Happy birthday, life's just starting!!!!!
Sunday, May 10, 2020
Bono: '60 SONGS THAT SAVED MY LIFE'
To mark his birthday, a special playlist from Bono... and words of gratitude.
Play Bono's '60 Songs That Saved My Life' below or click to listen on your preferred music service.
'These are some of the songs that saved my life,' writes Bono, as he shares a special birthday playlist titled '60 Songs That Saved My Life'. 'The ones I couldn't have lived without… the ones that got me from there to here, zero to 60… through all the scrapes, all manner of nuisance, from the serious to the silly… and the joy, mostly joy.'
The four hour plus playlist stretches from the formative 45s of his teenage years to later collaborations with some of his heroes, as well as tracks by younger artists like Billie Eilish, the same age now, 18, as Bono when he wrote his first song.
Long before he was making music, he was a music fan and along with these 60 songs he's penning a series of letters to their creators and family members.
'I wanted to thank the artists and everyone who helped make them… They were doing the same for me… I am writing a fan letter to accompany each song to try and explain my fascination…'
Bono is sharing the first six letters today, with more coming in the week ahead.
'I wanted to thank the artists and everyone who helped make them… They were doing the same for me… I am writing a fan letter to accompany each song to try and explain my fascination…'
Bono is sharing the first six letters today, with more coming in the week ahead.
Writing about ‘Miserere' to Alice, daughter of Luciano Pavarotti he says, 'I can hardly remember what it was about... other than forgiveness that is… and a toast to being alive.’
To Billie Eilish (and Finneas) he says, of ‘everything i wanted’, ‘I step inside your song and it’s a black beauty, achingly awesomely vulnerable and terrifying, fearliess and worrisome… but you are not worried by all that.’
Writing to Duncan, son of David Bowie, he recalls, 'When I heard your Dad's song LIFE ON MARS? on the radio in 1973, I was hiding under the covers of my bed in 10 Cedarwood Roadlistening to a pirate radio station called Radio Caroline. I wasn't thinking about the question mark in the title… I wasn't bothered about the dramatic inquiry “is there life on Mars?”… The song was answering a much more important question when I was 13… Is there intelligent life on earth? It was proof as far as I'm concerned.'
To the members of Kraftwerk, who lost Florian this week, Bono recounts how 'The Man Machine' stole his heart and mind as a teenager. 'I gave Ali a copy to romance her on her 17th birthday in 1978… NEON LIGHTS is a song that brought into being a future that has now become so familiar, it is easy to forget just how strange it was.'
'You wrote songs so you could be in them,' he writes to Nile Rodgers. 'And that light touch is never better than on this one', referring to Daft Punk's Get Lucky featuring Rodgers and Pharrell. 'You are a reason to believe in what's possible,' he writes to Pharrell, 'You are a reason to believe in THE IMPOSSIBLE.'
And to Shara Nelson and Massive Attack, he sends gratitude for Safe From Harm, 'Thanks for giving me permission to not fully let go of the rage behind all vulnerability… it can propel.'
Read each letter in full in our gallery above - we'll be adding to it over the next few days.
Read each letter in full in our gallery above - we'll be adding to it over the next few days.
Play Bono's '60 Songs That Saved My Life' here or click to listen on your preferred music service.
Add your reactions in the comments below.
60 Songs That Saved My Life
1. Luciano Pavarotti, Bono & Zucchero - Miserere
2. Sex Pistols - Anarchy In the UK
3. Kanye West - Black Skinhead
4. Billie Eilish - everything i wanted
5. David Bowie - Life on Mars?
6. The Beatles - I Want to Hold your Hand
7. Ramones - Swallow My Pride
8. The Clash - Safe European Home
9. Public Enemy - Fight The Power
10. Patti Smith - People Have the Power
11. John Lennon - Mother
12. The Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday
13. Elton John - Daniel
14. Andrea Bocelli- Con Te Partiro
15. Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel
16. Johnny Cash - Hurt
17. This Mortal Coil - Song to the Siren
18. Kraftwerk - Neon Lights
19. The Fugees - Killing Me Softly With His Song
20. Prince - When Doves Cry
21. Daft Punk feat Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers - Get Lucky
22. Madonna - Ray of Light
23. JAY-Z feat Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind
24. Talking Heads - Love Goes to Building on Fire
25. Lou Reed - Satellite of Love
26. The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony
27. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
28. New Order - True Faith
29. R.E.M. - Nightswimming
30. Adele - Chasing Pavements
31. Arcade Fire - Wake Up
32. Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven
33. Oasis - Live Forever
34. Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
35. Gavin Friday - Angel
36. Massive Attack - Safe From Harm
37. Kendrick Lamar feat U2 - XXX
38. Bob Marley & The Walers - Redemption Song
39. Echo and the Bunnymen - Rescue
40. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
41. Pearl Jam - Jeremy
42. Bob Dylan - Most of the Time
43. Beyoncé feat Kendrick Lamar - Freedom
44. Depeche Mode - Walking In My Shoes
45. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms
46. Simon & Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence
47. Coldplay - Clocks
48. INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
49. New Radicals - You Get What You Give
50. Angélique Kidjo - Agolo
51. Lady Gaga - Born This Way
52. Frank Sinatra & Bono - Under My Skin
53. David Bowie - Heroes
54. Simple Minds - New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)
55. Sinéad O'Connor - You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart
56. Van Morrison - A Sense of Wonder
57. Bruce Springsteen - There Goes My Miracle
58. Daniel Lanois - The Maker
59. Peter Frampton - Show Me The Way
60. Bee Gees - Immortality - Demo Version
Saturday, May 9, 2020
Bono at 60
BONO TURNS 60 ON SUNDAY. MAYBE IT’S TIME TO ASK WHAT IT IS THAT HAS MADE HIM THE MOST FAMOUS IRISHMAN OF THE PAST CENTURY
After he had become a superstar, Bono tried to impress his father by introducing him to Julia Roberts in a nightclub. Bob Hewson muttered to his son: “Pretty woman? My arse!” Bono recalled in a 2005 book of interviews by the French journalist and music critic Mishka Assayas that Bob applied the same determination to be unimpressed to his own offspring: “He took the Dublin position of ‘My son, the fucking idiot.’”
The Dublin position has never entirely changed. Bono may be the first Irish person since Bernard Shaw to have become a truly global celebrity. For millions of people around the world, he is the face of Irish creativity and compassion. Yet at home there is always that familiar muttering: “Rock god? World saviour? My arse!”
In ancient Rome, a conquering general parading in triumph would employ a slave to walk beside him and whisper in his ear, “Remember you are mortal.” That is one expense Bono has been spared. Remember? Could he ever forget?
After he had become a superstar, Bono tried to impress his father by introducing him to Julia Roberts in a nightclub. Bob Hewson muttered to his son: “Pretty woman? My arse!” Bono recalled in a 2005 book of interviews by the French journalist and music critic Mishka Assayas that Bob applied the same determination to be unimpressed to his own offspring: “He took the Dublin position of ‘My son, the fucking idiot.’”
The Dublin position has never entirely changed. Bono may be the first Irish person since Bernard Shaw to have become a truly global celebrity. For millions of people around the world, he is the face of Irish creativity and compassion. Yet at home there is always that familiar muttering: “Rock god? World saviour? My arse!”
In ancient Rome, a conquering general parading in triumph would employ a slave to walk beside him and whisper in his ear, “Remember you are mortal.” That is one expense Bono has been spared. Remember? Could he ever forget?
Adam Clayton talks about his experiences in lock down and the importance of looking after your mental health.
"Sixty for a musician, as indeed the Rolling Stones have showed, you're actually only half way through your career," Adam says of Bono's big birthday tomorrow
Adam Clayton Zoomed in to talk to Ryan Tubridy last night on the Late Late, just twelve hours or so after Tubs had been joined on his Radio 1 programme by the soon to be 60 Bono.
Sporting an impressive lockdown beard, Adam was appearing in support of Pieta House, the suicide prevention and bereavement organisation who've been forced to lay off many of their frontline counsellors due to the COVID-19 related postponement of their key Darkness Into Light fundraiser, which would have taken place this weekend.
First, though, he talked about what Ryan called his "rather roundy birthday."
"Well, he laughed, "it was 60. I feel very lucky to be here at 60. From the way I lived my life it might not have happened! At the time I was planning to have lunch with a few friends but it was the beginning of March and we started to hear all the information coming in from Italy and we just thought time to start isolating so we cancelled it and hopefully at some point in the future we can celebrate."
Asked about deciding to self-isolate in Ireland, Adam said: "I feel very, very safe here. I think the restrictions came in at exactly the right time. Our neighbours maybe didn't do it quite so well. I'm very glad we have a health care professional running our country. So I think we've done all the right stuff and everyone's working really hard and that's why we're very happy to be part of the community."
Moving on to the ten million U2 have donated to medical workers, Adam reflected: "First and foremost, if I can take you back to eight weeks ago when all this was happening first, everyone was trying to get a handle on it and understand what was going on and there was tremendous competition for PPE out there. We, and Bono in particular through his contacts at RED and One and his circle of philanthropic people, were able to get us to the top of the list and make sure we were getting access to quality PPE. And then for us to be able to make that donation and use our money it was an absolute honour, anyone would do that."
Moving on to Pieta House, Adam reflected: "It's hugely stressful for people to be inside in small spaces maybe with children, maybe having to work from home if people still have their jobs. Maybe having access to a computer maybe not. That sort of stress and anxiety about what's happening to your job, the fact you have no personal space to even make a phone call on your own, this causes anxiety and for anyone who's under that sort of pressure - and Pieta's what we're all here for - there is help out there. It's hugely difficult to manage and in an isolated state when you're just stuck with your own head and the thoughts going on inside it, that is extremely stressful."
Returning to his own milestone of hitting 60, and the battles it took to get there, Adam resumed: "I guess it was honesty and admitting that I needed to be part of a community, I needed some sort of fellowship. Some sort of relationship with other human beings to talk about what was going on for me. Also, for me as somebody doing very well in my career, when I looked around at my contemporaries it was hard for to face that I was so unhappy within myself because everything around me was telling me that I should be on top of the world, that this was the greatest thing that could happen to me. But there was a sense of emptiness. That's what addiction brings; where you start to have a desire to get away from feelings. You have a very low sense of self-worth. I was lucky. I was able to take the time and I could afford to go into rehab and I really learned how to think and be a human being in that situation. It gave me my life back. I have an amazing life. I can enjoy having a wife and a child and my bandmates and I can also accept that I need a community to keep me well. I can stay in touch with people on the phone, I'm able to use Zoom now even though we're in this lockdown situation. I got my life back, that was twenty odd years ago now."
Asked whether U2 might have ended if he hadn't overcome his demons, Adam replied: "To be fair to everyone including myself, I don't think any of us understood what was going on back then. We'd all grown up on the mythology of rock 'n' roll and as a young man you feel invincible. I got to the point where my alcoholism, which it was primarily, was taking me away from the one thing that had given me a good life, the one opportunity I had in life was music. I was tired of not being able to reach my full potential and I suppose eventually I had matured enough to realise that alcohol was holding me back."
Put to him that there's an upside to being able to take his foot off the pedal for a couple of months, Adam agreed that: "I have to say that I'm very much enjoying it. As a jobbing musician you spend all your time on the bus, you're travelling all the time and even if we're not touring I might be going somewhere. So to be in the same place for eight weeks and to be in Dublin this time of year is a real blessing. I'm up in the wilds of Rathfarnham, I'd love to say we're growing our own vegetables and I was chopping wood and doing other manly things, truth is I'm watching too much television!"
Ryan ended by asking if he'd be Zooming Bono on Sunday to wish him a happy 60th.
"Absolutely, I'll be celebrating. The thing about these 60th birthdays is that it's very important to the person going through it, and also an opportunity to look back and assess where things have gone and I would have to say for us it's been pretty good to us, we're in pretty good shape. Sixty for a musician, as indeed the Rolling Stones have showed, you're actually only half way through your career.
"I'm very happy. I got to it late in life. I got out of my own ways, they say. I got married late in life and had children late in life and I'm really enjoying having a three-year-old who can say the word 'magnolia' which is very impressive!"
Sporting an impressive lockdown beard, Adam was appearing in support of Pieta House, the suicide prevention and bereavement organisation who've been forced to lay off many of their frontline counsellors due to the COVID-19 related postponement of their key Darkness Into Light fundraiser, which would have taken place this weekend.
First, though, he talked about what Ryan called his "rather roundy birthday."
"Well, he laughed, "it was 60. I feel very lucky to be here at 60. From the way I lived my life it might not have happened! At the time I was planning to have lunch with a few friends but it was the beginning of March and we started to hear all the information coming in from Italy and we just thought time to start isolating so we cancelled it and hopefully at some point in the future we can celebrate."
Asked about deciding to self-isolate in Ireland, Adam said: "I feel very, very safe here. I think the restrictions came in at exactly the right time. Our neighbours maybe didn't do it quite so well. I'm very glad we have a health care professional running our country. So I think we've done all the right stuff and everyone's working really hard and that's why we're very happy to be part of the community."
Moving on to the ten million U2 have donated to medical workers, Adam reflected: "First and foremost, if I can take you back to eight weeks ago when all this was happening first, everyone was trying to get a handle on it and understand what was going on and there was tremendous competition for PPE out there. We, and Bono in particular through his contacts at RED and One and his circle of philanthropic people, were able to get us to the top of the list and make sure we were getting access to quality PPE. And then for us to be able to make that donation and use our money it was an absolute honour, anyone would do that."
Moving on to Pieta House, Adam reflected: "It's hugely stressful for people to be inside in small spaces maybe with children, maybe having to work from home if people still have their jobs. Maybe having access to a computer maybe not. That sort of stress and anxiety about what's happening to your job, the fact you have no personal space to even make a phone call on your own, this causes anxiety and for anyone who's under that sort of pressure - and Pieta's what we're all here for - there is help out there. It's hugely difficult to manage and in an isolated state when you're just stuck with your own head and the thoughts going on inside it, that is extremely stressful."
Returning to his own milestone of hitting 60, and the battles it took to get there, Adam resumed: "I guess it was honesty and admitting that I needed to be part of a community, I needed some sort of fellowship. Some sort of relationship with other human beings to talk about what was going on for me. Also, for me as somebody doing very well in my career, when I looked around at my contemporaries it was hard for to face that I was so unhappy within myself because everything around me was telling me that I should be on top of the world, that this was the greatest thing that could happen to me. But there was a sense of emptiness. That's what addiction brings; where you start to have a desire to get away from feelings. You have a very low sense of self-worth. I was lucky. I was able to take the time and I could afford to go into rehab and I really learned how to think and be a human being in that situation. It gave me my life back. I have an amazing life. I can enjoy having a wife and a child and my bandmates and I can also accept that I need a community to keep me well. I can stay in touch with people on the phone, I'm able to use Zoom now even though we're in this lockdown situation. I got my life back, that was twenty odd years ago now."
Asked whether U2 might have ended if he hadn't overcome his demons, Adam replied: "To be fair to everyone including myself, I don't think any of us understood what was going on back then. We'd all grown up on the mythology of rock 'n' roll and as a young man you feel invincible. I got to the point where my alcoholism, which it was primarily, was taking me away from the one thing that had given me a good life, the one opportunity I had in life was music. I was tired of not being able to reach my full potential and I suppose eventually I had matured enough to realise that alcohol was holding me back."
Put to him that there's an upside to being able to take his foot off the pedal for a couple of months, Adam agreed that: "I have to say that I'm very much enjoying it. As a jobbing musician you spend all your time on the bus, you're travelling all the time and even if we're not touring I might be going somewhere. So to be in the same place for eight weeks and to be in Dublin this time of year is a real blessing. I'm up in the wilds of Rathfarnham, I'd love to say we're growing our own vegetables and I was chopping wood and doing other manly things, truth is I'm watching too much television!"
Ryan ended by asking if he'd be Zooming Bono on Sunday to wish him a happy 60th.
"Absolutely, I'll be celebrating. The thing about these 60th birthdays is that it's very important to the person going through it, and also an opportunity to look back and assess where things have gone and I would have to say for us it's been pretty good to us, we're in pretty good shape. Sixty for a musician, as indeed the Rolling Stones have showed, you're actually only half way through your career.
"I'm very happy. I got to it late in life. I got out of my own ways, they say. I got married late in life and had children late in life and I'm really enjoying having a three-year-old who can say the word 'magnolia' which is very impressive!"
Please donate at https://www.darknessintolight.ie/sunrise-appeal or Lo-Call 0818 767300 (Ireland Only)
Watch the interview here:
https://www.hotpress.com//https://www.rte.ie/
Friday, March 13, 2020
TEN REASONS TO CELEBRATE ADAM CLAYTON
Ten Reasons To Celebrate Adam Clayton
Poet and playwright, Gary Jermyn has known U2 since schooldays. Who better than an old friend to pay tribute as the firstborn of the band arrives at a milestone birthday.
Apart from 'being one of the great bass guitarists of all time' Gary came up with another ten reasons to celebrate Adam Clayton.
HE HAS A KEEN SENSE OF BU-BA-BU
Adam was born in Chinnor, Oxfordshire on 13 March 1960, the same day as Ukrainian poet Yuri Andrukhovych was born in Ivano-Frankivsk. Yuri co-founded the famous Bu-Ba-Bu poetic group which translates as 'burlesque, side-show, buffoonery'. Adam too loves a wee bit of Bu-Ba-Bu. For example, he knows how to make a snow angel.
When our kids were small, Adam invited us to lunch at his home in Rathfarnham at the foothills of the Dublin mountains. It was winter and it had been snowing, which is not something that happens often in Ireland. We went for a walk in the woods and when we came to a clearing, Adam lay on his back in the snow. The kids thought he was mad. Then he started moving his arms up and down, and his legs from side to side. The kids thought he was madder. "I'm a snow angel" he shouted and suddenly they realized what he had become. Then they all lay in the snow and turned themselves into snow angels!
HE'S GREAT WITH KIDS
We were on holidays with our two kids in Venice and it was New Year's Day. All was quiet. My wife & I had been up early trying to entertain the kids, climbing bell-towers and counting bridges. Adam paid us a visit and bought the kids hot chocolate and Prada runners. He offered to give us a break. He took the kids for a walk through the narrow alleyways between the canals. As they headed off, I caught a glimpse of them chatting away, about what I don't know. Then I saw my 5 year-old son Charlie reach out his hand, and Adam taking hold of it. That movement of one small hand reaching out for the other is forever etched in my memory, and always makes me smile.
HE LOOKS OUT FOR OTHERS
Adam told me a long time ago that its important to look out for friends who live on their own. He explained that they are more vulnerable; they need more looking out for than people who live with a partner or a family. He's really good at checking in with friends and I know how much they appreciate that.
HE LOVES HIS GRANNY
Who doesn't ? But I remember in those early U2 days when U2 were playing Wembley Arena for the first time, with The Waterboys as support, we met at the Millennium Hotel in Sloane Street and the band had organized a bus to bring family and friends out to the gig. It was my first time to travel to a gig in such style, in a bus with a TV! I sat beside Adam's granny and she spent a lot of the journey telling me how proud she was of all her grand-children. But she was particularly proud of Adam that night!
HE'S NOT INSTANTLY RECOGNISABLE AS A ROCKSTAR
A few years ago when U2 were playing the O2 in London, Adam dodged the notorious London city centre traffic by taking the Tube to his own gig, and he wasn't hassled at all. Another time, we were at a birthday party near Wexford Town and we stayed in a B&B on the edge of town with notions of grandeur. At breakfast the next morning, the waitress asked me for my autograph. I asked who she thought I was. "You're Adam Clayton from U2" she replied. I turned to the staircase, Adam was descending in a leopard print bathrobe and blue suede slippers. "This is the man you seek" I said, and the waitress was thrilled as Adam gave her his autograph.
HE IS A SNAPPY DRESSER
Apart from one photograph of Adam wearing a chamberpot on his head after an early show in the Project Arts Centre, with the Virgin Prunes in support, he always comports himself in a very stylish manner. He scrubs up well, when he wears a suit he can look like a Tory politician, and he has a great taste on stage in t-shirts and leather jackets, frequently channeling Paul Simonon of The Clash. After a gig, he has a beautiful skyblue Kimono in which to relax and meet wellwishers. He is always "on trend" which is in no small way due to the help and guidance of his stylist Sharon Blankson! And of course, occasionally he wears nothing at all - even on the cover of an album.
HE HAS A BEAUTIFUL SPEAKING VOICE
Not only has he a beautiful speaking voice, but he speaks with beautiful and inspiring clarity. Examples of this: Just listen to Adam speaking the last verse of "Your Blue Room" on Passengers; his interview with Ryan Tubridy on RTÉ Radio to launch the thirtieth anniversary tour of The Joshua Tree in early 2017; or the honesty of his speech later that year when he talked about his recovery from addiction, at a MusiCares MAP Fund concert in New York.
HE IS GENEROUS IN SHARING LESSONS HE HAS LEARNT
At that MusicCares concert, Adam was honoured with the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award. He thanked Edge, Bono and Larry, his band colleagues in U2, Pete Townsend from The Who and Eric Clapton, who he said was always there on the end of the phone for him, to help him through this difficult time in his life. But Adam too learnt from the help he received, and passed it on. A simple case in point: I have a young musician friend who has struggled over the years with alcohol addiction. It's really hard for musicians because there's so much gigging is in pubs and clubs, at night, surrounded by temptation. I asked Adam would he mind calling my pal and having a chat with him. Adam was brilliant, called him up, shared his experiences, difficult as they were, and provided great support. He was, like Eric Clapton had been for him, always at the end of a phone.
HE HAS GREAT TASTE IN ART
"The Birth of Venus" is a renaissance painting by Sandro Botticelli which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery. It depicts the goddess Venus (as naked as Adam Clayton on the Achtung Baby album cover) on a scallop shell being blown ashore by the wind-god Zephyr. Five hundred years later Andy Warhol did a series of screenprints inspired by Botticelli's Venus in which he turned Venus into a Hollywood Starlet. Adam has a version of this in his house. Both Adam and Mariana share a passion for contemporary art.
HE IS KIND
It was the novelist Henry James who said "Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." In my experience, Adam is kindness personified. I am lucky to know him.
https://www.u2.com/
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Saturday, October 19, 2019
Larry Mullen Jr. giving a keynote speech at ISHA2019 in Madrid
Larry delivering a keynote speech in Madrid, to advocate for health equity in orthopaedics.
“I’m one of the privileged... It’s not about me it’s about everybody else.", on how everyone should be able to access the level of care he had for his surgeries.
ISHA has been the creation of many individuals, each united by a common interest in the expanding arena of hip arthroscopic surgery. Officially formed in Paris (France) in May 2008, ISHA’s Founding Members represent but a few of the many individuals around the world who are interested in this evolving area of hip surgery.
Adam Clayton Chooses Songs on “Time to Listen”
Adam Clayton has appeared all week long on Absolute Radio in the UK, on Danielle Perry’s show. The show was focused this week on promotion of mental health conversations, and throughout the week a special segment called “Time to Listen” aired. Adam Clayton appeared on the segment on each of four nights, starting Monday October 14, and wrapping up on Thursday October 17.
The four songs that Adam chose to highlight this week are the following:
“Substitute” by The Who
“Into the Valley” by The Skids
“Helter Skelter” by The Beatles
“Anarchy in the UK” by The Sex Pistols
Adam Clayton has been supporting mental health initiatives for many years, most notably for his work with Walk In My Shoes in Ireland.
The members of U2 have often contributed playlists to various publications and we have collected others here, including Adam Clayton’s all time favourite tracks which he contributed to GQ. Although that playlist contained tracks from The Who, The Beatles and The Sex Pistols, none of the songs listed above were included in the list.
Aaron J. Samshttps://www.u2songs.com
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Bono appears on the second episode of Hozier’s “Cry Power” podcast.Hozier has created this podcast in collaboration with Global Citizen. The podcast series will see Hozier speak with musicians, artists, writers, campaigners about how to take action and change the world.
www.globalcitizen.org
https://hozier.com/cry-power-podcast/
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
U2 TO WORK ON NEW ALBUM SOON, RYAN TEDDER SAYS MAKING IT "WILL BE EASIER"
In an interview today with the Italian music news site Rockol, Ryan Tedder said U2 asked him to meet them in Los Angeles to start work on U2's next album.
"I spoke to them just last week. We will work together on some new pieces when I am in Los Angeles," Tedder told Rockol.
"I think it's their intention to make a record the last two. It will be easier. You know, it's like a pendulum.
When you make a very produced album, with so many instruments in it, the next project you want it more what if the disc had the sound of four musicians playing in a room?" Tedder, whose songwriting, production and performance credits on hits for U2, Beyoncé, Madonna, Adele and Taylor Swift have elevated him to an elite status, is also man to releasing a new One Republic album next month and a new tour in the summer of 2020.
"Working with a band like U2," comes with difculties Tedder said in his interview with the Italian language site Rockoi. "Bono and The Edge are like conductors. They assemble the songs by taking the melody from a demo, the chords from another, the strings from a third audition. With them a song is never nished."
"U2 are the best group on the planet, but with them it is not uncommon to produce 70 versions of a single song," Tedder said. There is no indication at this time as to when Tedder will be in Los Angeles to work with U2. One Republic has not announced any performances for Los Angeles for t U2's The Joshua Tree Tour 2019 begins November 8 in Auckland, New Zealand.
As a matter of speculation only, U2 might choose to conduct some tour rehearsals in and could work on new songs with Tedder as soon as next month. Tedder's previous credits with U2 are for production and performance on Songs of Innocence (2014) and Songs of Experience (2017). Though uncredited as a songwriter said he and One Republic bandmate Brent Kutzle wrote part of U2's song "Summer of Love."
source:@U2
Thursday, August 8, 2019
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Bono and Guggi: A friendship based on art, punk rock and Jesus
Artist Guggi discusses his background and his new show, “My Cup Overflows,” at Arcane Space in Los Angeles in June 2019. RNS photo by Bhushan Thakkar (www.20evo.com)
VENICE, Calif. (RNS) — At the height of Ireland’s sectarian Troubles in the early 1970s, when he was not long out of diapers, Paul Hewson met Derek Rowen, a neighbor boy from a few houses away in their working-class Finglas neighborhood of North Dublin.
The Hewson family lived at No. 5 Cedarwood Road.
The Rowens — all dozen of them — occupied No. 10.
More than 50 years (and two famous nicknames) later, Hewson, aka Bono of U2, and Rowen, the contemporary artist better known as Guggi, remain the best of friends.
As children, they bonded over a shared love of punk rock, mischief making and Jesus.
As men, they have channeled the spiritual, cultural and personal tumult of their youth into art.
For Bono, it became music.
Guggi, abstract art.
Musician Bono, left, and artist Guggi grew up together in Ireland. Video screenshots
“Myself and Bono, we weren’t like the other kids in the street and we knew we weren’t,” Guggi told Religion News Service recently during “My Cup Overflows,” an exhibit of his new works at Arcane Space, a gallery in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles co-owned by Morleigh Steinberg, wife of U2 guitarist The Edge.
“I was seen as an oddball, a freak,” said Guggi, who turned 60 in May and is 362 days older than Bono. “We didn’t know what to say when they would want us to name our favorite football players because we didn’t know any names. We could get beaten up for supporting the wrong team or not supporting anybody.”
One thing they did have in common was an interest in developing their Christian faith.
Bono performs on The Joshua Tree Tour in Indianapolis in Sept. 2017. Photo by Daniel Hazard/Creative Commons
Bono’s parents had what was considered to be a “mixed marriage” at the time — his father, Bob, was Catholic, his mother, Iris, Protestant. Bono and his older brother, Norman, were reared in the Church of Ireland (the Irish iteration of the Episcopal Church).
Guggi was rarer still in the predominantly Catholic Republic of Ireland, where he was born into a devoutly religious family rooted in the Christian Brethren (Irish cousin of America’s Plymouth Brethren) tradition. He is the second oldest of 10 children (seven boys and three girls).
Guggi brought up his own children religiously in one of Dublin’s Baptist churches. “It just happened to be a Baptist church — I’m not interested in brand names, I just wanted the message as it is in the Gospels,” he said.
His father, Robbie, who turns 86 this month, was and remains something of a zealot.
Bono once told me that the elder Rowen was “straight out of a Flannery O’Connor novel — it was like the prophet Jeremiah lived on our street.”
“I always remember the color of the language he used when he preached at us and the conviction of the words he used,” he told me in a 2005 interview.
Guggi describes his spiritual upbringing as “strict, Puritan,” and says his father ruled his family with an iron fist. And yet he had a genuine faith that has compelled a lifelong generosity.
“Bono came to his faith through my dad. And I came to faith through my dad,” Guggi said.
“Calix Meus Inebrians” by Guggi in France. Photo courtesy of Chateau La Coste
The eccentric elder Rowen was a virtuoso salesman, first for Eveready batteries and later for Raleigh and Peugeot bicycles, with a passionate, if sometimes overbearing, faith. He was also a consummate collector — of motorcycles, boats, “anything with wheels,” and once, a flock of sheep.
Bono’s mother, Iris, died when he was 14. After her death, Bono spent a lot of time at Guggi’s house, where he fell in naturally among the 10 Rowen siblings.
Guggi persuaded Bono to attend a Bible camp when they were tweens.
“My Dad would send us to the YMCA where they had something called the ‘boys department’ where boys went — not boys and girls, just boys — and the boys department went on a camp every year, Guggi said.
It was called “camping,” but it was more like sleeping bags on the rec room floor, he said.
“We slept in tents maybe a couple of times, but it was mostly school halls, church halls, that kind of thing, and yeah, myself and Bono went there every summer,” he said.
Like his friend Bono, Guggi tried his hand at music.
As a teenager, he formed a band, The Virgin Prunes, with Gavin Friday (another childhood friend of Bono’s), Dik Evans (brother of U2’s The Edge), and others.
The Prunes, who disbanded in 1990 and still have a hearty cult following in parts of Europe, incorporated elements of goth, performance art, and cross-dressing into their performances.
Guggi left the Prunes in 1984 to focus full time on his artwork.
It was about this time, at his grandmother’s funeral, that he heard a message that changed the way he understood his calling as an artist.
Modern artist Guggi poses with some of his “Broken” paintings at his exhibition, “My Cups Overflows,” in the Arcane Space in Los Angeles. RNS photo by Bhushan Thakkar (www.20evo.com)
“I’ve drawn and painted since I was a child, and I kind of started feeling guilty about it — what am I adding here? What am I bringing to society?” Guggi said. “But then this preacher at my grandmother’s funeral said, ‘If we are created in God’s image, we must in some way be like him. And if God is the creator, we must also be creative.’ That just struck a chord with me — that art isn’t just enough to do, it’s a special thing to do. I feel incredibly privileged to be able to paint, to be able to make pictures and sculptures.”
Now one of Ireland’s most celebrated modern artists, Guggi is perhaps best known for featuring empty bowls, jugs, spoons and other quotidian objects in his work, whether in oil, mixed media or sculpture.
Those works include a massive 15-foot-tall, 7,000-ton bronze bowl titled “Calix Meus Inebrians,” which stands among the grape vines at the Chateau La Coste vineyard in Aix-en-Provence, France.
Guggi with his artwork “Poculum ex Vinea” at the Arcane Space in Los Angeles. RNS photo by Bhushan Thakkar (www.20evo.com)
A 100-pound, nearly two-foot-tall bronze bowl titled “Poculum ex Vinea” (“a cup of vines”) is featured in Guggi’s new exhibition alongside a series of paintings on brown paper called “Broken.” The art historian and poet Kevin Grovier described the work this way: “By salvaging beauty from distress, soulfulness from fragmentation, Guggi creates objects from another world.”
The artist himself isn’t too keen on analyzing his artwork — “It’s not a verbal medium,” Guggi said.
He added that, “artists should be more like Victorian children: seen and not heard.” But he admits there is a spiritual connection to his habit of focusing on vessels and finding the sacred in the ordinary.
“I’m merely a channel, and it comes through me and I’m available for service in that sense,” Guggi said.
He started with portraiture, inspired by photos he took of a peculiar street preacher — a woman who was part of a fundamentalist Catholic sect.
“She would have a child’s glove in one hand and some literature or something in the other and she’d be waving it around,” Guggi said. “She was quite bonkers, but she did have a great face.”
He made countless abstract portraits based on the woman’s face until he realized what he was drawing wasn’t the curve of her face, it was a bowl.
“That was what led to taking simple, common, everyday objects that we walk past all the time, and we don’t notice are there, that are functional. I started painting these objects, and I never stopped,” Guggi said.
U2 on stage during the opening concert of their global The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on May 12, 2017. Photo by Nick Nidlick/Reuters
During the recording of U2’s “The Joshua Tree” album in 1985, Bono summoned Guggi and Gavin to their local pub, known as The Gravediggers, to ask a favor.
“He said, ‘Look, I want to paint. We’re putting this album together, we’re making this record, but I need to get away from that,’” Guggi recalled. “Bono always loved painting, and we painted together as children, as teenagers.”
Bono set aside a room in the large manor house where the band was recording “The Joshua Tree” and asked Guggi to fill it with art supplies, which he did.
The trio — Bono, Guggi and Gavin — joined by a fourth friend, Charlie Whisker, who would go on to direct videos for U2 and Bob Dylan among others, would gather on Wednesday nights to make art. A year after the album came out, the friends hosted a group exhibition of their work at a Dublin art gallery called “Four Artists, Many Wednesdays.”
The exhibit also included photographs Bono had taken on his first visit to Africa during the Ethiopian famine in 1985.
Modern artist Guggi, right, speaks with guests during an opening for his exhibition, “My Cups Overflows”, at the Arcane Space in Los Angeles in June 2019. RNS photo by Bhushan Thakkar (www.20evo.com)
Like most longtime friends, over a lifetime the men have shaped each other. For instance, both are fathers — Bono has four children, Guggi has five (all boys) — and have sons named Elijah. Bono’s oldest son is Elijah Bob Patricius Guggi Q Hewson.
When the lifelong friends speak, sometimes you can hear whispers of one in the other.
“I am a believer, 100 percent,” Guggi insists when the conversation circles back to matters of faith. “I’m not a very good example of one, but you’re either in or you’re out.”
Bono, whose lyrics are laden with spiritual and biblical imagery and who in recent years has been quite open about his Christian faith, has famously said, “I’m not a very good advertisement for God.”
On U2’s perhaps most autobiographical album to date, 2014’s “Songs of Innocence,” Bono dedicated a song to Guggi called “Cedarwood Road.” It says in part:
“I was running down the road
The fear was all I knew
I was looking for a soul that’s real
Then I ran into you…
Symbols clashing, bibles smashing
Paint the world you need to see.”
Guggi’s show “My Cup Overflows” runs through the end of August, by appointment, at Arcane Space.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Bono: "Anger is a source of energy"
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the French magazine Paris Match, Olivier Royant interviewed Bono in Belfast, Ireland.
"...A little by surprise, he entered the room and already tames the space. Bono left the rugby match he was watching in his suite with his wife, Ali, to meet me. Immediately, we are seized by his benevolence and immediate contact, so far removed from the image of a global rock star. This Elizabethan-style palace, with walls adorned with aristocratic portraits, overlooking Belfast Bay, seems a bit pompous to talk about rock and politics. Through large windows come the laughter of a wedding cocktail under a gray sky. Son of a Protestant and a Catholic, Bono shows me on his cell a picture of the olive tree in pot that Pope Francis recently offered him. "He is the symbol of the three religions," he told me. Plant it anywhere, it will grow. "
Paris Match. How do you react to this wave of hatred that has invaded world politics?
Bono.: Our generation grew up thinking, like Martin Luther King, that the world was moving toward more justice, civil rights, gender equality. Here in Ireland, a wall fell. Elsewhere, democracy prevailed, apartheid was defeated. This luminous parenthesis of humanity is nothing compared to ten thousand years of history. Our grandfathers are no longer here to remind us of the tragedies that Europe has known. This wave of alarming elections marks the death of our innocence. Faced with this decline, a tip: stop lamenting, organize yourself!
Do you recognize in these spontaneous movements young people who mobilize for the climate?
It reminds me of our beginnings, when I listened to Public Image Limited songs and felt anger rising up against injustice. Anger is a source of energy.
In your concerts, you hoist the European flag. You have faith in what Churchill called "expanded patriotism": to be simultaneously Irish and European ...
Yes, it's a romantic idea and it's the most beautiful of all. All these different languages to form a single voice. Being European is a thought that must become a feeling. Europe has been transformed into bureaucracy. It must change, reform from within, but it must not be left.
"...A little by surprise, he entered the room and already tames the space. Bono left the rugby match he was watching in his suite with his wife, Ali, to meet me. Immediately, we are seized by his benevolence and immediate contact, so far removed from the image of a global rock star. This Elizabethan-style palace, with walls adorned with aristocratic portraits, overlooking Belfast Bay, seems a bit pompous to talk about rock and politics. Through large windows come the laughter of a wedding cocktail under a gray sky. Son of a Protestant and a Catholic, Bono shows me on his cell a picture of the olive tree in pot that Pope Francis recently offered him. "He is the symbol of the three religions," he told me. Plant it anywhere, it will grow. "
Paris Match. How do you react to this wave of hatred that has invaded world politics?
Bono.: Our generation grew up thinking, like Martin Luther King, that the world was moving toward more justice, civil rights, gender equality. Here in Ireland, a wall fell. Elsewhere, democracy prevailed, apartheid was defeated. This luminous parenthesis of humanity is nothing compared to ten thousand years of history. Our grandfathers are no longer here to remind us of the tragedies that Europe has known. This wave of alarming elections marks the death of our innocence. Faced with this decline, a tip: stop lamenting, organize yourself!
Do you recognize in these spontaneous movements young people who mobilize for the climate?
It reminds me of our beginnings, when I listened to Public Image Limited songs and felt anger rising up against injustice. Anger is a source of energy.
In your concerts, you hoist the European flag. You have faith in what Churchill called "expanded patriotism": to be simultaneously Irish and European ...
Yes, it's a romantic idea and it's the most beautiful of all. All these different languages to form a single voice. Being European is a thought that must become a feeling. Europe has been transformed into bureaucracy. It must change, reform from within, but it must not be left.
You were in Paris on November 13, 2015, the day of the terrorist attacks. How did you live these moments?
Sheltered in our golden cage, our hotel rooms, where we watched television while gunshots rang around the Bataclan. At twenty-four hours, our show Bercy could have been the target of terrorists. I thought, "More than anything, these men hate what I love most in the world: music and women."
Find all of this interview in the exceptional anniversary issue of Paris Match
www.parismatch.com
translation:@mysteriousdistance
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
'Bono's A Life-Changer': Bullied Teen's Turnaround Inspired by Encounter With Singer
Chloe Howard loves telling young people how Bono changed her life.
After, that is, first telling them who Bono is.
“I won’t assume you know,” Howard recently told an assembly at Union Middle School in San Jose, “but he’s basically the biggest rock star in the world.”
A chance encounter with the lead singer of U2, Howard says, is the spark that helped her transform from a depressed, withdrawn victim of assault to an inspirational speaker in demand around the world.
“Bono’s a life-changer, man,” Howard said.
Howard, a 19-year-old college freshman, was born with a severely clubbed foot. It was a condition that required multiple surgeries, months in casts, and long stretches on crutches to deal with. Even with those hurdles, Howard says her supportive parents helped her be at peace with her disability.
Unfortunately, that peace was shattered her freshman year of high school in Marin County.
On Nov. 20, 2014, a couple of high school bullies decided to hold her down and rip off her shoes and socks, exposing her feet for anyone within view of the assault to gawk at.
“Seeing all the scars and the permanent discoloration and all the spots on my toes where toenails should be but weren't,” she said. “I saw this foot for the first time in my life as something that was ugly. That wasn't an image that I could erase from my mind.”
The assault left Howard with a new scar, but not a physical one. She fell into a depression, isolating herself from friends and family. This was her “sweatshirt phase,” as she called it.
“I started wearing these massive sweatshirts to school in hopes of hiding myself,” she said. “I started suffering from PTSD, quickly diagnosed by my therapist.”
But then came hope for Howard, in the form of a massively successful international rock star icon.
Howard’s father won a contest where the prize was backstage tickets to meet Bono. Howard said she was shy, but worked up the courage to tell Bono the story of her clubfoot and subsequent assault.
“Bono looked at me and he said, 'Chloe, what happened to you is an injustice, when you use your voice, when you speak out and tell your story, you're speaking for those who can't speak for themselves',” she said.
Howard said Bono’s words were so meaningful, she knew she had to be that voice to speak for others that might be going through similar situations.
“I wanted to believe my story was going to continue, my assault wasn't the end of Chloe Ruth Howard as the world knew her,” she said.
One year later, Howard was standing on a stage in Santa Barbara, sharing her story in a TED Talk.
She labeled her story, “Stand Beautiful,” and now speaks to groups all over the world, sharing the message of against bullying and for self-acceptance.
Kids these days need to be reminded that they have a purpose in life, said Howard. This was something she shared with the students at Union Middle School.
After her assault, Howard told the kids, the perpetrators were put on trial and found guilty of battery.
“That process was exhausting, so hard and so overwhelming at ages 14, 15 and 16 going through all of this,” she said. “No one has the right to touch anyone without their consent, ever.”
Many kids in the audience stuck around after Howard’s speech to share their own stories of bullying and express their gratitude for Howard’s ability to embody the phrase, “Stand Beautiful.”
www.nbcbayarea.com
After, that is, first telling them who Bono is.
“I won’t assume you know,” Howard recently told an assembly at Union Middle School in San Jose, “but he’s basically the biggest rock star in the world.”
A chance encounter with the lead singer of U2, Howard says, is the spark that helped her transform from a depressed, withdrawn victim of assault to an inspirational speaker in demand around the world.
“Bono’s a life-changer, man,” Howard said.
Howard, a 19-year-old college freshman, was born with a severely clubbed foot. It was a condition that required multiple surgeries, months in casts, and long stretches on crutches to deal with. Even with those hurdles, Howard says her supportive parents helped her be at peace with her disability.
Unfortunately, that peace was shattered her freshman year of high school in Marin County.
On Nov. 20, 2014, a couple of high school bullies decided to hold her down and rip off her shoes and socks, exposing her feet for anyone within view of the assault to gawk at.
“Seeing all the scars and the permanent discoloration and all the spots on my toes where toenails should be but weren't,” she said. “I saw this foot for the first time in my life as something that was ugly. That wasn't an image that I could erase from my mind.”
The assault left Howard with a new scar, but not a physical one. She fell into a depression, isolating herself from friends and family. This was her “sweatshirt phase,” as she called it.
“I started wearing these massive sweatshirts to school in hopes of hiding myself,” she said. “I started suffering from PTSD, quickly diagnosed by my therapist.”
But then came hope for Howard, in the form of a massively successful international rock star icon.
Howard’s father won a contest where the prize was backstage tickets to meet Bono. Howard said she was shy, but worked up the courage to tell Bono the story of her clubfoot and subsequent assault.
“Bono looked at me and he said, 'Chloe, what happened to you is an injustice, when you use your voice, when you speak out and tell your story, you're speaking for those who can't speak for themselves',” she said.
Howard said Bono’s words were so meaningful, she knew she had to be that voice to speak for others that might be going through similar situations.
“I wanted to believe my story was going to continue, my assault wasn't the end of Chloe Ruth Howard as the world knew her,” she said.
One year later, Howard was standing on a stage in Santa Barbara, sharing her story in a TED Talk.
She labeled her story, “Stand Beautiful,” and now speaks to groups all over the world, sharing the message of against bullying and for self-acceptance.
Kids these days need to be reminded that they have a purpose in life, said Howard. This was something she shared with the students at Union Middle School.
After her assault, Howard told the kids, the perpetrators were put on trial and found guilty of battery.
“That process was exhausting, so hard and so overwhelming at ages 14, 15 and 16 going through all of this,” she said. “No one has the right to touch anyone without their consent, ever.”
Many kids in the audience stuck around after Howard’s speech to share their own stories of bullying and express their gratitude for Howard’s ability to embody the phrase, “Stand Beautiful.”
www.nbcbayarea.com
Friday, May 31, 2019
A U2 biopic?
U2 could follow in the footsteps of Queen and Elton John as the latest pop icons to get the big screen treatment, according to bassist Adam Clayton.
The recent box office triumphs of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have sparked a rush in Hollywood for the next big rockstar biopic – with films about everyone from Arethra Franklin to Boy George and even Creation Records boss Alan McGee reportedly in the works.
Speaking to Chris Moyles on Radio X today, 59-year-old Clayton said Bono and the boys would be more than happy to have a movie made of their lives.
After the Irish musician announced the latest leg of U2's Joshua Tree world tour, Moyles asked him: "How long do you think it’ll be before you boys get a little movie made about you?"
Clayton replied simply: "Let's say we're open to offers".
Even if it was to become a reality, any future U2 biopic wouldn't actually be the first time the band have been depicted on the big screen.
The 2011 musical comedy Killing Bono tells the story of young Irish rocker Neil McCormick and his younger brother Ivan, who attempt to become pop stars but can only look on as their secondary school friends U2 hit the big time.
All four band mates – Bono (Martin McCann), The Edge (Mark Griffin), Adam Clayton (David Tudor) and Larry Mullen Jr (Seán Doyle) – were depicted in the film, which was based on McCormick's 2003 memoir Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppelgänger.
Formed in Dublin in 1976, U2 have released 14 studio albums and are one of the world's best-selling music artists in history – having sold an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide.
The recent box office triumphs of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have sparked a rush in Hollywood for the next big rockstar biopic – with films about everyone from Arethra Franklin to Boy George and even Creation Records boss Alan McGee reportedly in the works.
Speaking to Chris Moyles on Radio X today, 59-year-old Clayton said Bono and the boys would be more than happy to have a movie made of their lives.
After the Irish musician announced the latest leg of U2's Joshua Tree world tour, Moyles asked him: "How long do you think it’ll be before you boys get a little movie made about you?"
Clayton replied simply: "Let's say we're open to offers".
Even if it was to become a reality, any future U2 biopic wouldn't actually be the first time the band have been depicted on the big screen.
The 2011 musical comedy Killing Bono tells the story of young Irish rocker Neil McCormick and his younger brother Ivan, who attempt to become pop stars but can only look on as their secondary school friends U2 hit the big time.
All four band mates – Bono (Martin McCann), The Edge (Mark Griffin), Adam Clayton (David Tudor) and Larry Mullen Jr (Seán Doyle) – were depicted in the film, which was based on McCormick's 2003 memoir Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppelgänger.
Formed in Dublin in 1976, U2 have released 14 studio albums and are one of the world's best-selling music artists in history – having sold an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide.
BY: Aidan Lonergan for www.irishpost.com
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Bono chats books and Harry Potter on “Open Book”
Bono shares his favorite books, how he fell in love with reading and which books he read to his girls, all on this episode of “Open Book With Jenna Bush Hager.”
www.today.com
www.today.com
Monday, May 13, 2019
Adam Clayton at Tommy Tiernan's show in RTE One
U2's Adam Clayton was the latest guest on The Tommy Tiernan Show and it was another candid interview.
Clayton opened up on the negative impact the band's worldwide fame had on him as well as his battle with alcohol.
“Success very much went to my head,” he said. “I think if you get everything your heart desires by – really we were making records by the time we were 20, by the time we were 25 and 26 we could pay our rent no problem, we owned cars, we could travel, and by the time The Joshua Tree hit we could buy a house – anyone I’ve met who’s experienced success and fame in that way in those years it takes them a long time to recover from it, and that sounds like a complaint but that’s just what happens.”
He added: "You lose your sense of yourself you lose a sense of reality. I was kind of very unhappy so I drank and I drugged and got myself in tabloid newspapers, and embarrassed kind of everyone I knew, and myself, but you know you come through it and you learn from it and maybe that’s what young men do anyway.”
Clayton said he has to “work really quite hard at keeping my sanity on and off the road, and my thinking can take me to bad places, my thinking is not always reliable," adding that it was a big plus having his bandmates around to "check" him.
Clayton said he's happiest during his time on stage with U2 when he can focus on nothing but the music.
Source of the video:Ultraviolet FanClub Brazil
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