
B
I mean, funny in the. Not the funny. Peculiar.
- [85:26]
A
Right, right.
- [85:27]
B
There's a place for that, too. But, you know, people who make you laugh are open.
- [85:31]
A
Yes. And also the contradictions of the world and how bizarre things are, it's just ripe with humor. And if you don't ever pick up on it, like, what are you focusing on? Like, you don't ever see the hypocrisy and the ludicrousness of just this existence, this temporary existence on a spinning orb, hurling through the universe, concentrating on who gets to use what bathroom. Like, is this, like. You know what I mean? It's like, we're weird. We're very weird. And if you don't see that, you're not paying all attention. You're not all in. You're certainly not balanced.
- [86:08]
B
Those mushrooms were working very well for you.
- [86:10]
A
Yeah. I'm telling you, man, in God's country, that's the ticket.
- [86:14]
B
That's beautiful. Wow, I'm so touched. That album, you know, a lot of the songs on that were, you know, very vulnerable, you know, And I don't know if, you know, Brian Eno produced it, invented ambient music, and worked with David Bowie, Talking Heads, you know, and recently Coldplay and other people, but he had a profound influence on Us, because we didn't go to. I didn't go to art college. All, like the Beatles, the Stones, they all went to art college. We went to Brian Eno, and he had this incredible musician in partnership with him for the production of that album called Daniel Lanois, one of the greatest musicians you will ever meet in your life. And that some songs come really quickly, like, boom. You just. But some are just like. What you're saying. They're like the foal. The legs are going around. And the one that was like, that was where the Streets have no Name. And so we were working on it for what felt like weeks, and Brian Eno came in and he just said, I am not having us spend one more minute on this song. And he went to wipe it. So he was actually going to wipe it, and. And so there's no other copies. And Pat McCarthy, who was our engineer, went on to produce R.E.M. and Madonna. Great dude. He physically blocked Brian from it. And. But that song for me, and it's. It's not the lyric that I'm most proud of or anything, because it's. Brian was just saying to us, just go with your first sketch. Remember talking about paint on canvas? Yes, but I'm saying. But it's not. It's not that clever. I want to be. Don't let it be clever. Just. That's what you said. That's what you meant. And it's the strangest thing, Joe, because we go on stage and I sing that song. We sing that song, we play that song, and it's like, what the f. Where? The Streets of no Name. What's that about? I started it in Africa when I was with my wife when I was a kid. And you were 25, something like that, maybe 26. She was 24. And it was about the devastation that was happening in the Ethiopian famine. And I just couldn't explain it to myself. There was other inferences about the song, but none of them matter as much as this question to your audience, which is, do you want to go there? To this place, a place of imagination, a place of soul, place of that other place? Do you want to go there? Do you want to go there together? And everybody feels it, because we all want to be outside of ourselves at a certain time. And we all want to have that experience, that meeting with. Some call it the universe, some call it God, some call it themselves, whatever, but it's music now, I think, you know, all art aspires to the condition of music. But I was saying, we go to church in the dark. You know, that's what rock and roll is. And we're just looking for little shards of light. We find it in an audience. We find our transcendence together with the movie. We also go to church in the dark. And cinema, you're sitting in it. You're in. You're in a dark space, and it's projected light telling other people stories. And somebody said, cinema is like being born. Like you go into the womb. It's like you're floating around in the. As Jim Sheridan would say, he's my hero. Psychological genius, Irish director. My Left Foot, the boxer. Some great films. He'd say, yeah, you're in the amniotic fluid. You're inside the motor, and you're about to come out into the light. That's cinema. Great cinema is that journey towards the light. And I love that. I love that. But it's the same for some people. Their. Their cathedral is a hike. The natural world.
- [91:15]
A
Yeah.
- [91:17]
B
Have you ever heard of Richard Rohr?
- [91:18]
A
No.
- [91:19]
B
R O H ohr. He lives in Albuquerque. He has a thing called. It's called the center of. The center of action and contemplation. And I really love it. That is that way around. And he's a Franciscan friar, but very otherworldly thoughts about the natural world and finding the divine in it as well as just in each other. But just seeing it in the world around you. I think you'd enjoy him. He's worth a read. Do you. If Rogan. Is it Irish? Is it Catholic Irish?
- [92:06]
A
Is it? Yeah.
- [92:07]
B
Right.
- [92:07]
A
Yeah.
- [92:09]
B
Okay. You might enjoy him.
- [92:11]
A
I'm sure I would.
- [92:12]
B
Yeah. He's a real beauty. He lives. He's got a little hermitage and. Yeah, and he's good. He's great on the Enneagram as well. Do you know the Enneagram?
- [92:26]
A
No.
- [92:26]
B
It's this sort of archetypal thing. Goes back to Sufi, I think. Early Sufi. And then the Christian fathers. What are they called? The desert fathers in the 4th century. But it's a way of recognizing archetypes and our own. It's not a big thing for me or anything. It's like archetypes. But I think our daughter Eve's an actor, and she said a lot of writers are interested in it. And she said in some of the clever schools, they teach this. The Enneagram. He's. Anyway, Richard Roh's an expert in it, I think.
- [93:08]
A
Here it goes.
- [93:09]
B
Oh.
- [93:09]
A
Enneagram. Three centers. Oh. Looks like a cult of intelligence. The mediator, peacemaker. So the perfectionist reformer. The giver helper, supporter, performer, achiever, romantic, individualist, the observer, thinker, the loyal skeptic, the trooper, the epicure enthusiast, generalist and the protector, the leader of the boss.
- [93:31]
B
What would you say you are?
- [93:32]
A
Oh, Jesus.
- [93:33]
B
I don't know how you could tell.
- [93:35]
A
I wouldn't. I think I just keep on keeping on. I try not to pay attention to me as much as possible. I think there's a thing that happens, what you're talking about on stage where everyone achieves a higher state of consciousness through a song. I think that's. That's where it is really like a church. That's where it is really like a religious experience when a great song is playing that like, really like when people hear it and like, ah, you know, maybe it's the first couple of bars of Sunday Bloody Sunday. They hear it and they're like, yes. It's like this thing that washes over everyone collectively. We're all experiencing a terrorist together. And it takes you away from yourself. You know, everyone's caught up in their own struggle and their. Their self and how they exist in this world and all the problems of reality. And then there's something about these moments of divine inspiration where they impact people. It's very profound way. And I think that's one of the reasons why people are so deeply drawn to music and especially live performance, because music is wonderful. Music by yourself is great. I love listening to music in my car. I love listening to music by period. But music when you're in a live setting, when everyone's experiencing it together, it's. It's a religious experience. There's something. There's something attuned to it. There's a reason why they sing in church. Right. It achieves very similar.
- [94:56]
B
Yeah, I miss that. You know, when we were kids growing up, the tunes weren't that great in the church. And I said to my. I mean, no offense to whoever was.
- [95:07]
A
There, but I agree.
- [95:08]
B
But, you know, I was like. I said to our kids, you know, and they were all. None of them were baptized Protestant or Catholic because my father was Catholic, my mother was. I just said, you want to be Christian? You want to be Christian, but you decide. I never got religion rammed down my throat. I'm certainly not going to put down yours. So we'd go. And sometimes you just get a feeling in a place. I said, just trust that feeling.
- [95:35]
A
Yeah.
- [95:36]
B
And they might say, well, the tunes aren't that good. And I'm like, it's okay, but. But I. I would. I remember when I was really young Walking in and hearing, like the Salvation army band and people singing, and I remember getting the shivers just thinking these are, these. Are these. These hymns, these ancient.
- [95:58]
A
Yes.
- [95:58]
B
Songs. They. They really connect us. And I miss that. And I think people would return to religion if religion wasn't so fucked up. And I think people, you know, the church has to serve the people and not the other way around. And, you know, the church presently, I don't know how many churches you'd have here in Austin, Texas, but I'd probably say if there's 276 different kinds of churches, you know, it's just one church. It's just in 276 bits pieces. It feels sometimes like it's at odds with science, but it's not. Science is the pursuit of truth. And so these are pilgrims too. Great scientists are trying to crack the code of the physical world. The great theologians are trying to crack the code of the metaphysical world. And nobody knows. That's the thing about literalism, you know, that beautiful thing in, you know, everyone has it at their wedding. Love is patient, love is kind. People can roll over you. Love is this. Love is that. And then it goes, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. And I remember talking with somebody and saying, well, why is love more important than faith? Why is love more important than hope? And the clue is a few verses later where it says, we see through the mirror darkly, but one day we'll see face to face. We know now in part, but one day we will know fully as we ourselves are known. You cannot be a fundamentalist and not understand that. That is an explanation. To just realize that you can have faith, you can have hope, but love means you need love. We need love because we cannot be sure. Our certainties. Our certainties, that's the scary thing. And, you know, I trust a feeling as a musician. I trust it when I'm going, you know, to sing or to improvise. But they're not certainties, they're instincts. And I love that you feel that music is still a communal place. Our festivals are amazing and. And people, people. People are deprived presently of a place where they feel comfortable. I'm comfortable in the back of a cathedral. I'm comfortable at some. What's your friend, the blues guy? Or, you know, a gospel church? I'm just looking for the spirit. Wherever I find it in a conversation. I can feel it when it's happening, when we're having an honest conversation, you feel it. It's a thing. And I'm. And I can Put down my salesman and just have a conversation. Because the three on that Enneagram is probably my number because it's so excruciating, but it's the salesman. I sell ideas as well as songs, and I sometimes just have to just. Just shut up and listen.
- [99:59]
A
I think we're all those things just to varying degrees. And I think the spirit of the thing is what you're talking about, this intangible moment where everybody realizes they're in it, whether it's in a church where they're singing or. One of my favorite moments with you was on the Jimmy Fallon show singing Ordinary Love.
- [100:21]
B
Oh, wow.
- [100:21]
A
I loved it. We played it on the podcast when it happened. The next day when it got out on YouTube, I brought it in here and I go, you gotta listen to this. This is just such an amazing rendition of a song because it's just you sitting on these chairs and Jimmy Fallon is next to you on the table. Like, this is it here.
- [100:42]
B
What a beauty.
- [100:44]
A
We played this. I want to listen to it. Let's put this on. Put the headphones on. I love this version.
- [101:09]
C
That's been lost before. For want to find us again? I can't find you anymore. You are fighting for see throws rocks together but time leaves us polished up. We can fall any further we can see you, Lord, in every love and we cannot reach any higher we can deal with more than every love. Birds fly high in the summer sky and rest on the breeze the same wind will take care of you and I We'll build our house in the trees. Your heart is on my sleeve did you put it there with a magic moth? For years I would believe that the world couldn't wash your away we can't fall any further we can feel ordinary love and we cannot reach any higher if we can deal with hard and heavy love we could fall any further we could feel ordinary love of and we cannot reach any higher if we can deal with ordinary love.
- [103:05]
B
Roots. Oh, yeah.
- [103:08]
A
Yeah. I love this part. Oh, come on.
- [103:19]
C
We cannot breathe Reach any higher if we can deal with ordinary love we can fight any further we could feel ordinary love we cannot reach any higher we can deal with qu.
- [103:42]
A
Love.
- [103:45]
B
Quiz. Love.
- [103:51]
C
You, too, everybody.
- [103:54]
A
That is. That is, without a doubt, hands down, my favorite performance ever, ever on a talk show. Ever. Because it was so. First of all, it starts out so relaxed. You're sitting on the couch and you're singing it, and you're just so on it. You're so on it that everyone just gets captivated by it. And Then the music builds and. And then you bring in roots. It's fucking phenomenal. And that's like. That is what we're talking about. That's like. This moment elevates people. It takes people out of their life. And just this joy of expression all happening simultaneously with everybody in the crowd and every. And then when you stand up and you start dancing and roots are playing, Whoa. Just watches over everybody.
- [104:37]
B
That is. It's hard that you should, should bring it up, because I'm sitting at a table with a couple of journalists, friends of a friend of mine, this economist called David McWilliams. You'd love him, by the way. He's the guy who says, the poor thinking minutes, the rich thinking years, one of his quotes. But anyway, sitting with a bunch of people, and they're from London, and this guy's going, yeah. He says, megwilliams here, he's all about you two. He's all about you. Yeah. He hasn't got any of your fucking records. I have your records. I've got all your records. I've fucking gone off you, right? Gone right off you. That fucking song, Ordinary Love Night, he's got whatever glass in his hand, and he's getting the Dutch and the British courage and the Irish courage, and he's going, that song about Mandela and all that. So I listened to it. It's like fucking nothing. And then I, I, I was watching Jimmy Fallon. You played the same song. And he said. I was in tears. He said it just something, Something happened.
- [105:59]
A
Yeah.
- [106:00]
B
So I look at it and I'm going, dodgy haircut on the singer. But I am also being defensive because I can feel something too. There is something going on. That is the thing. And you two were making an album at the moment, and it has to be framed around that. Not that song, not that even style of songwriting, but that thing, the thing, the moment, the spirit, whatever that is, and the conversation you're having with your audience, with somebody, a deep listener, by the way, that same woman who said about listening, she said, deep listening is an act of surrender. And so it's coming full circle for me.
- [106:57]
A
If you're in that audience, there's an act of surrender, for sure.
- [107:00]
B
And if you're an artist, if you're singing it.
- [107:02]
A
Yes, that's. You have to.
- [107:03]
B
Yes.
- [107:04]
A
And everyone recognizes that. That's why it resonates so.
- [107:07]
B
I mean, I, I just think if we're a rock and roll band with four people in your band, there's nobody. Sounds like Adam Clayton, you know, I mean, there's nobody sounds like Edge, so nobody sounds like Larry Mullen. And Snowboard wants to sound like me. No, no, there's. I can sing. I can sing. And I'm becoming the singer. I. I am. And that's the reason I'm still in a band. Because we all have to answer that question, don't we? Why? Why would we still be in a band? We've got to feel that it's our best album that's going to come.
- [107:43]
A
Yes.
- [107:44]
B
If it is, it's going to be because we frame it around that moment in the room when that happens.
- [107:54]
A
Yes.
- [107:54]
B
I promise you. I can't deliver that. Promise you for every song on the album, I'll come back, if you'll have me, and I'll play you some of the songs. But for the live rock and roll pieces, it has to have that.
- [108:11]
A
I recognize that you could come back anytime you want, by the way.
- [108:16]
B
Thank you.
- [108:16]
A
Anytime. But, yeah, that's what everybody wants out of entertainment, out of celebration. That's what everybody wants, these moments. And that was a real moment. That was a real moment that resonated through the television. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be in that room. And I was thinking that, like, God, I wish I was there. Because, you know, you see Will Smith and Will Smith's in the corner. You see him just taken over by the music, like, nodding his head, like, oh, my God. Just in that moment.
- [108:44]
B
It was so pure, strange resonance. I don't know if it was mentioned, but he played Nelson Mandela. No, he played Muhammad Ali.
- [108:54]
A
He played Muhammad Ali. Right, right.
- [108:55]
B
I got that wrong. That just would be funny.
- [108:57]
A
That would be funny. Yeah, but it was. That's what everybody's looking for. That's what everybody's looking for out of art, out of religion, out of just love and community. We're looking for these moments that elevate us above everything else. And there's a moment when a great performance like that, just when everyone in the audience realizes what you're doing and we're all in it together and people at home are in it. Like, that was so powerful. Everything through the television is like 60% of what it is in person at the most.
- [109:34]
B
You know, we. We used to avoid TV because it's actually Bruce Springsteen advice. Years and years ago, he said, be careful being on TV because people can turn you down. You know, they can go off to the kitchen and, you know.
- [109:50]
A
Right, right.
- [109:51]
B
Coffee. So he's kind of right about that. It can. It can take away the mystery but you know that, that studio that he's in, Jamie, you know, that's a historic place. You know, Beatles or whatever. You know, think of all the artists that have been in on. So there's something going on there.
- [110:12]
A
Oh yeah.
- [110:13]
B
And, and he, he's, he's a very beautiful spirit. He just really seems like it.
- [110:20]
A
I don't know him, but he seems like it.
- [110:21]
B
Oh yeah. I've been out late night with him. I've been, you know, in all kinds of situations and is just really a see through heart, you know, transparent person. Just. You see, you see, you see what he's thinking now, how he does that night after night, I will never know.
- [110:47]
A
Yeah, like.
- [110:49]
B
I'm terrified going on those shows. This is easy for me because I'm talking. I don't do full stops and commas, you know, I don't have to. You're not asking me to, I'm just having a conversation. But to be sharp and be on it.
- [111:06]
A
Yeah.
- [111:06]
B
I don't know if I'm going to be sharp or on it. And part of being in U2 is I have to be true to my mood and then I have to allow the song to take me somewhere else. And yeah, my. Yeah, it's a funny thing, you know. Yeah. This performing. There's not much psychology written about being in books about the psychology of a singer. Probably there is for comedians or.
- [111:39]
A
No, there's barely for comedians. I think the problem is that only the people that can truly do it understand it.
- [111:46]
B
Right.
- [111:46]
A
That's the problem, you know, the problem. And then what you're talking about, confinement for the talk show format, that's also what makes that moment so much greater is because you. Yes. It's just, it's, it, it's. It doesn't belong there. That that format is for hollow platitudes and selling a new television show and getting in and out before the seven minute commercial break. It's a very. It's the worst way to have a conversation where you're going to get the most out of people because the most that you, when you have time constraints on conversations, you immediately feel under the gun. So you're kind of like tense and you're pressured and you don't know when. And then, and then the audience is staring at you and then there's bright lights. Everything is wrong. Everything is. It's opposed to the way normal, comfortable human conversation and connection works. It works with silence around you and just people talking or in a pub or wherever you're at, you know, in a Living room with friends at a party. Like, that's the real human connection where it's open ended and you're just talking as soon as you like, lock it down. And then, you know, you have to lock it down for commercials and you have to button this up. And there's a new person coming in in five minutes. So they got a shuffle you out the door and hold up your album and tell everybody to buy it and then you leave. And like, was that good? I guess it was good. It's like, you know what I mean? It's. I, I never like doing them. I always felt confined and I would never do standup on them. I was always asked to do standup on them. Like, that's not where standup belongs. Like, but if someone can pull it off. Like, there's been great comedians that pulled off incredible Tonight show sets. Like Richard, Jenny and George Carlin.
- [113:31]
B
Yeah. Who's your favorite? I mean, apart from. I'm not gonna ask you about your mates, but people that you. We were talking earlier about singer people that I just looked up to. Who were the ones that formed you?
- [113:42]
A
Well, when I was a child, I was probably, I guess I was 15 or 16. My parents took me to see live in the Sunset Strip in a theater. And it was Richard Pryor. He performed. He did a concert special in the theater. I think it's his greatest performance. And when I was there in the theater, I was laughing so hard. And I remember very clearly looking around at all these people and they were falling out of their chairs, laughing. People were just falling back, slapping each other, going, oh, my God. Oh my God. Like they couldn't breathe. And I remember thinking, this guy is doing this, just talking. And I remember all the funny movies that I'd seen, like Stripes and, you know, all the great comedies, Animal House, funny comedies, nothing compared to this. And this guy's just talking. It was incredibly profound moment for me. I remember I got obsessed with Richard Pryor. I started buying Richard Pryor cassettes. I would buy, like whatever I could, you know, you could find them. I found a bunch that were like, you had. There were like weird printings of him at Red Fox's Comedy Club. I actually found them in a truck stop once they were selling these cassettes. I was like, what is this? And then I bought them. And they were the incredible performances. Like 15 people in the crowd. He's just ranting and going on these like unhinged rants about things and just having fun and being really loose. And I just couldn't believe that someone could do that, that he could just by talking. This theater filled with people were just falling down, laughing and just blown away. So that was probably my first thought about stand up comedy. My first real thought, just how. What a crazy power to have. Like, what an unbelievable thing to be able to do with just your words.
- [115:28]
B
Yeah, I saw Robin Williams do that a few times. I was in a room with him and I just. He just couldn't not turn it off. It was. And it was wild. He was certainly not in control of it.
- [115:40]
A
Right.
- [115:41]
B
That's. We've. There's a genius comedian called Tommy Tiernan. I don't know if you've. Sure, I've heard him again when he goes out, and he doesn't go out often because I think it scares the shite out and what he's gonna say next. And so that is the thing of having the material and then being able to blow in, just let go of the material. Yeah, that's, I think, must be part of this.
- [116:07]
A
Is it? Yeah.
- [116:08]
B
I mean, I don't know. I am.
- [116:10]
A
Yeah, it's part of it. These ideas, they come to you and you just have to decide whether to embrace them or not. I don't.
- [116:17]
B
And you get yourself into such trouble because you just. You say the thing that you thought of, but the art is in fact, being able to say the thing you've thought of. That's. It's a strange one.
- [116:28]
A
Truly realized that. And I never had any aspirations of comedy whatsoever. When I was young, when I was in. When I loved Richard Pryor, I just loved it as a fan. Just like I loved rock and roll. I didn't want to be a singer. I just loved it. And. And then I saw Kinison, and I think that was the first moment where I went, oh, this is comedy too. Wow. Okay. What is comedy? You know, because everybody else had been like, telling jokes or with prior. It was like these stories of life that was so, like, revealing and so vulnerable, but also hilarious. Like, deeply fun, just like so accurate in the caricatures of people.
- [117:10]
B
And.
- [117:10]
A
And then there was Kinison. I was like, okay, this is comedy too. And the first thing I ever saw of him, I was actually introduced to him by a girl that I worked with, a girl that I worked with at a gym. I worked at the Boston Athletic Club. I was a trainer. I was teaching people how to lift weights. And there was a lady who was a volleyball player who I was friends with that worked there. She worked the front desk. And she was like, I saw HBO last night. This Comedian was so funny. And in the parking lot of this gym that we worked out, she did Sam Kinison's bit of homosexual necrophiliacs paying a bunch of money to be with the freshest male corpses. Have you ever seen the bit?
- [117:46]
B
I haven't.
- [117:46]
A
So the bit is, the guy, he goes, imagine this. You're at the end of your life. You know you're lying. Now. You're like, well, I guess I'm dead. Now. I'm gonna be alone with Jesus, and that's gonna be great. I'm gonna be in heaven. And hey. He starts rocking back and forth.
- [117:59]
B
What is this?
- [118:01]
A
It feels like someone's got a dick in my ass. You mean life keeps in the ass even after you're dead?
- [118:07]
B
It never ends.
- [118:08]
A
It never ends. She's doing this impression. She's lying on the parking lot on her stomach, going back and forth, and I'm dying, laughing. I was like, I gotta see this. So my first introduction to Kinison was this friend of mine, her doing it on the concrete.
- [118:27]
B
You did. That was good.
- [118:28]
A
It was amazing.
- [118:29]
B
No, no, you're doing her doing.
- [118:32]
A
Oh, yeah, it was. She did a great job. She had me howling. Well, he was a huge one. Eddie Murphy, for sure. That was a huge one. But then again, that was also, like. I still didn't think I was going to do stand up until I saw Kinison. The first. When I first saw Kinison, that was when I was like, maybe I can do, because I had friends telling me to do it, but it was friends that I did martial arts with. So we would have to. From the time I was 15 till I was, like, 21, 22, all I did was travel around the country competing. And I was with this.
- [119:08]
B
Such a wild combination, if you don't mind me saying. It's just like. It just. The martial arts seems so unfunny.
- [119:16]
A
It's very unfair.
- [119:18]
B
You know, you were fighting for your life.
- [119:21]
A
It's very scary. So in the. When it's terrifying like that and everyone's nervous, that's when gallows humor comes in. And I was the guy who made. I always needed attention when I was young, so I was getting my attention from being really good at fighting, but then I was also getting my attention around the. Also the people that. Really good at fighting, at being funny. So when we were all like, you know, a bunch of fucking crazy people, their hobby was to travel around the country and trying to kick people unconscious, right? So this is the job. This is the group that I'm hanging out with. And, you know, most of them were older than me. I was the youngest because I was in high school at the time. Most of these were grown men, and I was competing against grown men while I was in high school, which is another crazy thing. My instructor was hardcore, and he threw me to the grown men when I was 16. It was terrifying. But because it was so terrifying, I developed this way of releasing steam. And so my friend of releasing my way of releasing steam, I'd make fun of different guys that we trained with having sex. Like how he probably does it and this, that. And we were always just. I was just always trying to crack people up. And I had one friend that I'm still really good friends with to this day, my friend Steve Graham, who talked me into doing stand up. And I never thought, I'm like, you think I'm funny because you like me. I go, but you're crazy too. Like, you're a fucking psychopath as well. Like, you're. You think I'm funny because you're doing the same thing that I'm doing. Like, we're nutty people. We're not normal. Other people are going to think I'm an.
- [120:49]
B
When you walked out, out, though, tell me what. How was he there when you walked.
- [120:55]
A
Out the first time? Oh, yeah, he was there the first night. Yeah.
- [120:58]
B
So. So can you paint me the picture?
- [121:01]
A
I was at a comedy club. I was terrible. Went to open mic night. I did like five minutes. It was horrible. But I got a couple of laughs, I got a couple chuckles, and I. I was like. I got off stage, I was like, I think I could do this. The weirdest thing was, like, I had probably. At that time, I was 21 years old. I'd probably fought at least a hundred times, and I was way more terrified of doing comedy. Way more imagine way more scared. Like, fighting was scary. But I was like, I know it just has to start. Once it starts, I know what to do. Like, the real fear of comedy or of fighting was before the fight. It was all the demons, all the thing. Why am I doing this? Why are you doing this?
- [121:40]
B
That's what you're really fighting.
- [121:41]
A
That's what you're fighting. You're fighting the fear. But I knew once it started, wouldn't be scared at all. Because you don't feel fear when you're fighting, because it's. You're so in the moment. You're. You're in the moment. You're Zen. You almost don't exist. You know, you have to. To operate at the highest Level to have, like, instantaneous reactions and to be able to manage your pace and all these different things. You can't think about yourself or how you look or how you feel, or whether your girlfriend's mad at you or whether you're gonna fail out of high school. You have to be locked into what you're doing. So I wasn't afraid of fighting. I was afraid of everything before fighting, I was afraid of feelings. And so. But that's where the comedy came from. The comedy came from, like, alleviating that, you know, and.
- [122:24]
B
Right. So there is a symbiosis there.
- [122:27]
A
There's. There's a thing in it. It's a task, a very complicated task. The way I describe fighting is. It's high level problem solving with dire physical consequences. That's what it really is. You could call it fighting, you could think it's an aggressive.
- [122:43]
B
That again, it might be the title of our new album, High Level Problem.
- [122:46]
A
Solving with Dire Physical Consequences. So as far as like I just.
- [122:51]
B
Met in front of the Physical Consequences. Yes, we got ourselves an album.
- [122:54]
A
Yes. It's the most consequential of all sports because when someone beats you, they don't just beat you, they take away everything you are as a man. When someone destroys you in a competition, you are not a man anymore. You are significantly decreased in your value, everything about you. You feel terrible. You are as good the day you walked in there, confident, and you still feel like shit. Where you felt like you could take on the world, you have the same skills. You're as good as you felt when you could take on the world.
- [123:31]
B
You.
- [123:32]
A
And now you feel like utter dog shit.
- [123:34]
B
And yet we know that failing is how we succeed. You know the Samuel Beckett lines. Fail, fail again, fail better. I may have failed to get the quote right, but that's it, you know, Fail, failure and fail better.
- [123:50]
A
Pain is fuel.
- [123:51]
B
Yeah.
- [123:51]
A
The pain of failure is the most potent fuel, the most potent inspiration known to man. And the more terrifying, the failure. Whether it's failure in stand up comedy or it's failure in.
- [124:03]
B
That's very high stakes. If you think about. I'm just thinking this through the second. Both your chosen passions entail the risk of humiliation.
- [124:16]
A
Yeah, you have to have that. That's the only way you get better. It's the only way you really get better.
- [124:21]
B
It's tricky.
- [124:22]
A
Yeah, super tricky.
- [124:24]
B
I grew up. My best mate since I was three years old, he gave me my name, my Bono, he gave us all names, but. And his family names. Genius, really. Painter became his painter, his Father, There was tough stuff going on on our street in their house. And he. He grew up. Well, they. The father used to. It was kind of religious extremist, let's call it that, used to humiliate the kids by putting a bowl on their hair. On their hair and cutting their hair. So they'd walk around with these pudding bowls. So everyone would be like, around, be like, ah, they were just so fast. They were all. They could all look after themselves.
- [125:16]
A
And like, the Boy Named Sue.
- [125:18]
B
It is the Johnny Cash song, Boy Named Sue. They are. They. And so Gugie, my mate, so I grew up sparring with him. This is how. Literally how he grew up. And his. So we watch all the boxing matches, all the obvious ones, and he just really went into his obsession, became mixed martial arts. So he wants his kids. He's, you know, they're going down the gym. And then my godson, okay, his name's Noah, and he comes, this is not a joke. This is not a joke. So Gugi, my mate, since I'm three years old, comes up and he goes, oh. He says, noah, he wants to give up fighting, you know, cage fighting. And I said, oh, that's okay. I said, what does he want to do? He wants to be a doctor. And I'm like, cookie, this is a really. Your kid wants to be a doctor and you're disappointed, but he could be such a great fighter. And I said, cookie, he wants to be a doctor. This is. By the way, he became a doctor. This is not. This story. That's how it ended. But I said, and he's. But he was such a good fighter. I said, why did he give up? He said, well, he's down the gym. He said, I can't even beat the best guy in the gym. If I can't beat the best guy in the gym, there's no point in me having a big career. He said, the best guy in the Gym was Conor McGregor, and he was a few years older, and then two of his other kids are fighters now.
- [126:55]
A
Wow.
- [126:56]
B
So I've grown up around it because of my mate and his kids. But that fight thing of. Of combat, being comfortable in combat is a thing you need to be careful of because you can end up there. And sometimes I do, you see, because it's an art form for you. It's a. It's a. It's a. It was a, you know, profession. It was. It's different. But people like me, fight or flight is a problem because sometimes fight is on and I. And there is no fight, right? So that's part of the shut up and listen instructions I'm receiving from, which is I'm kind of born. That's with my fists up. And I'm from every way, just growing up and being around what I was around and experiencing what I experienced. I have that. And even in the band, I'm a bit like that. And so I've got to be careful because it's not always somebody coming around the corner who wants to take you out, and they might actually just want to take you out. And it's not becoming of. To be combative at all times. So I'm learning to put my fist down. I'm learning to spend those times in the morning thanking God that I'm alive because I had a heart surgery, as we talked about earlier. And just waking up is great. Just like, wow, I've just woken up. What a thrill. And I'm trying to get to that place with. Not with the world, but with myself. I've not made peace with the world. I certainly have not. But I am making more peace with myself, which is sometimes a bit harder. And the family and listening to them more and. Yeah, that's it. This combat thing is. Is interesting. Were you in. In the neighborhood? I asked you earlier, but were there people. Is there people you can remember?
- [129:26]
A
Sure. From like.
- [129:27]
B
Like us being like, on you, on me?
- [129:32]
A
Not from the time I started training. Once I started training, I got very good very quick, and I became kind of known for it because people stopped.
- [129:40]
B
Picking because I was.
- [129:41]
A
I was doing it at a. In a crazy way. It wasn't as simple as, like, oh, he takes karate. It's like, no, he. On the weekends, he's traveling around the country and fighting in tournaments, you know, And I. I was winning them, you know, So I was. It was. I found a thing very early on that I could excel at that was scary that people. And I've realized through that thing, you can get good at anything. You just have to put your attention and focus to it and. Well, when do you put your attention to. Focus to something the most? Well, when your literal health relies on success. It was so scary that you couldn't half ass it, which is like, I have a problem with things that involve too much personality and charisma, where they could mask truth. And I think this is the problem with evangelical preachers. This is the problem with politicians and rosters, and it could be anybody, but it's like there's this siren call that will lead you to the rocks and it's believing your own Bullshit. And fighting was. It didn't matter what your personality was. It didn't matter.
- [130:51]
B
It's empirical.
- [130:52]
A
Yeah. Nothing mattered. It didn't matter how many people liked you. If you get kicked in the head, you get fucked up. And on the flip side of it, I used to love when I would go to someone else's hometown and they had all these people beating, like, cheering for them. All these people, like, you know you're going to fuck them up. All these people cheering the corn. I would love. That was my favorite thing. My favorite thing. I was like, they can't help you.
- [131:16]
B
Do you have rage?
- [131:19]
A
Me? Now?
- [131:20]
B
No, I'm just. When you're fighting, I mean, obviously, my. What we do in music is we try to turn rage into something beautiful. And that's what rock and roll is the sound of. You know, I think it was Neil Younger said, or something like, sound of revenge.
- [131:36]
A
Yeah.
- [131:38]
B
But whatever. It's rage. For sure. There's rage. That's what separates certain bands. You want to know what the difference between a pop band and a rock and roll band?
- [131:46]
A
Rage against the machine.
- [131:48]
B
And. You bet. And. And you.
- [131:50]
A
I won't do what you tell me.
- [131:51]
B
Yeah, we. We had that. And that was. That was coming through me, and I had to. So I'm just wondering where you. Where'd you get that rage from? Or maybe you didn't have it. I mean, I'm told by some people that it's like Mike Tyson had rage, but some boxers, you know, they didn't. They thought it made them weak.
- [132:15]
A
Well, it gets in the way of clear thinking. And, you know, I had this guy named Yuri Prochazka on the podcast recently. He's a brilliant fighter who's in the ufc, who is the light heavyweight champion at one point in time and is still one of the top light heavyweights in the world. And we were talking about anger and rage. And then it leads you down a bad path of decision making. When you're fighting, it interferes with the flow. It interferes with the way. And like I was saying before, when you're competing, you know, and I've never competed at that level, when you're competing at a world championship level, anything that fucks with your mind, anything where you're doubting yourself or talking to yourself or all that is resources that is being allocated towards something that's completely useless, as opposed to being, like, completely in the moment and in the zone. If you get taken out of it for a moment, if they feel for a moment that you're thinking, like you're looking for a way out, you're looking to quit. You're gone, you're done. Like when your friend was saying that his son didn't want to be a fighter anymore. This is my advice always. Whenever someone says, I'm thinking about stopping fighting, I go, quit, quit right now. Because somewhere out there there's someone who's not thinking about stopping at all. They're gonna fuck you up, they're gonna come for you. It's gonna, they're gonna, it's gonna be terrifying. You're locked in a ring with Mike Tyson and you've been thinking about getting a regular job. Like, yeah, you're fucked. You're fucked. Because there's all in people, in my opinion. I love fighting, but I think only all in people should be fighting. And the moment you're not all in, get out. You got to get out. Because the difference between an all in person and a one foot out the door person is enormous. It's enormous. Even if skill level is similar, the person who's all in is a terrifying person. They, they, all they want to do is this one thing and they're completely focused on it just being the best in the world. This one thing. They're going to find holes in you. They're going to find, they're going to find your weaknesses, they're going to push you in a way that maybe you didn't push yourself as far in the gym. So come the second round, come to third round, you start breaking down and they're not breaking down at all, they're breaking you down. It's a terrifying place to be when you know you're not all in and the other person's all in. So anybody, if that was my son, he's like, I'm thinking about quitting. Like, good, quit. That's what I'd say, quit. Find something else you love. Find what you love. You don't have to do this, but if you're going to do this, you gotta, you gotta only do this. This has to be your fucking life, right? Your fucking life. I mean, I don't want you to be a rock star and a fighter. Shut the fuck up. You can't be both. Yeah, it's not possible. If you want to do that thing, that thing is your whole life.
- [134:50]
B
There's a, I don't have any tattoos, but if I did, kind of amazing.
- [134:55]
A
You got this far without no tattoos.
- [134:57]
B
If I did, it's. I have a, there's a quote, it's from Nietzsche. And I wouldn't normally quote from Nietzsche. You know, I'm not that interested in Nietzsche, but I. He's done. He's read some. Some. Some aphorisms that I like and whatever, but in our summer place where we go to, there's a little trail called the Nietzsche Trail, and it's very. He apparently came up with this line, which is, for anything truly great to take place there requires. And this would be my tattoo, a long obedience in the same direction. O.
- [135:40]
A
That's good.
- [135:41]
B
So.
- [135:41]
A
So that's so.
- [135:43]
B
And I think of edge. When I think of that. I don't think of me. I'm. I'm sort of. I'm just. I just. My. I'm done. Just my curiosity just takes me into place I shouldn't be. But that long obedience in the same direction, that's. That's what you're talking about?
- [136:05]
A
Yes.
- [136:06]
B
Does it apply to people? To tickling? I always wondered, would it be great if you're the biggest fighter ever and just little tickle and it's like, maybe that's.
- [136:18]
A
I don't think that would work. I think people would have already tried that.
- [136:22]
B
Come on, man.
- [136:22]
A
Totally unaffected.
- [136:23]
B
Gotta do it.
- [136:24]
A
You're so filled with adrenaline, you feel t. Heckles. Yeah. You're sparked out.
- [136:30]
B
There was a comedian called Ken Dodd, I remember from Liverpool when I was a kid growing up, he had a feather. He used to just tickle people. I'll get the tattoo. You get the. You get the feather.
- [136:45]
A
The feather's awesome. It is a funny thing that that quote is so accurate. It's one of the greatest quotes of all time.
- [136:53]
B
I think it's a strong quote and it's, you know, as a person who's. He was pushing away higher, even the concept of higher consciousness for a lot of his life, and yet managing to bump into it. There's a quote of his I swear I'd read, but when we were doing the book, we couldn't find it anywhere, so I might have made it up. But he was. He was. Because that's the history of that in our family.
- [137:21]
A
Jamie will find it and.
- [137:22]
B
Well, it's not. It's. It's a Jamie. It's. It's. It's about friendship. And I don't think it's. I don't think so, but it's. The idea is that friendship is. Is. Is deeper, kind of wider, it's less dramatic than, you know, romantic love, but it is. It's. It's somehow the essence of great relationships is actually friendship. I think that's Nietzsche, but we Couldn't find it. So I may have just made it up.
- [138:04]
A
Though Love be deeper, Friendship is More Wide from like Chronicles of Narnia.
- [138:09]
B
Oh, I'll take that too.
- [138:10]
A
Something like that.
- [138:12]
B
Thank you, Jamie. I'll take it. My dad was funny. He. He used to quote this playwright, Irish playwright called Singh, you say, because he was suspicious of nationalism, because in Ireland, you know, you would be, because the country was near yet civil war and along sectarian lines. So he used to say, ireland. What is Ireland but the land that keeps my feet from getting wet? That's a great quote of Singh's. So when we did the book, Surrender Book was on Knopf, so they went off, they couldn't find it anywhere. They couldn't find the quote anywhere. Cause he made it up. And. And it's a great quote. And I think it's okay. If you say something three times, it's yours. Right?
- [138:59]
A
Yeah.
- [138:59]
B
So, you know, I'm in a band with my friends, and that friendship is pulled and pushed and it's difficult. And at some point, one of us is usually trying to break up the band. But it's a very deep bond.
- [139:20]
A
Can I say something about that? I thought was really great about the film as well. When you went into the fact that it's a true democracy in your band.
- [139:29]
B
It's annoying, isn't it?
- [139:30]
A
Well, it's. But I would expect nothing less from you. When. When you said that and I wasn't aware of that, I was like, of course. Of course that's how you would set it up.
- [139:40]
B
But we. Well, it's fine to be a democracy, but we share things also. The economics. Yes, that's where.
- [139:48]
A
Exactly, exactly.
- [139:49]
B
And. And we had a manager, Paul McGuinness, for most of our life. And it was one of these things he said, just don't ever be fighting about whose song it is. And because in the background, it's like, I want my song on the album or I've got to just get rid of that. Just share everything and make sure that you all feel a stake in each other.
- [140:10]
A
Yes.
- [140:11]
B
And. And so the arguments in U2 are never about, oh, this is my idea. So you're really stepping on my toes. We've developed, I would call a sort of band ego bigger than individual egos. Even an ego as big as mine. This is bigger, this is even bigger. And it's the quiet ones. But, yeah, I think we've learned to just the great. We don't argue about what's very good. Sorry. We do argue about what's Very good. We don't argue about what's great. So if we're talking about is that good? That chorus, now that guitar. Yeah, but it's all for a purpose. We're all just talking about. We never. But when it's great, people just back off. We just know. It's like greatness has its own. What's the word? Has its own. Brings with it a certain acquiescence to that things. And then you learn that very good is the enemy of greatness. It's not even next door neighbors like we used to be with you two. We were really crap or great. But then we got very good. Very dangerous. Being very good is not helpful because there's a chasm. Chasm between what is very good and great greatness. What you were talking about there back on Jimmy Fallon, that's a moment of greatness. It's not. Which is different from saying we were great. It was great and very good. Could be just sitting there playing the song. It's a very fine song and these are very fine players, but that could just be very good.
- [142:08]
A
It didn't make that moment that. That resonated so deeply with me that I brought it up. We played it multiple times on this podcast over the years.
- [142:16]
B
I'm really happy you did. And. And that's what the. My friend, I forget his name, or my friend I just met for the first time at the kitchen table who is. Who had, you know, had the guts to say he so disappointed because this. The recording of that song was just very good. That's really what he was saying.
- [142:38]
A
Yes, yes. You hadn't captured like. But I think that unique moment of the way you guys did it is what made it so special. It's because, you know, Jimmy Fallon's sitting there, Will Smith is sitting there, and you're just on these chairs and you're singing on the chair. So you're moving on the chair and then eventually everything picks up and you're standing up and dancing and the whole crowd like felt it. It was like this build up to it. It all flowed together. But it just.
- [143:07]
B
I haven't seen that back, by the way. Really? No, no, I haven't seen it. I'm probably saw it on the night or the next day.
- [143:13]
A
Oh, wow.
- [143:14]
B
So I haven't.
- [143:17]
A
I sent that to everybody. Yeah, I sent that to all my friends. When. As soon as it came out online, I was like, you got to see this.
- [143:22]
B
Well, thank you for. For that. But there might be something to do with the fact that the four members of that Band feel equally involved in that song. There might be. And that the democracy, which is such a pain in the hole, is actually one of the reasons that when U2 walks onto a stage, people tell me, even if they're not bands, you know, they just come along as guests. The hair come up in the back of their neck. And I explain, actually, that happens to us too. It's a strange thing when we walk out and it seems to me, I haven't figured this out, that the universe conspires to break up great relationships. Right? You fall in love. It's romantic because this is families now. This doesn't have to be your partner in life. Your wife, your husband, your families, kids, everything. It's just. The whole world just seems set against surviving. You know, all the. It just pulls at us like gravity itself. You're resisting. And so when you manage to get through it and you're standing there, the four of us, and there's something going on that feels like you've resisted gravity or whatever forces that pull you apart, there's something about it. And some nights it's really not easy and. But I mean, not the music, but the. The friendship and. But we. We. We. We've. We're through it right now and you. You feel it in these recordings and you'll feel us in a way, rediscovering each other.
- [145:35]
A
That's amazing.
- [145:36]
B
Haven't been playing for. We just played in London acoustically at the Ivor Novellas Awards. The first time in five years the four of us played together because Larry had a back injury and so. But, yeah, there's something in the chemistry.
- [145:51]
A
Well, there's also the fact that you guys continue to create because one of the things that happens to great bands is they become a prisoner to their old songs.
- [145:59]
B
Yeah, we gotta be bit careful there.
- [146:01]
A
Yeah. A lot of bands like Ordinary Love.
- [146:04]
B
That'S what's so beautiful, because that's in the last. Is that. That's like 10 years old or something.
- [146:11]
A
Something along those lines, which is a.
- [146:14]
B
Mere minute if you've been around for. We'll be around. I think the first time we met in Larry's kitchen is. It will be 50 years next fall. In the kitchen. Wow. Drummer wants musicians. Whatever. We're literally. And in the. In the film, you know, we've got the. The kitchen table, we got the chairs, you know, because I'm on the road with, you know, 250 Mack trucks and a space station and whatever else with you too. But here you could put everything into a station wagon. It's like a. Literally a table and chairs. And the chairs are Edge, Adam, and Larry. And. And I've got to. You know, I use the kitchen table as operating theater. So it starts with the heart surgery. It's the. It's the hospital bed where my father says goodbye with the. To me, with the expletive. And. And it's. And it's the kitchen table where all operas really begin in the kitchen, don't they? It's like you're sitting there. And in our case, it'd be me, my father, my brother, mother's passed, and we're just. It's just male rage in its different shapes and form. So I get to. To be on the road with a table and chairs, but then I get to bring out the chair. There's Larry. Yeah, there's Edge, there's Adam. I introduced them as chairs. And it was. It was amazing for me to have that experience of. Of doing things and telling their story. If their memoirs come out, I'm fucked. But no, I really am. But it's over, and I'm done with the past. I'm not sure the past is done with me, but I'm doing my very best to deal with the past in order to get to the present, to make this the sound of the future. So the songs on the next album, when you are, or whomever you're with or your kids or whatever, are out at the Joshua Tree or whatever it is park or at the lake here in Austin, Texas, and you're listening to our new album that we will take you somewhere. Because it has to be. These songs have to be. They have to be everything, or what's the point, Right?
- [149:05]
A
What is the creative process for you when you are. When you have a concept for a song, when you have an idea, like, how does it work? Do you do ideas just come to you? Do you sit until they come to you? Do you sit in front of a pad and write them down?
- [149:21]
B
That has never been an issue. Like, Edge of Myself are the sort of song starters. And. And, I mean, he is. I think we were counting them up the last time he, like, 526. He said. 526 songs I have here. I said, edge, they're not songs, they're ideas. And he goes, this one's a song. And I go, yeah, that might be. And. And I will have. And have stuffed in my phone and paper and Air India sick bags and wherever else I've written my life and the glimpses that you get and I don't Write out of misery. Which is great because I know some people have to be really miserable before they write. I write out of joy a lot of the time. Sometimes I'm writing my way out of a situation, but most times I'm writing my way into something and, and especially with this next album, I just think the world needs, it needs some, it needs some, yeah. Some wild guitar music, but it also does not need the blues.
- [150:40]
A
Right.
- [150:40]
B
We're in the blues right now.
- [150:42]
A
Yeah.
- [150:43]
B
And well, we're in danger. We're in danger. But you, you did say, one of your recent podcast, you were saying, hold on a second. Still more people got access to water and heat and, or air conditioning than in the history of the planet. So you want to keep. We just don't want to lose that perspective and we don't want to, you know, this incredible thing in, in 20 years. If you think about it, I mean, maternal mortality halved more than halved. And people coming out of extreme poverty. Some of this is China, some of this is capitalism, some of this is that. But it's. I do, I don't want to lose the sense of the next chapter could be our best. And that's going to need vision.
- [151:43]
A
Yeah.
- [151:44]
B
And I'm not talking about you two's.
- [151:46]
A
New album, but, but that is part of it. Because art changes the collective consciousness of a civilization. And songs that really deeply resonate with young people that have a, that, that are great songs that also have a message and carry with them conversations that people have about the songs and about what's going on in the world. It shifts consciousness. It shifts consciousness in a positive way. And those young people may grow up to become people that, that aren't corrupt politicians that aren't corrupt congress that don't give in to the lobbyists and the special interest groups, but really look out for their constituents and they, they get into it for the right reasons because everybody's going to be co opted if you don't.
- [152:27]
B
But you're right. Yeah, we better be good then. And yet. And I, for me, the go to group is Beatles. And, and I, I had this moment where Paul McCartney picked me up at John Lennon Airport. He was driving the car and brought me and kind of showed me where the different neighborhoods of the Beatles and which is an amazing experience. And he'd stop and he'd say, oh, this is where this happened. And that's where, I mean, he said, do you mind me telling you this? And I'm like, are you kidding me? And. And then he stopped at the traffic Lights. And he said, oh, yeah, that's where I had our first real kind of conversation, you know, with me and John. I said, hold on a second, I'm a bit of a Beatles student. Didn't you have that when you were in the Quarrymen and such? He says, no, no, no, no. It was different level. He bought a bar of chocolate and after the war, you know, chocolate was really hard to come by. You know, it was kind of a real luxury. And. And he bought the bar of chocolate and he didn't give me a square, he broke it. Cadbury's milk chocolate broke it in half. And I said, oh, so you're into sharing too? He said, yeah. And he says, I don't know why I'm telling you that. And he drove on. And I just thought, oh, I know why you're telling me that. Greatest collaboration, not just in music, in the history of music, maybe the greatest collaboration in the history of culture started with half.
- [154:06]
A
Wow.
- [154:08]
B
They shared. They gave it. My mate Gugi, who I just spoke about, who knows all about you and knows all about your sport, he taught me everything he had. And they came. It was tough at times, as I told you, in their accident, he just gave me half of it. Every gun, just half. So when I were in U2 and our manager McGinnis says, you should share everything, I was like, yeah, I've been sharing everything. I've been sharing everything. Anyway, and it's. And even now, Edge and myself, we're sitting in our house, you know, we share this place in the south of France. We've been there for 30 years. All our families have kind of grown up there. French are too into themselves to bother us, which is really the way we like it. And we sit there and we think the real owners are going to come, you know what I mean? Because we still don't really believe this has happened to us. And you know what? I think that's probably right, because we don't really own this stuff. You get it for a short period and then you hand it on. I think something about the four and the way we share is in the sound of our music, I think. So is that too.
- [155:33]
A
No, no, no. I think you're dead.
- [155:35]
B
I think that when you. You know. And I was just standing there with a little tambourine. Jimmy. Family. And he's. But it's him playing the tambourine and. Yeah, there's something. Again, there's not much scholarship about this type of stuff that you can read.
- [155:52]
A
Up on, but it resonates, right?
- [155:54]
B
You can feel something.
- [155:54]
A
Yeah, I believe it. I think there's something to it. You've made decisions that have sort of affirmed this commitment to a higher goal. It's not a hierarchy of, you know, who's. Who's the lead singer, who's this, who's that. It's not who's the big star. It's just we're all together to do this thing.
- [156:17]
B
I'm in a band where every member of the band thinks they're the leader.
- [156:22]
A
I think that's every band.
- [156:24]
B
And I mean, that's. And I voted for this.
- [156:28]
A
Yeah.
- [156:28]
B
And. And it's sort of great.
- [156:31]
A
Look, it's worked out, you know, and you guys are still together, you know, which is also a giant win, you know, I mean, that's difficult to run.
- [156:40]
B
Out of road any minute, but. But whiles were running down the road, it's. It's a. It's a. It's a thrill.
- [156:47]
A
I think that's also what makes it great, is the same feeling that some of the real owners are gonna come. Like. Like you never really buy into it, even though it's you. And that's.
- [156:58]
B
Yeah, that's real.
- [157:00]
A
I think we all should have that. And I think if you lose that, you're in trouble, by the way. I think we should all have that.
- [157:06]
B
I think that that's right. I call this. I'm gonna learn some of this from my wife. He used to say, don't, you know, look up to me. Don't look down at me as a woman. Look across to me. That's where I am. Okay. And there was a lesson in that about horizontal relationships rather than vertical ones. Right. I don't have a boss. I don't want to be a boss.
- [157:37]
A
Yes.
- [157:38]
B
I mean, I have that relationship with the band that is equal. Have it with my mates. And it's just. I. It's just way. I. I know it to be the most efficient. And, you know, the boss is the boss. I mean, Bruce, it's an amazing thing what he does. And it's. It's his vision, and he's found a team around him to help him realize his visions. Like you going out on. On the boards. You write your own material. It's your point of view. That's not. I'm part of. I think. Isn't there two stories. They say in cinema. There's the. The Gang and the Man Against Stranger comes to town and gets one that's. And then there's the Stranger goes off in the Odyssey. But usually there's a gang That's a different story. That's the third story. Maybe I'm in the gang.
- [158:41]
A
Yeah, comedians are in a gang too. We're in a gang at a club. We're in a gang together. Like we all convene together. And I mean, I mean a gang in terms of like a collaborative gang too. We work together, we work on ideas together, we talk about bits together. You know, especially my place at the comedy mothership. It's set up like that. The whole club was set up entirely for comedians. Completely different pay structure than any other club. Pays way more than other clubs do. The comedians get most of the money. We get most of the most. We get the money from liquor, essentially. Liquor and a small percentage of the ticket sales. But most of it goes to the comics. And the, the, the vibe of the place is not that it's my place. The vibe is that this is our place. I, I paid the bill, but I shouldn't have had that much money in the first place. It's ridiculous. Like the whole thing is crazy. Like that you could do something like this. And if you could do something like this, you're supposed to. If you're the person that for whatever reason the universe has blessed you with a lot of zeros, throw it at something fun. Let's do it. And so it's ours. And so there's, there's that in comedy too.
- [159:49]
B
You can't look, it sounds glib actually, as I said, but, you know, I've lived with. You can't out give God. No, it's like, you know, you just. The more you, the more you. That's. And that's what I'm saying also about the blessing on America. You know, one of the things I do like about some of these churches is not the ones that put pressure on you, but, you know, people will give some cash every week to help with what's going on, you know, in faraway places or whatever. And they tithe. I think they call it tithing. And it's just part of the blessing of America. It's just. Okay, so it's, it's less than 1%. It's half of 1% of the government budget to keep all these people alive all over the world. They love America because they love America. They're not going to be a problem for America. They don't love. It takes them away from terrorism, takes them away from anti Americanism. It takes them, puts points them in the direction of freedom. That's a blessing. So if you count your zeros and you say that's mine, that's ours. We're not sharing that with those people. The definition of neighbor is. Oh, just next door. Be careful. Because there is a bigger blessing out there. There's just a bigger blessing.
- [161:17]
A
And there most certainly is.
- [161:19]
B
And it sounds like you're in it. And, and, and it is in the bit, by the way. It is in the business where you'll see it because people have, have a great mouth on them. I have a big fucking mouth. But it's not about what you're talking about. It's what you're doing. It's how you're living. It's how you. It's. That's the U2 thing, is not just about the songs. It's the, it's the way you. Did you use the word way a minute ago? You said it's the way when you're fighting.
- [161:50]
A
Yeah.
- [161:51]
B
Anything that takes you away. What is, what did you mean by that?
- [161:55]
A
There's a great quote by Miyamoto Musashi. This is the guy I actually have tattooed on my right arm. It's. Once you understand the way broadly, you can see it in all things.
- [162:06]
B
Beautiful.
- [162:06]
A
Yeah. And the, the concept is he's the greatest samurai that ever lived. He killed 60 men in one on one combat with swords. He got to the point, no problem. He was killing people. He was killing people so easily he decided to stop using swords. And he would like fashion a wooden sword out of an oar from a boat on the way over to go kill the guy. So like Googie, he was an extraordinary human being. But he wrote a book on strategy called the Book of Five Rings. Yeah. And go Rin. No show the Book of Five Rings. And it's. This book is all about where's he from? Japan. All about how you. From the 1400s, you had to be balanced in everything to be a great warrior. You had to be great at calligraphy, you had to be great at poetry, you had to be an artist, you had to be able to meditate, you had to be balanced, you had to know the way and don't let any bullshit. This is the modern interpretation. Don't let your ego. Don't let other people's perceptions. Don't let insecurities in. Don't let any of these things in. Stay on the way. And the way is like this way of thought that once you, you know, everybody says how you do anything is how you do everything. This was his earliest version of it.
- [163:22]
B
This is wonderful.
- [163:22]
A
Once you understand the way broadly, you will see it in all things. It's that Nietzsche, this path to greatness, once you realize what that is like. Oh, this is. This is this intense focus and dedication to something that can be applied to anything. You could be applied. You could apply it to being a better father. You could apply it to being someone who writes books. You could. You could apply it to music. You'd apply to anything. But it's. That's what it is. It's like finding what the thing is and throwing the essence of you at that thing, like really doing it. And to do that correctly, you can't have, you know, macho issues. You can't have insecurity, things that you're compensating for. You have to be pure. You have to fight. And it's a constant struggle.
- [164:09]
B
Stunning. They are stunning insights in my path, or I suppose, or whatever you call it, my practice. I have this. I am the way, the truth, and the life. This is what I learned from Jesus. Become a bumper sticker. Probably taken the. The meaning of it away, but it's. But it's the same thing. I've got to. Because when I focus on this kind of. This radical idea to serve, you know, rather than to lead, to be no greater love and all that, all this stuff. Unfortunately, this language has been ruined for you guys. I'm so sorry.
- [164:57]
A
Kind of. But. No but we can get powerful. Yeah.
- [165:00]
B
It's real and it's. And this Jesus is a long way from the one that you meet on these kind of sales programs, but it is humility, and it is service, and it is discipline. And it is not my will, Thy will, it is indeed surrender. And anyone, wherever they are in the world, Japan in 1400s or the 15th century, wherever we. Anyone ever. Scientists, you know, the pursuit of truth, it just gathers as. Yeah, there's. There's the. There's. There's something about. I'm trying to think of the word, this sort of gathering where we will all end up in the same place if we're really. And I'm not talking about life after death as in, like, you have to, you know, enter a competition. But we all were in the same Consilience, I think, is the word. I think it was. I think it was. I don't know who wrote. Wrote a book called Consilience, but it's the idea that all disciplines, all art forms, everything comes together on a point, a kind of convergence. But the word is consilience. And if it isn't, I just made up a great word.
- [166:28]
A
It's a great word.
- [166:30]
B
Go, Jamie.
- [166:31]
A
Well, that. That. Those Moments that were. That's the book where great art hits that peak.
- [166:37]
B
Really good. Thank you. That's really good.
- [166:40]
A
Jamie's the best.
- [166:40]
B
How did you not. How long have I been talking?
- [166:44]
A
I mean, I have three hours.
- [166:46]
B
Because I. This. I mean, I don't know why you. This. My family at this point will be gone to bed. It'd be just the two of us at the front.
- [166:53]
A
Jamie's locked in. Jamie's locked in.
- [166:56]
B
They were like, see you later, dude.
- [166:58]
A
That thing, though, is like, what we all. It's what we know how hard it is to reach, too. Like, ordinary love. Like, when you guys were doing that, we know that that's not a first take, you know, that's not like you just wrote the song and you guys are out there jamming. No, that's a polished song. And the fact that you're doing this and you're doing it acoustic right there, sitting on a chair, like, everything is off, right? Like, you're not on the stage. There's not a spotlight on you. There's no mist. There's no lights. All the theatrics are removed. You're in a brightly lit studio sitting down with a bunch of people beside you, which is, like the most un Rock and roll thing of all time, right? It's corporate, almost like, no one does that. Yeah. Corporate haircut, but yet you fucking nailed it. And it. That moment, it took everybody to a better place. That's what we're all hoping for in. In everything that we're hoping for. Far from our leaders, we're hoping for that one speech, that one JFK speech where you just go, oh, my God, yes.
- [168:03]
B
That's. That's. That's the prayer. We don't want to be.
- [168:06]
A
Clinton. When he was young, he had some bangers.
- [168:08]
B
Obama.
- [168:08]
A
When he was young, they had these speeches that made us feel better about human as human beings, better about the country. That's the danger of the conflicted times that we're in, is that people don't feel good even about America. There's people that think that the American flag is a symbol of injustice. It's like, that's a crazy thought. Like, America's you, too. It's not YouTube, the band, but it's us. It's all of us human beings, regardless of your political ideology. And we got to think of that first. We're a community. We're a neighborhood. You know, we should think of ourselves as a giant neighborhood, and we don't. We think of ourselves as opposing tribes that are in this battle to stay in control of whatever the direction of the country is. And it's being orchestrated by artificial intelligence bots that are constantly battling with people online and state actors and intelligence agencies and money. And all this shit is together. And it's all confusing everybody as to what is the purpose of being a human being that's alive with other human beings. The purpose is community communing. We're supposed to be a United States. We're supposed to be a community. And all the differences that we have, the political differences in the idea, they should be so fucking secondary that it should be a small part of the elections. A small part of the election should be policy. Because we should just all agree that we should figure out, you want to have a good use of AI, Figure out what's the objective, best use of resources to support the collective whole. And how does that get accomplished? How does that get accomplished without fraud and waste? And what's the best way to navigate where it doesn't have fraud? That should be done whether it's Democrats or Republicans. It should be like, what are we looking for? We're looking to clean up the lakes. We're looking to stop pollution. We're looking for clean energy sources. We're looking for education. We're looking for healthcare. We're looking for housing. Free choice. We're looking to get people off the streets that have mental health issues and get them help. And don't just give them fentanyl and give them money for needles. That's stupid. Don't let them camp on the street. That's stupid. Also stupid. Ignoring them. Right. That's stupid too. So real resources. And once we do that, we could all do better. The whole country can do better. We'll be less at each other's throats. There'll be less anxiety. It can be accomplished. But we have to address the primary factor in this country for crime and horrible behavior. It's completely disenfranchised neighborhoods. It's areas that have been fucked since the 1940s, and they're not doing anything to change them. And no one's pouring any resources to try. There's no plans to try to revitalize these communities and elevate these people out of like, dire poverty and gang violence and. And drug use. There's a way to do it. It's not impossible, but there's no resources put at it at all. That should be another thing. That shouldn't be a Republican thing or a Democrat thing. Why should we spend money on that? It shouldn't be. It should be community.
- [171:23]
B
Look, the people who voted for Donald Trump, who I'm not a fan of, and I know you have respect for him and I respect that, but don't. The people who voted for him, I have immense respect for them and their sense that they felt left out of the American dream. A lot of people, and in so many ways, when the world got globalized and a lot of people did very well out of that, particularly in the global south, but everyone in America, I think, you know, a lot of people, a lot of communities paid the price for that. And I don't know what the pie was grown. Nafta, I think, was supposed to be a trillion dollars. It ended up being the pie. I think it was one and a half trillion. So there was enough money to reinvest in communities, but it never happened. And so people were pissed off if. And I think we should be with those people. I'm not sure this is going to be the answer that they were looking for. And if it's not, I would encourage people because I'm not American, I don't vote, I'm Irish. Just. You'll know I trust in the wisdom of crowds. I really do. I mean, you too. And Americans will know, and they must. I can see where they're going right now. They're trying out this new version of themselves and where. It's where we're not interested in the wider world as much. We're trying to fix our own problems. I would say they are bound up in each other. And I would say there's a higher purpose for America than the one that's been offered presently. But I don't want to get into the politics.
- [173:18]
A
I think it's an overcorrection. Yeah, I think.
- [173:21]
B
I just don't. You know, I really hope so, because we really, really, really need you, the world. We need America and this, this European project. We have a land war on the outskirts of Europe. It is the most astonishing thing and. And we don't know what's next. Poland. Have you ever, you know, the Polish people have 2 million Ukrainians staying with them. They never complain. These are the most remarkable people you'll ever meet. There's all that money that was invested in by, guess who, George C. Marshall, an American general who became Secretary of State, who had the cleverness, say, after the war, the Second World War. And I think it was like 4% of the GDP was invested in the rebuilding of Europe. And the idea was we have to make Europe succeed, and that's how we will defeat Communism and So when Ronald Reagan pronounced a death sentence on the Soviet Union, and the reason Mikhail Gorbachev threw his hands up and said, we've got this project is over, is because he knew that people could see it was dysfunctional. He knew there was a better life across the wall, the other side of the Iron Curtain. And sometimes it takes putting your money where your mouth is to show what freedom is. America did that. We owe America. And we need you. That's all I want to say. We need you. And together, wow, there's 450 million people in Europe. It's like, you know, we don't be fighting with Canadians, the Mexicans here. You put all this together. This is formidable. And these boring people who are listening to you, probably tuning in now, what they're saying, they said something about the good's country. Like, it. And he ate the mushroom. It's like, you wouldn't know. You've never been lifted by music, sir. You know? You know, you wouldn't know. You send people to death, build some polonium up the bum. This is like, come on. It's like, come in, your time's up. And, you know, I know we want to rewrite history and all the rest of it, but. But he can't do that. We are free people, and it is great to be free. And I don't want to stop singing songs about freedom. I want to be it. And that's what we talked about earlier. And that's.
- [176:26]
A
I think as human beings, there's a constant struggle. I think there's a constant struggle to find the path. And I think we go through a series of overcorrections and a series of going really far left and really far right and, you know, order disorder reorder.
- [176:43]
B
Yeah, that's a Richard Rohr's thing.
- [176:45]
A
It's part of the battle of good and evil. There's. There's a thing that.
- [176:48]
B
Well, do you believe there's good and evil?
- [176:50]
A
I do.
- [176:50]
B
I do.
- [176:51]
A
I believe it. I think it's naive to think that if evil acts occur, there is no true evil. I think it's naive. And evil acts are undisputable. And the concept of evil has always existed, I think, and we can become part of it. Yes.
- [177:05]
B
You've seen it outside a pub when people. Somebody's down. Kid goes down, people are just kicking. You've seen it at a football match in American football, you don't. But in Europe in football and soccer, you see mad violence. And it's like a spirit. You can watch it in a crowd.
- [177:23]
A
Yeah.
- [177:24]
B
And it's. We've, you know, look, we've. We've all been part of it. Not. It's not like we're separate from it.
- [177:32]
A
Right.
- [177:32]
B
It's an. It's an entanglement.
- [177:33]
A
Right.
- [177:34]
B
But rarely is evil so obvious. There's great. There's a great book by Bulgakov called the Master and the Margarita. Have you heard about this?
- [177:46]
A
No.
- [177:46]
B
The devil appears in the rooftops of Moscow and he goes, oh, this is gonna be fun. Nobody believes I exist. It's one of the great. The stone. Sympathy for the Devil. I think that's inspired by him. But this. It's insidious. Sometimes evil is harder to spot. But I think we know. We kind of know it when we see it at full force.
- [178:13]
A
We just can't be afraid of sounding foolish. And when you say that I think evil's a real thing. You can say.
- [178:21]
B
You can't measure it. You can't prove it exists, but, you know, that's what I say. But science, science, we need science. We don't need science to prove that evil exists. We need religion to suggest that it exists and how we might deal with it and in ourselves. First, I would suggest you were talking about fighting. The biggest opponent would appear is indeed yourself. You're up against yourself. I've got to that place. And I'm not a sportsman combatant, but just in my own walk. I really is. Wow. All these people I thought I was, you know, I was up against, you know, in my head. It's. It's yourself.
- [179:10]
A
Yes.
- [179:10]
B
I love this thing of the way. I'm gonna remember that. And I love the truth. And I love. I love being alive. I love the life. I'm gonna. I'm gonna hold on to that.
- [179:25]
A
Please do. And keep doing whatever you're doing, man. I appreciate you very much. Thank you. Thank you for coming here.
- [179:30]
B
It was a lot of fun. Absolutely. And absolutely I enjoyed it.