U Talkin’ U2 To Me? - U Talkin’ U2 To Me? - eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE Tour Pt. 2 with U2

Episode Date: July 25, 2018

Adam Scott Aukerman are excited to share their exclusive interviews with the band members of U2 from Madison Square Garden. Bonobos and Thedge talk about why “Summer of Love” is becoming an important song, their go to karaoke jams, and join the Scotts for an episode of a different show. Plus, Adam Clay 2000 Pounds give the Scotts a backstage tour of Madison Square Garden. And what does Larry Mullen Sr.'s Son have in store for the Scotts? This episode is brought to you by Squarespace (www.squarespace.com/BONO code: BONO).

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R.E.M. from boy to the blackout this is you talking you two to me the comprehensive and encyclopedia compendium of all things you. This is good rock and roll music. We are back. Coming up on this episode, we have our exclusive interviews with the members of U2. We will talk about our entire backstage experience and innocence at the tour that we just saw in Madison Square Garden. We will be talking about what happened to us before the show, what happened to us during the show, and, golly darn it, we're going to talk about what happened after, and the after stuff is even more incredible. We're going to be talking about it all.

Before we get to that, though, I have to interview my co-host for the past, God, it feels like forever we've been doing this. it has been like damn daniel five years yeah we've been doing this five years has it been five years that's a good chunk of of our lives it's half a decade that we've we've been doing this exclusively is it has it been five years yeah i believe so since we started i know four years ago was our first stained glass so we we and that was somewhere in the 20s. So it was about four and a half. Because we started in January of 2014. Yeah.

That's so crazy. And then in between the episodes, we power down. We don't do anything else. No, we 3PO out. 3PO out. I loved his catchphrase in all the Star Wars films when he was like, Master Luke, the Imperials are going to get us. 3PO, out.

Yep. I loved it. Love it. And then when Han Solo would be like, Solo, outie, 5,000. It'd be like, come on, 3PO, why don't you shut up? Princess Leia, get over here. Han-y, Solo-y, outie.

3PO, why don't you grow a set of robot testicles for once? Luke, fuck off. Fuck off. Stop kissing my woman. Han Solo-y, outtie! Is that what you said? Han Solo-y? Something like that, yeah.

It is kind of weird that, what was that? Was that you starting the computer? Oh, man. It was like, you know what? It's you starting the computer? Oh, man. It was like, you know what? It's almost like that's a computer burping. In a way. It's like sometimes a computer gets all like,

all built up. And it's got to let something out. And it's guts and it just is like, bong. I don't blame him. Adam Scott is here. Hello, Adam. Hi, Scott. How are you?

It's kind of weird, isn't it, that Luke like totally kisses Leia in that first movie. Yeah, and in Empire Strikes Back as well, they have a little... And then at the end of Jedi, he's like, I don't care that you're my sister. I gotta get a little bit more of this. At the end of Return of the Jedi? Yeah.

Do they kiss again? Oh, yeah. When? End of Return of the Jedi? Yeah. Do they kiss again? Oh, yeah. When?

Remember that part where Darth Vader comes up and he's got the glowing kind of bluish green stuff at the campfire and Obi-Wan is there and Yoda and everyone? Yeah, yeah. He leans over to Leia and he's like, give me just a little bit more of that sister love action. He's like, you're watching, right, Dad? Yeah. It's weird that he starts talking like that in the third movie.

It was a strange choice for Mark Hamill. Dad, you seeing this over here? I hope you're getting this because it is putting a tent in my toga. It's my sister. tent in my toga. It's my sister. Star Wars, one of the greatest trilogies of all times. I love Star Wars movies.

There's so many memories attached to it for me. I don't know about you. One of my best memories about Star Wars is Star Wars... Wait a second. Is this an episode of I Love Films? I think it is. Hey, everyone.

Welcome to I Love Films. This is Scott. And this is Scott. And we're talking about Star Wars memories, and Star Wars certainly counts as films. Oh, yeah. But the cool thing about Star Wars, if I may, they're films, but they're also movies. But the cool thing about Star Wars, if I may, they're films,

but they're also movies. They're also just good popcorn movies and that's what we like to talk about. Get a tub of corn, sit down on a bean bag, just drill a hole

in the bottom of the bucket and stick your dinger right through there. Stick your lightsaber in there. Lightsaber on! All right. Good ep. We got to go.

Bye. Bye. That's an atypical I Love Films episode. It's a weird episode. Those guys seem to take on a... Like, gross. I don't like those guys anymore.

Really went downhill. We are, of course, talking about the band Hue 2. And if you heard last week's episode, God bless you. Yeah, thanks for checking that out. And if you haven't got a hey penny as well, God bless you. What? If you haven't got a hey penny, God bless you. Huh.

Okay. You don't know what that is? No. Christmas is coming. The geese are getting fat. Pleased to put a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny, then a hay penny will do. If you haven't got a hay penny, then God bless you.

I have no idea what that is. You don't know what that song is? No. Let me sing it again. Christmas is coming. The geese are getting fat pleased to put a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny then a hey penny will

do. If you haven't got a hey penny then God bless you. Are you glad we live in 2018 so a goose getting fat is no longer a thing. fat is no longer a thing? It's no longer a concern anymore. Yeah, it's like, let me get the fat goose.

Let me get the skinny goose. Who cares? You know what I think is weird? Hay pennies. Half pennies. Is that what a hay penny is? Yeah, a penny used to be worth so much that even if you were to cut one in half, it would still be like, hey, you can still buy out most of the store with that.

How would you cut a penny in half back then? What kind of equipment? Yeah, basically you just need to get the pruning shears and just like, you know, have a go at it. Is that why they call them penny shears? Penny shears, yeah. On the coasts? Yeah, penny shears.

Penny shears. Is what it more commonly is known. The penny shears. Hand me the penny shears. And the movie the punisher as well came out of that as well because he would take the shears and torture criminals with it yeah but he used instead of a skull he used to have just like a big symbol of a penny oh weird shirt with just abraham lincoln there's now now i'm like getting because there's people would be like, are you Abraham Lincoln, man? Who are you?

No, it's a penny. It's a penisher. And that's why he eventually had to change it to the skull. To the skull, because he's just like, these criminals are, they may be a cowardly

and superstitious lot, but they're not getting it. And then there's that scene in Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker is just like, look at my penny shears, daddy. Daddy, check these out. What were we talking about?

Oh, God. You know what? I don't know. I don't know. We'll never know. Oh, yeah. Here too. Here too.

Here too. What child is this? I think it's U2. I'm in a Christmassy mood. What was it? It's lucky that this is the Christmas episode. Of course. What is the- Stop pointing at me. I know you're talking to me.

You don't have to point at me. When we reviewed Songs of Experience and the music is so U2-y, you said that it's as if they stepped out on stage and they're like, We're U2! I don't remember that, but it sounds like me. Thanks. Always nice to hear reviews. Yeah, it's always nice to meet a fan.

Speaking of reviews, we had Andy Daly on the show last week talking about the Songs of Experience tour. And Phoebe as well. Great to hear from those guys. But now we got to hear from the horses' mouths themselves. That's right, us. We have mouths and we're horses. Yep. We are now fully horses.

Fully fucking horses here. F-H, y'all. Fully horse. Turned into horses. I think it would be fun to be a horse. Oh, me too. Like, you have no cares. Nope.

You can just stand there and poop and then walk away from it. Just walk away and be like, someone else will clean this up. Yeah, that's not my concern. It'll just crumble into the ground either way. Yeah. I don't give a shit. It'll help the trees grow. That's where I don't give a shit

was first coined, was by horses. People that had turned into horses and then immediately see the attributes of shooting wherever they want.

That would be, I mean, honestly, and this is a real thing, if you were to go out in public and do what a horse does, just do 25% of what a horse does in public, you'd be arrested.

Yeah, you'd be executed. But are we executing horses? No. Well, sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. If they break their legs? Yeah, they're done.

They are donezo. You break your leg, horse, you are out of here. I'm never clear on horses and what's wrong with that like when it's time to like it is kind of weird that a horse breaks its leg and we're like well you don't deserve to live anymore crazy it's fucking i guess it's it's like a lot of trouble to wheel one around in a wheelbarrow or something i don't know but also it's you say wheelbarrow or wheel barrel i never say that never never absolutely i'm sorry that i said it yeah but it's very cruel isn't it but it's huge. Did you say wheelbarrow or wheelbarrel? I never say that word. Never, never. Absolutely not. I'm sorry that I said it.

Yeah. But it's very cruel, isn't it? But it's also huge. You now have to deal with this giant, it's like a car that you have to take apart. I mean, I'll tell you, if you're running a glue factory and you get that call, man, you are happy on that day. That's a lot of Elmers to squirt in your face. Yo, Elmer! Get over here.

My horse just broke its leg. How much of the horse do they use for glue? Is it just the hooves? It seems like a waste, doesn't it? Is it just the hooves, I'm asking? Just the hooves. That's a horse when it's trying to have sex with its girlfriend.

Just the hooves. I don't want the hooves in there. I want your giant horse dick. Come on, just the hooves in there. Just the... I want your giant horse dick. Come on, just the hooves. We're talking about Hue 2. We got to get to it, Adam. I just like the idea of a horse, like, bargaining.

Bargaining to, like... I don't know. You know, horses' lives and our our lives they're interchangeable at this point they're very similar very very similar we gotta get to talking about Hue 2 because we have

a lot of stuff to talk about so let's last week you heard about our experiences god that word keeps popping up

and it's the songs of experience album tour but you heard about Andy and I going to see the show at the Los Angeles Forum where I was very sick and Andy is a curmudgeon

who sits there judging the whole thing. And then we flew out to Madison Square Garden to go see it with Phoebe, but we didn't really talk about our behind the scenes experience of how all of this came to be. Well, first of all, Tulsa was something we had been planning for a long time. Right. Okay. So here's what the initial offer was from our good friend, Laura, who works with U2 months and

months ago. Yeah. A long time ago. I think in December. Yes. Back when we did our episode about the album, this is something she floated out to us. Yes. She said, guys, when the tour starts at the end of April, we want to fly you and your wives to Tulsa. Yeah. Yeah. To see the band perform the entire show that they're going to put on the night before just for you. Their like final rehearsal. Their final rehearsal.

They're going to do every single song and they're going to do it just for you guys. And we could have run around in the stadium and just followed them wherever they went and be just right there going, ah, crazy. And we want to do that for you the night before the tour opener. And you guys are invited down to Tulsa to do it. So we had a good five-month lead time on this where we put it in our calendars, or at least I put it in my calendar. And so we knew about this. Look, these kind of things, they fall apart all the time. in our calendars, or at least I put it in my calendar. And, um, so we knew about this, look, these kinds of things, they fall apart all the time. Uh, so when, when we got that offer from Laura as, as genuine, I know as genuinely as it was offered, it also could have fallen apart just as easily. And it would, there would be no hard feelings. Uh, but at the same time, it was

something that was on the calendar of like, I kept sort of moving stuff off of those dates. Occasionally, I'd be like, oh, no, no, no, I can't do that because – I remember saying to Kulop all the time like, no, we can't do that because of the U2 thing. That was a constant refrain of – Me too. U2. Yeah. You too. Yeah.

So, and in fact, Kulop, her film debuted at the Arkansas, the film festival out there in Bentonville, Arkansas, which was relatively close to Tulsa and happened the night before this. Oh, it would have been perfect. It would have been perfect because I could have driven just right. Because I guess Tulsa is not easy to get to. No, there's no direct flight. There's no direct flight, so you have to go to a different place and then drive. So for me, it was super easy. I would have just driven from Bentonville a couple hours to Tulsa, been right there. And so everything was coming up roses for me.

It was incredible. So, you know, the months would go by, and we would check in with Laura every once in a while of like, just checking in if this is still happening. Right, because it sounded like the kind of thing that's like a little too good to be true. Like we would talk and be like, do you think this is still going to happen? And she would be like, yeah, we're still looking good. Isn't that basically? Yeah, it's a lot like when I did that Between Two Ferns episode with Obama.

Everyone kept saying like, yeah, it's happening. And Zach and I were like, yeah, it's happening. And Zach and I were like, no, it's not. It's never going to happen. This is never going to happen, including an hour before we filmed it. We were at the White House just going, no, he's getting a call, and this is not happening. So Laura kept saying, no, no, it's happening. And we were like, sure, sure, sure, it's happening. So cut to the month of April comes in,

and I've been pushing stuff off of these dates, but without any clear-cut plan. Laura keeps saying, yes, it's happening, but we don't have a clear, like, okay, it's these dates, it's these dates. Or like when we should go out there. Yeah, it's all a little bit confusing. So we kept thinking, like, all right, this is probably not happening. It's a little bit confusing. So we kept thinking like, all right, this is probably not happening. It's a little bit confusing.

And then finally we get the go-ahead of like, yes, it's definitely happening. I believe it was April 29. Can you come out on April 29? And what happens? on April 29, and what happens? I was doing a show that, I don't want to say which show, but. We can't say which show it is? No, because I think it's supposed to be. But you got one day of work on a show that's not even your own show.

No. And you. It's not movable. Right. And so. You did a guest star role on a show instead of this. I couldn't go. It was something I committed to.

Because you got confused on the dates as well. The date did not land properly. And they could not move it and accommodate because they were already taking it they were putting all of my work

for for multiple apps in one into one day and they had already rearranged the schedule and coming from a show

like when you did the second to last episode of Comedy Bang Bang it was very similar where we had to do everything within a compacted day and it had to be a certain day and you were nice enough to,

because at a certain point, I was having a little trouble scheduling you through your people because I think you thought it was a normal episode of the show. And then when I reached out to you, I said, oh no, no, no, it's the second to last episode ever. You didn't know the show was going away.

Yeah. And I laid out what it was. You were like, oh, of course. And you like dropped everything that you were doing. So being on the other side of it, I can see like how nice that is

of you to do something like that and it's very important for that show. And nice of them to put it all on a day. A day, but scheduling of a TV show is so complicated that it just kind of fell apart. So like a week before it became clear that I could not go to Tulsa. And I'm not going to go to Tulsa and be the only,

and by the way, Kulop couldn't go because she was at Bentonville. And Naomi couldn't go. So I would have been the only person. I mean, honestly, I kind of wish I had gone and just called their bluff and been like, no one else is coming. It's just me. Put on this show for me, guys.

Yeah. But we didn't feel like – I felt like it was kind of a package deal. Like it had to be both of us. I'm sure they would have been fine with you going. I don't think so. I think it was a package deal. Yeah. Well.

So unfortunately, we did not get that experience of going to see them in Tulsa. Here's what I'll say. Mm-hmm. Is that I'm happy the way it ended up working out. Yes. Because I think the day before their tour opener, sitting down with them, they would have been nervous. So, yeah.ied preoccupied is better probably of just like there's so much shit going on that suddenly we have we're getting to

interview them and yeah you know our tour is about to go on what we have to do it in front of these guys like i feel like it would have been a a bad situation what ended up happening is pretty incredible so uh so i'm i'm but at the time it was a huge bummer it was a huge bummer uh and one that i hope when people see you on that show they really appreciate your work on it because it was a big sacrifice for you yeah to do and then the la show rolls around like a month and a half later, and as we explained last week, I couldn't go to that either. Couldn't go to that either. It just seems like all of our U2 hopes have been dashed. And I thought, well, am I not going to see this tour?

Like is this the one U2 tour I will not see? And I kept checking in with you after you missed the L.A. show, and we were like, well well we have to go somewhere to see it so we kept checking in of of um and you're doing Big Little Lies at the time

yeah and so you're only getting your schedule on basically when you when you work as an actor on something you'll get your schedule

like the Friday before next week and they'll lay out what days you have off right pretty much so I would say what about

this show and you go i won't know until the friday before if i can do it and every single time that it seemed like we had an opportunity to go you would get your schedule and have to work on those days yeah and we thought like maybe if we go see them in like a smaller market we'll get more time with them or more access so at certain points we were talking about going to Philadelphia. Philadelphia was one that we were going to go to. Washington, D.C. We were going to meet Phoebe out at Washington, D.C. at one point. All of those kept falling through, and Laura kept saying, like, guys, can you come?

Can you come? Weirdly, it seemed like Laura and the band were chasing us coming out even more. Yeah. It was crazy. So finally, there's only two days left on the tour. Yeah. There's a Madison Square Garden date, and then I think they ended in— Connecticut or something.

And there's also a New Jersey, and we thought the New Jersey was going to work out. That ended up not working yeah because i had to my son was coming home from camp and i didn't want to miss seeing him arrive and remembering what he looks like exactly and so oh yeah you we i was able to do that and then get on a flight like at six the next six a.m the next next morning. 6 a.m. the next morning. I had come out to New York the day before. That's right. I got to see Tatiana Maslany's play, the Tracy Letts play, and got to hang out at the UCV. The Del Close Marathon was happening. That was great. Awesome.

And then you got in at approximately 3.35 the the day of the show, in JFK Airport. We are supposed to meet at 4.15-ish. I landed at 2.30. We needed to be at Madison Square Garden at 4.15. Or 4.15. So this is tight,

and we're checking in like, is Adam going to make it? Is Adam going to make it? Is Adam gonna make it? Spoiler alert you made it. Yeah I made it right on time although

straight from the airport so I was like Although you went you went to the hotel and you washed your little balls I think in between your penis

or your little balls in between my penis no in between our interview and the show we went back to the yeah we went back to the hotel but i think you you dropped your bag oh did i certainly yeah okay why do i know this better than you i don't know maybe because i'm sitting here in a stress ball

when's that i'm gonna get yeah yeah um but so so what is on the schedule for us that has been set up is that we are going to get to sit down. First of all, we are told we're going to get to sit down with Bonobos himself. I believe lead singer of the band U2. Yes, he's the lead singer. Lead singer. Yeah. So everyone sings. This is like a barbershop quartet situation.

I think he and Fedge sing, but he is the lead singer. They trade off. No, well. They're co-lead singers? No, he is the lead singer, and Fedge. So he sings the word lead over and over. I think that's what it means, but I'm not. I've never listened to the words.

Yeah, me neither. So lead in quotation marks singer. Singer. Meaning that word is said quite a bit. Fedge is the backup singer. Like he does backing vocals. He does like doo-wop backups. And sings songs about backs.

Yeah. And as we talked about last week, not singing about butts because that's not part of the back. No, not at all. Definitely not part of the back. No, not at all. Definitely not part of the back. And when you sing about backs and talk about backs, they call it backing. Mm-hmm.

Backing vocals. Backing vocals. It is interesting that there's really only one famous song that I can think of that sings about backs. What's that? Baby Got Back. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the other songs about backs, you think they're about backs, but it's like, you know,

get back where you belong. It tricks you. But that song, Baby Got Back, what's so special about a baby having a back? That's the other thing. It's actually about a butt. It tricks you into thinking, oh, boy, I'm going to hear a song about a back. Why does he call it a back? I don't get it.

Sir Mix-a-Lot got a lot of issues with you. Yeah. Maybe that's why that song never ended up being famous or anything of note. Yeah. Off the Charlie's Angels soundtrack. And it was on Friends. Maybe that's why that song never ended up being famous or anything of note. Off the Charlie's Angels soundtrack. And it was on Friends. Was it? Yeah.

When? We're on a break. We're on a break. I'm going to listen to Baby Got Back during our break. Baby Got Back was on Friends TV show. Weird. Why? I don't remember, but I do remember. Was someone dancing or something to it?

I think so. Why is that seared into your memory? You know, memory, we remember things and we forget other things. The things we remember are tied into strong emotions. So the things that you can remember in extreme detail are when your emotions are involved. I was watching it while riding a roller coaster. Okay. So you're very frightened you're going to die.

Yeah. So anyway, we're told that Bonobos himself is going to sit down to an interview with us, and then a guy that we haven't talked about up to this point, Adam Clay, 2,000 pounds, is going to take us on a tour of the entire stage and backstage and on this is something we did not ask for this no and in fact we were trying to turn them down and say no no no no no no yeah not interested no but laura did kind of present

this to us as a thing for adam clay 2 Pounds to show us around, which was so cool. What a great idea. And we're told that Larry is busy. Yes. Larry Mullen Sr.'s son. He's busy, apparently. And Fedge, we don't know where he's at in this whole thing.

Yeah. So the day comes around, and Laura gets a hold of us and says, Hey, guess what? Fedge is coming to this interview. Yeah. It's going to be Bonobos and Fedge, both of them. But when did we find that out? Like the day before? Somewhere around the day before or something.

It was up in the air. We didn't know. But then while we were waiting, do we want to talk about the room they brought us into backstage? Yeah, we will. Tell you what. Why don't we take a break? Okay.

We'll take you into this room. When we come back in our next segment, we are to be talking to the nobos and fedge themselves that's right the lead singer apparently and the backing singer of the band we'll be right back with more you talking you too to me after this. Oh man, guess what I get to talk about today? I'm so excited that they're back sponsoring you talking you two to me. Squarespace! That's right Everyone has dreams, right? I think you'd have to be insane I read a short story once about

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Squarespace.com slash Bono. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code Bono. You're going to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. That's squarespace.com slash Bono. Offer code Bono. Yeah, I bet you do. You talking U2 to me, we're back. Adam's talking about a salad he's getting delivered. All right, so we're talking about our salad he's getting delivered. All right. So we're talking about our backstage in Madison Square Garden experience.

So I get there a little bit before you. I check in with Laura. I'm there with Jared, our engineer, who came. Did a great job. Did a great job. So we're put into a room because there's a room that we're supposed to be in that's not quite ready yet. And then we're also – Oh, yeah.

We're put into like a dressing room. Like a dressing room. And we look at – there's a picture on one of the kind of roadie cases. We took a picture of it. It's got tape on it that says Guy O'Serry. Yeah. Like it's his personal roadie case i feel like it's it's it was spray painted on there guy oseri like this is his maybe it might have

been written on tape i can't remember but um so we're just hanging out backstage and we're told that um fedge likes to go say hi to the crowds who gather around the sort of backstage entrance and so he has gone off and done that, and that's going to take a minute. Adam gets there, no problem. I thought that that meant the interview was now just Bono again, or Bonobos. It wasn't – Fedge was not going to be participating. Right. I think that I got – because I was there with Laura talking about it,

I think I knew that it was just something like, oh, he's going to go off and do this while we're waiting. Right, and I'm stupid. And it was just something like, oh, he's going to go off and do this while we're waiting. And I'm stupid. And you're dumb. Yeah, exactly. So we're kind of waiting and we... Then she brings us into... She brings us into this room that they've set up.

What's really funny about it is she brings us into this room that i had assumed that was there all the time like this is the standard setup for the backstage because it's got it's got all these tv monitors that are showing like the sort of the clip package of the tour it's got posters for the tour everywhere it's got candles it's got little uh even the candles are branded you too yeah so it's like i go oh this is what they set up every single show. Apparently, they set that up just for the interview for us. No. Yeah.

They did? Yeah. Really? I thought it was like the standard green room. No, it was not a room that they normally use. They set it up just for us. Yeah. Because there were bowls filled with U2 not only tour but Madison Square Garden Innocence Experience Tour.

What are those things you put on the back of the phone? The back of the phone to take selfies with or something? Or what are they? The pop-ups. Pop-ups. What are those called? So they had like U2, these things that you put on the back of the phone

so you can hold your phone. Yeah. That bowl's filled with them. Bowl's filled with them and it's just for us. And U2 Madison Square Garden refrigerator phone. Yeah. That bowl is filled with them. Bowl's filled with them, and it's just for us. And you two, Madison Square Garden refrigerator magnets. Yeah, and we assumed that this was something like a bunch of people are going to be going in and out of all night or whatever. But no, it was just set up for our interview. Did Laura tell you that?

Yeah. That's crazy because there was also just posters and branded merchandise everywhere in this room. And all I took were a couple of those pop-out things from my kids. I didn't even take a magnet because I just was like, this is not ours. I was like, these are for other people. It's crazy. You offered me one. You were like, hey, do you want one of these pop-ups?

I was like, yeah, sure. And then you go, do you want two? I'm like, because I've never had one. I go, how many are you supposed to put on your phone? And you go, one. I go, well, then why would I want two? And you go, I don't know. Give it to a friend.

I said, Kulop. And you're like, she would never want that. So. If I knew they were for us, I would have taken three instead of two. Sure. I would have taken the whole bowl. I would have taken the whole bowl and shoved it up my ass. No, I wouldn't have so how do how do you i gotta how do you feel going into this interview here's my theory on it yeah okay

i kind of view it as like a band okay so our first interview you know how when a band does their first album they have had their entire lives to write these songs. And they've been thinking about it forever. And their first album is just this raw burst of energy of songs they've been thinking about for years, if not their whole lives. And then their second album,

they have approximately six weeks to record. And they've used up all of their songs. And so often, that's what they call the sophomore slump is because they – There's nothing left to say. There's nothing in the tank. I sort of worried about that with this of like is this going to be our October in a way? Is this interview – do we have stuff to think of to say?

Me too. I was worried like why? Why do we need to interview them again? What more do we have to bring to the table? Yeah, and is the kind of novelty and fun of it going to be worn off because the craziness of us even getting the interview in the first place is sort of worn off.

And so I was concerned about that too. So writing questions beforehand, I listened to the album. I thought about the tour. And you know what? There was a lot. I found that there was a lot to talk about with the tour, especially with the themes of it and song selection.

And there also was just a bunch of stuff. I feel like we were more comfortable with them. Yeah. I think it's a better interview than the first one. It's a better interview than the first one. I will say that the one time, I'm just going to qualify this before you hear it. The one time that I got, that I started,

because I came in pretty comfortable, but the one time that you start to hear nerves in my voice is the very first question I ask right bonobos is looking at me just imagine bonobos looking with his face scrunched up like what the fuck are you talking about and I'm sitting there going like holy shit have I insulted him? Yeah, yeah. What? Did I blow this on the very first question? And he's looking at me like, what? Yeah. And I think, and then in retrospect, after listening to it back, I think he just was, we didn't have headphones on.

He was just listening to me. Yeah. But I started to get in my head about it. So you hear that in my voice a little bit. But I think we have a good time. Yeah. I think it ends, and you know, a lot has happened in U2 world since our last interview. I mean, the Joshua Tree tour, they have a new record out.

Trump happened. So a lot has happened like in the world. Gump happens? Yeah. They've probably been to Bubba Gump's shrimp company. What about Forrest Trump? Is that anything? Yeah, I think there's something there.

Okay, I'm going to go right now. You know what? Let's pause. Let's pause. Let's go right back. Sit down and get into a sesh. So what you're going to hear now is a 45-minute unedited interview with Bonobos and Fedge. Both of them were kind enough to give us way more time than was allotted.

Yeah. So let's get into it. What do you say? Yeah, they were so cool, and it was fun. All right, so let's hear what Adam describes as cool and fun. We can cut that part out. No, I think we're okay. Here it is.

This is our exclusive. We did not give this to anyone else. Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, we did not give this interview to any other outlet. It's solely on you talking U2 to me. Here is our exclusive interview with the two members of U2 right now. All right, welcome. This is Scott and Scott. We're here at Madison Square Garden, the U2 Experience and Innocence Tour 2018. And with us today, our friends, our good friends.

Is that safe to say? That's safe to say. We're working up to acquaintance. We started very good friends and then downgraded. We have Bonobos, of course, and Fedge is here with us. Welcome, guys. It's so great to be here. Second appearance on the show. You're friends with the show now.

That's the thing that hurts. That's the thing, yeah. Should have been more than that, but. Yeah. Why not every year or so? Yeah. I thought it was supposed to. Annual.

The last appearance was supposed to end our appearance and take away from you both the weight. The urge to have you guys on again. The burden of having to follow through on your podcast. But we are very delighted to be in your company. It makes a show day feel like a bit of a day out actually thank you

it's been a while since you guys were on the show and so we're wondering since then how has being on our podcast changed your lives well it's given it a new level of meaning and significance that I frankly was struggling to attain before that.

But, you know, it's really, suddenly I have a purpose in life. Right, yeah. It's just, I can't thank you guys enough. I don't know where I would be in my life now if I hadn't got on your podcast. It's our pleasure. It really is. I feel the same. pleasure it really is i feel i feel the same and i i'm i i was thinking um that there are tax advantages to starting your own religion and in america for sure do you know elrond humbert is

oh yeah of course yes for sure i get a lot of their mail do you think the age could be like could be a sort of a kind of a spiritual leader of that sort do you own a yacht I I I have a part of a boat and I have a it's not really a yacht the way I have on my own

but you know I think I could possibly given a bit of time I think I'd need to lay out some clear parameters

because we could all it might take me a while myself say three weeks or so give me sir yeah that's great and we get the boat out into international waters Because we could all... It might take me a while. Myself and I... Say three weeks or so. Sir! Yeah. That's great.

And we get the boat out into international waters. And then laws don't really apply. We can do whatever we want out there, right? You may need some equipment like the E-meter stuff. Right. Don't we then need a colony somewhere that we can establish? Yes. We're going to colonize their imagination.

A utopian. There you go. I like the way you're thinking. That's what Elrond did. So we're in on the ground floor of this. Okay. I hope that's okay. All right, so next time we meet,

we'll have it all organized and ready to go. I'll have it figured out. I'll have it. Cool. And it's not robes. I've come up with a name. Oh.

We are the Frisbetarians. Yes. Yes. And we all throw Frisbees. And we all believe that when we die, our soul goes on the garage roof and we can't get it back.

Yes. There you go. That sounds great. That's the principle. And we'll take it from there. I mean, everything else should fall into place. So the tour that you're just about wrapping it up here in America, then you're going to Europe, right?

And then the UK, I think. Did you guys see Springsteen on Broadway? I did. It's so good. It is really great. When I saw it, it actually reminded me of this tour a lot. Because he's using a show to tell a story, to tell a narrative story about his past in a way that you guys did. The minute I saw it, I was like, this is exactly what you two did.

guys did the minute I saw it I was like this is exactly what you two did just using the music to tell a story about where you'd come from where you are now is that is that important to you when you're when you're doing a tour to do more than just play songs to actually tell a story like that I mean Bruce strange enough is one of the exceptions in this regard because the kind of human jukebox aspect of what he does, you know, he changes songs around in his set list, and that's part of the excitement of going to see him play. So I think it's quite unusual to see Bruce on Broadway

stripped down to telling the tale. And we don't mess with our setlist that much. On the original Innocence and Experience tour, I think it was about 20 songs that varied over the whole tour. But in this, it's like only a few. We've gone deeper on the storytelling on this one. And look, it is a sort of mad arrogance to think that people should be interested in your story

because in the end, it's like, are the tunes any good? Shut up. But I think that is, you know, that's at the core of the megalomania of wanting to be in a band in the first place is you, or any artist, you know, any writer. You believe that maybe you might have an angle on something. You might have something you want to share with people

that might be of interest. And so this is very autobiographical. I mean, Age is Life, and it's much more interesting, or Larry's or Adam's. But I've got the microphone, and I'm not letting it go. And I'm here in my 50s singing about my mother. I'm sorry about that. Do you guys collaborate on the story beforehand? What's the artistic process like when you're sort of coming up with the tour?

I think songs are the tent poles of the whole thing. So it came out of Songs of Innocence and then continued into Songs of Experience, where it just felt, for the first time in a while, the right moment for us to become more introspective and just actually start writing from a very personal place because you two traditionally you know we've always written in a very universal kind of style where we're trying to hit on the issues of the moment and trying to kind of find common ideas that everyone can relate to sorry about that common ideas that everyone can relate to. Sorry about that. Common ideas that everyone can relate to.

But one of them is just what happened there was we should learn from it. Because that was a person who works in Madison Square Gardens walking in through the wrong door into the dressing room and walking out as if this was completely the right thing to do. Right. So the lesson for us all there is if you make a mistake, just act like you belong here.

Yeah, yeah. Do it twice. Keep moving out the door. That's what you thought. That was kind of great. That was pretty great. Yes. Unless it was L. Ron Hubbard.

Just because this is a radio type of podcast thing, a person just walked through opening the door. We had a visitation. You do. Maybe a future follower. So the songs kind of led us into this narrative approach to the show and it grew. And then a lot of you two projects, you sort of set course and then you try and follow the clues

down the road and see where it gets you. And I think that's what happened in this case. And this time out, no songs from The Joshua Tree, having just toured exclusively songs from The Joshua Tree. Have you found that on this tour to be a challenge? Has it been liberating? How has it been without the streets have no name moment in the show? We used to say that whatever happened at a U2 show, however shite we ever got,

when we played where the streets were no name, God would walk through the room. So taking that out, are we in deep trouble? Yeah. And we are. And so now we're doing podcasts. And thank you for that by the way and it was great

being in you two it was really good you had a good run but the what it did was it's made other songs more important and City Blinding Lights now has become that kind of moment

and that's and it's a strange thing because people associate it with City Blinding Lights now has become that kind of moment. And it's a strange thing because people associate it with Barack Obama and those rallies that he gave, which brought so much hope to America. And we're trying to be, our stance on this tour is to try and create some sort of space where people might meet in the middle and we're talking about the city shining on the hill and saying where is that city and we've been slapping america around the head for most of the show and and and we're saying where is that city on the hill could this be the city on the hill is it now is it here then you hear um the uh city of blinding lights and you realize that i mean this happened to me live i realize it's not owned by any one community or point of view

if there is a city on the hill it's owned by people who love life liberty pursuit of happiness etc and what could be a really corny moment actually i think gives i hope it gives people a sense of of of community and and a patriotism put in the right um perspective because patriotism out of context is so dangerous and tonight willie williams just handed me an American flag, a little tiny one, for McVisto tonight. And because it's the 4th of July and he was wondering, he said, I bet he really loves patriotism. He said, you've got to take out the flag. And I'm weighing up whether to do that or not.

But anyway, City of Blinding Lights has become what Where the Streets Are No Name was before. It's a community, a shared community. And I think it's doing that job. Maybe one as well. What do you think? Yeah, I don't actually miss the songs from the Joshua Tree. We played them a lot over the summer and enjoyed that very much. But it's very exciting to concentrate on the newer material.

And then there's Pride in the Name of Love, Desire. There's all these very big songs. You have a lot of hits. We're spoiled in that sense. You've got plenty. We've got a lot to draw from. Is there any song off the new record that you would like to fit into the tour that I noticed that you haven't been playing Summer of Love?

I know. We're going to, though. You're going to? We played it yesterday for the very first time. I saw that. Went out on the beach, and we played it. And it was just an acoustic performance myself and Edge. And it connected.

And there were a lot of people. I was at like a little radio thing, and there was a lot of people out on the beach there. All the Irish ones were being burnt. That was really obvious. You'd really, there was a lot of, it was very clear to spot the ethnic groups. And there's the Irish right there.

It was Boston. Is this the most tan that you get right here? This is the color of there. It was Boston. Is this the most tan that you get right here? This is the color of rage. Sorry, Scott. No, but so we did Summer of Love, and we got to talk about it and where it came from. Oh, great. And it was strange because I know this was a comedy podcast,

but there's sort of nothing funny about being on your vacation, which myself and Edge have been on this vacation together for years. We holiday together in the south of France. We're there, and Adam and Larry join us. Not just the two of us. I just want to point that out. There are other people. We'd love to come back as well.

And, you know, we've had amazing times there. And then just recently you hear these stories of people strapping themselves to rafts and tin cans and nurses and teachers and people risking their life and limb running from this war in Syria. And it's the same sea. It's just over there. And it's just a funny thing. I'm not saying it stopped us from having you know a fun with our families but it just it's just like it's like a it's like a cloud on the horizon you can just feel it and it's exactly what's happening in the United States right now and your borders

so this song summer of love is becoming think, an important song as we go into experiencing innocence in Europe and Red Flag Day also. Sorry about the long answer. No, no, that's great. When I saw that performance yesterday, I was like, this is really resonant to what's happening in the United States right now. And it just takes on a whole new meaning for the song. You know, I was just really, I'm stoked to hear that it's going to go in the show. That's great.

And their tunes, Red Flag Day is right up there with their best tunes. Feels like an early U2 song. And of course, we've got a lot of younger people who think it is a... Right. It sure has that sound. It's got tempo.

I think Summer of Love has one of the best guitar lines, too. The guitar line that you created for it is just so unique. I was listening to the record today, and it just really popped out as like, wow, this is such an amazing. And the other one that hasn't probably got as much attention as it deserves is The Showman. Oh, that's one of my favorites. I call that the white album tune on the record.

All our mates are songwriters and in bands. That's their favorite tune. And we were going to play it and I think we might have a go in Europe, but babies cry because born to sing, singers cry about everything. Yeah. It reminds me.

I've been on the playground falling off a swing, but you know that I know. Walk through the room like a birthday cake. If I'm all lit up, I can't make a mistake. But there's a level of shallow that you just can't fake. You know that I know. All that. It's so fun. It reminds me of like, in a really great way, it reminds me of like a good song by The Monkees,

you know, where like, I imagine you guys having fun and like running around while you're performing. It's like a Beatles tune yeah I think Beatles and Hammerhead it's got the best line of the album which I wish was mine but it's

Jimmy Iovine who you know who was our producer from years ago and then produced kind of all that hip hop with Interscope Records

and the Defiant Ones Jimmy Iovine and the Defiant Ones and a friend of ours was was taking him on in a thing, and he'd done something a little precious or something. And our mate says, oh, Jimmy, a little insecure, are we?

And Jimmy said, I got just enough insecurity to get me where I want to go, dude. And my mate shriveled. So I put it in there. It goes, it is what it it is it's not what it seems this screwed up stuff is the stuff of dreams I got just enough low self esteem to get me where I want to go that's the word self esteem

do you Bob Geldof came out today in an interview saying that he sang karaoke with you many times and he said you take it very very seriously many many times Rob Geldof came out today in an interview saying that he sang karaoke with you. Many times. Many times. And he said you take it very, very seriously.

Many, many times I take him very seriously. And he does not deserve that. What is your go-to karaoke jam, would you say? I think, first of all, people who do funny karaoke jams, like Hello, I'm Hilarious, don't be in the room with them. If you're not going to commit, it's just let's not go there. At the moment, I'm going for 70s soft rock, and I think that's the way. I did try to be cool once,

and I tried to sing What's New, Pussycat by Tom Jones. It's impossible to sing it's very I'm I think go for emotion all the time you don't leave people crying into their you know

into their beers or worse I assume Roy Orbison crying that would be oh there you go that would be that would be a good one

very dramatic I would do it very very dramatically I think that's that's the people who are just kind of up there for a laugh no take it very seriously no you've got to what's the people who are just kind of up there for a laugh. No, take it very seriously.

No, you've got to connect. What's yours, Edge? I remember on one occasion I really hit it with Daydream Believer, the monkeys. Oh, yeah. It kind of worked for me. It's something about the range.

On Pop Mart, you were... I ended up doing it on Pop Mart. Pull that out sometimes. That was the... Edge used to do karaoke every night on Pop Mart. Really? And we thought it was a very kind of pop art idea, and it all went swimmingly well until what happened?

The Macarena. Oh, no. Just a really bad choice. And the problem was we were singing it, because the Macarena is from one tradition, one side of Spain, and we kind of didn't quite appreciate that we were in the other part of Spain

where they like to think of themselves as different and they have a different dialect. So everything was wrong. It's like singing Yankee, doing... No, it was... Oh, boy. So, yeah, went down like a lead beam. It was really funny.

And Edgy's like, this is going to be great. This is going to be great. They're going to love this. You're going to love this. And everyone, hey, Mac Reiner. Oh, no. Oh, God. The killer moment was I thought, OK, what would Bono do?

What was he thinking? And I know. I think, I've got it. I'll bring somebody up on stage. So I grabbed this poor girl's hand. I said, I've got it. I'll bring somebody up on stage. So I grabbed this poor girl's hand. I said, come on up. And as she walked on stage, I realized she was in trouble when she covered her eyes like, I don't want to admit that I'm on stage.

Because we had the bouncing ball. Right. Oh, I remember. The good thing is we were playing with a lot of irony and pop things. So we put it down. She said, oh, this is kind of our shtick. But really, it was like, oh, man, that was not my favorite moment of the Pop Mart tour. How could you have known?

I mean, come on. Right. I guess if you had to ask somebody. If you had to ask anyone, you might be there. Sure. It's all our fault. I think it might have been my idea. I'm sure it was.

We did have somebody whose job it was to find some suggestions. And when I questioned it, they said, no, no, no, no. It's great. It'll go down brilliantly. I said, are you sure? Yeah, totally. Anyway. That person was Larry Mullen Jr.

He's in there finding songs before the show. If you have to be booed at during a U2 concert, I guess the Macarena would be a good song to be booed at. It's exciting that Staring at the Sun, I see, is in some nights. Am I right about that? Yeah, it is. That's exciting. Speaking of pop, the 20th anniversary just came and went. Are you going to be doing anything with that record, like a deluxe edition?

Speaking of Larry, he's always wanted to do something on pop, wanted to, I think, remake it. But yeah, it was that idea. That album was just, we just, we so love the period it came out of, it was just a very special time for our band. And we spent about four months on the album and four months on the single, Discotheque, which we were convinced was a pop masterpiece. And this is going to be great. It's going to be like ABBA meets the Bee Gees meets whatever.

Again, our understanding of pop music is a little alternate, we realize. But we really were sure, so we mixed it for about three months. Wow. Yeah. I love that record. We've talked about it on the show. That's one of my favorites. Pop?

Pop. I love it. Yeah. There's some great moments on that record. Discotheque's a great single. MoFo? You think so? Oh, yeah.

That is so good to hear. Well, I like what it's, I felt it was about the moment we were in. So I felt it was quite revealing. Yes. And I'm proud of it in terms of the storytelling. And I just wish we hadn't mixed it for three months. You think I'm exaggerating. We mixed it for three months.

The same song. Just like turning up and down. People had to take counseling after it. Metallica style. Well, it's a complicated song. I mean, it's like a club version of Where the Streets Have No Name as far as the complexity of it. It started out as a very club record.

And then halfway through making the album, we realized that there was a lot of people doing club music. And in some ways, we had checked in at the door some of the most unique qualities of what our band can do. So we kind of jumped ship slightly in the middle of making the record, and we reintroduced more of the band organic sound. So part of that was the reason why it took so long is that we were kind of really trying to reclaim

the sonic identity of the record and make it more band-centric. It was supposed to sound like a party, that album, but it ended up sounding a little bit like the morning after the party. Like it's a bit of the party, but there's a bit of the hangover. Yeah, it's almost like we check in on discotheque,

like, right at 3 a.m., when the drugs are sort of wearing off. What's it? It goes, looking for baby Jesus under the trash. Yeah, that's going to really get him up in the dance floor. Wow. This is you two

in good form I love it I would love to see you guys do something with it I would love to play Last Night on Earth acoustically

at some points if you could put that together Gone too Gone's a great song great tune Do You Feel Loved that's a great song

MoFo is one of my favorites it's awesome so many good songs on there. Yeah. As you guys may or may not know, we're now working on a podcast focused on REM. I'm sure they know.

Yeah, everyone knows, right? I do know. Yes. It's called Are You Talking REM ReMe. Is this an episode of Are You Talking REM ReMe? I think it might be.E.M. Re-Me? Is this an episode of Are You Talking R.E.M. Re-Me? I think it might be. Yeah, okay. Hey, everyone. This is Scott. And this is Scott.

And this is Scott. And this is Are You Talking REM? We have a couple of great guests here. We have two old, old friends of ours. We made vacation together at some point, Bonobos and Fedge. And we're talking about REM. We thought we might ask a couple REM-related questions

because for us, growing up in the 80s and 90s, you guys were our Beatles and Stones. And so we were just wondering if you guys had any favorite songs, records of theirs, experiences. When did you first hear of REM? I think early on, because our band and their REM came through in a similar moment, maybe a couple of years in the difference. So from the beginning, from their first albums, we were really excited by what they were doing. We met on the longest day, whatever that is.

Midsummer night. Midsummer's night. 1983, I think it was. And I introduced myself to Michael he was reading a book backstage at a festival where the Ramones were also on the bill

so two deities in the house myself and Michael laughter laughter it's his modesty as well so Wow. Myself. It's his modesty as well. So it was, you know, reading a book, of course he was reading a book, and it was going to be a much more interesting book than anyone else's book.

And then one of us says, are you Michael Stripe from R.E.M.? Oh, yeah. That was it. That was it. That's the extent of your conversation. The end of conversation. The story. Yeah, I know. That's the natural story.

It really makes it come to life, too. And there began a lifelong love affair. And absolutely, he's one of the greatest men and artists that I've ever met in my entire life and I would also have a podcast about Michael but there's also another three Peter Buck which is a whole other level you've got Mike Mills

you've got, I mean, Bill Berry. It was really something to me on stage. What about you, Edge? What's your... Well, absolutely. Early festival bills that we shared were very memorable. And then they actually did some recording in Ireland

where we went down and hung out a little bit when they were recording. Oh, for Reveal. Yeah. And worked with some of our engineers. Jackknife Lee, right? Yeah, he worked at Jackknife. Who's the...

Well, the man who saved Where the Streets of No Name. Pat McCarthy. Pat McCarthy. The man who physically confronted Brian Eno as he went to wipe Where the Streets of No Name. Pat McCarthy. The man who physically confronted Brian Eno as he went to wipe Where the Streets of No Name. He went on to produce that. That is such an insane story. Brian Eno, old sourpuss himself, wants to wipe.

Oh, no, it's all sour. Well, that's what we call it. And he said that we were spending all that time on it. It's more refined than sour. It's a Suffolk grumbling, a grumpiness born of living in Suffolk, a particular part of Britain which is famous for grumbling. He has dated to prove that people live longer the more they grumble. That's great.

So back to R.E.M. So we've known the guys for many years and loved them personally and their work. I think my favorite R.E.M. song is Man on the Moon. I just love that tune. Yeah. And when he does that Elvis bit, that's particularly great live. A certain R.E.M. songs I can't listen to because they are too... They're just overpowering.

And, you know, it's a thing for singers because this is really like knowing Frank Sinatra. Yeah. Which I did, by the way. Right. And I thought to myself when I was sitting with Frank Sinatra, wow, you really are Frank Sinatra. I'm the same with Michael Stipe,

with a little bit of Dolly Parton thrown in. Because there is a little bit of Dolly Parton about Michael's voice. So then you get the fact that he is sketching these pictures. Sometimes they're enigmatic, and then sometimes the line just reaches out and owns you and you can't get it off you. Like in Losing My Religion, that's me in the corner. I think that's a new kind of songwriting

because you're right present in a moment and it's just a conversation about something that's at once flippant and at once deeply, deeply profound. And the problem with U2 is, what I find annoying about them is, is that we sometimes just go straight in for the subjects. Whereas Orium could learn to be a little flip and Michael could be a little elliptical. But they've got that weight. And the other thing about... Oh, that's good.

Can we get an ambient sound? We're right next to a kitchen, I believe. I know. Oh, it says pantry on the wall right next to the pantry. Well, that might be a clue. I thought that was panty, but... That's where they keep all the panties. This is what I dreamed backstage would be like.

But is it true for all of you that when we talk about songs, we're not really talking about songs. We're talking about the moments that we have that are woven into those songs. That's what this show is about. This show, what we like to do is we like to talk about music. We like to talk about our experiences hearing it. Where we were when we heard the songs.

That's what we discovered going through your records was we would talk about what we were doing in 1991 when we adopted a baby for the first time. 1987, staying up all night in a warehouse parking lot to get tickets for the show. You know, just the music is so tied up in experiences. So you're not really reviewing the songs. You know, you're reviewing your own life. Yeah. And I have so much, and I'm pretty sure Edge does too,

of our life woven into Orem songs. Some of the greatest moments of our life have been listening to their music, sometimes live, but sometimes late at night. You know, I was convinced night swimming was written about um you know every time i've ever been to the beach and you know we you know we've tradition and as we drink vodka and go into the very cold sea and and so all of those things you know you're absolutely sure that you're in a conversation with the singer that's when that's when the

the alchemy of music takes over and that's why we're probably all sitting around this table yes i think that's going to do it for the rem show yeah this is scott and this is scott and thanks a lot okay we're back to youtube okay um so speaking. So, speaking of experiences with songs, I mean, you have so many songs. I was just thinking about this today. You have so many songs that are tied up in people's experiences. For instance, you know, people will sing them to their children. People will have them play at their weddings. I mean, that's such an awesome privilege

and a responsibility. Do you have a few more? Oh, you got any bar mitzvahs in there? Yes. We've got it all. You've got the whole life experience. Yeah. We've been working on the bar mitzvah bit

because genuinely that is the thing that we sort of aren't really. the thing that we sort of aren't really we pretend that we're good time rock and roll you know songs certain songs but we're not we're we're sort of we're kind of faking it and I mean we're a loud folk band and that's it it's all that melancholy can't really be on top we have this joy and we have those big moments in your life

or for marching down the street but don't underestimate the bar mitzvah because that's fun you met with tell about youuran Duran. You meet with Nick, who's so brilliant.

Yes, at Rhodes. And we were working on some songs for, it might have been No Line in the Horizon. And we had some remixes going. And I was saying, Nick, it's like. We were complimenting on that song, Ordinary World, which is a genius song. Well, actually, that's a slightly different story, but it's one of my favorite songs of theirs of all time,

and maybe one of my favorite songs for that year. It was like, I just loved that tune. I thought they delivered an amazing lyric, and just fantastic. But actually, what I was talking to Nick about was something we were working on. And I was going, Nick, you know, it's like we have a really hard time being shallow. It's just our thing. Whenever we get close to something that just doesn't feel like, you know, we just shy away. And he said, well, you know, Edge, we have absolutely no problem.

So it's like can we not do like straightforward fun right was the is the it we're the like you know you're the comedians who probably you know sitting with whatever it is you know the actor and going I'd love to do that and they're going no no no I want to be funny it's the hardest thing in the world is to be funny. Yeah. Could you imagine writing a song like girls on film? Yeah. I,

I, I, I, I dream we would wake up like that. Well, you're the best thing about me. It's a really fun pop song. It's great.

You guys pulled it off there. And there's even this humor, this humor. You know, we got, we're making ourselves laugh. That's a good start. Yes.

Do you think that there might be a future for us here? Yeah. I think so. I think so. What do you think, Scott? I mean, as long as you put out the other stuff, too. Like, maybe do a double album where it's one sad, one happy. One shot of happy,

two shots of sad. That's us. There you have it. That's the Irish. The newest record is a great mix of both sides of that coin. So I know we're running out of time and this is a show day for you.

We really appreciate you being here. The garden. We're in the garden. We're in the garden. An amazing place. So I had one last question I wanted to ask because this tour

is sort of about the transition from the promise of the past to the realities of the present but it kind of leads me to wonder

about the future what is the future well I've been there because I'm from the future oh that's right as you know yeah back to the future

was based on your life. It was. You're Marty McFly. Exactly. So I can reassure you that it's better. Is it? It is. I'm not really at liberty to describe how better or why it's better, but it is better.

Okay. A lot of people would like to hear that, I think. Well, I mean, all jokes aside, I do think that this moment in history if you really look at the facts and figures it's the best time to live of any period of history and if you look at all the things that we try and measure the sort of state of the world by terms of poverty in terms of medical science in terms of social justice we're actually making great progress. It seems like we slipped a bit sideways recently, but I do think that that's in the wider context, the sweep of history, it'll be more a kind of sidestep than it is a big backward step.

Plus, we have air conditioning, which is great. It's very hot outside. Yeah. And there's not shit everywhere. And if there is, we try to turn it into art. I mean, all these things that have been coming out, from Black Lives Matter to Me Too, to everything that's been emerging is good news

because it's finally coming out. It's being dealt with. It's being talked about rather than it being accepted and sort of swept under the carpet. Shit is better when it's on the street is the message. Probably. Do you find Trump to be a subject that

you have to tread delicately with when you're on stage just because it's undoubtedly a different time now than it was when it was bush or reagan and it was just a political persuasion that there was a difference over whereas now there seems to be a lot of division division morally as well yeah i mean it's the name that will not be spoken. Yeah. Is that a Harry Potter reference?

He is the Voldemort of politics. I think this is a very dangerous moment in the history of your country, and it's a very dangerous moment in the history of Europe, too. And if, you know, I think, Edge, you hold on tightly to this idea that the moral arc of the universe might be long, but it bends towards justice. I will tell you, and I haven't had this conversation with you yet,

that I'm questioning that now. And I just wonder if you look at the history over 10,000 years, if we've any evidence to support the fact that the human spirit evolves. I think, you know, the last 70 years or our life, we've seen this incredible surge in the direction of equality, fairness, justice for all, you know, equal rights for, you know, your sexuality, marriage rights. I mean, it's all good. And then I just really, it seems to have stopped. And so now you have, you know, the United Nations, there's 152 ambassadors of the United Nations coming here tonight, by the way, to our show.

Really? But the United Nations, I would tell them, I don't even know if it'll be there if things go the way certain people would like it to go. The European Union, you know, we've seen peace following the Second World War. The European Union, I mean, this year it nearly ended. You've seen the G7 meeting turned into some sort of, you know, school playground and a bully kind of storm off. We pulled out of the human rights. You just pulled out of the human rights. You just pulled out of the human rights

convention at the UN. The United States did. So, the only thing I can hold on to is I do deeply believe that if people recognize this moment

and recognize that there is being a loss of innocence. And, you know, I've had people talking like they're grieving. And you think, what is this? Is this melodrama, you know? Brexit and Trump. And I've realized, no, people are grieving. They're grieving about the lot,

they're kind of a death of some kind. And it's the death of their innocence, death of our innocence. And you know what? That's okay. Because we need to get over that and that naivete that lets us think that everything's going to be okay. And whilst Edge is 100% right, present from the global perspective, things are definitely better. But in the Western world, which is where our music comes from and all so much of our freedoms, that is entering a very, very difficult and dark period. And we need to be sure that we can get that back, but not blasé. Well, I think the important thing is to note how good things are because the story that's going out there,

the narrative that is being dominated by politics is the opposite story, which is everything's turned to shit and we ought to be very afraid of people who are different to us because they're here to take away what we have. And it's a sort of fear-based politics. If you really look at the facts, sure, there have been some real challenges. Some people have been hurting economically. But in the big picture sense, things have been progressing.

And, you know, the economy of the world seems to be coming through. Again, there's sure going to be challenges down the road, but it's not so bad. But this narrative of fear is causing a lot of disruption politically, and I think that's been driving a lot of this anti-immigrant stuff. That's also just three-card money. So we're all going down there, the border.

It's a really serious problem, you know, the border. A porous border has to be, you know, taken seriously. It really does. But immigrants and people who are fleeing a terrible life also need to be taken very seriously. But what's really going on is something else. You know, more people have died by gun violence in the United States in the last five

years than in Vietnam. Now, that's whacked out. And yet, we're not talking about that anymore. There was people, there was a surge from these wonderful high school students from all kinds of communities. We're getting out, we're going to change the gun laws because they're nuts. That's kind of gone quiet. And because caging children at the border, that'll get them going. And so, you know, we just have to be very careful about, as Edge said, you know, pointing to these communities that have suffered. They have suffered. And we need to make sure that success is inclusive uh is inclusive there's no point in us all being four of us at this table being successful if if other people are left behind

um we have to take that sort of stuff very very seriously but it is not the panic that we were told it was and that this and this was this was this and the only person who could solve it was a guy from a reality TV show no, we're not buying that so it seems like the complacency is over a bit with people, you see the marches yesterday

but at the same time to your point Edge, it seems like that we can have hope I absolutely have to and also same time, to your point, it just seems like that we can have hope. I absolutely have to. And also, to stop demonizing the other side. Because whatever about the people that have become elected, people that elected them, are trying to figure out what's the best thing for them and their country. And I think most of them voted their conscience and most of them voted from that sense that this is the right move. A lot of people would disagree. And it's shocking to a lot of people from Europe to see what's happening here. But that's what democracy is. You know,

you get some strange results. So don't demonize the people who voted. Try and figure out why they made the choice they did and figure out where the common ground is to move forward and to stop this tribalism it's like really not helpful and we had it in northern ireland still dealing with it in northern ireland all it does is cause problems and i think if you boil it down to the issues, there's probably 80% of the stuff everyone agrees on anyway. It's really down to just these few hot-button issues. And, you know, let's just be adults. That's the problem is that it's actually gone to a level of sort of childish name-calling and stuff,

which is really, that's so unbecoming of a nation like this. Well, thank you for putting on these shows that lift people's spirits and making these great records that do the same. And we hope that you'll dedicate at least one song to us in the crowd tonight, if not more than that. Yeah, we will be there. I mean, not to put that bug in the rear, but we are going to be there. I'm sorry, because on the show day, when I wake up in the morning,

I have a very difficult time with myself. And to get ready for a U2 show, it's a wild experiment to play on yourself. And, you know, because it can't just be, you know, Friday night. You know, whether it's Monday it's New Year's Eve it's like every show has to be the best show we can make it and that puts terror

in me and so I just don't want to bum out your podcast to have you come and do this while you're getting ready means the world to us so thank you so much thank you for even yeah sitting down here it's very kind and i am kind of you know i am in a state of some some anxiety about what's going on in at home in europe

and here and i do believe it is you know the people getting out on the streets is the only remedy for this and so I hope our band can be useful going forward because the fight is on it's like it never has been in our entire life so we formed the band we wanted to be useful we wanted to be useful. We wanted to, we were available for work. In our heads, you know, we were crossing the Ramones with The Clash, and we would, you know, there we'd go out and make pop music that would make some difference, make punk rock that would make some, make some hard rock. But we would never know that it would come to this moment in time when, you know, something

could change at the Supreme Court, and people who are bisexual or people who are gay or people who are different could actually not feel safe walking down the streets of America. Or people who turn up from Africa, you know, who were washed up on the beaches of Europe, would not feel like they were welcomed there. This is... Everything's at stake at the moment. Never has there been a need for us to be in a band. I need it as an outlet myself. And I'm sure Agent Adam and Larry think like that.

But I hope we can be useful. You are. We're certainly intense. Yes, definitely. Okay, that's me. What a way to end it. Well, guys, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Have a great show tonight. You're the best. We love you. Bonobos, Fedge, thank you so much.

Our pleasure. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having us on the show. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Well. Wow. There it is. So how do you feel listening back to it?

Even though we didn't just listen back to it. We just said, here's the interview, and then immediately started this. But listening back to it, as I'm sure both of us have, I haven't. Have you? Oh, no. Okay. I'm too embarrassed.

I started to. I started to the other day, and it got about five minutes in and had to turn it off. I'm keeping my memory of it pristine. Okay, okay. I thought it was really fun. Those guys are really interesting. They were, I didn't have the concern that I had the first time of like, these guys don't know what we are or who we are or what they're doing.

They were super nice. They were joking around with us. I was very happy to have slipped an old sourpuss in there. Yeah. And they actually heard that and were like, what the fuck? And Bonobo started to argue it a little bit. And then by the end of it, it seemed like he pretty much agreed. They were totally agreeing with you.

I thought it was great. So interesting to hear what they thought about REM. REM. That was amazing, getting to sit with you two and talk about REM. I can't believe we actually got to do that. Well, speaking of REM, we got an episode of Are You Talking REM? Re-me in there. Amazing. But speaking of REM, we got an episode of Are You Talking REM? Re-me in there. Amazing.

But speaking of REM, there is more to this story about REM that I want to hype. We have to take a break. When we come back, we are not only going to talk to,

we're going to play our interview with Adam Clay, 2000 Pounds, where he takes us backstage, but we are also, we have some other REM sort of news that will astound you we'll be right back with more you talking you too to me after this hey guys i know you were just listening to

you talking you too to me but i want to tell you about another awesome Mirrorwolf show off book, the improvised musical with Jess McKenna and Zach Reno. Every week, Jess and Zach improvise a brand new musical with a piano player, a drummer, and a special guest. Yes, that's right. I've done it. We improvised a whole hour long musical. It was crazy. The guests are awesome people you know and love from the comedy world, the Broadway world, all sorts of places. Paul Scheer has done one, Paul F. Tompkins, Nicole Parker, Brian Safi, so many more. They sing, they rap, they dive into all the musical fun.

It was so much fun to do. So listen and subscribe whenever and wherever you get your podcast fix and get ready to sing along, body roll, or just silently groove along to Off Book. We're back. Welcome back. You talking U2 to me.

This is the second part of our special Innocence and Experience U2 tour episode. We just talked to Bonobos and Fedge. And so now let's set the scene. So this pretty much starts. What you're going to hear is us walking out of the room with Bonobos and Fedge. Well, we're not going to hear that part. Oh, we are.

Yeah, let's describe what happened. So basically we part company with Bonobos and Fedge. And immediately Adam. And immediately Adam's right there. Yeah, and those guys are walking away and they say hi, and then we just walk off with Adam. And we just get the switch off. We're like passed off to Adam over here.

Like a baton at the Olympics. A lot like, that is the perfect metaphor, Adam. A lot like a baton at the Olympics. So imagine these guys running the relay race. Yep. With like leather jackets and cool rock star gear. Yeah. And full McFiesto face paint.

Guitars. So Adam takes us out on stage. And basically what he's doing is he's going to – we didn't exactly know what we were in for. We were told he wants to show you backstage, so we didn't exactly know what it is. What ends up happening is he takes us out onto every part of – we're on stage at Madison Square Garden. Yeah. It's incredible.

And it's like two hours before showtime. Yeah. There are people milling it's like two hours before showtime. Yeah. There are people milling about, but the place is empty. The place is completely empty other than crew sort of milling about. Out on the stage at Madison Square Garden with Adam Clay, 2,000 pounds. It's pretty incredible. So we want to pick it up here. He takes us up onto the stage, the stage where they start the show.

So the stage over at one end of the arena. Yeah. And this is kind of the main stage where they do the beginning of the show and they do a lot and the end of the show. Yeah. And so this is Adam Clay, 2,000 pounds. But as you can see, we have a very good view of everyone up there. Yeah.

Which is really, really nice. So you can walk up these plants here exactly um and it also means that those people can see all the people down here yeah so there's nice interaction do you have planned times where you're like oh i gotta go up there and play and shake my little brother choreography no not choreography but like a certain songs where you're like or are you like oh man i gotta i gotta go do that i forgot know, you start at every gig going, oh yeah, I'm going to use the real estate. I'm going to get up there. I'm going to go over there. But then, you know, life gets in at you. Other problems arise, you know, and you just stay in the one

spot and just figure it out. That's right. Great. So as you can see, all the tech stuff is down there. So they can all see us and we can make hand signals. Oh, okay, yeah. So you guys can communicate down through the set. And there's a little camera system. So if it gets dark and you fall over, someone can come and pick you up and that sort of thing. Or if something stops working.

Okay, so basically what he was doing there was he was showing us that when you're looking at the stage, it sort of looks like a solid thing with stairs, but everything is actually kind of see-through because it's sort of like a fence. Yeah, it's slatted, and it's sort of like a fence where they have holes everywhere. So they can communicate to their crew who are underneath them, essentially, how it's sounding in their monitors, their in-ear monitors and everything. And whether they're like, hey, I don't like this bass anymore. I want to throw it away. It's pretty incredible to see because you can.

see under the stage where we go later, where the crew is tuning up guitars and basses, where they're adjusting sound, where they're doing everything, kind of operating the show from underneath the stage. But we, when we're watching the show from up above, we can't see any of that stuff because it's in darkness. They can communicate pretty clearly with us. So at this point, he then, Adam, takes us out into what they call the barricade, which is the giant – if you go see the show, and I pray that you do, the giant monitors and platform that take up the length of the entire arena is like a tiny platform with long monitors, LED monitors on either side. with long monitors, uh, led monitors on either side.

And the band ends up in there at various points in the show. And they go walking back and forth the length of the arena above the crowd. It's pretty incredible. We didn't think that we were going to go on to this, but he just took us right onto it. Let's hear that. So this is our kind of walkway. Um,

we, we call it the barricade, which I think is a reference to cage fighters. Not every night's a fight, but sometimes it can happen. It sort of swings. Wow. That's because there are three moving bits here. The whole thing can go up. This floor that we're on can actually go down, which you'll see at the beginning of the show.

And then the whole, then that ends, this little thing that looks like an elevator with one side, that's when we're hiding on the stage in here. That's where we go, and that moves as well independently. Wow. How's it feel when you were told this was going to be part of the show? Is it scary at all, or is it like, eh, who cares? Yeah, this is fun.

It's pretty scary. Is it? It's really scary when you're underneath this thing and it's hanging over your head. Oh, my God. And you go, I hope all the engineering systems that protect you work. And I'm sure they do.

Yeah. Am I remembering correctly on the last tour, you guys were inside this when you performed Invisible? Mind you're back there. Yeah, we performed Invisible from in here. And on this tour you do Sunday, Monday, Sunday? Actually from inside here, we do the beginning of elevation and then we come back, we come out.

We also do the very opening of the show. This drum kit will come down and we do blackout from inside the screen as well. Wow, excellent. This is so crazy. Did you ever imagine anything like this when you first started? No.

And because it had never been thought of or invented before, we didn't know the stuff it could do. Like for us now, we can see out very easily. Anyone outside can, if the screen is on, which is these LEDs, they can't see it. Unless like a spotlight is shown on it yeah but or you turn the screen off and you have the light on from the inside these lights down here are doing is oh wow that is that is yeah so crazy yeah incredible i mean when you see the show i it looks like a solid thing and and it looks sturdy in a way that when we stepped onto it, it suddenly started kind of swinging back and forth in a way that I didn't expect.

Yeah. And you know what I didn't notice while we were in there that you see during the show during Cedarwood Road is that it's sort of a treadmill in there. Really? Where he's walking, and then it pulls him backwards. Oh, really? Oh, I didn't notice that either. Oh, interesting. When we were in there, I didn't think to look for it.

Oh, I think he's doing that manually. I don't think there's a treadmill thing in there. I'm not sure, though. Oh, I could be wrong. I think Bonobos is just kind of walking forward and then they turn the lights out and he goes backwards. He's sort of like... No, but I thought they turn the lights out, and he goes backwards. He's sort of like— No, but I thought at one point he stops walking, and he's pulled—

Am I wrong about that? Maybe. I don't know. I could be wrong. I don't know. We'll never find out either because we blew our one chance to find out if there's a treadmill in this thing. Yep. We'll never know.

God damn it. Okay, so then he takes us out onto the circular stage, which is the E stage, I think they call it. Yeah. us out onto the circular stage which is the e stage i think they call it yeah um and this is what we talked about last week with andy of this was his favorite part of the show where they just kind of do stripped down four-person rock and roll yeah on this stage and it's crazy we're out there in the middle of madison square garden on this stage by the way apologies for the loud music playing in the background but that's just the environment they were in this is their like uh load in music you know for for the audience loading in, happening.

And it's right before they open the doors and let people in when we were out here. So this is out on the circular stage. So this is when we come out at this end, which is kind of the club gig. And this is where we do all the kind of no-nonsense rock and roll. Wow. And this is where we do all the kind of no-nonsense rock and roll. Wow. It has a kind of 50s, 60s feel, just in terms of what happens here.

That lighting ring will come down. There's also a mirror ball up there. So, you know, this transforms into a very different space. Very intimate. Yeah. What is your favorite part of the show? My favorite part of the show is probably when we finish here and we go back for that final third. Because that's all a mixture of new songs.

We're not playing anything from Joshua Tree. Do you like that or do you? I like it as a discipline. It's a little controversial with our audience, but we feel like last year, if you didn't see the Joshua Tree last year, well, you're not really a serious U2 fan. Uh-huh, uh-huh, right.

So we wanna shake it up so that the arc of this show, it's a different narrative. It's a narrative that connects with the last show, the Songs of Innocence, which was about where we came from, what made us who we are. And Songs of Experience is kind of with that information, this is what we've become, this is what we are, and what have we learned along the way. What we've learned along the way is that we gave up a lot of our instincts and innocence

to get here and now we want it back again. Yeah. Do you think there's a sequel to this record at some point in 20 years? I don't think so. I think that's the full circle. That's the whole thing? Yeah.

Uh-huh. You know, I think Leonard Cohen, you know, late Leonard Cohen has probably covered, you know, what happens to you when you're in your 70s and you're still doing shows. But I hope we don't have to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? Do you have anything planned for...

I know you were on a show the other day and you said that the band doesn't have any plans after the end of the year. You know, that technically is true, that we don't have any plans until next year, but it's not technically true that we're not going to talk about what plans we might have at some point. But we're not there yet. Right.

The intention for next year is probably to have a bit of a stop, and whether or not we do some extra shows towards the end of the year is a bit of a maybe. Right. And part of that maybe will be where we start the next record and what we think will happen the year after. Yeah, what do you wanna do?

I wanna take a break. Yeah. Yeah, you have a lot more shows till you're going over to Europe and you're gay. So you have a lot more tour to go. Till the end of the year. Yeah, you know, we've had a four-year cycle of touring. We had this little windfall, which was the Joshua Tree.

And when we started thinking about that, we had a window in our schedule, and we thought, yeah, we can fit, you know, three weeks of summer shows in. And then it just became so successful, the window opened up of when we were going to release this the songs of experience album so we extended the tour so we ended up working last year in a way that

we anticipated yeah and that was like that was kind of after the songs of innocence so the Joshua Tree the success of the Joshua Tree tour was somewhat unexpected for you guys, you're saying? Yeah, we thought we'd do, as I say, we thought we'd do a couple of capital cities to celebrate the Joshua Tree for a bit of fun. And then every time we put shows up, they just sold out so quickly. And when that happens, you kind of go, okay, maybe we need to think about this a bit differently. Right. But should we go back to the stage now?

Because I know they want to do things. So, great. Yeah. I do, he was very nice to answer questions. Like, you know, I don't know. I just felt like we had him. I remember we, in that section there, we just kind of stopped and chatted for a while. Just kind just stopped and hung out and chatted for a while which was very nice because it it you know he could have just like said this is this this is this but he was very nice to answer our questions

so then he takes us back through the barricade part of it uh and we go back onto the main stage let's hear that oh this is so cool. Is that soundtrack going to be okay for you? There's no rights issues or any of that? We've cleared everything with the Amy Winehouse estate to come in, just in case. Very professional.

I wouldn't expect anything less of you. A smooth operation like yours. Wow. Amazing. I know this is sound only, but that is the Maestro's Drum Kit. This is the citadel of rhythm. And sometimes if the room gets very quiet,

you can kind of hear it humming, but I don't think we'll hear it today. This is crazy. Is this a monitor? That's an auto-cue. Oh, right, right. Well, it just shows the lyric. So, you know, it's just because Larry plays to the vocal.

He doesn't listen to the bass at all. And this is where you come in. That's interesting. Usually in a band, drums and bass are very... I don't know. I think actually drummers play to singers. Do they really? Because they emphasize and they're highlighting what a singer is saying. And although they say, well, we play to the bass, but I think the bass then plays to the drummer.

To the drummer. Okay, so it goes singer, drums, bass, and guitar, I guess. And Edge just puts those kind of textures and arpeggios. And Edge, you know, I mean, you'll see tonight, Edge is the hardest-working guy up here. Really? You know, he's playing guitar, he's playing piano, he's triggering all sorts of stuff with his feet, he's changing guitar sounds, and he's singing.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. And he's doing it all very well, very effortless, without a big look at me sign. Do you wish that you were doing some of that stuff? No, no, I love four strings. Four strings, four fingers. I know how that works.

Are you guys now at a point where it's so, you're so in sync that you don't even have to think about it, you just start playing and you're all all four of you are of one on when you're like into a tour pretty deeply like this uh you know it's it's weird not only do you uh play instinctively like that but you use the space instinctively oh yeah um like if if I know of edges moving that way at a certain speed, I'll tend to go that way at a certain speed because creating distance is nice. Or if I see him coming this way and I see Bonner coming back, I say, okay, that's a comeback for three.

Likewise, if he goes up there, I'm going to go over there. Whatever, you know, it's all kind of geometry. It's visual. What's the most fun song for you to play? Probably the last one. The one right before you get in the car. Yeah. You know, they're all fun, you know, it's like, for me, every night you discover something

different about the song. And I suppose that's how you keep it interesting. Something shifts, something changes, somebody makes a mistake. Whatever it is, you get a different take on it. And it just comes out differently. Are you adding any kind of new bass lines or anything like that? Occasionally experimenting at all musically? Baselines might be a little bit too extravagant,

but there are little inflections and accents that change. Let's go downstairs because I see the room filling up a bit. Yes. I don't know why I said baselines. I was searching for a word. I was like, do you play new baselines? Well, it makes sense. It does make sense. It's just like, how crazy would that word. I was like, do you play new bass lines? Well, it makes sense. It does make sense.

It's just like how crazy would that be if he's like, you know what? I'm going to play an entirely new bass line during Sunday Bloody Sunday. I think he was also being overly modest by saying maybe bass lines are a little too sophisticated for what I do. Oh, no, I think he's just saying like, come on, no one's going to play a new bass line. But yeah, anyway. So then we go underneath the stage and he shows us just a huge rack of all of his basses. It was interesting because right there,

he says his place is starting to fill up. Like people were starting to come in and if they saw Adam Clayton just standing on stage. People were coming, oh, I didn't even notice that. That's why he wanted to get out of there is because they were starting to let audience in. Oh, they were letting the audience in. That's so crazy. Okay.

So we then go underneath the stage and we're looking at his basses. So this is, okay, I mean, this is not a huge secret, but you'll notice there was no amplification on stage. Oh, yeah. So all the amplification for the bass is in here. It's all wireless. Yeah. And all the guitar amplification is over the other side. Do you use all of these during the show?

Yeah. Wow. I like it. It's amazing. And partly there's different sonics, but mainly there's different tunings uh but mainly it's there's different tunings right okay yeah and again that's all the switching and electronic gear and stew who was here earlier um tends to operate all the sound stuff i leave the creative to him i just play the notes. How amazing was that? We have an espresso machine

in case I get tired. How amazing was it once the wireless stuff started being invented and you could just roam the stage? I sort of remember in the 90s-ish or so when people started experimenting with it and now to see it come to this

where you guys can go wherever you want. Sound is amazing. Sound is being broadcast to speakers all around the world. It was truly liberating in terms of what you could do with a show. I mean, I suppose the first liberation was when singers got wireless mics, because suddenly they could move around. It took longer for us to get off our leads and in fact we quite liked our leads but the leads just got longer and longer when you played big stages and it was like... and then the next innovation was the ear monitoring

and that just changed the game. First of all it gave you much better fidelity but it meant for us we could do a show like this where we're literally you know in different parts of the arena and you're still playing together yeah so zoo tv was the first with the in-air monitoring is that right yeah yeah that really did change everything didn't it yeah in fact that was the everyone else went on to it i being a bass player, I stuck it out with wedges for another two tours. Because you can't get low end. In the original early monitoring ear monitors, you couldn't get any low end. Really, everything was sort of high.

Yeah. This is where the guys that mix the in-ear monitoring are. Unbelievable. And this is probably unusual and extremely decadent in our world, but each guy has his own man. Really? Wow. You know, that is the equivalent in the old days, in the 70s, of having somebody chop out a line of cocaine for you.

That's how it feels. This is nerd cocaine. Wow, that's amazing. Oh. This is nerd cocaine. Wow, that's amazing. Oh, this is so cool. So everyone during a show down here is busy, focused. Yeah. And, you know, because of a lot of the complications of Edge's sonic stuff, you know, it's not just four faders for four guys making a noise. There's so much extra stuff sort of happening and coming in and going out

and cues and whatever that they're actually working really hard. And sometimes you see them sweat. That really did change everything, didn't it? Well, the thing that's interesting about that is, and embarrassing about that, is that I think I just learned that earlier from oh really fedge i think oh told us that oh right so yeah maybe so i just carried that information over and presented it to adam like i that was general knowledge that i was aware of yes great um he's really funny

is yeah he's like the most chill guy. He's great. Okay, so at this point, he now wants to take us underneath the barricade. Right, but we should say that that whole last part when we're under the stage, he's showing us all the bass guitars and all the mixing boards.

It's a really low ceiling. Low ceiling, but complicated. We keep saying like, wow, incredible. Yeah. Not because we're seeing one guy with a mixing board. It's like a very high-tech operation with multiple cameras that are following monitors. It's like one of those James Bond movies. Yeah, all the monitors where they can keep track.

Each guy mixing, each guy in the band has a camera on the guy at all times that they're watching, and they have a bunch of mixing boards for each guy. Right. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Okay, so now he wants to take us underneath the barricades, which is where the show starts. Let's hear that. Now, you're pretty tall. You're being very generous.

I am not tall. You're all, you're pretty tall. This is... You're being very generous. This is for the physically challenged. This is perfect for Bono, but you can get into the stage down here. Oh, my gosh. You know what? When we were in that screen, this is where that black end gate is. You can pop up there, and you're in the screen. Really? And what is the advantage of this is you're hidden from the audience? Well, before what happens is you'll see the beginning of the show. We go in there and

then the screen lifts up. Right. Okay. So you're all doing this every night. Yeah. Bending over and getting in this. Yeah. So you can just appear in the night. Yeah. Bending over and getting in this. Yeah. So you can just appear in the middle. It's a little hard. Right.

By the last night of the tour, I'd say we'll just be about making it. But there is a little sort of train that can bring you down if you're really not able to bend. Right, right. Oh, how interesting. There's a little rocket that people sit on. In fact, there it is. This is the rocket.

Oh, okay. Oh, wow. So you can just lay down on that? You lay down on it, and Flory, who I don't know where she is, but she's very willing, and she'll push you along. She'll just push you along. Oh, that's great. That's so great. Wow.

And this is general changing area. This is the most fun during the show to be here, actually. Really? When the band are up there. Just hang out down here while you guys are working. Have a cocktail, hang out. And you can watch it on the TV. A little party down here.

We even have a little loo as well. There's basically three girls here. I think they're a bit lonely during the show. Are you trying to get us to come down here and hang out with the girls during the show? We're married men. Well, yes. They have a very strict door policy. You might not get in.

Okay. Probably. So, yeah. Okay. Probably. So, yeah, he was taking, it's crazy. They have to bend over to get, to walk, to make their first appearance on stage.

They have to like sort of crouch and crawl through a very It's like cramped corridor. Two by two space that they have to crawl through or get down on. When he said the The rocket,

it's like a little thing on wheels that they can sort of lay down on and that someone can push them through. And then they take a little elevator up into the inside of the screen. Now, when they wrote the song Elevation- They had no idea. I don't think that's what they were talking about. But now they are.

Now they are, yeah. So when you hear them in concert sing, they're singing about the beginning of the show. So when he said this is the place to hang out, it's like a couple of couches in this little kind of cordoned off area where they come in between sets and change their clothes or whatever, but it's couches and like, it looks like a place you can hang out.

A lounge. A lounge. All right, so the very last thing then was he just, he showed us Edge's guitars for a bit and now he says goodbye to us and so let's hear that well thank you

thank you so much this is so great what a treat thanks man are you staying for the show? oh yeah definitely are you based in New York?

no we're in California we just flew out just for tonight going back tomorrow so yes thank you so much and feel free to give us a wink

out there we'll probably be somewhere out there. Just, you know, give us a wave. All right, will do. Anything like that. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. Thanks so much.

Thanks for all the support. Thank you, of course. Our pleasure. So, yeah, give us a little wink. Didn't I – maybe I'm remembering it wrong, and that might be a good thing because it's embarrassing, but didn't I mention, like, is this the area, like, in Rattle and Hum where you guys come and change, and I'll talk about what you're going to play later?

No, you never brought that up. I didn't? No. I cut a little bit out of this just because we're walking around, and it's boring, but we never— Yeah, but I listened to the whole thing. I think we talked about that afterwards, maybe. Okay, okay, okay. Of, like, oh, man—no, we talked about it afterwards. Okay. Okay. Okay. Of like, Oh man,

no, we talked about afterwards where you're like, ever since I saw rattle and hum, that's what it was. I've wanted to, to see the backstage part where they talk about what they're going to play next. And yeah,

so, so this was a thrill for both of us, but especially for you, because ever since that, that part in rattle and hum really stuck in your mind to be a fly on the wall there. Or the fly. Where Bonobos is like, okay, you do this, you do this. You play bass.

You play guitar. I'm going to play drums. You guys don't know what you do. And he goes, and then Edge, he'll just do whatever he does and get lost anyway. And then the camera moves to Edge, and he's like, I don't know. So that was very cool he was uh super nice and yeah generous with his time before a show it was nice yeah it was great so

let's talk about what happened then the rest of the night yeah um because it it gets even even more incredible with with certain things that. First of all, I want to say Laura, who is helping us the whole time, she mentioned we had talked about how difficult it was for us to get the schedules together and how much we appreciated her working so hard on it. And she said she felt a lot like the mom of a big family who's trying to get everyone together for a Thanksgiving or something. She said, it's a lot of hassle, but it's important to get the family together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very sweet. Which was a nice way to put it. Yeah.

After the interview with Bono and The Edge, at the end of it, I don't know if we recorded it, Bono said to us on our way out, we should grab a drink after. That would be really fun. Oh, I didn't even hear that. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, definitely. Let's do it. Well, we were invited to the after party. Yeah.

Which at that point I didn't really know about, but then he said that and then Laura invited us. Okay, yeah. I had known. Before you got there, she had said, oh, by the way, we want you both to come to the after party. Got it. We'll talk about the after party in a second. So we completed our business with Adam. We're told Larry is unavailable. He can't see us.

So at that point, we get our passes, and the audience is filling up. Oh, no, we went back to the hotel after this. We saw some nice fans outside and took some pictures. Then we came back at approximately, the show's going to start at 8.30. We came back at 8. Right. So we're back here. We get our passes.

We go to our seats because Laura said, you know, probably the best thing to do is to start watching the show in the seats. Yeah. And then go down to the risers when the band moves over to the east stage. So we go to our seats and suddenly we both get texts from Laura saying like, hey, do you want to watch the guys go out onto the stage? Yeah. Do you want to watch their walk? From basically what Adam was talking to us about, of like going underneath the barricades. Do you want to watch them go from the backstage

to the barricade? And we were like, yeah, that sounds cool. Yeah, definitely. It's like the epic moment of the band walking out into the arena. So we go back there. By the way, I think we see Adam again like walking around backstage.

That's right. And he's like, hello, guys. And we're thinking like, God, this guy just thinks we're hanging out backstage the entire time. Yeah. So bummed that we're still there. So we're waiting around backstage for this to happen, for us to watch the band walk out on stage. And we recorded a little something of us waiting. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, let's hear a little bit of this. Hey, everyone. This is Scott. And this is Scott. Oh, that's right. Yeah, let's hear a little bit of this. Hey, everyone. This is Scott. And this is Scott. And the show's about to start. We're backstage in Madison Square Garden. MSG, as people call it. Yeah, like if you're in the know, if you're in New York City, if you're a New Yorker, you call it MSG.

Everyone knows what you're talking about. Yeah, if you go to a Chinese restaurant, you're like, hey, I need MSG. They'll know what you're saying. Yeah, they know that you need it to go because you're on your way to Madison Square Garden. Exactly. So we're waiting. The band has actually invited us to watch them go to the stage. Like walk to the stage.

I guess it's like a thing people can watch is watch them make that trek to the stage from what i understand they sell different tickets for this to just watch the band walking i would rather see them play and you know how much it costs a million kisses and uh you have to give them to the edge edge himself he's the one who takes all the kisses and receives them. On his butthole. So we're just about to do it. We'll see you soon. You know what?

I'm glad that we – I'm so glad we made that important recording. I'm so glad that we documented this experience for ourselves. So there's that. Jesus. experience for ourselves. So there's that. Jesus, it's good to know that no matter where we are in the world, we just do the exact same stupid thing. Okay, so we're hanging out backstage waiting for them to come out.

And I think I say to you, like, I want our faces to be the last they see before they do a big show. And just poor guys. Just poor, like, what are these guys still doing here? So we're just hanging out backstage, and there's people above us who have the seats that Andy Daly had the last time he saw. Yeah, so they move us to the area that's, like,

between the seats behind the stage and the stage. So we're just in, like like this corridor between those two things, visible to the audience. And people are shouting down at us, but mainly like they're waiting because I think they know that the band is coming out. And so then very suddenly,

you know, we hear they're on their way. They're on their way. And we see Bonobos go out on stage. We see Fedge go out on stage and we seeos go out on stage. We see Fedge go out on stage. And we see Adam go out on stage. And then suddenly, I'm not really even able to process it, but Larry is in front of us. He's not on stage. He doesn't go out on stage.

What I remember is all four of them kind of walking together and he peels off and walks to us. I couldn't even accept what was happening. I didn't really know. Because suddenly Larry is in front of us, and he's smiling. And I'm like, wait, what's Larry doing? He needs to be out on stage. We're 20 yards away from where they're walking. We're kind of out of the way.

He walked directly over to us. I'm like, dude, no, the stage is over there is what I'm thinking. And he says to us, you guys can't retire until you get these. Yeah. And we're like, what? And he hands us T-shirts. He hands us each a T-shirt that's like wrapped in ribbon. That's wrapped in ribbon.

And he's like, you can't retire until you get these because we've been needing the T-shirts. The last time we interviewed the bands, they didn't give us any t-shirts. They gave us everything. They gave us mugs. They gave us programs. They had no t-shirts. No fucking t-shirts, man. No fucking t-shirts.

So Larry gives us the t-shirts. He laughs and walks onto the stage. Directly on stage. Directly on stage. We're like, what the fuck? And I was like, what happened? I couldn't even put it together. He hands us the t-shirts, and we don't know what the t-shirts say.

So we're with their U2 t-shirts, we assume, and Laura and everyone's like, open them. Open them. We open, we unwrap and unroll the t-shirts, and they say the Larry Mullen Jr. band on it. mullen jr band yeah on it in a in in basically like not iron on but but like professionally yeah printed t-shirts in a very simple font that just say the larry mullen jr band yeah and he fucking got us yeah he got us and i he pranked us he handed us the because when the guys walk out the four guys the whole audience that can see which is a good amount of people start freaking out so it's an exciting moment he walks up to us hands us t-shirts and everyone's screaming and probably watching this and going what the fuck is going on what is he doing and

he walks away these two losers and we just start yelling and laughing like no way and he turns around and looks at us right before he walks out on stage just like yeah fuck you guys fucking got you guys i was really x'd you guys yeah it was really funny and then we found out we talked to laura about it later and that was his idea yeah he really wanted to do it and he was gonna do it at the forum apparently but you couldn't come and we couldn't and we couldn't get there before the show. So he had had those t-shirts professionally made.

He got like, I don't know, like someone in the U2 universe to make those t-shirts and had been sitting on them for a month waiting for us to come to his show. and had been sitting on them for a month waiting for us to come to a show. And then during Adam's tour with us, what they had planned is he was going to surprise us during our tour with Adam with a T-shirt gun, and he was going to fire them at us. He was going to fire them at us. And they even tried it out and determined that it was too dangerous. It was too dangerous to fire a T-shirt gun at us with these T-shirts.

That's the only way this story could have gotten more crazy and incredible. And then it ended up that he had a prior commitment he had to do on the day we could actually go. On the actual day that we, yeah. It was pretty cool the way it ended up. The way it ended up. It was insane. So did you bring your t-shirt today? I didn't bring it today.

No, I forgot. But we need to take pictures with it. And I'll show – I have a bunch of photos from Adam's tour and a photo of the corridor where we were standing when Larry walked over to us just to give some visual. Yeah. We can put those up. So let's – because we're running out of time here, we've got to talk about the after party. Oh, yeah. So the after party – the show's great.

We've already talked about that on the previous episode. Oh, yeah. So the after party, the show's great. We've already talked about that on the previous episode. So then we are invited to the after party, which I didn't really know what to expect because I've been to after parties for things and they're just like massive zoos, not to make a U2 reference, Zoo TV. Well, you did. I didn't mean to, but we should say that at the show and in the second to last song, or the last song, Bono.

No, no, we don't want to say this yet. I want to tell it during the story. Okay. Okay, so normally, we didn't know, is this going to be one of these massive, like, when I wrote it on the Oscars, is this going to be like one of those where there's, you know, a thousand people at it or whatever. where there's, you know, a thousand people at it or whatever. We get to the party and it's at a relatively small rooftop bar and there's approximately, what would you say, a hundred people there? Yeah, like a hundred. And Laura says like, oh, no, this is a party.

The band knows every single person here. Right. And they really want you to come to it. Yeah. So everyone is here because they want to hang out with all these people. And their closing show was like in Connecticut and they didn't feel like family and friends were going to make it to the Connecticut. So they were basically having their closing night get together on this night. So it was – the other thing that we need to mention is during the show, first of all, Bruce Springsteen was there.

I forgot if we mentioned that last week. Oh, yeah. And we were talking to Phoebe. But we were standing sort of – when we went over to the riser. There's a Bruce Springsteen reference, the riser. I mean the rising. But when we went over there, he was chilling watching the show. Right.

But then we also started to find out that another person who was watching the show that got a shout out from Bonobos himself was our good friends that we have not met yet michael stipend wait i wanted to mention it like 30 seconds ago and you wanted to hold it till now oh i thought that you were i thought you were talking about the other thing oh no no no i was just gonna say he mentioned oh okay i thought i thought you were talking about the other thing that he did during the show we'll talk about that in a second. No, no. Okay, so Michael, lead singer of R.E.M. Yeah. Is there watching the show. Or we assume he must be because he dedicates love.

He dedicates, yeah, a song to him. Stronger than anything. Bigger than anything. Bigger than anything. He dedicates it to Michael Stipes. We're like, oh, he must be at the show. Right. I wonder if he'll be at the after party.

And we had just talked about R.E. about REM for like 10 full minutes with these guys. With the guys. I don't know if they knew that Michael Stipe and was going to come to the show that night. I don't know. But we were like, I wonder if this dude's going to be at the party. And if so, can we talk to him and try to get him on the show? Right. So we go to the party and we're talking to Steve, Laura's coworker uh co-worker for a while and i'm like is phoebe

here because i knew because we had watched the whole show with phoebe and uh so i'm looking around for phoebe so i turn the corner looking for phoebe i'm going towards sort of the back of the party and there is michael stipe himself uh sitting there at a table with Patti Smith. Yeah. And they're just chatting. On our way in, you're saying, like when we're walking by. They're sort of in the back. Like we had to make a full circle of the party, like from the entrance all the way around the big sort of circle.

They're in the back. They're just at a table chilling, but there's a ton of people around them. So we're like, yeah, Michael Stipe is here. So I see Phoebe and I'm like, oh, okay. Phoebe's at the very back over past Michael Stipe. I got to go get Adam. So I go get you and we go back over by Phoebe and we're talking to Phoebe. and we're talking to Phoebe and I notice just behind Phoebe at, at like basically in a booth at this place is a group of people. And I'm just, we're chatting with Phoebe and I look over and I

notice there's Bonobos just sitting at the table, just chatting with these people. And I'm like, oh, okay. Um, here he is. All right. Um, and so then, then uh bonobos stands up and sees this talking and he knows phoebe you know from stuff and and so i guess he's putting together that we know phoebe yeah and he comes over and just starts and the very first thing is this is what i thought you were going to bring up is he says to us did you hear it yeah he goes i i called you guys out during love is bigger than anything in its way i gave you guys a shout out during that and we're like what i still don't know whether me neither it's real me neither because laura said later she's like well hopefully someone in the

audience took a video of it or something i i no idea i i thought i was paying attention but yeah but you know there was that guy shouting behind us the entire the entire show apparently he was like he said Scott and Scott

yeah I don't know but it was amazing that he walked up and he's like did you hear it what'd you think and we were like oh we didn't hear it

yeah so crazy but it was cool because we stood there and chatted with him for a while we chatted with him and then while. We chatted with him. And this is the craziest part.

Yeah. So he goes, oh, wait a minute. Michael Stipe's here. Yeah. Have you met him yet? Yeah. Or he just used like, you've met him, right? We've met him.

And we go, no, we've never met him. He goes, well, why don't I make that happen? Yeah, he goes, he's saying, can I make that happen? Can I make that happen? We're like, yeah, sure. He goes, okay, give me a minute. Give me a minute. And he goes over to Michael Stipe and Patti Smith's area.

And we're like, not only do we not have to just go over and introduce ourselves like, hey, we're weirdos. Yeah. Like, Bono's going to connect us here. Like, talk about the person to make the introduction. Yeah, like, Bono says we're cool. You should be on the show. This is perfect for us. So we wait.

And we wait. We kind of just hang out in this same area with Phoebe. Because we don't want to move, like, you know, we don't want Bono to be like, where'd those guys go? And also, we don't want to be pushy. Yeah, we also don't want to go over want Bono to be like, where'd those guys go? And also, we don't want to be pushy. Yeah, we also don't want to- Or cheesy. We don't want to go over to Bono while he's talking and go like, hey, Bono.

Remember that introduction that you were talking about? Yeah, that's so important to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we kind of wait, and we end up waiting for about 45 minutes. At a certain point, we did a drive-by of the table and looked over there, and they all seemed to be in a very deep conversation yeah and at a certain point we say this isn't gonna happen well i yeah and i think it was also you were getting late we were very exhausted yeah but it's it's 1 30 or 1 45

or something like that you've been up since 6 a.m la time yeah that. You've been up since 6 a.m. L.A. time. Yeah. Or no, you've been up since 4 L.A. time, I would imagine. It's just getting to be – and it looks like it's not going to happen. We don't want, like, everyone to start to straggle out, and we're still here going, and if it was going to happen, it would be at 2.30 or 3 when everyone's getting ready to leave. And he's like, oh, hey, guys. Oh, yeah, exactly. Which, in any circumstance, fine, great. We just

needed to go to sleep. And we didn't want to be pushy jerks. Yeah, didn't want to be weird and go over. And we were about to leave and we said our goodbye to Laura and Laura's like, no, no, no, wait. He was going to introduce you, right? And we're like, Laura, we don't want to be those guys. You know, you've been very generous

and given us so much of their time. We don't want to be those guys. And so, you know, our- So Laura was aware of the- Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, she was there. We were talking to her husband,

who, by the way, her husband is in the band Self. Yeah. Which we didn't know. I was talking about the band Self a few episodes ago with their cover of What a Fool Believes. He's in that band. It's crazy. And I shouted out that band, and Laura was listening going,

hey, they're talking about your band. Had no idea. Anyway, so we leave. On the way out, we chat with Eve Houston, with Bono's daughter, who's super cool. You had met at a party, and I was meeting for the first time, and you said to her, oh, this is my friend Scott. And she goes, oh, wait, Scott and Scott?

Yeah. Yeah. She knows the podcast. She's like, oh, wow. Okay. And we apologize profusely. Yeah. We're like, sorry, we have this podcast about your dad's band. So we chatted with her, which is cool. She's an actress. She was in The Nick and a bunch of stuff. And she's the star of a mutual friend, Rebecca Edelman's terrific movie that she wrote and directed with Eve starring. So it's exciting. So we say we make our good nights and we crash for approximately four hours before we have to get on a plane the next day.

for approximately four hours before we have to get on a plane the next day. And we're on the plane the next day going back to L.A., and suddenly we get a text from Laura. And let me read this text. It's from Bono. I never got back to Adam and Scott, who I promised an introduction to Michael Stipe. He is having an opening of an exhibition, Infinity Mirror, in Brooklyn, Journal Gallery this evening at 5. If they're around, they could say hello.

So apparently this is weighing on Bono the next day of like, oh, goddammit, I forgot to introduce these guys. Let me try to hook this up in Brooklyn. Yeah, very kind. If we were around, we totally would have gone. We totally would. Oh, of course we would have gone.

But we're literally on a plane when we get this text. I, of course, paid for the messaging option on the Wi-Fi, so I was able to receive that text. I got it on the plane too. But you responded. I responded very perfectly, and you're like, there's nothing that could be added. I couldn't possibly add to this. The brevity along with just the illustriousness of— Just the poetic nature of the gracious.

So that was our Q2 adventure. It was crazy. And as we were walking out, I remember just saying, like, I'm exhausted, but this is okay, right? We should just go. We shouldn't—and you're like, yeah, and you know what is okay, right? We should just go. We shouldn't. And you're like, yeah, and you know what? Makes a better story anyway. It didn't happen.

Well, that's the thing. So we're, look, everyone in R.E.M., if you're listening, we've been trying so hard to get this backyard barbecue going with you guys. The full reunion. All we want is the full reunion of all four members and for you to do two 90-minute sets in our backyard daytime barbecue for 500 of our closest friends. Also, him being a guest on the show wasn't even – it was just like meeting him with Bono introducing would have been like – Legitimized us in a way. And just a cool experience. Just a cool experience. introducing would have been like – Legitimized us in a way. And just a cool experience.

Just a cool experience. It would have been great. But it was a cool experience anyway just being there. So that's the – in a story where we got everything we wanted and more, that is the one bit of drama and conflict in this story. So will we ever get to meet Michael Stipe? I don't know. If he hears this, my guess is no. If he hears our interview technique in the previous segments,

he would be wise to stay far, far away. Far away so close. Look, that's going to do it for us. An amazing experience, Adam. I'm glad that I got to experience it with you. I loved the show. I thought the experience, I liked it even more than the innocence and experience yeah it was and I liked it so much the second time we talked about that last time it was so it was so great we want to

thank uh everyone involved in the the U2 the U2 universe uh especially Laura for putting all of that together um it was really an incredible experience. Oh, yeah. And I'm glad that we got to do it together. So fun. So fun. Treasured memories, my friend. Treasured memories. It was like we were in New York,

or I was in New York for like less than 24 hours, but it was such a blast. And no wives. It was pretty fun. Oh, bro, we was just dudes. We were let off the chain. Just dudes. All right.

So we'll see you next time. That's going to be it for us. Until next time, and I don't know when next time is, but I hope it's soon. We certainly hope that you have found what you're looking for. Bye. Bye. Bye. afraid of losing you. Here's a season you're the reason that I even dreamt of getting through.

Hey Queeros, it's me, Cami Esposito and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, Queery. You can sit in on hour-long conversations between me, Cameron Esposito, and some of the brightest luminaries in the LGBTQ family. Queery explores individual stories of identity, personality,

and the shifting cultural matrix around gender, sexuality, and civil rights. Plus, it is fun. We have had some incredible guests. Emmy winner Lena Waithe? Yes, definitely. Congressman Mark Takano? You bet.

L Word creator Eileen Shakin? Yes. President and CEO of GLAAD, Sarah Kate Ellis? We definitely have. We've got celebs, people like Trixie Mattel, Evan Rachel Wood, Tegan and Sarah, the band, and the people separately on two different episodes. We also have activists and changemakers in our community. I think it's a one-of-a-kind show full of chats you have never heard before.

It's identity, it's community, it's query. You can find Query every Monday on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.