Killing Bono (32 page)

In May 1992 I was in the
GQ
office when a call came in from U2's office in Dublin. They wanted to make sure I had tickets and passes for the band's forthcoming gig at Earl's Court. It was U2's first British show since Wembley Stadium five years before. I was surprised and flattered to have been tracked down. Although I had spoken to Bono a couple of times on the phone, I hadn't actually seen anyone from the U2 camp in years. I never even caught up with Adam to sell him the old bass guitar—though I had been in search of it, when I was back in Ireland, thinking of all the money I could make. It was last seen in the possession of Yeah! Yeah!'s old bassist, Deco. But when I went around to his house Deco handed me what I can only describe as the neck of a bass guitar with a tiny square bit of wood attached.

“What's that?” I said.

“It's the old Ibanez,” he said.

“What have you done to it?” I shrieked.

“I sawed the body off,” he said, cheerfully. “I wanted it to look like one of those Devo basses. Don't worry. It still works.”

My dreams of screwing a small fortune out of Adam evaporated. “It's worthless now,” I said, despondently contemplating the wreckage.

“Oh, come on, Neil,” said Declan. “It was always worthless. It's just a cheap piece of crap. But now at least it looks really cool!”

Anyway, I went along to the Earl's Court show with Gloria. I wanted to introduce her to Bono. When I wasn't traveling on assignment, Gloria and I were living together in her flat in Belsize Crescent, the very same street where Ivan and I had partied a decade away while dreaming of stardom. But things were very different now. I had embraced the concept of fidelity and responsibility and my relationship with Gloria had blossomed from there. Once I had shown that I was serious about getting my act together, Gloria supported me during my struggle to establish myself as a journalist and I was doing my best to repay her faith. We were becoming a family. The kids were easy to love, as kids generally are. You just open up your heart and they'll move in. I wasn't their dad but I was becoming something else, maybe even something better: a guy they liked to be with, somewhere between parent and friend. Life was taking a whole new shape for me. But I made a very peculiar discovery when I first mentioned the U2 gig to Gloria.

“Are you really friends with Bono?” she said (the band were so famous now, even Gloria was aware of them).

“Of course!” I said. “I've told you before.”

“Yeah, well, you tell me lots of things,” she shrugged. “I'm never sure when you're pulling my leg.”

“You mean, you don't believe me?” I said, incredulously.

“Well,” she said, quite reasonably, “I know most of your friends. How come I've never met him?”

I couldn't really explain that. If I wanted to get hold of Bono, I had to call U2's office and speak to an assistant who would pass a message along, usually telling me something discouraging about where he was on the planet doing great work in the name of social justice and what a backlog of calls was building up for him.

Sometimes it would be weeks before he would actually call back and then it was pure chance if he caught me. There would be a voice on my answer-phone saying, “I will hound you down!” So I'd have to call his office and start the process all over again. It was, really, too much to go through for something as trivial as touching base. It was not just that access was restricted by the channels of success, but also that everyone wanted a piece of Bono now. On one of the few occasions when I got hold of him (or he of me) he was interrupted by an assistant and came back to say, “I've got to go; I've got the President on the other line!” “Which president?” I asked. “Good question! Which president?” he asked his assistant (it was the president of Ireland, by the way). With world leaders, film stars and supermodels to compete with, I was somewhere near the back of the queue and I just couldn't bring myself to make the effort required to push to the front.

And the thing is, maybe I even preferred to maintain my distance. I still woke up in a cold sweat sometimes from a Bono nightmare and I didn't like that at all. U2 were so popular they had become inescapable. They flashed like a beacon on my personal horizon, a constant reminder of everything I had failed to achieve.

Still, I was looking forward to seeing them again. As a live band, they were my touchstone: the first group I had ever seen perform, and the finest. And as friends, well, it would be interesting to find out where I stood.

The Earl's Court show was part of U2's extraordinary Zoo TV tour, which started out in arenas before moving on to stadiums.
Achtung Baby
had been released in 1991, a superb album of big, complex, emotional songs delivered with a contemporary cut and thrust that saw U2 shift away from their dalliance with roots music to reconnect with modernity and art rock. They sharpened up their image: there was a lot of flash and humor. Critics claimed they had embraced irony but there was really no irony in the songs, which were as substantial, soulful and committed as ever. The irony was in the packaging. U2 embraced the contradictions of their place on the world's stage: passionate Irishmen being feted as superstars in the trivial, gossip-hungry universe of celebrity. And they embraced the contradictions of their own personalities: true believers with a sense of humor. They decided to have fun.

And the Zoo TV shows were a lot of fun. And a lot more besides. It was a hi-tech multimedia art-installation extravaganza with heart and soul, a breathtaking spectacle of flashing slogans, prerecorded images, live footage and random television channels bombarding the senses from walls of interactive video screens. Bono remained the lightning rod for the audience, the conduit for communal experience, but he was conducting this symphony of collective emotion with a weird new vitality, channeling everything through the character of the Fly, a representation of his own darker self, dressed in black leather and black shades, a barstool pundit from hell, a creature every bit as provocative as Gavin Friday in his Virgin Prunes heyday.

The Zoo TV concert was constructed on an incredible scale, but with U2 at its center it seemed a living, breathing thing. It was truly the most amazing live event I had ever witnessed. Could rock 'n' roll really really have come this far? And could it have been brought all this way by the same bunch of kids who had rocked the school gym with Bay City Rollers covers?

You could say I was impressed. And I was genuinely looking forward to telling the band so. All my reservations receded as Gloria and I made our way backstage. I had some very impressive plastic-laminated passes which eased our passage through a massive throng of well-wishers. As much effort seemed to have gone into the backstage setup as had into the show itself. Guests with ordinary VIP stickers were restricted to a common-parts bar but our laminates admitted us to a white-tented tunnel, past a bar set aside for less well-connected associates, leading to a large hospitality marquee, with Zoo TV screens displaying random footage and waitresses dishing out sushi and champagne. There was a smattering of celebrities. Elvis Costello was there. And Chrissie Hynde. And Sinead O'Connor. I had met them all in my travels, and said hello, introducing them to Gloria (well, all except Sinead, of course, in case she wanted to search me for a tape recorder). There was no sign of the band, however. I thought perhaps they would come out to meet and greet once they had freshened up. But time passed. And then I noticed Elvis, Chrissie and Sinead being led away by a girl with a clipboard and escorted down another tunnel. Into a farther chamber.

I approached the security guard at the entrance of the tunnel, with a sinking feeling in my heart.

“Sorry,” he said, politely. “That pass doesn't let you through here.”

I turned back to Gloria. “Let's just go,” I said. I felt heavy with disappointment but I didn't want to countenance such a feeling, that sense of debasement so familiar to me from my dreams.

“I thought you wanted to say hello,” said Gloria.

I could taste the bitterness welling up, a childishly petulant reaction to seeing celebrities being accorded the privilege of a personal audience while I was left outside. But I didn't want Gloria to suspect that such pettiness might reside within me. I wanted to be bigger and better than that. I had to accept that whatever personal connection I had to U2 had been eroded by time and changing circumstances. They had moved far beyond me. That part of my life's journey was over.

“I just want to go home,” I said.

S
ometime in late 1995, I was sitting in front of my computer in my office above the bookie's in Piccadilly, deep into a feature on the murder of my old friend the General and his supplanting in the pecking order of the Irish underworld by an equally bizarre character known as the Monk, when I received a call from Sarah Sands, the new deputy editor of the
Daily Telegraph
. I had not spoken to her before. My contacts in the world of journalism were curiously limited. Despite my relative success, I could never really work up the enthusiasm to engage in the practice of networking by which most of my fellow freelance journalists seemed to survive. I was on a retainer from GQ and I was confident that when I was done with one story I would always pick up another commission. But I knew the
Telegraph
, of course. It was one of Britain's most venerable and popular newspapers. Its politics were some way to the right of my own, with strong affiliations to the Conservative party and the old British establishment, but I often perused its pages. The
Telegraph
always had well-written and well-researched national news coverage, which often provided me with inspiration and leads for the kind of hard, criminal features I favored. Anyway, Sarah made me an unexpected offer.

“As I am sure you are aware,” she said, “Tony Parsons is leaving.”

“Yes,” I said, even though I was aware of no such thing. I didn't know Tony Parsons had ever been at the
Telegraph
, let alone that he was leaving it. But I suspected that such an admission might be a mistake. Anyway, I knew who Parsons was: an ex-
NME
punk who had gained a reputation as one of Britain's most pugnacious and opinionated arts journalists.

“We were wondering if you would be interested in taking over his column,” said Sarah.

“Certainly I'd be interested,” I said, trying to sound as calm as possible. A column is the dream of most journalists, a forum of your very own from which to spout your theories and opinions (and I had a lot of theories and opinions festering away in the dark catacombs of my mind). And a column in Britain's bestselling broadsheet newspaper…Well, it might not mean the same thing to me as getting a number-one single but in my business this was definitely
Top of the Pops
material. Still, it would help if I knew what this column was supposed to be about.

“Can you meet with me to talk it over?” inquired Sarah.

“Any time,” I said.

“How about now?” she said.

“No problem,” I said. “Can you give me an hour or so?”

Actually, I had a big problem. Quite apart from not knowing exactly what we were supposed to be talking over, I had been engaged in a major writing stint for several days, during which I had not paid much attention to my appearance. I had a few days' growth of stubble on my face. And I was compensating for the lack of heating in my office by wearing a pair of woolly trousers and a big, shaggy jumper. I did not feel like prime
Telegraph
-employment material. But I had an idea. I ran up Regent's Street to the
GQ
offices and threw myself at the mercy of the girls in the fashion department. They fitted me out in an ultrasharp suit, shirt and slightly extravagant tie (which were intended for an upcoming fashion shoot), gave me a shave, sprayed me with some cologne and dispatched me looking every inch the
GQ
man. Sarah must have been impressed, at any rate. She offered me the job on the spot. But what job? I was on full alert for clues.

“I think you would be ideal material for the
Telegraph
,” said Sarah. “You're young…”

(These days it wasn't often I was called young but journalism is very different from the music business, and at a newspaper whose most famous correspondent, Bill Deedes, was pushing eighty, I suppose a thirty-four-year-old could be considered a spring chicken.)

“…dynamic…”

(I could tell she liked the cut of my suit.)

“…you're a really terrific writer…”

(What can I say? I just felt flattered that somebody had noticed all the good work I had been doing.)

“…and you can bring a wealth of your own experience to the job…”

(What experience was she getting at, exactly?)

“…Because, unlike most people in this profession, you've seen it from both sides…”

(I wasn't sure I liked where this was going.)

“…You've actually been there and done it.”

“I certainly have,” I said. Hoping she wasn't going to ask me to elaborate on where I had been and what I had done.

“I think you would be an outstanding rock critic for the
Daily Telegraph
.”

I nodded thoughtfully. My past had caught up with me. Well, it was bound to, sooner or later. But there was one thing we had to get straight.

“I've never liked the term ‘rock critic,' ” I said.

“Whyever not?”

“It's not all rock music, is it?” I pointed out. “What if I wanted to write about a rapper? Or a reggae singer? Or a disco queen?”

“I take your point,” said Sarah. “What term do you prefer?”

“Pop,” I said.

And so I started writing a weekly column for the
Telegraph
. I had a picture byline: “Neil McCormick on Pop.” And if that sounded like I was high on lemonade, it was a small price to pay for not having to admit I had finally accepted the destiny fate had clearly marked out for me, staggering down the byways of fame and fortune, from putative rock star to embittered rock critic.

Actually, not that embittered. To no one's great surprise but my own, I found that I enjoyed my new role. I had my soapbox from which I could rant and rave about the evils of the music business but also champion the music that I loved, be a voice for the artist rather than the corporations, celebrate talent (in its hugely diverse array) while keeping tabs on the cynical machinations and manipulations of the industry. Music had never stopped being part of my life, even if I had become a regular consumer rather than an active participant. It still infected my imagination. I couldn't pass a record store without wanting to scour the racks, looking for gems. Gloria sometimes complained that there was never a moment's respite from music in our household. So if I was going to play it, listen to it, read about it, think about it, talk about it, then I might as well write about it too. And, once the cork had been removed from that particular bottle, there was no stopping me. I was frothing over. I kept ringing up my editor on the arts pages and asking for more space. “I can't possibly explain the rebirth of ambient music as part of club culture in eight hundred words,” I'd complain.

“Well, what kind of length do you think you need?” the long-suffering Sarah Crompton would sigh.

“I need a book,” I'd say.

“I can squeeze in twelve hundred words,” Sarah would generously reply.

“But there's so much to say!” I'd wail.

And as the musical representative of Britain's biggest-selling broadsheet, I got to meet, well, pretty much everybody I ever wanted to meet (and a few others besides), from Aaliyah to Warren Zevon (and all points on the alphabet in between).

I never met Kurt Cobain or Tupac Shakur (both dead by the time I was getting started) and I haven't yet met Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem or even, for that matter, Robbie Williams (I must be the only person in the British music business who hasn't met Robbie, but it's not as if I am holding my breath). On the other hand, I got drunk in a bar with Debbie Harry (still my beating heart). And we got along famously, once we had got over my impertinent comments about her appearance. “Fuck you, you fucker!” were, as I recall, Debbie's words to me when I suggested that she might have put on a little weight since the years when her portrait used to adorn my wall. “There are chubby-chasers in the world too, you know!” she added, laughing richly. And I had dinner with Elton John, David Beckham, Posh Spice and Lulu on the same night. Actually, that was at an album launch, where I staggered in from my drunken encounter with Debbie and sat at the wrong table by mistake. But they were very gracious about it. Elton didn't know who I was but chatted away happily and, I am told, later inquired who was the handsome fellow in the shaggy jumper (an item of punk-rock clothing I had worn in Debbie's honor).

And I went shopping with Michael Stipe in L.A. We were sitting in the sun, sipping cappuccinos, when Daryl Hannah stopped and said hello, engaging the rock superstar in friendly, frothy chat. “That was such an L.A. moment,” said Michael, afterward. “I've never met her before in my life.”

And Mick Jagger bought me champagne in Cannes. And I was served by a butler in Sting's garden. And a Sugababe sat on my knee at a P-Diddy party in Barcelona. And I bumped into Boy George in a crowded square in Shanghai, where he hugged me and said I wrote the nicest things anyone had ever written about him, then spent the next twelve hours trying to seduce me (admonishing me for my habit of saying “Fuck me!” to express surprise, he declared, “If you say that once more, I'm going to have to take you up on it”). And Bob Geldof invited me to his fiftieth birthday. It was fancy dress. “You can come as a cunt,” he told me. “Then you won't need a costume.” And a Beatle once rang me at home.

“Paul called,” said Gloria when I got home one evening.

“Paul who?” I said.

“I don't know; he just said his name was Paul,” said Gloria. I ran through all the Pauls I knew but she insisted it was none of them. “I'm sure you know him, though,” she said. “His voice was very familiar.”

The mystery was solved when he called back. “Can I speak to Neil McCormick?” said a warm, lightly Liverpool-accented voice.

“You're speaking to him,” I said.

“Well, you're speaking to Paul McCartney,” said my caller.

“Gosh! Hello, Paul!” I declared.

“You believe me, then?” said Paul.

“Yeah, why not?” I said.

“Usually I have to spend the first half-hour convincing whoever I've called that it's me,” he explained. He had obtained my number from his press officer. He wanted to thank me personally for an article I had written about the Beatles' songwriting partnership. I had argued that it was silly to talk (as so many critics did) about Lennon
or
McCartney. It's Lennon
and
McCartney. “I could never say those things, but what you wrote expressed exactly how I feel,” he told me. So while I had him on the phone I bombarded him with Beatles questions, which he gracefully answered. And it couldn't have been too painful, because actually he rang me several times. It got to the stage where the kids were putting their hands over the receiver and yelling, “It's that Paul McCartney on the phone again!”

I think I have been a kind critic. Which is not to say I haven't occasionally mocked and denigrated people's creative efforts (I prefer to write about music I appreciate but when a major star releases a new recording it is part of my remit to say what I honestly think about it); and I have certainly attacked those aspects of the business I find most abhorrent, such as the overcommitting of resources to cynically contrived, lowest-common-denominator manufactured pap. But I hope I brought to my music journalism a sense that music is created by people, and that whether it is to my taste or not, I believe most people try to do the best they can. Even musicians.

And I discovered David Gray. Well, I was the first national U.K. journalist to champion his cause, anyway, when
White Ladder
was still on his own kitchen-sink label, before he signed it over to East West and went on to sell some five million albums worldwide, perhaps the greatest word-of-mouth success in the history of the music business. David had been making music for over a decade to little avail, having been dropped by three different labels. I was so impressed with his homemade album, I got a number for his record label, called up, identified myself and asked if it would be possible to set up an interview with David Gray.

“This is David Gray!” said the excited voice on the other line.

David's long struggle for recognition has made him the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. His name has become synonymous with the triumph of talent over hype, personifying the battles of the little guy against the big, brutal industry machine. He has been lauded as an example of how Talent and Perseverance (those twin watchwords I once spouted as a mantra before my perseverance finally ran its course) can sometimes result in triumph. But David said something that really struck home for me, words I have passed along to many a struggling artist: “I've been chewed up, spat out and through it all have come to some sort of wisdom,” he claimed. “I don't blame the music industry. Although there's gross incompetence on all levels, and I'm sure that talent by the bucketload gets crushed and thrown by the wayside, I've come to realize that the buck stops with you as the artist. Unless you've got huge amounts of money and the force to manufacture success, what you've actually created has to convince people of its own accord.”