Bono’s “surrender”: “It is ok seem ridiculous and vulnerable”
Behind Bono, in the background, there is the sea of Cannes: “I did every kind of things in this city and I have never felt far from God, perhaps just a couple of times”, jokes the singer of U2. We met him – via Zoom – in a solo version: the French Riviera is a second home for him, and has chosen the Film Festival to present “Stories of surrender“, Andrew Dominik’s film based on the tour of the theatrical show two years ago, which ended in Naples: the images of the San Carlo Theater also close the story – and probably a phase of the career of Bono and U2.
In the 20 minutes of conversation we are not talking about the band’s new album – which is currently in progress and which will open the new “era” “of the group. But When you talk to Bono, the weather seems to slow down, and you would listen to it for hours, on each topic.
It is not the first time that I meet him but it is the first time I interviewed him: a few years ago on one of the most memorable evenings of my career I ended up dinner with him and The Edge, together with a few other Italian journalists, but we were asked not to write anything about that evening, in which we talked about everything – until the staff came to take them almost strength because the Linate track was closing. That dinner had an impact on my presence in this conversation – the only Italian specialized journalist – precisely because I had already had to deal with him, and for the track record that Rockol has on U2, which I had to present to the press office. For the band to know that it has been following them for some time is a merit.
Bono begins by telling her children, the eldest who is the actress and the eldest who has just seen live with her gang, the inhalers, playing in Amsterdam: “They still have the spirit of a high school band, they do everything annoyingly without effort. Instead I think too much about the things I do” reflects.
It is the characteristic of this bono phase: to open up, tell the behind the scenes, without fear of making yourself ridiculous or showing itself vulnerable beyond the stereotype of the rock star.
“Stories of Surrender” looks like a therapy. Why did you decide to tell you this way?
It is the question I asked myself and it is what the members of U2 and my family asked me. Why ever tell all this, in this way? Because rock and roll depends a lot on the artifice. It depends on the attitude, on the swag: put the chin out and raise the fists. I have always been very good in this. But I also think of what has made U2 music unique over the years, since the beginning, it was the feeling that it was right to admit our naivety.
Didn’t you be afraid to open too much?
Yes, it could also be an invitation to the school bullies: some people kick you when you are on the ground and show yourself vulnerable. But that’s okay: it’s also my way of understanding art.
The show and the book start with your heart operation, your moment of maximum vulnerability, when you risked dying….
John Lennon said that the artist should literally open his chest and make art by bleeding the public. My definition is that it is ok to be ridiculous for your art, or even appear ridiculous for your art.
“Stories of Surrender” was born as a book and theatrical show, even before a concert. Now it’s a movie: have you become an actor, as well as musical performer?
Here in Cannes I go around with some photos in the pocket, and if I see some important director I stop it …
No, seriously, I’m not an actor. As we filmed, Andrew Dominik, the director, always said to me: “Stop. You’re reciting. You stop acting.” And I said: “What should I do?”. He said to me: “You should just be, so the room can see who you are, if you are lying.” Do you think they notice it by being in front of an audience? “.” Yes, I think so. The goal goes further. “
He pushed me to a truthful performance, for example when I tell the death of my father.
The best actors do not play: this is my discovery in “Stories of Surrender”. And I couldn’t act, I had to be myself. And that’s why, I think, perhaps it worked.
A precedent for this type of show is “Springsteen on Broadway”, born from an autobiography, which has become a show-confession and then a film. Was it a model for you?
Bruce Springsteen, has been a source of inspiration since 1981, since I saw him at the Hammersmith Palais in London and he was with Pete Townshend of the Who. I met him, I couldn’t believe it: my brother had given me his albums when I was a teenager.
It has always been a model not in the sense of rock and roll, but in the sense of the work: “Jungleland”, for me, is work, not rock. He is Italian-Irish, and the work is never far away, with those origins. Family stories are a work, not in the sense of soap work, but of a real. The fact that he had the courage to talk about his father in the early 80s gave me the courage to sing my father in zero and now in this period. This, and many other things: the way it behaves, above all.
He is a soloist with a band. You are the singer of a band who makes a solo project.
Springsteen said a fun thing, however, on musical groups: “Democracy is used for places like Iraq. But not for a rock group.” It is always amazed by the fact that we four U2 divide everything in equal parts and that we are still very democratic. He has a band, but there is only one boss. In U2 there are four bosses.
What did the other U2 of this film said and the way you rearranged the band’s songs with Jacknife Lee?
Larry only like western … Adam … I was frightened to ask him, and they are still: I am more worried about their reviews than those of the press. Edge helped me, it was with me in some of the arrangements with Jacknife Lee, who is a genius.
In the film The Edge does not appear: how did he contribute?
The most extraordinary thing about Edge is that it is the only one not to think of being the most influential guitarist of the last 30 years. And when he talks about songs he doesn’t think about guitar, he only thinks about the song: he encouraged me a lot about these arrangements because he understood that they gave a new perspective to the songs. Like “Desire”: “It’s like an African arrangement”, he told me, very surprised and really really excited.
What was the role of Andrew Dominik, as well as pushing you not to act? For example, in choosing to shoot the black and white film, which he used in the movies on Nick Cave …
Yes, black and white was his idea. We talked a lot about lighting, photography, in this case with Erik Messerschmidt. He sent me a moodboard with Lenny Bruce’s images with a single light that cuts the darkness.
Rock and roll is like a ritual in the dark, it is like going to the church: we were looking for fragments of light in darkness. In the cinema it is the same: we go to witness a ritual in the dark and we are looking for the light, and with the projected light they tell stories.
“Stories of Surrender” is neither a classic film-concert, nor a documentary. How was this form of story born?
It was the thing we didn’t agree on: simply, he wanted him to be more a documentary and I wanted it to be more a registration of the theatrical show.
Thus the compromise was to film in part in days when the public was present and in others at the theater empty, in which he could move the cameras, change the lighting, film me in a more intimate way, looking at me straight in the eye.
In the film you say that abandoning yourself, making peace with yourself and with what surrounds you, is something difficult. Have you understood what the word “surrender” means for you?
At this moment it is not very easy to make peace with the world. And as for the way I am making peace with myself, it does not proceed very well … while making peace with God is something that has always been easy for me. I have always felt loved for what I am, in my faith and in my religion.
I am not very religious in the obvious sense of the term, but I have never heard of having to be someone else to pray. I could always be myself. If I was out to drink or put me in trouble, I felt close to God as if I were in a church. I mean, behind me there is now the sea of Cannes: I slept on that beach, I did every kind of things in this city and I have never felt far from God. Maybe just a couple of times.
But in the film you talk about how there was a time when you looked for God without finding him.
Yes, after the operation I felt I lost the air. I was terrified because I couldn’t breathe. I am a singer, painting from the air. That was an important moment of crisis.
I entitled the book “Surrenter” not because I knew what that word meant or how to put it in practice, but because I knew I had to deal with this theme.
In the last part of the show and the film you wonder about what you do, about your activism. After writing the book and this show have you cleared why do you do it?
The answer lies in the sum of all the reasons, both the right and the wrong ones. There is a part of me who only looks for attention and the spotlight. But there is another part of me who wants to focus on the spotlight on people who are doing a better job and about people we have to listen to the story. There is another part of me who does it because he wonders what else I could do with this fame. Famous is an absurd thing, but it is an exchange coin: I want to spend mine wisely.
In “Pride” change the text by wondering what you can still do for love. In the last part of the show, above all about faith and hope. What do these words mean for you?
This thing that a politician of whom I don’t remember the name said to me: if you have the opportunity to hope, it is a moral duty to do it – because most people don’t have the opportunity to hope. So, I hope.
Then any musician must have faith. Each songwriter has faith because he jumps from a note to one who does not know, he tries to create a new melody. You have to go to places that have never been achieved: for this you need faith and love.
