Bono: The Beliefnet Interview
Posted on Friday, March 02 @ 06:47:25 CET by macphisto
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(Beliefnet.com) -- "Ah, I always take you to the most glamorous places," said Bono with a laugh, as he hugged me in greeting one afternoon in September of 1999. He was being ironic, of course. I'd jetted around the United Kingdom with the band U2--a galvanizing force on the popular music scene for more than two decades--as I'd covered the group for Rolling Stone and other publications. That September, however, we were meeting in a completely nondescript conference room in Washington, D.C., and Bono was about to address a conference on the plight of highly indebted poor countries.
Now, a year and a half later, most people who care are familiar with the extensive, hands-on work Bono has done with the
Jubilee 2000 coalition to have the world's richest nations forgive the onerous debts of the most impoverished
ones.
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I often wonder if religion is the enemy of God. It's
almost
like religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building.
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Bono got involved partly to complete the work begun by the Band Aid and Live Aid events back in the '80s; partly to find a dignified, compassionate way to mark the new
millennium; and partly out of his own spiritual convictions. In many ways, that last motivation intrigued me the most. In his debt-relief efforts, Bono did not travel the typical celebrity route of
writing out checks or performing benefit concerts. Instead, he was meeting incessantly with politicians, bureaucrats, and world leaders--often behind the scenes--to lobby for legislation.
It's one thing to confer with Pope John Paul II, former President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, or even conservative senators like Jesse Helms and Orrin
Hatch. It's quite another to sit for hour after hour with the under-secretary of this-and-that or academic economists or World Bank
functionaries, as Bono did--that's the labor of a true man of faith. "I
never thought it would get this unhip," he complained to me at one point.
So when Beliefnet approached me about interviewing Bono on his work for debt
relief and its relation to his spiritual life, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask
him. After all, religion is hardly an abstract issue for anyone raised in
Ireland. Now 40, Bono was born in Dublin, the product of a mixed
Catholic-Protestant background. While his lyrics and U2's music have always been
suffused with an undeniable spiritual consciousness, Bono and the other band
members have stringently resisted being claimed by either religious or political
side in Ireland's ongoing "troubles." While informing every aspect of
what he does--"God bless" is even his standard telephone
sign-off--faith has never been a subject Bono has approached with much ease.
U2 is busy rehearsing for its upcoming world tour, but Bono decided to
take a short break--and a genuine leap of faith.
"I've successfully avoided talking about my faith for 20 years,"
he said after we completed this interview, which he did by phone from
Ireland. "But with you, I felt I had to. I said, 'I can't turn this guy
down--he's been on every blinkin' boring story!' And I thought to myself,
it's OK to open up a little bit. The problem is, when I do these kinds of
things, the way it turns out in the tabloid papers here and in England is, 'Bono
Pontificates on the Holy Trinity.' And then we're off! But at the same time,
I can't let them gag me. These are the unformed, unfocused thoughts of a
student of these things, not a master."
Fair enough. Ladies and gentlemen, Bono Ungagged.
Interview:
While the Jubilee 2000 Coalition accomplished a great deal, it failed
to achieve its ultimate goal of complete debt forgiveness. The coalition has
disbanded, but the work goes on. What is the current initiative, and what is
your involvement in it?
This year might turn out to be even more of a millennium year for us than
last year. There's a chance that if we focus on the HIV/AIDS crisis,
particularly in Africa--that's the shock to the system that might allow for
deeper debt relief.
I've had two meetings with Tony Blair in the last few weeks, and he
realizes that he is in power at a time of great importance. This is akin to
the bubonic plague or Hiroshima or the Holocaust. I think he is going to,
along with your new president, work with the industrialized nations and the
African leadership to really have a go at this problem. And debt relief will
be part of that package.
Do you have the same level of rapport with the Bush administration as
you did with Clinton?
Yes. In fact, if you look at the cover of The New York Times when debt
cancellation went through [Congress], the headline was--and for me it was an
amusing triumvirate--"The Pope, U2 and George W. Prevail." We
worked very hard to get both Republican and Democratic authorship on that
package, and I'm confident the Republican leadership will follow through. In
the second debate, [Bush] mentioned debt cancellation as one of the ideas he
was excited by.
Because debt relief became a religious issue, you were able to meet
with many politicians with whom you probably agree on nothing else. What was
that like?
I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times. Because I was
suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all
with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people
working in a whole rainbow of belief systems--from Hasidic Jews to
right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.
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idea of turning your music into a tool for evangelism is missing
the point. Music is the language of the spirit anyway. Its first
function is praise to creation. |
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We had a meeting in the White House, and President Clinton invited Pat
Robertson, who I think had referred to him as "a devil" and hadn't
visited the White House in eight years. I saw him in the room with Andrew
Young, who said, his voice trembling, that this is the most important thing
that's come up for him since the civil rights marches in the '60s. Clinton
said, "This is a very odd bunch of people. But if you guys could agree
to meet a few more times, you could really change the world."
I'm actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions
that are unpopular. Now at what point does an unpopular conviction interfere
with your own human rights? Forced female circumcision, for instance. The
Catholic Church's stance on contraception. The list goes on. You know, God
has some really weird kids, and I find it hard to be in their company most
of the time.
When I went to meet the pope, I brought a book of Seamus Heaney's poetry,
which he had inscribed for the pontiff. The inscription was a quote from [Heaney's]
catechism, from 1947. It said, "Q: Who is my neighbor? A: All of
mankind."
Now, for all its failings and its perversions over the last 2,000 years--and
as much as every exponent of this faith has attempted to dodge this idea--it
is unarguably the central tenet of Christianity: that everybody is equal in
God's eyes. So you cannot, as a Christian, walk away from Africa. America
will be judged by God if, in its plenty, it crosses the road from 23 million
people suffering from HIV, the leprosy of the day. What's up on trial here
is Christianity itself. You cannot walk away from this and call yourself a
Christian and sit in power. Distance does not decide who is your brother and
who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free
market if it's to have any meaning in this world--and stop being its
apologist.
During U2's Zooropa tour, you would often call prominent figures by
phone from the stage. In London, you were dressed as the devil character you
invented, MacPhisto, and, as you tried to call the Archbishop of Canterbury,
MacPhisto remarked that religious leaders were some of his closest friends.
It's true. I often wonder if religion is the enemy of God. It's almost
like religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building.
God's Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be
constricted by any one religious paradigm. I love that. You know, it says
somewhere in the scriptures that the Spirit moves like a wind--no one knows
where it's come from or where it's going. The Spirit is described in the
Holy Scriptures as much more anarchic than any established religion credits.
For all that, U2 has often been seen as a Christian rock band.
We really f--ked that up, though. We really f--ked up our corner of the
Christian market. I think carrying moral baggage is very dangerous for an
artist. If you have a duty, it's to be true and not cover up the cracks. I
love hymns and gospel music, but the idea of turning your music into a tool
for evangelism is missing the point.
Music is the language of the spirit anyway. Its first function is
praise to creation--praise to the beauty of the woman lying next to you, or
the woman you would like to lie next to you. It is a natural effusive
energy that you shouldn't put to work. When those people get up at the
Grammys and say, "I thank God," I always imagine God going,
"Oh, don't--please don't thank me for that one. Please, oh, that's an
awful one! Don't thank me for that--that's a piece of [crap]!"
The most powerful idea that's entered the world in the last few thousand
years--the idea of grace--is the reason I would like to be a Christian.
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has some really weird kids. |
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Though, as I said to [U2 guitarist] The Edge one day, I sometimes feel
more like a fan, rather than actually in the band. I can't live up to it.
But the reason I would like to is the idea of grace. It's really powerful.
You've also been drawn to the spiritual struggles of rockers like
Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Marvin Gaye.
I was never tormented in the way those early rock and rollers were
between gospel and the blues. I always saw them as parts of each other. I
like the anger of the blues--I think being angry with God is at least a
dialogue. You know, [Robert Johnson's] "Hell Hound on My
Trail"--the blues is full of that. And [it runs] right through to
Marilyn Manson.
These are big questions. If there is a God, it's serious. And if there
isn't a God, it's even more serious. Or is it the other way around? I don't
know, but these are the things that, as an artist, are going to cross your
mind--as well as "Ode to My New Jaguar." [laughter] The right to
be an ass I will hold on to very tightly. I just have to be allowed that.
Anthony DeCurtis is a
contributing editor to Rolling Stone and a Grammy Award-winning music writer.
He has covered U2 since 1984.
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