Annie: Alright we'll let you relax, you've just arrived from Madrid, and we'll be with you in a minute.

Bono: Thankyou.

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Annie: Sandwiches have arrived.

Roger: Pride In the Name of Love, live version from Rattle and Hum. Well it's us two and U2 for the next - well, we'll see how it goes; we're going to fake this, this is completely made up as we go along, we have no running order, we're just going to chat, and we're going to play some songs, we're going to play some U2 stuff of course, and other bits and pieces; but let's be honest we are making it up as we go along.

Bono: Ah you're a real rebel, Roger.

Roger: Annie and I, I must say, we were in Dublin at the world premiere on Thursday night, 'cos it gets its UK premiere tomorrow, and they really did you proud, didn't they Bono?

Bono: The ah... Who, now? Oh the people, yeah. It was nice to see O'Connell Street full of people instead of 've-hicles', as the (unintelligible) described them.

Roger: Must have been a bit strange for you, going to a premiere of your own film, being the guests of honour; there's the President, there's everybody who's anybody in Dublin there, at a cinema - the Savoy Theatre - where you must have gone to see films in your youth. You paid your one-and-sixpence or whatever at the door and you -

Adam: Never saw the film, but we went a lot. (laughter)

Bono: Actually, that's true. I used to go to the Savoy but I didn't pay the one-and-sixpence, because we had a scam running where one of us would pay in and he would go down and let us in the exit.

Roger: You're the only people who have ever done that! (laughter) But it must have been, I was just sitting there thinking -

Bono: Roger, did you skip into movies as a young man? I mean remember, your job's on the line here.

Roger: I used to do this at school, when it was sports day. And I hated doing cross-country, and whenever it was cross-country I'd fake the note from Mum, said "he has a twisted ankle", and off I would go with a bunch of mates to the cinema and they'd go in the back door.

Bono: There you go.

Annie: So we've all done - yeah I remember being told off severely because I admitted going to see three movies a week when I was a kid. But there we are, we're not here to talk about that.

Roger: You must have felt very proud though, on Thursday night. When you were there, and everybody applauded, and everybody stood up at the end, and there it was; and there was your big night. How'd you feel? Larry?

Larry: Well y'know, you're talking about the Savoy, used to go there as kids, and I was just wondering if we'd get in free from now on. (laughter) Y'know what I mean. No it was, it was great, y'know people in the city went to a lot of trouble, and it's sort of difficult in your own city, especially now that the band is... Y'know it's got quite big, and there's a lot of cynicism, particularly within the press. So on one hand yeah it was thrilling, on the other hand it was sort of a little bit frightening, how people think you're selling up and all that sort of stuff, y'know. So it was difficult as well as being really exciting, and so there's mixed emotions and mixed feelings.

Annie: Yeah talking of cynicism, I mean there's always the inevitable backlash after anyone's very successful, you're not allowed to be too successful; did you expect it to happen now?

Bono: Well yeah, actually. We did. I mean it gets boring to say, y'know, U2 are great - in Ireland, I mean they've had this for years, they're fed up. And of course there's a lot more things going for Dublin than U2, or going for Ireland than U2, and so when they have U2 rammed down their throat y'know for the last years I don't blame them throwing it up now and then. And I also think it is a very healthy thing to be cynical about rock'n'roll groups. I think it's particularly good to be cynical about rock'n'roll groups that aspire to the sort of things that U2 do. 'Cos, y'know, we saw in the 70s how rock'n'roll just got incredibly fat on the land of their acclaim, if you like, and so actually think it's a good thing. I mean I don't, I'm not generally -

Annie: You're saying, go on be horrible to him!

Bono: Not really, but I do understand it. I obviously would prefer praise.

Roger: What came out of that film - well one of the things that really came out in that film for me, was the sense of humour. Which hasn't been that evident in your public face previous to this, and to sit there actually smiling - the sequence at the beginning, which I won't go into; but I sat there and laughed and thought these guys actually have a sense of humour.

Bono: Well actually we don't, Roger. (laughter)

Adam: I think anyone with a sense of humour knows we've got a sense of humour, y'know that's kind of where it's at. It's just it always surprises people 'cos it's not a public thing.

Bono: It's a thing y'know, people don't expect us - for instance, film-makers, people like Francis Ford Coppola now, who makes very serious movies; people don't expect him to be an incredibly serious guy, necessarily, all the time, 24 hours a day. And we as a group I suppose make - we're very serious about our music, but people seem to expect that therefore we are serious 24 hours a day, and... We are! (laughter) It's absolutely right! And we're utterly boring, and you'll find out for sure in the next hour if you stay tuned.

Edge: I've heard Leonard Cohen's a really fun guy as well.

Annie: He is! He is! I met him recently, I said I was going to make him funny and he was, actually. And I said (unintelligible) king of depression, but he said "I'm not really that depressed! I'm not!" so it's true. So what do we talk about this film - we are all aware that nobody who's listening to this programme has yet had a chance to see it, so we don't want to get self-indulgent and say "Hey, you know that bit where - whatever", 'cos that's really sort of not fair to do that until people have seen it, and then they can all know what we're on about. But -

Roger: Another thing I really liked - apart from the sense of humour coming out - was the sense of danger, that you're actually not playing it safe, as a band in your position ought to, if you go by all the rules. That you're actually taking chances, Edge. Important for that to come across too?

Edge: Um, I don't know if we'd know how to play it safe, to be honest. Y'know, the band's been surviving on its wits since we started, and on the movie you just see it in a way that you probably haven't seen it up til now. The album as well, y'know we've got like Watchtower which we had never played before. It was the first time we'd played it live and we put it on the record.

Roger: But why did you do that!? I'm sitting there - and there you are in the caravan rehearsing this thing, just before you go out on stage in San Francisco to do it! Why did you actually choose to do that?

Edge: Well in the final stage of putting the album together we decided to put it on 'cos we thought it was good, it had something. I mean, I don't want to get into discussing music in philosophical terms really, but it had a thing about it which we liked, it had a quality of inspiration.

Adam: You know, it was like just - rock'n'roll is, you get up on stage and you do it. Um, and I think that was something that we felt was missing from these long, heavy American tours; is you're suddenly trapped, that you can't get onto a stage without millions of roadies and lights and PA and whatever, and we said "Fuck it", y'know, "We'll go for it."

Roger: Right!

Annie: Right! Let's hear it, shall we?

Roger: Let's hear All Along the Watchtower, from Rattle and Hum, U2.

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Annie: All Along the Watchtower. And that was the occasion when you got, when there was a warrant for your arrest, Bono, wasn't there.

Bono: Ummm...

Roger: After you'd sprayed the - you'd done the graffiti work in San Francisco, there. Were they out to get you?

Bono: They were a bit, I thought they got a bit heavy, I must say. A bit heavy-handed there, the San Francisco love'n'peace police. (laughter) I mean, y'know, it was all in the spirit of the, um, work on which I sprayed. I mean, it was this rather extraordinary sculpture, which I personally thought was cosmic, sort of, litter. (laughter) No no - I respected the artist, and I thought it was very cool in a way, because right in the middle of the financial district this sculpture had put a cage - that's what it was, a sort of concrete cage - and I thought it was graffiti in itself, so I thought he wouldn't mind if I graffitied it. And it was a stupid thing to do, and I really don't recommend that people go around putting moustaches on the Mona Lisa and that type of thing, but I... y'know, I ... it was tour madness, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Ah... my father gave out hell about it. It was really a - he double-crossed me actually!

Roger: He was cross with you, yeah.

Bono: Turned up in the San Francisco newspapers, saying "he deserves everything he gets" (laughter) and -

Annie: Twenty-five years!

Bono: That's true, and I went - I got home and I said "thanks very much for double-crossing me in San Francisco." (laughter) He says, "I never double-crossed you!" I said, I mean, y'know, please; don't talk to the papers or the press. He said "I never talk to them!" "How'd your comments get -" "Look, a feller rang up, and he said that you'd sprayed on a sculpture. I said look, I don't know if you've done it, but if he has done it he deserves everything he gets! But I didn't speak to the press!" (laughter) So I said "Thanks a lot! That's great."

Roger: This is all going over your heads actually, 'cos you haven't seen the film yet, 'cos it doesn't get its premiere til tomorrow.

Bono: Oh, I'm sorry.

Roger: But the concert we're talking about, one of the concerts featured in the film, is the free one in San Francisco, which is - what was the name of the district? Wasn't in the park, was it...?

Bono: Just the financial district, and we just... Just to sort of take the piss, it was the week of the financial crash, and we called it the "Save the Yuppie" concert, and we told them, y'know, to pass their briefcases, and it was all very ironic - of course the Americans missed that, and actually quite seriously reported that we played a benefit for the yuppies. (laughter) Which was great. It really was great.

Roger: I loved seeing inside the Sun Studios in Memphis, because I've seen stills done in there before, but to actually see moving pictures inside the Sun Studios sent chills up my back; because that is where it began. How different is it now, to the way it was then?

Edge: Apparently it's exactly the same.

Adam: Yeah, I mean it's the same; it's been a museum for, like, ten years or something'. They've closed it down and just kept it like that, and, um -

Edge: It actually was a battery repair shop for a while.

Adam. Wow. Yeah.

Edge: It wasn't used as a studio at all, it's kind of a fluke that they left the same acoustic treatment in the wall, it could have been changed.

Adam: I mean what you see in the film is... At the beginning of the scene we walk through the kind of reception area, which is like a front of a shop, into the actual room; and then beyond that is the control room, and in the control room is the toilet, and the control room stinks of piss all the time. (laughter) And then out the back of that is a parking lot.

Bono: But it is where Elvis pissed. (laughter)

Adam: It is where Elvis pissed.

Bono: I mean, let's be reverent about this.

Adam: Well I mean, y'know, we've all been to places where it smells of piss. I've sat in several places like that.... (laughter) But it adds to the atmosphere.

Bono: No, it's a remarkable, remarkable studio. I mean it really - there are all these photographs of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Sam Phillips; this is the room where rock'n'roll was born, and it was a totally mind-blowing privilege to be playing there! It really, really was, I have to say that. In fact I - I am embarrassed to say this, but I saw this old microphone in the corner, a big fat valve job, and Cowboy Jack Clements who recorded all those - he recorded Mystery Train and a whole pile of the old, great singles - I said to him, can I use this mic? What's this mic? And he said, "that's Elvis', Elvis used to use that mic. That's the mic we used," he says. He says; "It doesn't work." And I said, well, you sure it doesn't work? He said "well, I don't think so. It's been lying around, we just kept it as a sort of souvenir for years." So he said "well I'll plug it in, anyway." And he plugged it in, and it worked. It really did work, and I actually - this sounds like total bullshit - but, ah - great bullshit - but it's the truth. And all those songs; Angel of Harlem, Jesus Christ, actually, if you've heard that, the song we did for the Woody Guthrie album, that was recorded singing through Elvis Presley's mic. I only wish I could sing like Elvis, but it was okay to sing through his microphone.

Adam: The kind of talk of the day though, was we couldn't run the air-conditioning, 'cos they've got this really simple air-conditioning unit, and it gets really hot in Memphis, I mean there are hot nights. And you could talk to Cowboy Jack about the nights when musicians were sweatin' in there and they'd run the air-conditioning, and sometimes y'know, you'd hear the air-conditioning on the record and that kind of stuff. And when you think of it in those terms, and that's where rock'n'roll was born, it's just mind-blowing. So much inspiration.

Edge: (unintelligible)... about just the sound of these rooms. Y'know, we walked into the studio, went into the control room and just put up the mics; and suddenly there was that sound, y'know.

Annie: Simply as that.

Edge: Yeah, literally that's what they did, y'know. Elvis just sang in the room, and Scotty Moore and the rest of the band were just playing in the room and that's how it sounds.

Roger: Let's hear that track from the Folkways album, which is not from Rattle and Hum, but this was the first track that you did down at the Sun Studios in Memphis; from the Folkways album this is Woody Guthrie's Jesus Christ.

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Annie: Jesus Christ. Now you were all - (laughter)

Bono: Is that a swear word?

Annie: (laughs) You were all grinning like mad all the way through that, as if it just sort of brought back a really really happy memory. Was it, particularly good thing to have done that, obviously.

Edge: Actually, it was total hell. (laughter)

Annie: Oh.

Edge: Terrible. Really hell. 'Cos we were doing it live, it meant like everyone was aware that any mistake or anything they did wrong was going to be immortalised. So we were all -

Bono: Well Edge cared. (laughter) Didn't ya?

Roger: No, extremely exciting because it was live, and because bands - as I say again - bands who've got to where you are don't do things like that! They take two years, they take three years, they go in and they hone and they refine, and they get it -

Edge: Well we would do that, Roger, if we were good enough to do it. But we've never been able to do that. Y'know, we were not a band who could get it right by spending months, we would kill a song within about six hours. So, we find that actually normally it's the first few takes that have the magic, and from then on it's terrible.

Bono: We spend about three weeks mixing it. (laughter)

Annie: Do you still have such a thing - I'm sure you do, 'cos everybody does - a bad night. I'm talking now about live shows, I mean what can still go wrong? Not feeling inspired, or... what?

Larry: I don't think it's a band - there's never, I don't think there's ever a time when the band will go on and have a bad night. But sometimes individuals will have a bad night.

Annie: Yes. That's what I meant.

Edge (or Bono?): Sometimes Larry has bad nights. (Larry laughs)

Annie: And how do you cope as a band, how do you cope with it; do you kind of get angry with someone if they've had a bad night, or are you very supportive and think Oh, you know, you couldn't help it -

Larry: People get angry, and people get kicked (laughter) and punched, and people get fined at the end (more laughter) for dropping beats and stuff like that -

Annie: Fined? Oh, how much?

Larry: Fined. Oh well, I mean it has gone up to two thousand dollars on numerous occasions.

Annie: What!?

Larry: Oh yeah.

Roger: You were saying while that last track was playing, Bono, you were saying that Desire, that that was the actual demo of the song that came out!

Bono: Ah, yeah.

Roger: How come? 'Cos that was the definitive version, you couldn't improve on that?

Bono: Ahhhh....

Annie: You've got five seconds to say why.

Bono: Five seconds to say why.

Annie: We'll play it. You don't have to say anything.

Adam: We never did it better. (laughter)

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Annie: That was unscheduled. Just before the news Bono said "Can we have Mystery Train next?" So we have. Thankyou to our incredible producer, I think he deserves a plug for that.

Bono: I agree with that.

Roger: Me personally thinking that is the best - the Elvis Sun sessions were the quintessential Elvis and that was the track, the most -

Bono: The quintessential Scott Moore guitar solo.

Roger: Absolutely. Probably, what, 3 or 4 takes; whack-oh, there it goes in that same room that you were in. Ohh!

Annie: I've just been talking to, while U2 have been up the other end - we're in a big studio, we're all sitting round a table, it's very civilised, isn't it?

Adam: Well there's a few empty bottles on the table. (laughter)

Roger: It's getting more civilised.

Annie: You said it. So Adam, just while it was playing you and I were talking about sort of new forms of music that you find particularly very exciting; you've been talking about rap, so let's mention that for a minute. Which is not about U2's music, but... You said it was because you'd been touring America so much, yeah?

Adam: Yeah well it's like, if you spend any amount of time in America you kind of feel the madness get to ya. And it's great to see people fightin' back with music that really doesn't belong to anyone other than the people living through that kind of situation and tryin' to kind of grow up in America, and get it together. I think rap has that power, it has that language, and it's quick; a record can come out much quicker than the traditional kind of big record company rock records come out. You know, you can sample an idea and juxtapose it against something' else in the period of a day, and you've created something that is genuinely new and exciting. And I think rap is very essential, and a contribution to what's goin' on.

Bono: Have we found that record by Ice T yet, by any chance?

Roger: That one is sadly not about. We've looked in the library.

Adam: We might be able to find Eric B somewhere.

Bono: I'm sure Tower Records is still open.

Edge: Bono, you could hum it. (laughter)

Bono: No, I - this is one record I couldn't hum. But this guy is, to me, the Bob Dylan of rappers, he's like... He's a young kid, I dunno, 18 or 19. It's the first record in about five or six years that's put the fear of God in me. Ah, a song called Squeeze the Trigger; we've got to find it, there must be a copy in London - if anyone out there actually has a copy, please bring it round.

Roger: Rush it round to Broadcasting House immediately!

Bono: Do you put a - I mean, will you use a cassette here?

Roger: Yeah! If it's - what, you got it with you? Got it in your back pocket?

Bono: I don't have it with me. What's the story, Jeff?

Roger: Oh, we have a message here.

Bono: Oh, a message. Here's a run-down on the main trouble spots for drivers this evening. (laughter) This is not rap! This is crap! Hold on - (more laughter) the main motorway bottlenecks are on the M1 and the M6. The Leicestershire section of the M1 - you remember that? When we - I remember that in a VW van! Let me tell ya!

Edge: Really crap service there was in that section of the M1.

Bono: (laughs) I remember Edge on the Space Invaders there. The Leicestershire section of the M1 has a seven-mile tailback stretching from junction 18 near Rugby through to Junction 20, and there's a similar problem on the southbound approach (assumes deep, serious voice) to junction 15 near Northampton. The M6 congestion on the southbound link with the M1 has eased, and the longest delays are now being experienced on the Staffordshire-West Midlands stretch. Southbound traffic is very slow-moving on several sections between junction 15 near Stoke and junction 18 - God, I hope you're getting paid well -

Adam: A lot of people travelling.

Roger: Thankyou, that was very helpful.

Annie: Have you finished?

Bono: There's a whole paragraph here about the M25! (laughs) I really - (laughter) The M25 apparently has a lengthy northbound tailback - (laughter)

Edge: Basically, stay away from the M25.

Bono: This is rap actually, hold on a second. (starts rapping and clicking fingers) The M25 has a lengthy northbound tailback on the northbound approach to the Dartford Tunnel in Kent. And the westbound clock-wise carriageway has a similar congestion between junctions 8 and the 6 of Reigate-Goldstone(?) stretch (someone begins clapping along), also near Junction 12 (Larry laughs) the M3 intersection near Chestershire. On the M3 itself (someone makes a "boom-ch, boom-boom-ch" noise) there's a northbound tailback for several miles between junction 2 and the M25 Farnborough section. Amen, hallelujah! (applause) Please, play some music!

Annie: Do you want a job?

Roger: Let's get back to Rattle and Hum. I've seen it quoted that you said that this is an album -

Bono: Not Rattle and Hum again, Roger!

Roger: - this is an album of transition. Tell me, transition from what to what?

Bono: I couldn't even spell the word transition there, Roger, but um... Edge'll...

Edge: I think our press officer must have written that one, 'cos I don't know what he means. Transition.

Adam: Transmission, isn't it.

Edge: Transmission; maybe that's what he meant.

Bono: It's basically, instead of putting out a double live LP we chose to put out Rattle and Hum. The double live LP has been exciting over the years, there are exceptions to the rule. But generally it's a pile of crap, and basically a cash-in by big fat rock bands like U2 to extort more money from their fans. We felt, if we were going to put out a soundtrack to the film Rattle and Hum we better come up with something more interesting. What we came up with -

Edge: So we couldn't. We couldn't think of something more interesting so we ended up with Rattle and Hum. (laughter)

Bono: Yeah very good Edge, slice somebody else off. (laughter) Ah... (laughs) So we came up with Rattle and Hum, which as Edge says is a complete failure, and ah... No it's just our way round the problem. We wanted to put where U2 are going, but we also kind of wanted to put where we'd come from over the last year. Ah, the best example of where we're going is probably, I don't know; God Part II or Hawkmoon 269, and the best example of the sort of things that got us through our last tour, things like Angel of Harlem. What would you like to play, Annie?

Roger: We're going to play Helter Skelter I think.

Bono: That's very lateral of you, Roger!

Roger: It's an especially fab favourite of mine, so let's hear it right now. Helter Skelter, U2.

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Annie: Helter Skelter. I really do congratulate you on that, because I think, you know, to take on a Beatles song and do it so well and so differently is quite something. Actually -

Bono: So badly.

Edge: So badly!

Roger: Was that one that you just decided on the spur of the moment to do?

Bono: Ummmm..... Did we rehearse that one?

Edge: I can't remember -

Adam: Oh yeah, we played that at least twice. (laughter)

Bono: No we did; I think we did rehearse that. You know I must say at this point, I really feel that it's important that people know that (coughs) - sorry - in saying that, y'know, Charles Manson stole this from the Beatles and we're stealing it back, we're not putting ourselves at all on a par with the Beatles.

Edge: (or Larry?) We're not?

Bono: (laughs) No. Sorry, arrogance just came over me there, for a second. Ah, what I was going to say was; we are wearing, y'know, bovver boots and sort of trampling all over these myths, y'know? And it is probably very rude to do a cover version of a Beatles song... so badly. But we think that rock'n'roll is not about being reverent, and indeed the profane is as important as the sacred, if you like; and we really did it as fans, we did it as fans of the Beatles. And because it's a Paul McCartney song - and Paul McCartney as far as I'm concerned gets far too much stick in the press, I think he is as important to the Beatles as any of the four of them were, but certainly as John Lennon was, and I think it was great to do a Paul McCartney song.

Roger: Yeah.

Annie: Do you know what he thinks of it?

Bono: No, I - I'm sure he's appalled by it! (laughter)

Annie: I tell you what, we might ring him up and ask him.

Roger: But it does lay to rest the myth that Paul was the soft Beatle, that he was always in for the ballads -

Bono: These are just clichés and cartoons created by the press, the same clichés and cartoons that portray U2 as... whatever. You know, it's really astonishing to see your own life turned into a caricature. And that's what we put up with - I mean, to a lesser extent, and that's what the Beatles certainly on a, to a much more, y'know they really put up with that, and I think personally Paul McCartney got the bad end of the deal.

Annie: Very much so. Helter Skelter wasn't going to be on the album, was it?

Bono: Um, wasn't it?

Edge: We didn't know what was going on the album until about four days before we had to put it together.

Annie: Really!

Edge: Yeah. Because.... You know when we first put this - the idea of the album at the beginning was we'd have a live record with maybe two or three original songs; but we got into the studio and we just couldn't stop writing. We had, suddenly before we knew where we were we had about six studio songs, then it was up to nine studio songs; we were gonna -

Bono: Then it was fifteen.

Edge: Then we were going to put out a studio album with no live tracks.

Bono: (laughs) And then our manager was called... (laughter)

Edge: It just got - for a while we didn't know quite which way it was going to go, and in the end we just put together the album we did; so there were about four or five live tracks we left off, and one or two studio things that we didn't finish.

Annie: Are any of these things going to appear in any way in the future?

Bono: We do intend to basically clog up the airways for some time to come. Ah, y'know, the sort of mega album from the mega band, and then the mega silence, is just too much of a cliché at this point. Y'know, we put out the record and then we go off, we tour it around the world for a year and a half, and then we go to Barbados and have a holiday for another year and a half, and then we come back. That's so boring! U2 - I mean we're on a sort of suicidal kind of... not physically, but musically; we intend to make music. Until people are sick of us. We just don't care at this point, we've nothing to lose, all we intend to do is make sure that the BBC sounds like rock'n'roll for the next few years. That's our job.

Roger: How did it feel when you got Desire at number one; there you were with your first European number one -

Bono: Yes, sir! Bo Diddley was never number one, was he?

Larry: No.

Bono: Well he is now! (much laughter)

Roger: Must have felt good, though.

Bono: It certainly did. We wrote it in five minutes. And recorded it in five minutes. It's true, it's a demo we put out, um, we nearly chickened out of it, but we didn't. Um, it's about ambition, it's about wanting to be in a band; it's about wanting to be in a band for all the wrong reasons not all the right reasons; people think U2 want to save the world, in fact we want to save our own arse; ah - as well as the world, as it happens. But y'know we made that song; it's about lust, and it's about the lust for success. Y'know we've been in Los Angeles for the last six months, I've met with some very shady characters at various times of the night, and they're doing terrible things in order to survive; and I had to say that, y'know, rock'n'roll was our way out, we just wanted a way out; no big deal, no wanting to save the world, and ah... Guilty, your honour. And Desire is a record of that. It's a beautiful three-minute rock'n'roll song and I'm delighted that the BBC play it as much as they do.

Roger: And I was delighted to hear it at number one. I mean after so much crud over the past year, it was a great number one.

Bono: Thankyou.

Annie: What does it feel like, after the success of Joshua Tree, I mean you had all the classic landmarks, like three number one singles in America - the cover of Time. I mean that's it, isn't it, the finest accolade -

Edge: There's always the cover of Woman's Own, that's the -

Annie: ....after Joshua - no, not at all?

Bono: Not at all, couldn't care less! Ah, see; one of the great things about being stinko (laughter) is that you don't have to worry about anything like that. We couldn't care less about the success of our records at this point. We've had one LP that's sold so many records that we'll - you know, we don't have to worry about things like that again. We didn't even worry in the first place, I must say, but we certainly don't worry now. We're just after music, we haven't made the record that we want to make yet.

Annie: Haven't you!

Bono: And we're going to, one day. And that's really where we are right now! And I'm telling ya, this is not the band of the '80s, we're just getting it sorta together! Just about.

Roger: It's very refreshing to hear that, because other bands when they've sold 14 or 15 million albums; they go Oh the pressure! The pressure to do the next one, oh God it's unbearable.

Larry: I think the next record, y'know the album that we really want to make, is going to be the Greatest Hits album. (laughter)

Roger: One of the magic moments in the film, as people will see when they go and see it over the weeks to come, is when you go down to Harlem with the gospel choir. And I saw, there's a flash in the film that's about a second where there's a glance between Bono and Edge there, it's just as you start and the choir comes in; it's a smile in your eyes between the two of you which sort of said to me "they think this is really working, and this is a magic moment."

Edge: It was humbling actually, wasn't it? Really, to be there. We're playing the song, and we'd written it - and y'know, we'd borrowed the style in a sense, 'cos it's really a gospel style. When you're in Harlem and suddenly this choir opens up it is humbling, you suddenly think "Fuck! Y'know, this music is much bigger than us, or anything," y'know?

Bono: Another thing was, I must confess, and it was a serious hangover.

Annie: Blowing another myth! (laughter)

Bono: No I'm just saying that I find it particularly painful watching that part of the film because I had fallen on stage in Washington; I had slipped -

Edge: Drunk again. (laughter)

Bono: No no! No! No. That's not true now. Now, now. (laughter) Ah, I've never been drunk on stage.

Adam: Ah, if it wasn't for Charlie Sheen you'd never have come off the drink. (laughter)

Bono: No, I um.... I was running on, and I slipped. And I dislocated my shoulder, and I was in pain. I will confess to a few bevvies now and then to try and sort of just kill the pain, and there was a little few too many taken the night before we went to the church in Harlem. And so all I see - and when I watch that, and I have to watch it now that we're going to the premieres - I do watch it through my fingers - but watching it I just see a very bad hangover (laughter) and some really great gospel singers.

Annie: Shall we hear it?

Roger: Well we didn't see the hangover, all I heard was -

Edge: Actually what you're going to hear is the Madison Square Garden performance of that song.

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Annie: Lovely! I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Did you want to say something serious about it Bono, or not?

Bono: No!

Annie: Good. Alright! (laughter)

Roger: Edge - just before - Edge was saying while the choir was going on that they were just standing at the side of a stage, mouths open, just saying "Go for it, choir!"

Edge: Yeah. Well we've never done this before, y'know, we arrived at the church in Harlem, we went through the rehearsal and we thought like, Let's just go for it, let's just see what happens. So the choir come down to our show at Madison Square Gardens and they come on stage. First thing that we realise is, if Adam or Larry or myself play at full volume no-one's going to hear them. So we start playing like literally just tapping the strings and the drums. So that was fine. Then the song was going and we were... they started opening up and it was like, brilliant. So then towards the end we stopped playing altogether and they just took over. And to see the choir and the audience all singing together.... And we're just standing at the side of the stage with our mouths open just going, "Wow." Y'know. What an experience.

Roger: Fabulous. You were going to say, Annie.

Annie: Right. Now as we mentioned earlier Roger and I came over to Dublin to the premiere of the film, and also visited your studios. And I've never seen - talk about graffiti, I mean I don't know if Bono's done it all himself -

Adam: Well they're not our studios, actually. That's another popular myth.

Annie: Yeah. Ooh, let's destroy that one as well! Anyway, the studios where you're fairly well-known anyway, in Dublin. And I've never - this whole area is simply covered in graffiti, which is actually quite moving 'cos it's from people all over the world -

Roger: Well you said it was like a giant Apple door.

Annie: Yes; yeah, the famous Apple door. Y'know, they've just put their names on it. So I thought that was pretty extraordinary. And then we've had this competition which we've been running on Radio One, and the two winners came over to Dublin for the premiere, and they're here tonight as well. And so by now we know who the winner is. And it is not a girl called Joanne - and how do you pronounce this, Roger? It's North Wales.

Roger: Oh, thank you very much! Oh yes, certainly; it's somewhere in North Wales. Joanne Harrison.

Bono: It's not (unintelligible), is it?

Annie: And stuck on the wall in Dublin is this piece of paper which said,

"I listened from nine 'til nine,

nine times the music played fine.

I was listening for U2

to make my dream come true.

Then came Angel of Harlem,

which now? Unforgettable Fire -

no, next came Desire.

What a dream prize to win,

would I finally meet them

and see the premiere of Rattle and Hum?

The 23^rd was the date

of when I learned my fate;

no dream was to come true,

no meeting was to take place,

the tears rolled down my face."

Edge: Sounds like Bob Dylan!

Bono: Ah, who - ?

Annie: That was Joanne Harrison, so we just want you to say hello to Joanne Harrison, please.

Larry: Hello Joanne Harrison.

Adam: How did she get it to Dublin?

Annie: We don't know!

Roger: Well she obviously travelled there, she must have travelled over there and stuck it up on the wall!

Annie: Stuck it on the wall. And I just think it was absolutely -

Bono: (sotto voce) It's not the Joanne, is it?

Adam: Nooooo, no no...... (laughter)

Annie: Oh! Oh, gossip going on here.

Edge: Is she still writing, Adam?

Annie: I was actually wanting Larry to read that out, but he didn't want to. Not because he doesn't like Joanne, but anyway. Um, it's your birthday tomorrow, and we'd all like to say Happy Birthday -

Larry: Oh thank you very much.

Bono: Happy Birthday, Lawrence.

Edge: (sings) Twenty-one today...

Annie: London premiere of the film, whatever. So I think we want you to have your own record for your birthday. So what are you going to have?

Larry: Well this is the Sweet, Ballroom Blitz. That's one of my faves. When I was growing up, like, all these dudes were like getting into Bob Dylan and y'know, learning how to save the whale and all that shit, y'know; whereas I was into Gary Glitter, Roxy Music, Bowie, y'know, T-Rex - all that sort of stuff, all the real music!

Rest of band: And Showaddywaddy!

Larry: Yeah, right.

Edge: Suzie Quatro.

Larry: No, but it's funny, 'cos a lot of people disregard the '70s on a whole lot of different levels, but I must admit a lot of that music really inspired me... To get up and shake mah ass. (laughter)

Annie: Okay, you do that -

Bono (or Edge?) And what an ass! (laughter)

Roger: Larry's birthday record, here we go; this is the Sweet and Ballroom Blitz.

Edge: It's my mum's birthday the day after, as well.

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Annie: ...Yeah, happy birthday for tomorrow.

Roger: When did you say your mum's birthday was, Edge?

Edge: The first, is me mum's birthday.

Roger: First of November.

Edge: Mrs Edge.

Annie: Mrs Edge.

Larry: Happy birthday, Mrs Edge!

Annie: Well we've been asking people over the last week to ring us in with some questions for you. And I think this might interest you; this is from Jason Curnock(?) I think it is, from a part of Cardiff called Reading(?) I think. Anyway, he says, "In 1985 Bono got up and sang with Bob Dylan at Slane Castle. In 1987 Bob Dylan sang with U2, and now on the new album Bob Dylan is doing backing vocals." And he says, "What does it feel like to have a legend sing with the band?" (pause) I thought you were a legend!

Larry: Why don't you ask Bob Dylan? (laughter)

Edge: Um... What was it like, Lawrence? To have Bob singing on your LP?

Larry: Well I didn't know that much about Bob Dylan, to be honest. I mean it could have been anybody.

Edge: He wasn't in the Sweet. (laughter)

Larry: (laughing) No, he wasn't in the Sweet - or T-Rex, or he wasn't in Bowie's band, so I mean he could have been anybody, really.

Roger: So you weren't fazed at all by having Bob Dylan there.

Larry: Well, ah - no! (laughter) No I mean, like, there are a lot of people who are like, like he means a lot - I mean Bono in particular I suppose, because Dylan is an incredible lyricist, and that's where he's known -

Bono: And he's a mean organ player as well.

Larry: And he's a mean organ player. But I really wasn't brought up in that - I mean I'm only just now starting to listen to people like that. So I'm not being facetious when I say I wasn't fazed. It doesn't really do that much for me - I don't care who it is -

Roger: If it had been Gary Glitter though, it might have been -

Larry: It would have been more interesting, I'd say. (laughter)

Adam: The biggest compliment you can pay somebody like Bob Dylan is not care who they are. Y'know. Because they've had all that shit for so many years.

Annie: He doesn't say much, does he?

Larry: But he is actually a very - I must admit, I wasn't fazed by him, therefore I did get an opportunity to sit down and talk with him, and he is actually a very nice guy. And he's a talented guy.

Annie: (laughing) Bono's freaking out! (laughter)

Edge: Talented! Did you go far enough, Mullen?

Roger: He's written a couple of good songs, you can't expect -

Edge: Jesus, Lawrence, I think you might be right there!

Adam: We should sign him to Mother Records.

Annie: Well we'll let him know, he'll be thrilled.

Larry: Yeah, ask him to send a tape. (laughs)

Bono: He's, he's Picasso to me. And it was great to see that he's still into music after such a long time making music. Y'know, he's still really into it. It's like catching lightning, T-Bone Burnett said, trying to produce Bob Dylan, 'cos he really doesn't care less. I mean a lot of the words that I write, they come out of the music or they're so much a part of the music it's hard to separate them. All he cares about is the words. The sparsest arrangements, y'know -

Annie: And changes the running order - I know musicians who have worked on tour with him and they're all like absolutely nail-biting and white knuckles, 'cos apparently he just changes the running order whenever he feels like it; and they've no - they do not know what's coming next!

Roger: And if they don't keep up they're in for a hard time.

Edge: That's all part of keeping the spark.

Bono: But he's a very funny man as well, he's actually very funny. He has a great sense of humour, and y'know, I was really pleased to hear it, because I'd been making up his lyrics for years! And getting them wrong a lot of the time, so it was great that he did have such a great sense of humour.

Roger: Well in ten or fifteen years you'll be old enough to be in the Travelling Wilburys.

Bono: There you go.

Annie: We've got lots more of these questions for you, I mean obviously we'd like to try and get through as many as we can. Um, this is kind of an unusual one, maybe, for you. This is from Alan Ivory from (unintelligible) in Kent; what do you think about bootleg tapes being sold?

Bono: As long as people don't pay too much for them, we've no problems with bootlegs. Really don't. What I have a problem with is people charging five quid for, y'know, a record that's inferior or a live concert that's been done off a walkman; they're just extorting people who are into music, and into U2. So I really object to them, and I think that they should all have their toenails pulled out. (laughs) But if they do, y'know, at reasonable prices, no problem.

Roger: Well do it like the Grateful Dead then, they set up a special enclosure, and you're allowed to go in there with your machines or your mic, and you see this forest of mikes in the corner of the stadium where they're allowed to actually go in there and do their taping.

Larry: Yeah, but that's a lot different to bootlegging. I don't necessarily agree with Bono on this, I don't like bootlegging because I think 99% of it is rip-off merchants. The only system that works is when people do tape things and swap them. I mean no-one has objections to that. When people start selling them on the street I think it's always going to lead to extortion and people ripping other people off, and I really object to that.

Roger: Do you actually - well let's throw this over to Paul McGuinness, who's their manager. (laughter) Do you actually go after the bootleggers, or do you have people go after bootleggers?

Paul: Well yeah, if there are kind of boatloads of them; yeah. (laughter) But I remember a few years ago when there was that stupid campaign that the record industry organised, called - the tagline was "Home taping is killing music." And I remember thinking what a stupid thing to say; how could home taping kill music? Home taping was spreading music, and I thought it was quite a good thing. Well, boring music was bad, yeah, but home taping is a very good thing, and I'm all in favour of it, frankly.

Roger: Right! Well there you go! You could get into a long discussion about this -

Paul: Actually, let me qualify that a little. If there's some bastard in Taiwan who has got a boatload of counterfeit copies of Rattle and Hum, and he's shipping it to Europe, um...

Edge: I hope he sinks.

Paul: I hope somebody can tell me where he's parking his car. (laughter)

Annie: Okay, here's one from Simon Doherty from Glasgow. He says, What did it feel like playing in a smaller venue like The Dominion again?

Adam: Amazing. It was brilliant. To be that close to people again, and... y'know. What can you say? Dressing rooms are still the same. (laughter)

Roger: I suppose what you have to be careful of when you're going to do a rock'n'roll film, is you've got to have Spinal Tap - not in the back of your mind, but you've got to have it in the front of your mind all the time. Was it there?

Bono: Yeah!

Edge: Actually there were sections of the movie which were so close to Spinal Tap.

Adam: Larry spontaneously combusted for a couple of days, continuously! (laughter)

Edge: I mean, you have no idea how hard it was to make a rock'n'roll film with Spinal Tap out there. And when we put in the Gracelands scenes, and the grave scene, we knew that a lot of people would go, "Fuck! That's Spinal Tap." but we decided that it was important to reclaim that ground, to stare the movie out, y'know? And when we have Larry there we're deadly serious! And it's not funny at all. You know in some ways I appreciate Spinal Tap and I appreciate the Blues Brothers and all those movies, but in another way I think they kind of... in a way they devalue it, you know? And I laughed, y'know I saw that movie and I laughed, but also there's a side of it which isn't funny. Y'know? And Elvis did die in Gracelands, and he was a tragic character, and sure you can laugh at it but it's not really funny in another way.

Annie: How difficult was it to get in there, to film there?

Bono: You just needed bribery and corruption.

Annie: Because I was talking to your director about this, and he said that it was because of Spinal Tap they thought Ooer, you know, who are these -

Bono: Actually, there's a guy there called - what's his name, Jerry Schilling(?), and he manages Jerry Lee Lewis, of all people. And he came down to meet us in Memphis to sort of check us out to see if we were going to take the piss. And, ah... he realised that we actually were, y'know, into Elvis; and we were also going to take the piss as well. But he wouldn't allow us to put that in the film, and we didn't. and there is a scene there, where they are showing us the monkeys - 'cos Elvis had a lot of monkeys in Gracelands; like what would you call them, stuffed monkeys -

Annie: Live ones?

Bono: No, stuffed monkeys and china monkeys and all the rest of it. And there was a bit taken out of the film where I lean over to Larry - I didn't think anybody could hear me, least of all the film production people - and said, (whispers) "Bit of a Michael Jackson vibe on this." (laughter) And that was taken out of the movie (laughs) for, y'know, reverence for the ah... the King.

Adam: (laughs) I tell ya, Michael's got long arms. (laughter)

Roger: But there is - we talk about this as if people have seen it, but there is the lovely little shot of Larry, where nothing is said; where he's talking about Elvis and then he turns away, and the camera stays on him for about - it seemed like 30 seconds.

Larry: Thankyou. Yeah. (laughter) Seemed like 30 years to me, I can tell ya!

Roger: The place collapsed at the time! Did you try and get that out?

Larry: Yeah, I was very anxious about that whole scene. (laughter) No, I'll tell you why it's hard, it's hard because in the movie, like, a lot of the footage is having a laugh and having a good time and all, and then you do actually get to talking about Elvis and people sort of just are waiting for the pun. And in actual fact I am serious about it - I'm not emotional about it; I am slightly, obviously the film accentuates all those movements on your face and all that, but I was serious about it; it is hard to watch, it's hard to see yourself up there, but I am serious about it, I do feel strongly about having Elvis Presley buried in his back garden, and the eternal flame - it's just, it's everything that's bad about America to me. It's just, it's something that I really objected to, I hated - like in retrospect now; I didn't mind it, y'know, (gap in recording) looking back on it, I really hate the idea. It's an awful experience.

Roger: That's why I've avoided going there, because I would just feel yucky.

Larry: Yeah, if you're a fan of Elvis Presley, it's not a good place to go.

Roger: Right. Well let's go to another track that was recorded at Sun Studios down in Memphis; this is Angel of Harlem.

_____________________________________

Roger: Recorded in Memphis, in the Sun Studios, with the Memphis Horns, too. That's Angel of Harlem - to be the new single. You were just telling me there's another song on the b-side, one that isn't on the album; what's it called?

Bono: Ah, it's called A Room At the Heartbreak Hotel. It's about somebody who really wants to be a star, y'know; everybody wants to live in Gracelands, but nobody wants to die there, is kind of what the song's about.

Roger: Great stuff.

Annie: Mm. Right; we have a question here: from a Mr Davis from Redruth in Cornwall, who says what are the connections between U2 and the IRA; does money from concerts go to the IRA.

Bono: Well the answer to that is very (laughs), very obvious to most people. And that is absolutely not, there is no connection between U2 and the IRA. We stand against the IRA, we stand against the UDF, we stand against any men of violence; and I will say, y'know, our movie is very clear about that. But I will say that I'm also, I would be also against the British Army being in Ulster. I don't think they want to be there, and I don't think they should be there, it's a complex situation and there are no simple answers, but we are against violence whatever way it manifests itself.

Annie: Does that question shock you?

Adam: It does, actually. I wonder who told that person that, because that doesn't sound like their own theory.

Larry: No, I think it's - y'know, in some ways it's an obvious question; well it was an obvious question maybe a year ago, 'cos I remember there were a lot of letters came into the office with regard - I think there was obviously something in the press or something, that said that money from the concerts went to the IRA.

Adam: It's like someone's not listening to the music, y'know? (laughs) Why are they asking that question?

Bono: Well I just feel that, y'know, it is a very complex problem, and I mean I sympathise - I understand where they've come from. I understand the situ - y'know - I don't understand the situation and where they've come from, really, but I can guess. And y'know let's face it; Ireland is a small island off Europe, and the fact that the British government divide it into two countries...um, is a bit ridiculous. And, um, I must say I recognise that, it was a problem, the British government started the problem; I would hope that they could find a solution to the problem. But I know one thing: the solution is not in violence. Wherever it comes from. And U2 stand against that. Completely.

Roger: Pray that we get a solution before too long.

Annie: Yes, in the film actually - now that was which concert, it was the night after Enniskillen it happened, and it's a very powerful part of the film, what you said. Now we can't actually play Sunday Bloody Sunday 'cos it's not actually -

Adam: I think we should leave people to make up their own minds, when they go to the movie, y'know.

Larry: Why can't you play Sunday Bloody Sunday, as a matter of interest?

Adam: Don't have it.

Larry: Oh, you don't have it! Oh I thought you said couldn't because of -

Annie: Oh no, no! No, it's not on the album! (laughter)

Larry: That's a very good point! Are we on air?

Roger: You do make your position very clear before you do Sunday Bloody Sunday in the movie, the rap beforehand...did you have to think long and hard about keeping that in?

Bono: I really don't want to talk about it. I wish it wasn't in the film in one sense, in another sense I stand behind everything I said, because it was the truth. It's the way we felt that day, on that night, and it's more of a tribute to Phil Joanou than it is than me, 'cos he talked us into it.

Annie: He's the director, one should say.

Bono: He is the director of the film, and personally I'm not sure if we'll ever play that song again. And that's the way I feel about it, I've just about had it up to here with Sunday Bloody Sunday as a song, and...y'know, and the weight that it carries.

Adam: Alright, that's enough of that.

Annie: Okay, fine. Now, Adam, you're all getting a record each tonight, one of your favourites, so we've had Larry. Now Adam, what's yours? And any particular reason why?

Adam: Ah yeah, plenty of reasons why; how long have we got? I want to play Hanging Around by The Stranglers. I remember seeing The Stranglers...ooh... '76? I dunno, it was on the Old Grey Whistle Test, I don't know what they were playing -

Annie: Wouldn't have been '76. Oh, it might have been!

Adam: Yeah, it was a piece of live film, and it was just the one song, and it was the first kind of visual that you'd seen of what was happening in London of Punk, um, for us in Ireland. And it was very exciting, and I even think Whispering Bob may have been involved in it somewhere along the way -

Annie: Bob didn't like Punk very much.

Roger: No, he washed his hands of the whole thing!

Adam: Well, whatever happened, The Stranglers got on the Old Grey and I saw it. And I was working in London the following year, trying to buy a Marshall amp, (laughs) and I got Rattus Norvegicus - (laughter)

Roger: Poor thing!

Adam: A terrible disease! (laughter) So anyway, Hanging Around - when people say to me what are my influences, I'm never quite sure what they mean; I think alcohol's a big one, but it's like, bass players - I listen to a lot of bass players but I don't emulate them, I don't try and copy them, but if someone excites me, and shows me that bass can be looked at in a different way, it's Jean Jacques Burnel. And that record really made me feel proud to be a bass player. (someone shouts "Yes!")

Annie: Ohhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhh!

Adam: It took me ten years to, y'know, like get to a point where I felt I was up there in the same level, but that was it. (applause)

Annie: The Strangulars (laughs), as I've always called them.

Adam: Yeah, that's just great!

Annie: There was something else you wanted to say, too.

Adam: Well I just loved Hugh Cornwell's guitar playing, y'know, it was - at that time everyone was doing this, like, heavy Marshall wound-up fuzz-box sound, and Hugh was just, like, pluckin' the Fender, and it sounded great.

Annie: Okay, what a fan. What a fan. Um, now another question for you; now this one's from Midge Kemp from Ipswich, who says, If they care so much about the world etc, what do they do about all the money they earn, and how do they feel about being so rich when there's so much poverty?

Adam: None of your business! (laughter)

Annie: We actually have - Bono and Larry have just deserted -

Edge: Talk to me and Adam!

Adam: Yeah, and we're the poorest members of the band, so we don't know what they do with it.

Edge: Well I mean we, I suppose that's a question that faces every single person on Planet Earth, and the answer to it is; you do what you can.

Adam: Yeah.

Edge: That's really it, you know?

Annie: Well you've done quite a lot.

Edge: I mean there's no simple answer to that, you know? Yeah, but I don't want to start sort of documenting reasons why we should be canonised, you know; it's like we do what we feel we can do, and if that means -

Adam: (To Bono & Larry) It's a money question. The money tree.

Paul McGuinness: The listener has just accused you of being a filthy plutocrat. (laughter)

Annie: Bono and Larry haven't heard this question, I'll just read it quickly again. (does so)

Bono: Yeah, good question. Absolutely. Filthy plutocrats, we are.

Adam: I wouldn't know how to spell that. Filthy, I mean.

Bono: Listen, if you could just give your money away, it's not as easy as that. You know what I mean. It's a 24-hour a day job! I'm a musician. And we try to do the right things, with the group we have our own - we make group decisions about what we do with our income, and then we also make personal decisions. And both of them are private to us. They're nobody else's business. We didn't rip anyone off to be in this position, our records don't cost any more than anyone else's records, our concerts cost considerably less. And what we do with our income is really our own business. And if we were to sort of make available what we do with it, well it would be just further putting the band into this sort of - you know the way they want to see us, which is - everyone wants - see, U2, we're either saints or sinners, y'know, and nobody takes us for actual human beings.

Adam: We're not a packet of cornflakes. You know what I mean.

Bono: That's very deep, Adam. Could you explain that?

Adam: Well, do you buy cornflakes depending on where the money's going?

Bono: Good question.

Edge: Fuckin' heavy. (laughter)

Annie: Could you all put your headphones on now, please, 'cos we've got a live person who's going to ask you a question, whose name is Ian Murphy, and he's from Sutton in Surrey. Hello Ian!

Caller: Hello.

Annie: Hi. Now, um, you've got U2's complete, undivided attention, so what do you want to say?

Caller: I'd like to ask a question to the whole band, please.

Edge: Okay.

Caller: Do you plan to bring session musicians on the road for the next tour? For example, the trumpet bit in Angel of Harlem and Love Rescue Me.

Edge: Wo, that's a...

Annie: That's floored them!

Edge: That's... never even thought of that.

Bono: Go to the top of the class! What's your name?

Caller: Ian Murphy.

Edge: You play trumpet, I presume? (laughter)

Caller: No, I don't.

Edge: You don't. Trombone, possibly?

Caller: No, nothing like that, no.

Edge: No?

Caller: Football.

Edge: Football? Well; funny you should say that -

Larry: Yeah, we're gonna take Eamon Dunphy on tour with us.

Bono: Keep him backstage. No... I'll tell you what I might dream of doing. My dream - I dunno if it's a dream that would come true - I would love to take BB King on tour with us next year, and take his brass section and do some stuff with them. What do you think of that? I mean would that, ah...

Caller: Well I just think that the four of you on stage is just, y'know, the power is something special.

Bono: Yeah.

Caller: And I wouldn't like to see that affected by the, y'know, some backing musicians. I mean -

Edge: That's a great -

Bono: Funny, our manager feels exactly the same way, his hand on his - not on his heart, his wallet - (laughter) but ah....

Caller: Is his hand big enough?

Bono: No, his - oh. (laughs) He has a big heart. I will say that is a very interesting question, and I think if we do take people on the road next year I wouldn't like it to interfere with what goes on between the four of us. And I absolutely agree with that.

Edge: We're all taking trumpet lessons.

Roger: But Springsteen took a brass section out on the Tunnel of Love tour, he took the La Bamba and the Hubcaps out, and it didn't detract from the music, to me....

Annie: Yes, but U2 is not Bruce Springsteen.

Roger: No, no, no; but I'm just saying it can be done with (gap in recording)

Larry: ...pay for the people, and I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank them for that.

Annie: Oh, very nice.

Roger: And thankyou for the call, Ian.

Annie: Very good question.

Roger: I think we've got, Alison is on the line. Right Alison, you have U2, they're all yours.

Caller: I've got a question for Bono. I wondered, what is tour madness, and how does it affect you? (laughter)

Bono: Uh, tour madness. Oh. Um....

Larry: You're suffering from it now.

Edge: It's like cabin fever.

Bono: Where did you hear about this thing?

Annie: It was you, earlier!

Bono: Oh I said it earlier. Tour madness. Well I said it, I think, in defence of my own indefensible behaviour in San Francisco, when I sprayed on the sculpture. (deep breath) When you're on tour for long periods of time - Listen. We're all - I'm totally - I've got the greatest job in the world and I'm totally overpaid for it. But that said, there are times when, y'know, no matter how beautiful your hotel room is, no matter how big it is, no matter how, y'know... no matter what hotel it is, at times you start to feel like a prisoner. And it's true, and it's a terrible Spinal Tap cliché. But, um, sometimes you...it just brings the worst out in you, as opposed to the best; and you find yourself not going to bed at night because you can't come down after the concerts, and... Concerts are everything for me, and that's the only thing that makes touring possible. I mean it's basically 22 hours of the day are hell, and two hours when you walk on stage are sort of heaven. But after you've come back to your hotel room, it's a very lonely place; even though your four mates are just...you know, your three mates or four mates if Paul's there; y'know, are just down the hall from you. Sometimes you... It's just a very lonely place, being in a hotel room, and it can bring the worst out of you as well as the best. And, um.... That's what tour madness is.

Annie: Right. Okay, thank you very much. Now we've got (unintelligible) from Wrexham.

Caller: Okay. Um, well first of all I'd like to say thanks to U2 for their music. 'Cos I find it very moving and inspiring, and y'know, thanks for being one of the few bands that really matter.

Edge: Thankyou.

Bono: Thanks, man.

Caller: And my question is this. Your deeply held Christian beliefs are evident in your music; how do they influence your day-to-day lives as rock stars?

Bono: Well they really really confuse us. You know, it's true, I am a believer, and, um, some of us are believers...ah, we are Christians and yet I feel like I can't say that lightly, I don't feel I'm worthy of the term Christian. I don't feel that I really live up to that. Um, it's a very private thing with us, and we're not very comfortable talking about it in public 'cos we're only just working it out. And, um, so I can't really answer your question because of that, because of...y'know, just haven't really found an answer to that.

Annie: Perhaps Mel meant more like making moral decisions, I'm interpreting your question, I hope that's not wrong.

Caller: Yeah.

Annie: Is that what you meant?

Caller: Not totally, that comes into it, but just if they ever find any conflict, do you ever find any conflict between, uh, anytime you have to say we can't, we shouldn't do that. Or you sort of feel scrupulous about things.

Edge: Well, our whole existence is a heap of contradictions and conflicts. And, uh, as Bono was saying, y'know, we have no easy answers. Um, it's a day-to-day thing, y'know, you take each day as it comes and that's about all you can say.

Roger: Right. Let's go to Wilston now, and Niamh Harty. Right, your question.

Caller: Um, why is Larry so shy?

Larry: Why am I so shy.

Bono(?): Belligerent(?), is the word.

Larry: That's your excuse. (laughter) It's not a question of being shy and so on, y'know it's....it's just hard to um...to...to be something that you don't really feel. I, I - this is hard to explain - I don't feel like a pop star, I don't feel like I can articulate myself in the same way as some of the other guys, so therefore I just keep quiet. When I have something to say I say it, if I don't have something to say I won't say it. So it's just more a question of just keeping the trap shut until there's something to say.

Adam: I think Larry's so much better than the rest of us, the only way he can make us feel relaxed is by being shy. (a little laughter)

Annie: Does that answer your question?

Caller: Yeah.

Roger: Okay. Listen, we're going to play a piece of music that Edge got off, well we've actually got it off a cassette; what is this we're about to hear?

Edge: It's the Staples Singers, I Had a Dream. I just recently, we all did, discovered how gospel music, how powerful it is. And y'know, you have this clichéd view of this form of music as being very staid and stiff, but I recently discovered that it really is the beginning of soul music, and -

Roger: And thence rock'n'roll music, as well.

Edge: Really, it is one of the major roots of rock'n'roll, and the Staples Singers are really just one of the best exponents of gospel.

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Roger: Shh! Not being reverent enough there, Annie! That's the Staples Singers; cor, chills up the back. Now I was saying to Bono that neither of us have actually seen the Lennon film, Imagine, but there is a piece - I was reading one of the reviews about it today - and there is a scene in it where Lennon's caught with this over-enthusiastic fan trying to get into the house, and Lennon's filmed actually dealing with this guy and getting him off the grounds; and he actually says in the film, "I was just having fun with words, stringing them together and seeing if they had any meaning." 'Cos this guy's obviously got John confused with the songs and the actual lyrics. You must run across this problem, do you? Can you see what he meant?

Bono: Ahhhmm.... Yeah!...actually...um....

Edge: Like Jimmy's comments about that. Jimmy Iovine, our producer on this last record, used to work with John Lennon; and he tells the story of how they'd be in a bar somewhere, y'know, New York, L.A., wherever; and like John would spot this guy coming across the bar, and when he was like ten feet away he'd say, (Liverpool accent) "Look man, I don't know either! Y'know?" (laughter) And like he'd say, "I can't solve the problems of the universe, y'know?"

Bono: Yeah - I think it was like (Liverpool accent), "I don't know!" And the guy would say "What d'you mean, you don't know?" And John would say, "The truth! I don't know what it is!" "What?!" (laughter) No, people - it's true you know, you do bump words up against each other to see what comes out, and people sometimes get the wrong meaning in those words. And we, I think U2 attract more rent-a-loony than your average rock'n'roll group. And they all come about in Dublin, as far as I can see, outside my door! And, uh, I don't know why they come out to Bray, but ah...(laughter)

Roger: Well, they think you know.

Bono: Uh... But it's one of those things, it's one of those things about being in a rock'n'roll group. And I may be standing in my underwear, and it's very obvious that I don't know the truth, or else I wouldn't be there! (laughter) Uh, I'd be, y'know, (laughs) spirited away. Ahhh, but there I am in the ah... y'know, in my underwear or whatever, and they expect that you do! And it's, y'know.

Adam: There'll be twice as many there next week if you promise them to turn up in your underwear.

Roger: So was God II specifically written just to get back at Goldman?

Bono: Goldigger.

Roger: Goldigger, I'm sorry, yes.

Bono: Albert Goldigger.

Roger: Yes. (laughs)

Bono: You're talking about God Part II, the song on Rattle and Hum -

Roger: That's the one.

Bono: The soundtrack of the movie of the book, all right.

Roger: Which is premiered tomorrow.

Adam: Of the film, of the video.

Roger: And there is the 'Making of' Rattle and Hum -

Bono: Okay, 'The Hum Way.'

Edge: And the book of The Making Of.

Bono: And the stamp. (laughter)

Roger: And the Rattle and Hum underwear.

Bono: I want a Rattle and Hum stamp. (laughter)

Roger: Was it specifically written? Or was that just thrown in as an afterthought, after you saw the book?

Bono: Oh it was very specific. Um... Specific. What does specific mean? Um, I... I think that, y'know, I think John Lennon is somebody that I really respected. Not necessarily looked up to, I mean I - or looked down at, or even looked sideways at: just, he just was a great songwriter and inspired me. And I really disliked Albert Goldigger's attempt to pick a fight with a dead man. And I attempted to point out that the contradictions of John Lennon's life and times, y'know, the fact that he was crippled inside - as he said himself - do not negate his brilliance as a musician. We're all full of contradictions. He was just brave enough to own up to them in his songs, and we certainly didn't need to read a book to find out about them. But the more dangerous thing about Albert Goldman's books on Lenny Bruce, on Elvis Presley, on John Lennon, is he's really attempting to write off the culture from where they came. He is a New York intellectual who is attempting to write off Lennon - or Elvis Presley as the idiot savant, really - or John Lennon as just a very screwed up guy. But we knew these things.

Roger: John knew it.

Bono: Y'know, it's just he attempted to write off a culture that is rock'n'roll. And rock'n'roll is an expression for people who haven't, y'know, like meself, who are not University educated and the like. That's all we've got, and I really objected to it; and God Part II is my statement on that.

Annie: And we're going to hear it. (applause)

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Roger: We're passing around a birthday cake here!

Larry: Yeah, it's really fantastic.

Annie: Actually it was a BBC birthday cake for Larry, and in fact he's got -

Roger: And Larry's actually carving it up and serving it, and it looks terrific.

Bono: Where has Edge gone?

Roger: Where did he go?

Annie: I can't believe it, I mean it says in the Radio Times that you're only supposed to be here to eight o'clock, but we decided we'd lock the doors and we wouldn't let you out, anyway. Um, it's been an absolutely marvellous two hours, we've really enjoyed it. I think I'll just tell this little tiny story: I was at Wembley last year, and I was trying to persuade Bono to take part in something that he didn't really want to do anyway, but he said "I'd really like to be on your radio show." and I thought you were kind of joking! And then when I - I've been away and came back - and your record company said Oh it's great about U2, and I said What are you talking about? And they said They're coming to do your show! I went, "What?!" So, thankyou! For a start!

Bono: Oh well. Thank you, I mean this is the great thing, y'know, I mean the BBC, no commercials; it's just the way it should be. I really, really like being here, and um... I really like this. In fact I really like - when I first came to London, y'know, when the group first came to London we used to do these sessions; 'cos it was the only way of getting on the radio then! (laughs) But thankfully, now people are playing our records on the radio, but I'd still like to do a session, if anyone else is up for it I'd love to do a session next year sometime.

Adam: I'd be up for that. In fact I think we should explain that Annie Nightingale kept us warm through many a long night in the back of a Ford Transit van. (laughter)

Annie: Thankyou, Adam!

Adam: Well she kept me warm, I don't know about the rest of you! (laughter)

Annie: Oh my God!

Bono: I just wish John Peel had played us, actually. I called him up once on the radio, from a phone box. I was very desperate, I was eighteen, and I called him - I don't know how I got his phone number, but somebody gave it to me and his wife answered. And I said (sounding young and gauche), "Hello! Can I speak to John Peel please!" and she goes, "Hello." She was very nice, actually, she said "John, I think this is for you." And I came on the phone - this you'll laugh at, but in Ireland the phones, the public phones don't work the same way; it was chewing up all me change, and I kept on, I couldn't speak; and we kept on cutting on and off and on and off, and his wife said "I think this guy keeps getting thrown off - I think he's a Paddy." (laughter) And I said, with a good humour, "I am a Paddy!" -

Larry: A very desperate Paddy!

Bono: - and, y'know, "play our records on the radio." He never did really play our records on the radio, but I must say his show, it was a great show on the radio.

Annie: Very important man.

Bono: Yeah.

Annie: I think so. (much laughter, I think Bono said something like "fucking great.") We've got one more record, now I think you all wanted this, didn't you?

Adam: What is it?

Annie: This is Bob Marley and Exodus.

Adam: Oh, yes!

Bono: Yeah, it's the spirit of all our touring life.

Roger: Gala premiere tomorrow night, thank you very much indeed for being here tonight.

Bono: Yeah please come down to Baxter(?) Square, we'd like to see you.

Roger: Great stuff.

END