U2 Frontman Bono and "The Million Dollar Hotel"

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Yahoo! Chat, March 12, 2000 (4pm ET)


Yahoo! Chat Event - U2 Frontman Bono and "The Million Dollar Hotel".

Yahoomc: OK, folks...
bono_live: test
Yahoomc: The moment has arrived!
Yahoomc: Bono is joining us LIVE!!!
bono_live: Help! I'm at Adam Clayton's 40th birthday, and, as they say in
Dublin, I have drink taken!
bono_live: Everybody, the whole band, is here, and a lot of friends, a lot
of people we've grown up with, a lot of people from the family, Elana
Christensen, Daniel Lanois...
bono_live: Just a lot of people here, and I might not be making much sense
because we have been celebrating since midday and it's now about 10 PM, so
patience..!
bono_live: Adam, oddly enough, is the only one not drinking! He's resting,
having a bit of a sleep.
bono_live: Edge is about two feet from me now, he's down on his hands and
knees with a screwdriver drinking to make sure that the telephones work.
bono_live: Gavin Friday is here, Googie, Dick Evans, all the people from the
family, if you like.

magnus_sjoeholm asks: I was a bit surprised when I heard that the film
really was on it’s way. I must have heard about this title and you writing
it, several years ago. Has it been a long process from idea to finished
product or is it just as it always is? Have you been involved a lot during
the process or did you just leave the script and left?
bono_live: Originally the Million Dollar Hotel was to be a stage play.
bono_live: Set on the roof, in the lobby and one room of the Million Dollar
Hotel.
bono_live: The Million DOllar Hotel, if you don't already know, is a real
place, still operational.
bono_live: In the twenties it was the swankiest hotel in Los Angeles.
bono_live: In the Golden Era of Hollywood, it was the place to be.
bono_live: Now it's a halfway house for a lot of different kinds of folk.
bono_live: People who have come to LA and who need reasonable accomodation
at a reasonable price.
backstage_guest: sebastian
bono_live: There are some people who would not fit in with most hotel
management policies - they're pimps, hookers...
bono_live: Some of the outcasts.
bono_live: I discovered it in 1988.
bono_live: Began the story on the roof. WHile I was talking with Edge.
bono_live: The idea was about a character who jumps off the roof...
bono_live: The first line of the movie is "After I jumped, it occurred to
me. Life is perfect. Life is the best. It's full of magic and beauty,
opportunity."
bono_live: And from that opening line began the script.

yahoomusic: How did Wim Wenders get involved?
bono_live: Usually I'm used to singing our own songs.
bono_live: To write a song for somebody else to sing was a new experience
for me.
bono_live: My thinking was, if you are going to give your song to somebody
else to sing make sure it's Frank Sinatra.
bono_live: Or Miles Davis.
bono_live: Well Wim Wenders is both.
bono_live: In the audio visual world he's Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis.
bono_live: I hooked him by asking for his advice on the script.
bono_live: WHat did he think?
bono_live: Did he think I had something going here?
bono_live: And the more he read, the more he felt disappointed that he
wasn't involved.
bono_live: It was a trap, and I set it.
bono_live: And he fell into it.

Sinatra121215 asks: Bono, what did Frank Sinatra mean to you and do you ever
think there will be fitting tribute to him?
bono_live: I love Frank Sinatra. I loved singing with him. I wrote a song
with Edge for him called Too Shots Of Happy One Shot of Sad.
bono_live: He never covered the song.
bono_live: But I sang it into his ear one night in a Mexican restaurant in
Palm Springs.
bono_live: He could outdrink, outtalk, out maneuver most Irish, and most
Irish people, in fact most people.
bono_live: He's the reason I swore and used bad language at the Grammy's in
1990-something, after he fixed me a very, very, very,very strong drink,
bono_live: There will never be a tribute that could equal the man.
bono_live: Interestingly enough, I rode with him once in a limousine.
bono_live: We were being filmed from the passenger seat.
bono_live: When Frank leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Bono, roll down
the window about an inch".
bono_live: I rolled down the window about an inch and I looked at him.
bono_live: Like, What are you getting at Frank?
bono_live: And he said, you need some fill, not just key lighting. It's an
Irish face.
bono_live: And I burst out laughing to think that Frank Sinatra, even in his
late seventies as he was then, was art directing an Irish pop star.
bono_live: And he was actually trying to make me look -- he was lighting me!

joyce_ic asks: What do you sing in the shower?
bono_live: Joyce, I do sing in the shower. I sing in the bath. Like my
father and his father.
bono_live: I wake up pretty much every morning with a smile on my face.
bono_live: Sometimes I struggle to keep it there.
bono_live: BUt in the shower, which is a natural echo chamber, I sing like I
never have sung on a record.
bono_live: But the way I always try to sing on records.
bono_live: Completely bollocks naked!

amibugginyou asks: Hi Bono, I was just wondering, was there any particular
reason for not releasing Ground Beneath Her Feet as a single? And is there a
chance that any other song from the MDH soundtrack (Stateless perhaps) will
be released as a single?
bono_live: The record label, as much as they love Ground Beneath Her Feet,
as much as they love the soundtrack to the MDH, are afraid that people will
think it's the next U2 album.
bono_live: So, we've had to make it's release very discrete.
bono_live: I understand this.
bono_live: Having been through passengers in 1997 or 1998, but never the
less, I'm disappointed because the Ground Beneath Her Feet is such an
extraordinary song.
bono_live: I think it would do well in the pop charts.
bono_live: But on another level, it's incredible to me and the band that
it's so popular without being commercially released.
bono_live: That there is so much interest in this soundtrack album.
bono_live: In fact the soundtrack album has had better reviews than any U2
album.
bono_live: It's something all of us are very proud of, but we understand
it's got to be a quiet release because the next U2 album is going to be very
noisy.
bono_live: It's bursting with vitality and life force.
yahoomusic: When should we expect the next U2 record?
bono_live: Our problem is that we love starting things and hate finishing
them. We have 15 of the best U2 songs ever written. But we get bored with
the technical side of things, like finishing the lyrics. But in the next two
months we've committed to choosing the best 10 or 12 songs and to have them
out by September-October of this year.

rockstar_79 asks: I've heard that the forthcoming U2 album is a return to a
more acoustic style. Any truth to that, or are you going to make us wait and
see?
bono_live: We have no reverse gears on our tank.
bono_live: So the idea of "a return" to basics is not on the cards.
bono_live: We advance towards simplicity.
bono_live: We advance towards a stripped down sound.
bono_live: That is the essence of U2.
bono_live: On pop we're interested in assimilating the music we were all
listening to in clubs, at home, at house parties...
bono_live: with the music U2 made as a band.
bono_live: On this record, it's not about assimilation, it's about
differentiation.
bono_live: Stressing the differences between dance music, club culture, and
being in a band.
bono_live: There is stuff that we can do that no DJ can touch.
bono_live: And vica versa.
bono_live: It was a DJ, Howie B, who was listening to us rehearse on the
last tour, who kept reminding us how unique the band was.
bono_live: ANd how we didn't need to connect with a hip hop or a dance
audience. That within both, there was a U2 audience.
bono_live: That U2 was an original of the species at a time of karaoke, at a
time of parody and pastiche.
bono_live: That gave us the confidence to make this next record.
bono_live: A record I don't have a name for.
bono_live: But I dare anyone to make a better rock record this year.
bono_live: What do you think Edge? Edge says, Right on!
bono_live: Daniel Lanois, what do you think? I'm going to put you onto
Daniel Lanois? As Bob Marley would say, he's the dread at the controls.o
bono_live: Don't ask too personal questions....
bono_live: D. Lanois: Hello! We're here celebrating!
bono_live: I guess we have something to live up to after that comment! We're
well on our way!
bono_live: We certainly are going to give it our best, we have a lot of
inspiration already in play, and now we need to flesh them out.
bono_live: It's usually a combination of fun and hard work.
bono_live: We've had fun, we have more hard work ahead of us.
yahoomusic: Are you going for a very specific sound on this album?
bono_live: Personally, I'm very selfish about the approach. I wanted to make
sure we heard Larry on the record.
bono_live: The presence of hand played drums is very important in these
times of canned beats and easy access to them.
bono_live: What's become a rare commodity is the presence of humanity and
the feeling of people in a room playing off each other.
bono_live: We want to make sure we get that. Of course, the technology is
there and is part of the technologoy.
bono_live: But when you got four people in a room who can give it hell, we
want to get it on the hard drive!
bono_live: Bono has gone to the bathroom, here's Edge!
Yahoomc: Edge is joining us now...
bono_live: Edge: Hello?!?
bono_live: Edge: I'm very, very excited about the work. I think it's some of
the best things we've done in many, many years. And I'm just dying to finish
the record and get it out there.
bono_live: Adam is 40 today, he's the first grown up in the band!
bono_live: We got him a piece of art, made by an Irish artist, Louis
Lebrocquay.

luvu2abe asks: Hey Edge, was imitating Neil Diamond the highlight of Popmart
for you?
bono_live: Edge: Good question! The highlight of the tour was playing
Sarejevo. I met Neil Diamond in the lift in New York.
bono_live: I was leaving the 23rd floor heading for the ground floor, he got
on at 17.
bono_live: And I was dumbstruck.
bono_live: We both got out at the ground floor, but I traveled 17 floors
with him in the elevator and couldn't pluck up the courage to say anything
to him. Not a word!

sah383steve asks: Hey Edge, your singing is good nowadays. Lessons?
bono_live: Edge: LOL! I had about 20 years lessons watching Bono.
bono_live: I'm back to the beanie hat at the moment.

crissyboylan_90210 asks: Edge, do have a new signature hat these days?
bono_live: I'm back to the beanie hat at the moment.
Yahoomc: Bono is rejoining us now...

Bonofyd asks: Bono, first I'd like to thank you for all that you do for
humanity. I'm sure it's being noted... Anyway, how is the World Debt gig
going? Any progress? Anything I can do?
bono_live: With regards to debt cancellation that I've been involved with
the last couple of years, it has gone beyond my own wildest dreams.
bono_live: In the United States on Wednesday of this last week, a committee
of six Republicans and five Democrats recommended unanimously, to drop the
debt for the US of 41 of the poorest countries in the world.
bono_live: Which is an increase of five from where we stood the week before.
bono_live: Italy, Canada, Norway, the UK, everybody is rising to the
challenge.
bono_live: Of the Millenium year.
bono_live: I can assure you that by the end, by December, we will definitely
have cancelled billion of debt.
bono_live: If things keep going this way, maybe twice that.
bono_live: The way you can help is by calling your local congressman,
politiican, MP, and telling them this is important to you.
bono_live: By beautiful wife Ali has just walked into the room. I'm going to
pass you to Anton Corbin, who, more than anyone knows, has designed the way
U2 look, and sadly - feel!
bono_live: Here he is!
bono_live: Anton: Hello everybody!
yahoomusic: Hey Anton do you have a website?
bono_live: Anton: The website is designed, but I'm a little slow in making
the text for it. It will be up by the first of April.
bono_live: The address is www.corbijn.co.uk
yahoomusic: are you working on any film projects at the moment?
bono_live: I am just doing photography, I have a large exhibition coming up
of 25 years of photography. Bono is doing the opening.
bono_live: On the 8th of April, in Holland, in a museum called Groninger
Museum in Groninger.

keerwallis asks: Anton, which is your favourite photo of the band?
bono_live: It's hard, because different periods have different favorites.
But the museum will have a separate room of 18 years of photography of Bono
and the band.
bono_live: I think the highlight is a photo of Bono in a golf cart in Mexico
with a haircut like Robert Deniro in Taxi Driver.

The_Ryan_King asks: Anton, will U2 have a new look on this tour?
bono_live: We are still discussing that.
bono_live: But I've worked with them now for 18 years. Which is, I think, in
music photography unique. I've never heard of a photographer who worked for
this long a time with a particular band.
bono_live: And I'm very grateful for it. They've allowed me to grow within
their framework.
bono_live: Adam is here!
bono_live: Hi this Bono, Adam won't actually pick up the phone...

celia_from_eze asks: I'm reading Rushdie's book at the moment : what stroke
you most : the pop world in which it was set or the identfication of great
pop artists with the myth of Orpheus ?
bono_live: Good question. What I was surprised by in the novel was not the
minutia, the detail, of the so called Pop Life, which was pretty good
considering Salman Rushdie is not known to hang out at raves or own a
Marshall stack.
bono_live: But what he captured was the heady confusion between the real and
the surreal, between the imagined and the actual.
bono_live: Of a songwriter's and performer's world.
bono_live: This is really impressive.
bono_live: And believe me, I would love to tell him if he flunked.
bono_live: Somebody has just walked in and poured me a glass of wine...one
of the most beautiful women I've ever met...she happens to be my wife....I'm
a lucky man!

nooga01 asks: Bono, you've had great success in your campaigns lately. Does
it make you feel uneasy that your voice is stronger that any politician, who
is elected to look after their people?
bono_live: Well, I have a new found respect for politicians. I think they
work very hard. They're not as corrupt as I thought. They'd make much more
money if they went into business, a lot of them.
bono_live: ANd - shock, horror - a lot of them genuinely see their role as
public service.
bono_live: The boring thing about them is their lack of imagination.
bono_live: THat's where we come in.
bono_live: At first I thought musicians, artists, novelists, painters should
not be in the same company. Now I think we need each other.
bono_live: In fact, as an Irishman, I've learned the importance of such
connections in the success of Ireland coming out from under the hoof of
colonization and Great Britain.
bono_live: It was painters, poets, that gave us a sense of who we were.
bono_live: We are part of the family.
bono_live: Politicians shut us out at their peril.

ms_pitstop asks: Will you be running for mayor of Dublin when you retire
from your position of international rock god?
bono_live: I wouldn't move to a smaller house!
bono_live: Adam is unable to come to the phone himself, because he's dressed
in pajamas somebody gave him as a birthday gift. The Hugh Hefner Playboy
look is not something I'd recommend!
bono_live: But he's beaming from ear to ear...

PopUlrick asks: is Israel Goldkiss a symbolic character that represents in
the film the person of Jesus Christ? Because the film says , speaking of
israel, that his life was like shit but his death seemed to bring everybody
together?
bono_live: It's an interesting question. But Israel, Izzy as he's known in
the movie, is more Barrabas than Jesus. Tom Tom is the Christ-like
character, the accidental Christ.
bono_live: Tom Tom played by Jeremy Davies, is the one who loves Eloise,
played by Milla Jarovich so purely, that the bruises and callouses of abuse
that she has suffered in her past, seem to melt away under his gaze.

Miss_Terious_Ways asks: Did you have any specific actors in mind when
writing the script?
bono_live: No. In fact, when Wim Winders called me and said Milla Jarovich
would be his choice for Eloise I was nervous.
bono_live: I thought to myself, she's too beautiful, she's a model, she's a
super model, she won't be believable in downtown LA on 5th and Main. She'd
look like she was just slumming it.
bono_live: It's a credit to her as an actor that that question never comes
to mind.
bono_live: She has the thing that makes a woman so beautiful. She's not
vain.
bono_live: Almost an impossible achievement for an actress.
bono_live: Who looks that good.

poloshore asks: How did Mel Gibson get involved?
bono_live: Mel Gibson heard about the script through somebody who worked in
his office, and he offered to be our bodyguard, our 365 pound gorilla.
bono_live: His company, Icon, were prepared to pay for the making of the
movie.
bono_live: The cream on the cake was when Mel Gibson, not just a star but a
great actor, offered to play the role of Skinner, the detective.
bono_live: For considerably less than he's normally paid.
bono_live: A minor role, it's a much more michievious role than you've ever
seen him on the screen.

etrit asks: Your work for erasing debt is honorable. Are you going to get
involved in freeing political prisoners as well, such as Kosovars in Serbia,
Chinese dissidents, and others?
bono_live: I've never thought of myself as a celebrity.
bono_live: I like to believe that I'll be a rock n roll star as long as I
don't become a celebrity.
bono_live: So, if I'm going to throw a punch in a worthy direction, I think
carefully about it.
bono_live: The debt issue was an issue that affected almost a billion people
on this earth who live on less than a day.
bono_live: I'm involved in Amnesty International. We are, as a band,
involved with Greenpeace, but it is rare that you have a chance to affect
the lives of so many people.
bono_live: I couldn't walk away from this one.
bono_live: I think I'm getting too much credit for the success.

u2conga asks: Bono, what do you think of Pinochet returning to Chile?
bono_live: Pinochet, I have a lot of thoughts. And having played in CHile in
1998. And having addressed Mr. Pinochet directly from stage with the Mothers
of the Disappeared standing behind me, live on national television, we asked
him a simple question.
bono_live: Where, tell us at least where, are the bodies buried? We know you
can't bring them back to life. But you alone can tell us, can tell us, can
tell these mothers where their sons are buried.
bono_live: God alone is your judge, but you alone can give them can give
them a corner of peace. Why won't you?
yahoomusic: Are you still involved with Amnesty?
bono_live: Amnesty International is a very practical and simple way of being
politically effective.
bono_live: You send a stamped addressed postcard of your point of view to a
political prisoner, saying we know where you are and we won't forget you.
bono_live: The more that arrive, the better the conditions that the prison
rewards the prisoner.
bono_live: It is a remarkable thing to think that we can, if we get up off
our ass, change the world.
bono_live: Make it better.
bono_live: For more people.
bono_live: It's laughable people will point their finger at you as you walk
down the street, it's extremely unfashionable and unhip, but it's true.

paceyloverinthehouse asks: bono, do u believe that aliens exist ?
bono_live: I'm going to pass you onto Helena Christiansen who is the nearest
thing....
bono_live: Helena: If we exist they probably do too. Do we exist though?!?
yahoomusic: What did you get Adam for his birthday?
bono_live: I got him a pajamas. Really comfortable pajamas, and silk
slippers.
bono_live: He got three pairs of pajamas, and three hammocks. HE's a very
lucky guy!

hargreae asks: Helena, what's your favorite U2 song?
bono_live: It was on Red, Hot and Blue, and October. Oh, God, I can go on,
but I must say Night and Day, that was the most beautiful version of that
song ever.

randy_greencorn asks: Helena, what have you been up to lately?
bono_live: Well I had a baby! So that's what I've been up to lately. And I
have been up - all night long!
bono_live: Five months now!
bono_live: This is my first night away from him.

y_boland asks: Helena - have you ever had a broken heart like normal girls?
bono_live: LOL! Oh, yes, have I ever!
bono_live: I mean suffered.
bono_live: But it's a good thing, especially when you do meet the one you do
feel is your soul mate, it mends all the broken hearts.

ethan_strange asks: Helen....How do you describe the U2 guys all
togheter....crazy kids?
bono_live: Helena: They can be both. They can be totally crazy, like kids
hanging around, they are very honest and real guys.
bono_live: It's always a joy being around them, their wives and friends, a
great bunch of people.
bono_live: THey can also be serious, and you can have wonderful
conversations with them. They are very intelligent and very knowledgeable.

bmohin asks: Do you believe in love at first site?
bono_live: Helena: LOL! Yeah, I do. If it happens, then I definitely believe
in it. Sometimes it just happens. It took two hours with my boyfriend, so I
think that's pretty much at first sight.

babyirisheyes asks: What did you name your baby?
bono_live: Helena: Mingus.
bono_live: Mingus Lucien Reedus.
bono_live: Helena: Mingus is for jazz musician, CHarles Mingus, the bass
player.
bono_live: Helena: I'm heading home, thank you, this is the first time I've
ever had anything to do with the internet!
bono_live: Bono: Hi all!
bono_live: I just passed Adam, I said, Adam, you're 40, do you have anything
to say?
bono_live: And he said, obscurely, How long do I have to sing this song?

kid_cyber_rock asks: Did you reaaly write the "sweetest thing" because you
forgot your anniversary?
bono_live: It's close to the truth, not exactly the truth.

rafiki_84047 asks: bono, do you ever sell your art
bono_live: No. I love to paint. I don't think it's just the fumes, but it
might be.
bono_live: My best friend, Googie, is one of the best painters in Ireland
right now.
bono_live: My father was a great painter.
bono_live: Tonight we had one of the greatest painters, Louis Lebraquay, who
gave Adam this incredible tapestry he designed.

dirtgirl asks: bono, have you given up anything for lent?
bono_live: Do you all know about the Christian practice of Lent? After the
carnival - carne means meat, flesh, the celebration of the flesh, then Lent
comes, the denial of the flesh.
bono_live: You give up something you love in order that when Easter comes,
after 40 days, it comes back at you with new appreciation. I was following
Lent until this afternoon.
bono_live: I have fallen off the wagon the world wide web. I'm sure God will
forgive me, I hope the rest of you will be as gracious.
bono_live: Thank you!!
yahoomusic: And Thank You Bono!
yahoomusic: That was absolutely amazing!
yahoomusic: That's all we have time for today!
yahoomusic: Thanks for all of your wonderful questions!
yahoomusic: there were sooo many of them...we're sorry we couldn't have
answered them all.

bonorome asks: BYE BONO

tweezer63 asks: Hey YahooMusic -- can we get a copy of the chat..?
yahoomusic: You know you can tweezers!
yahoomusic: the transcript for the event will be posted in the next couple
hours
yahoomusic: in the transcripts section of Yahoo! Chat
yahoomusic: Thanks for checking out our chat with Bono
yahoomusic: and be sure to check out the movie,
yahoomusic: Million Dollar Hotel
yahoomusic: co-written and produced by Bono
yahoomusic: and directed by lengendary Wim Wenders
yahoomusic: The Soundtrack to the movie
yahoomusic: will be realesed in the US
yahoomusic: on March 14
yahoomusic: on Interscope Records
yahoomusic: The soundtrack features songs by Bono
yahoomusic: and by U2
yahoomusic: for more information on it
yahoomusic: visit the website
yahoomusic: www.milliondollarhotel.com
yahoomusic: you can listen to the audio
yahoomusic: and get additional info
yahoomusic: on the Million Dollar Band
yahoomusic: and guest performers
yahoomusic: such as Brian Eno
yahoomusic: Daniel Lanois
yahoomusic: Milla Jovovich
yahoomusic: and others!
yahoomusic: thanks for joinung us chatters
yahoomusic: we hope you've had as much fun as we have!
yahoomusic: as always stay tuned to yahoo! chat for all the biggest and best
celebrity chats

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This page contains a single entry by Jonathan published on March 12, 2000 9:26 PM.

Bono Promotes Debt Forgiveness At Italy Songfest was the previous entry in this blog.

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