What a treat, Bono and Larry being interviewed by David Letterman. How Bizzare! For those of you betting, Bono was bleeped, once! I actually thought to myself, "Maybe Bono read wire and did that for us!" We can dream, right? Well anyway, the interview was very interesting. Bono wore his army green "Castro" cap and jacket. Larry wore, well, his usual! I thought they both looked great! Especially Bono, all lean and fit looking!
(Larry and Bono entered the stage, Larry took the second seat, leaving the
one next to Dave for Bono. They both wave to audiance. Before Bono sits
down, he pulls a cigar out of his jacket pocket and hands it to Dave)
DAVE: Oh, God bless you! (sniffing it) We'll get to that a little later.
BONO: (pointing to cigar) Fidel Castro gave me that...
DAVE: Ah, welcome to the show, thank you for being here, how are things
going, alright?
BONO: They're great, could'nt be better actually.
DAVE: Are you enjoying touring with the show?
BONO: Its, its a great show, you know, we're out there with a giant 40ft.
lemon.
DAVE: What's the deal with the lemon, why is there a 40ft. lemon?
BONO: Well, it could've been an artichoke, but uh...
DAVE: (laughing)
BONO: We were looking for a practical fruit!
DAVE: Well, then you have something then, don't you?
BONO: Yea, no, its a cool thing (looking over at Larry) are you happy with
the lemon?
LARRY: Yea, i"m happy with the lemon! There is something quite funny about
four paddies walking out from a 40ft. lemon.
DAVE: Who's idea was the lemon?
BONO: (pause) Uh...I think the lemon was last seen in a vodka and tonic
(laughing) I don't know! I mean, when you're in a band...you're in a band you
get these big ideas and unfortunantly people build them and..
DAVE: Is it a little Spinal Tapian?
BONO: Yea, I hope so, somebody's gotta have the <BLEEP> to stare that down,
yea... (crowd and Dave laughing)
BONO: Yea know, yea, its like, uh, rock and roll had kinda gotten miserable
and dull, especially like white rock and stuff and we want to be the
brightest, sort of the boldest, badest band in the land!
DAVE: You know, do yourself a favor...
BONO: (interupting Dave, smiling proudly) ...and that's what we're doing!
DAVE: Next time your performing, next time your recording, add a couple of
these (Dave yells and howls out loud)
BONO: (howls back) Somebody in the crowd was doing that earlier...something
to do with a road map.
DAVE: Yea, I know. (laughing)
BONO: (nudging Dave on knee to get his attention) Isabella Rossollini (puts
hand to heart) she just told me she was gonna be my guardian angel while I
was out here.
DAVE: Oh thats nice, well thats very sweet of her, thats the kinda woman she
is, she's very nice.
LARRY: Yea, but she really likes drummers! (audiance laughs and applaudes)
DAVE: (to Larry) So you actually, this was your band, you started the band
and wanted to fire Bono, is that right?
LARRY: I did, it was funny cuz, uh, in Dublin in 1976 there wasn't a whole
lot to do, you know, sort of, join a band or play football, so we started a
band and...I did try to fire him because in 1976 he wanted to take a lemon to
America then, (laughter) and as you can see he came back crawling on his
hands and knees and here we are.
BONO: Yea Yea
DAVE: But seriously, how early in this did you know he wasn't gonna be right
for the group, I mean, was that true, was that serious?
LARRY: It wasn't that kinda thing, I think there was an incident in America
where we had a little bit of a misunderstanding and he threw a drum kit at me
(audiance laughs) I found out at that stage it was time for him to leave but
as I said he came crawling back on his hands and knees.
BONO: (motioning to Larry) This man gave me my first and only job.
DAVE: Which turned out pretty well, dikn't it?
LARRY: And don't you forget it pal!
BONO: I won't forget it!
DAVE: You guys, uh, do you have an actual friendship, an actual relationship
with Frank Sinatra or is this just a guy you know that you've met, do you
spend time with him?
BONO: We are fans, I mean, its like we are all just, you know, orbiting in
Frank's universe, as far as I'm concerned. We did meet him in Las Vagas, we
saw a big fight and then we met him,saw him play and then met him afterward.
He was very cool and, uh, and then I got to sing with him, in fact, its
quite funny because, uh, we got a fax from Japan...about a duet with Mr.
Frank Sinata (misspelled purposly) and it was called,"I've got you under my
chicken" and thats when things started getting very surreal in this band, and
that was way before the lemon!
DAVE: Do you (pause for audiance laughter) do you socialize with the man, do
you, have you seen him recently?
BONO: Well we've, I've, I haven't seen him recently, and, uh, I woudn't call
myself a mate of the Chairman of the Board but uh, I, we, uh, went to his
house and spent time at...
DAVE: You spent time at his house...
BONO: He can drink!
DAVE: Yea
BONO: He can drink.
DAVE: Could you keep up with Sinatra, I mean, he's close to 80 years old,
isn't he?
BONO: I'll be honest with you, I, I can't keep up, and I tried, in fact he
showed us a movie in this beautiful snow white screening room that he had,
and it was a movie, and i'd had a few of those stiffies that he puts together
(Dave laughing) and I'll be honest with you, okay, during the movie, at
Frank's place, I, I fell asleep, and when I woke up, okay, it was just this
horrible horrible dampness between my legs, and well...
DAVE: Hello!
BONO: I thought, this is actually serious, and I thought, this is dreadful,
this is serious Irish defeat to Italy (audiance laughs) but, in fact, I
didn't know what to do, what'll I say, will I just wait, what'll I do, will I
just close my eyes and pretend I'm still asleep and then I'll see, well, but
it was just a Jack Daniels and Coke, I think...
DAVE: So you just, so the story has a happy ending! (Dave and audiance laugh,
Bono squirms in seat)
BONO: Its cool
DAVE: He kinda responds to you guys as musicians and as just performers, guys
out there doing it, doesn't he?
BONO: He talked to Larry about it, the thing about it, I guess people in this
world don't talk a lot about music to him as much as you'd think, I mean
(motioning to Larry) Larry, what was that thing...
LARRY: He loves drummers too! He really does.(laughs) No, he was, um, I only
met him very briefly in Las Vegas, he um, he, all he wanted to talk about was
Jean (somebody-didn't understand name) and Buddy Rich, who just died, real
music fan and that was kinda surprising cuz there are a lot of people around
him, a lot of stars, not known for liking rock and roll, so um, it was kinda
nice.
DAVE: Yea
BONO: At the concert, when we went to his concert, he did this, you know, he
introduced us from the stage, and apparently he doesn't do that a lot
DAVE: This was in Las Vegas?
BONO: Yea, in Las Vegas and we stand up and do the wave thing, the show
buisiness thing, and we all stood up, and he, I think it was a while ago, and
we were dressed the way we were dressed and he just looked at us and said,
"Wow, you may be #1 but you haven't spent a dime on your clothes!"
DAVE: Frank!
BONO: He's cool, he's cool!
DAVE: Where are you off to now, where are you working now, what's the summer
like ahead of you?
BONO: (to Larry) What are we doing?
LARRY: Well, we go to Canada wednesday and travel the rest of the U.S., go
back to Europe, and come back again, so we got quite a bit of...
BONO: We're just kicking, this, you know, its sort of a tired old thing, rock
and roll is just gotten to safe, it knows what it is a little bit and we're
just trying to kick it up the arse a bit, send it into the next century!
(audiance applauds and yells)
DAVE: Well, there you go! Have a great day (all shake hands) Have a great
tour!
LARRY: Thank you, nice to meet you!