Bono x Colbert: The Full Extended Interview With A Rock Legend

[Music] foreign ladies and gentlemen you can feel it in the room you can feel it in the room already because folks my guest tonight is well he's a rock star who has given his voice to you too and the fight for equality around the world he's just written a new Memoir surrender 40 songs one story please welcome to the Late Show Bono [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] have you ever done a stand-up interview I've never actually done a stand-up interview let's go let's do it okay we're gonna do the interview standing up yeah all right so I'm Irish and I can do what I want okay all right uh it's really it's really lovely to meet you I've never had you on the show before it's also yeah also my such a pleasure to meet you sir we uh I I the thing is that this isn't the first time we've been in a room together and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about Rosemont Horizon outside of Chicago 1987 uh Joshua Tree tour I was there I was the guy in the 25th row of the orchestra right before Sunday Bloody Sunday who went that was me I knew I knew I'd meet you one day absolutely fantastic you can sit down thank you very much foreign Orchestra baby I had a lighter remember I was the guy with the lighter wow yeah yeah it's a pretty fun night I got a self-immolation goes very well with rock and roll you set yourself on fire that night sure now uh good I don't even know where to begin man I don't I don't know where to start with a Bono this is It's too rich of A Feast for me right now so let's just start with a book popped on my head when I was a baby sure get in line all right so here is the new book surrender 40 songs one story um as everyone knows you are the uh lead singer of you two there you are Larry Mullen Jr on drums Adam Clayton base Bono on vocals and the edge but what I want to talk to you about and you get into it in the book is take me back to Dublin in the 70s talk to me about these guys talk to me about these fellas right here um what was it like meeting these fellas for the first time clearly some a potty mouth um The Edge bought a guitar the same shape as his head big brain called Joe Larry Mullen proper rock star from day one what do you mean by proper rock star when he actually he got a drum kit from his dad Larry Mullen senior by pretending he was interested in jazz and because that's what the doubt was gonna you know sure and have you noticed Larry mom and Junior is not exactly a punk rock name yes much more Giants yes so uh so but he he's he's gonna he he formed the band and uh he was 14 years old put up the notice in man Temple comprehensive rock rock rock and roll High School and um yeah you know I met all I met all four members of U2 and my present and only woman of my Life by the love of my life my wife same week I went up the same way yeah it was a big week what week what week of the year what month of the year are we talking it was November when we finally um you know when I I was at a bus stop and um um you know this this guy did not um crack but we attempted um you're talking about your wife here yes okay I mean I'm also betrothed to Edge Adam and Larry but it's a different kind of relationship but just as committed but I'm happy to get into it uh with you also well I I I hope we will um but first I want to talk to you about um can we talk about the hair for a second because this is the first guy I saw oh well that is okay [Applause] um when did this guy show up um the mullet I think is what you referring exactly yes yes in the decade taste forgot and the 80s uh the mullet was a kind of a David Bowie lab experiment that went wrong we we all thought we were going to get it like David Bowie didn't really look like that and a man should really not look like his hair has been ironed I don't think well this was big this spread uh far and wide my my roommate in college a guy named Eric Jones he loved you so much this is hair his haircut that he got wow yeah we listened to nothing but you two in my room if I didn't like you two I would had to have moved out of the room because that's all we listened to I'd like to think we've moved into your room right now I'm very happy about that thank you for being here my my our our youngest son John who's unfortunately for me six foot has presently a mullet yes we were getting on so well but uh is he a musician uh no um yeah he just arrived in with a mullet and uh yeah I wouldn't mess with him the there's a lot of comeback of the mall at the New York Times is saying there's a there's a search for the best mullet in America right now Los Angeles time says the mull is the haircut that refuses to die have you have you thought about growing it back no no I I it upsets me um it upsets you that you ever had one like seeing you with a molly look this well dealing with [ __ ] you know and uh dark chapters from our past can you imagine live AIDS one of the most incredible moments of of anyone's life you know as a concert and like fam and so organized by organized by my mate Bob Geldof and you know Queen and and just incredible artists you know in Philadelphia and London and broadcast all over the world and I see that back now I just go oh so would you be a bad hair day would you be at all interested in seeing what it would look like to have it back because we have the digital technology to give you a mod right here uh In This Moment we were getting on so well yes um how are you going to do that just you just kind of look over at that camera and then this camera is going to put a mullet look at this camera you look at that and then you you look at that camera but then this camera is going to put a mullet on you okay Jim can we can we mullet him let me zoom out a little bit it's a little big it's a little big can you look at me a little bit Bono look at me just uh right there that's perfect that's it nice very very hurtful as you've got an you've got this tremendous stage presence and it's very unique like it's identifiable you know a Bono performance not just the voice but your physicality are there were there people when you were younger when this guy this you know these these young guys right here was there somebody that this guy admired as a performer that you wanted to model yourself after the same way like Mick Jagger modeled himself after like Tina Turner um he did he took his dancing from her well that's interesting because I uh yeah I had a female kind of um Muse in terms of as a performer somebody I would really change my view of of Performing Patty Smith a great poet and and the the thing that I really loved about her was that you felt with her there was no distance between her and her audience we were in her audience and that you know sometimes she would elbow her way through the crowd and get up on stage or over her way out of the crowd and I'm I like performers who you know I sense for them that they they want to break down the fourth wall the distance they might follow you home they might sit in your knee they'll make you a cup of tea they might mug you they might make out with you you know I just but they're part of it they're not just observers for you yeah they're in it Mark rylan's great actor I saw him in Jerusalem and I just again I just felt he could step right off the stage and into my life and so that's for me yeah performers who are nicely comfortable above everyone else um was what we rebelled against um in the late 70s in what has become known as punk rock though somebody did shout at an early show of YouTube more punk in the monkeys um more Punk in the monkeys meaning more in you you're the monkey well there was it happened before your time I know the monkeys mean like the mummies [Music] okay wow all right it's a hair trigger they're on a hair trigger right now but it was just a Heckle and so we weren't really convincing as a punk band because we were we were children but but but those values where and are still at the core of of of who we are what are those values what are the what do you see those as this sort of punk rock promise yeah what is it well I think to understand that your audience are that you that you came out of the audience that you were there with them for them that you're not above them it's a reciprocal emotional relationship yeah and I would say also we had and punk this idea that music can change the world and you can have fun that was a that was a sort of feeling in in punk rock music you know it wasn't just you know and yeah that the world is more malleable than you think you know you can bend it and shape it it's not set that idea you know three chords you just you say your truth you speak your truth you spit it out and I would say hip-hop it came in that same Spirit you know um with black music but it's you know the the only limit was your imaginative imagination not your ability to play like these are such extraordinary musicians and but we were not I mean the edge was a genius Larry could play drums uh Adam was bluffing um but he but he looked great um sure but the yeah this kind of punk rock promises um I think we've tried to keep them I I probably doesn't look I'd look it doesn't look like that but our bands our crew the community we've come from in Dublin and Ireland we're still with these people and um yeah they're with us here in the studio Gavin Friday my best mate from the group virgin prunes he's with me helping us work out you know how to be in in your room so so we're still we're children of punk Stephen I read I read uh back in like 1984 or 1985 I think it was in Cream Magazine they have these profiles of of artists fans and would be like the same questions they ask every band and and and band you'd like to be or you wish you were or something like that I think y'all said the Beatles or you might have said the who could be the who could be the Beatles I'll take either maybe I think it might have been the who but then I looked up with the who said and the who said The Beatles And The Beatles said the Beach Boys and the Beats boys said Chuck Berry so did you two want to be Chuck Berry by the transitive property of Rock I hadn't you down as a mathematician um but I think there's an equation in there yeah is there like a early rock and roll influence do you like Elvis Presley you you yeah a big bang of pop music of course sure yeah do you ever sing his stuff like do you ever uh first time my mother only time my mother ever heard me singing was in our high school gym and [Music] um uh it was the um that uh it was it was an Elvis part in the musical Josephine's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that's right and you had to curl your lip and it was my mother's trouser suits I was I guess I was 14 and she put sort of you know Diamante on it and and I had to go I was wandering along on the banks of the river you know and you know I could actually could quite pull it off I felt a bit of The Flash coming and oh this Crown oh I like this crown and she just laughed and laughed and laughed and and that was yeah that was the only time she's she saw me so yeah I feel close to the king what about yourself oh I love them I grew up with them all throughout that wise men say only fools Russians [Music] falling in love with you what well I don't but I can't just figure out is how a truck driver from Memphis 16 years old was wearing eyeshadow was wearing those zoot suits you know in those you know uh pointy shoes blue suede shoes I guess but you know just think about that you know 15 or 16 in Memphis I mean even that in New York you get a few looks and he's got that and I think I think there was a Revolution going on there not just in music but just in the way of thinking and you know what he did for kind of a femininity that he owned up to as well as a masculinity and yeah I don't think we fully understand um Elvis even now I think still still going on and I love you know I know the early period of Elvis is the one that people Revere you know when he looks like Rudolph Valentino and sang like Dean Martin but love me tender and all that but actually it's the end of his life when he got lost that he became more than even a rock and roll singer I think he became like an opera and him singing what is it the Wonder of you oh the American Trilogy I was thinking there's a Glory Glory Hallelujah his truth and he's sweating and forgetting some of the words and his I just see him as a just just an American story and his vulnerability in the end was what made him great though I I remember saying this to Chuck D from Public Enemy and he said his line was Elvis don't mean to me and I guess you know it's a very particular um love but when you have it you you you'll never be you'll never be released from it so if you've got it you you'll have it bad I'm sure well speaking of people that you love and you never stop loving did you did you see the the Peter Jackson get back documentary yeah the Beatles the reason I the reason I ask is not just the Beatles Because of course the Beatles but what I love is hearing how artists and great artists go through their process of sudden there's nothing and suddenly there is something something substantial and beautiful and that is like a magic wand and moves people gets into their heart from a distance and I'm curious when you look at that what what is your process like I guess is what I'm asking because that process is so fascinating to me and did you recognize anything in their process in the way that you and your friends here in the band create songs I was I was riveted I mean first of all who knew that the Beatles had created reality TV I was like wow they had microphones in the flower pots and right and then I also felt so privileged because it was like being there when Jesus wrote You Know The Sermon on the Mount and the it's the you know and Jesus had a road he'd be like blessed are thee blessed are the me geek no meek meek I mean you're hearing them write these songs and they're going what is it you know it's like hey George you know Jude you know you're yelling Tucson Arizona yeah um improvisations at the heart of what you two does even though there's a formal songwriting that we do age and myself really do that but for Larry and Adam their contribution in the songwriting as often through improvisation and improvisation started very early for me I can remember as a child couldn't play I remember my head being up to the piano keys so I couldn't see I remember putting my foot on the Reverb pedal pressing you know finding a note and then finding another one that would sound good with that note and that improvisation is Faith actually you're jumping from one place to another you don't know how you're going to get there and in music that's how that's how we live you know you're finding those notes I've never sung you know these songs um the way I'm singing them now I've never I've never sung them before every night it's different for me but there's also improvisation in just the way you deal with your situation I um I was writing in the in in my book about um being no I was writing my book about um thank you and uh we when we were kids looking very much like that photograph we had a big TV producer Big Cheese was coming to our high school because he'd heard we wrote our own songs and it was a big break we're gonna get a break and get on the national Telly and um you know we were arguing about how the song was going it was really not going anywhere all this none of the songs we couldn't agree on anything the knock on the door like that and we're like I'm gonna do what are we gonna do how do we what do we say what do we do what are you doing when he walks in and he's so you write your own songs how old are you what 15 16 years old yeah yeah we write our own song could you play me one no improvisation lead Edge to look at me like that and I looked at him like that Adam and Larry we played The Ramones glad to see you go and said it was ours that's improvisation too and Geniuses Stewart everyone borrows Genius of Steel yeah I wanna we changed around when we got on that we actually did get the the appearance on TV let me change it to one of our songs just so you know you write beautifully about your parents in here and uh if you don't mind I'd like to go back to your mother you said there's only one time she saw you perform she passed when you were 14. yeah I believe what now with the perspective of your age because it takes a long time to absorb the death of a parent and understand what that what that meant to you I think what did what did your mother mean to you and what did her passing mean to you and I suppose affect your art or add to your art well you're asking about kind of performers I'm attracted to um I think I'm not saying I'm a great performer but great performers really need Their audience I need the U2 audience and people I think they feel that they know that and um and that concerned vomit inducing by the way you know I we love you you're amazing [Laughter] I'm not saying that I'm saying something deeper than that is the desire to have that whole filled that's left when I lost my mother is what brought me there to music and it that wound sort of was an opening in a way it opens me up not just to music but that I that I I to to being a performer and I'm you know it's an easy I'm an easy study you know it's quite obvious that I fill that hole you know with with everyone here and and you know every night you two goes goes on stage but there's I think there's another layer of this which is contemplating um you're forced to contemplate a concept that a 14 year old finds very hard to contemplate the you know the concept of infinity now is there such a thing is there an eternal spirit what where where where where has my mother gone where am I going and so um great fun stuff like that um no but these are the things you know that get you there and you ask these questions and our our band somebody said you know say Van Morrison started off writing songs about girls and ended up years later writing about God with us we sort of started with God and we're just getting to girls now but it's you know we ask those big questions you know is this the Opera in us too I have a question about Van Morrison that we can cut out I'm just curious since I got you here I've always thought the song Domino is about God oh do you think that yeah don't want to discuss it I think it's time for change you may have been disgusted so I think that I'm strange that case I'll go underground get some heavy rest never have to worry about what is worse what is best oh Domino oh Lord roll me over now Romeo the great lover yeah that's I've always thought thank you I think you're right and you know when I hear him saying it's like it's like yeah it's like the angels singing for me for Irish people in particular Van Morrison means so much to us and you know meeting him you know it's like you know he can be in strange form he said of me he knew I was his absolute you know a disciple he said it'll be great when you're finished what do you think he meant by that you'll get there one day you know but right before the end yeah I think you're there are you there yet I'll tell you a story you cannot put it on the air but just it's so funny so this is just a second go ahead see we're going to cut this out so Van Morrison it's like meeting you know God for me and with my family we go backstage we're in nice at the jazz festival and Van Morrison says to me want to do Gloria so Gloria is one of the greatest songs ever written right it's like your dad saying do you want to take the car out sure I'm like yeah and um so we go on stage and I know and he's he's in amazing form he's seeing seven new songs no one's ever heard every the crowd are going with it and then he sometimes puts him off I don't know why he just you know it can happen to us all the wine turns to vinegar anyway whatever happened I knew be careful you know I'm going to sing this I want to screw this up so but after an hour no matter who you are Van Morrison the crowd love you know something a guest comes on stage so you're right Bono's on stage uh so I walk out on stage in nice and they love you too so the crowd goes off and I'm singing g l in the crown found the man's gone it's gone he left he just walked out and I'm like let's close this show so he goes the show but I don't think you can use that but uh does he say he's not litigious no no no no no no no I'm sure he doesn't neither is Disney no oh okay you feel some personal hurt there what nothing Show Business Baby it's all Show Business okay we all love each other now midterms are next week in in the states here and uh our country's casting a vote about his future a very kind of interesting one now because of what's going on with our approach or our view of democracy and the validity of our elections you're a long time lover of the U.S and you say in the book you call America perhaps the greatest song the world has not yet heard uh what do you mean and what's that song sound like to you well what I mean is and I think I'm really encouraged by this idea that America doesn't yet exist it's the greatest idea the world has ever had but I don't think it's here yet and that's an amazing feeling that it's just being written and far from recorded and you know the people in this you know just generation the people in this room can write what America is and you know some people look back and think that America has had its hey they know it's it's all common for you this is you're just you're just being created and think about it you know if you're not a native um American there's no DNA test that can tell you you're an American I mean if you do a DNA test here anyone here you'll be one part polish one part you know whatever you know one part check one part Egyptian we know but there's no DNA test will tell you you're American unless you're a native and that's kind of that's who you are it's if you're not the American the American is just being created and I'm excited by that are you saying that it'll be good when you're finished is that what you're saying to America yes and and there's I just I what I do want to say is I've been everywhere in this country even my imagination you know I've been to Bozzy or whatever I've been everywhere but the band has brought me everywhere and there is no nowhere in this country that I would want to fly over I'm interested in all the Americans that I've met I've met a lot and I'm friends and community in community with conservatives and um as a sort of you know bleeding heart liberal that I am I enjoy those conversations I enjoy those those arguments it's just essential that they stay as arguments and not um the kind of brutality that we've witnessed in the last week with um Paul Pelosi um and Nancy Pelosi because and it was even the hammer I just it's just it was a hammer you know this blunt instrument it's it's an image I can't get out of my head and you know I just feel that all of us are better than any of us and you know the one campaign we work with our our um our idea is that you don't have to agree with um somebody on everything it's the one thing you care about is important enough and so you know I just I just think we need to listen to each other more and you know I'm a big talker that doesn't come easy for me listening but I think we need to listen to each other more and try to understand what's going on but yeah America is on its way and and I'm I'm just so excited to see how you know where you take it and this is difficult times but you know in these in trying times these anxious times you know you always choose you always find a leadership to match the moments you know if you go back to the war and Truman or before the second world war you think of FDR or you think of I think of Lincoln Abraham Lincoln and [Music] um and I just think I just think America will find that leadership and if you don't like what's going on in the capital and um you know local communities you'll find in that leaders will arrive in local communities I would never underestimate you know small town America and um yeah and uh there's no this idea of flow over country makes makes me makes me Rich I love I love actual America actual Americans I toured for many years there's no town that I didn't find fascinating is that right as a comedian I toured all over see that's the same thing yeah yeah same thing yeah there was no town there was one town they stole my riding partner's clothes that was the one town from the laundromat that was the one town that we left with a bad taste in our mouth every other town was just fantastic I'm not going to say where that was but where was that what it wasn't like in Nebraska Lincoln Nebraska is a great town I had a girlfriend from there I had an amazing moment in Lincoln Nebraska um we did an AIDS um speaking working call the heart of America Tour because you know if you're an American you're an AIDS activist I don't know if you know that it's an amazing thing because your country really leads the world fighting HIV AIDS and I could yeah conservative president President Bush kicked that off then President Obama followed through on it and right through Biden and skipped that bit um but one of the greatest things Bush did it's it's an extraordinary thing and in on this Tour on a van and a bus actually um this guy walks in um and he's introduced to us as the richest man in America his name is Warren Buffett and and he's oh hi wow uh and I asked him he's known as the Oracle of Omaha you know and I asked him if you any advice and he said ah two things um uh what are you asking people to do and I said well you know they write their congressmen you know on these postcards and send it to him it's too easy people don't trust your vows them to do things too easy ask them to do 10 postcards each I said well this is good what else he said don't appeal to the conscience of America appeal to the greatness of America and you get the job done and I believe that I really believe that because you know Irish people you can guilt us into with uh other people but in America if you're really stuck like say we were in the second world war Americans show up you're the Cavalry we love that about you thank you [Applause] thank you the book is surrender and and there there's there's one thing in the book I'd like to return to before we go here and you did something that is very generous you actually um you apologize in this book right you apologize for putting YouTube's 2014 album Songs of Innocence onto every iPhone in the world without our permission and you say you say unequivocally this was my fault my idea Apple question and I said no it's going to be great the band didn't want to I wanted to do it I was wrong that's very fulsome of you and now I understand in your next book you have other things to apologize for and we have a list of them right here is this true mono did you know that edge was from the future yes yeah he says it's better oh yeah so here we are this is a little something here they are right there they're also going to be in these cameras right here okay this is something uh we like to call apologies to look forward to in Bono's next book okay start right over there I'd like to apologize for wearing sunglasses you see when I take them off I I shoot lasers out of my eyes like Cyclops from the X-Men um our 2004 album how to dismantle an atomic bomb does not actually contain instructions as to how to dismantle an atomic bomb just just 11 really great songs thank you um I'm sorry because after we released The Unforgettable Fire I totally forgot about the fire that's good um during The Encore I said um to 30 000 applauding fans I can't hear you Minneapolis I lied I could hear them fine oh I can hear them fine yeah and to to my band mates Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr I'm sorry you're stuck working with guys who call themselves Bono and the edge I didn't realize we could just use our real names the book is surrender the man is Bono stick around for a performance everybody [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Views: 967,419

Keywords: The Late Show, Late Show, Stephen Colbert, Steven Colbert, Colbert, celebrity, celeb, celebrities, late night, talk show, comedian, comedy, CBS, joke, jokes, funny, funny video, funny videos, humor, hollywood, famous

Id: aqg-wrOL8xQ

Length: 36min 41sec (2201 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 04 2022