Paul McGuinness Chat from MSN on 9.22.97
Posted by SPun2U on Sep 22, 1997 in Tour News | Comments Off
<Paul> Thanks for joining me live!
<Tonster> nate says:
<Tonster> paul: do you play any musical instrument and if so have you ever been on a U2 album
<Paul> No, I play no musicial instruments. I had an early and unhappy experience with the piano when I was about 12 years old.
<Paul> Since then my only contribution musically to a U2 album was some hand clapping on one track on the War album.
<Paul> I suppose the lesson from that is that I wasn’t good enough to be asked again.
<Tonster> Miss_Fly says:
<Tonster> Paul: hi. 
how did you find U2, and how were you able to spot their potential so early in their career?
<Paul> I met them in 1977, I think, at a concert in the Project Arts Centre in Dublin. They wer elooking for a manager and I was looking for a band to manage and we were introduced by a Dublin music journalist named Bill Graham, who was afriend of mine.
<Paul> They had attracted him to one of their rehearsals and he had told them that I should be their manager so I suppose we owe it all to him.
<Paul> As for spotting their potential, I would have to say that I have no technique for that anymore now than I did then.
<Paul> Since I’ve only ahd to be right once, I wouldn’t claim a technique. I just thought they were very, very good and I suppose they were doing more or less as they are doing now, except that then they were doing it quite badly and now they’re doing it rather well.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–are you pleased with the way Sarajevo’s turning out? And, are you concerned about the gig in Israel?
<Paul> Sarajevo is turning out very well. As of today, we’ve sold prettyclose to the capacity and we’re flying in there tomorrow omrning. As you know, we’re doing a webcast of the entire concert.
<Paul> There’s a lot of excitement around the world about this ocncert. I’ve seen a story today on CNN and European newspapers are paying a lot of attention to it.
<Paul> It’s an usual situation because Sarajevo is absolutely still devastated by the war. On account of that we’re charging a very low ticket price.
<Paul> We’re paying Sarajevo the compliment that it is a Eyuropean city, a center of cultrure.
<Paul> It was always very clear that the people of Sarajevo wanted us to do the whole show. They weren’t interested in us turning up doing a scratch concer or a benefit.
<Paul> If we’d charged the same price as in other European cities, the people of Sarajevo wouldn’t be able to afford the concert. So we’ve reduced the price to about $12.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–are you pleased with the way Sarajevo’s turning out? And, are you concerned about the gig in Israel?
<Tonster> whoops!
(Ed. note: Tonster never said the correct Q. here. Make it up 
)
<Paul> Gosh, well, when people ask me who is the best manager in history I suppose I would have to say Brian Epstein. He really did a brilliant job. He was the first person on mys ide of the quation who understood how big pop music could be.
<Paul> I’ve always had enormous admiration for what he and the Beatles did together.
<Paul> I suppose they would have to be anyone’s favorite client. They had so much talent and they really invented the musical world we all live in now.
<Tonster> Aingeal says:
<Tonster> Question: What do you do with yourself while the show is going on?
<Paul> I watch every show! I think it would be crazy to be the manager of U2 and not have the pleasure of seeing the concert.
<Paul> I’m a connoisseur of their live performances and I look forward to the show every night and if I possibly can watch it from start to finish.
<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, which has been the most exciting date on the tour so far?
<Paul> I suppose Belfast. Belfast was pulled together at very short notice as people will probably have heard, we had legal difficulty playing Dublin.
<Paul> Even as the two shows sold out, local residents objected to the shows going ahead. We had acontingency plan to move those shows to Belfast where the authorities were frankly much more cooperative than in Dublin.
<Paul> When the Dublin shows received permission to go ahead, the people in belfast said why not come here and play as well./
<Paul> Becasue the ceasefire was only a few weeks old, the authorities were incredibly cooperative and we had a spare date and we were able to fit it in.
<Paul> We used to play there a lot in the early days but we hadn’t played there since 1987. The exdcitement of playing to 40,000 in Belfast made it the most exciting show to play to date.
<Tonster> kdaniels says:
<Tonster> Question — There have been a few celebrities who have said some negative things about U2 (i.e. George Harrison). What are your feelings about their statements?
<Paul> I was a bit surprised about that. George is alittle out of touch. If he wanted to come see a U2 show he’d be most welcome. I’m not sure he’s in contact with the modern world at this stage. Nonetheless he’s got a fine bodyof work behind him even if some of it turned out in court to be borrowed from other authors.
<Paul> Bono has regularly quoted from George Harrison’s songs since he did that interview. I think in recent times George has been more concerned about his taxes and perhaps his garden.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–what went through your mind when the Lemon did not open in Oslo?
<Paul> Utter panic. But also a feeling of immense relief that it was not me inside. I was standing there as it opened. It did open about a foot and I could see the 8 feet of my clients but not the rest of them.
<Paul> As I watched, they tried to close it first and open it again and it was well and truly jammed. It then made a retreat to its starting position and they had to climb out the back and out to the B stage. I really felt for them. It was, of course, the ultimate Spinal Tap moment.
<Tonster> Aingeal says:
<Tonster> Aingeal says: What made U2 decide to take a presence on the net?
<Paul> Well, it’s a thriving area of cultural activity.
<Paul> We’d had many approaches from people who wanted to work us on producing a site but we felt that in order to do a truly great site we would have to be with some people from “that culture” rather than make it up for ourselves.
<Paul> The Microsoft Network came to us on a creative basis and said for the first time rather than make money on this, let’s get sponsors and we can alll make a fortune, the approach from Microsoft was particularly attractive because it was creatively led.
<Paul> Microsoft wanted to do something that was groundbreaking and state of the art. It was a creative decision, if you like, and I’m very happy we made the arrangement.
<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul…if you could change one thing from the popmart tour, what would it be?
<Paul> I suppose we would’ve put the tickets on sale later and released the album earlier. I think the timing at the beginning of the campaign was out of whack and we’ve been catching up ever since.
<Paul> Becauase we were late delivering the album, the two more of less coincided and I regret that because it made the campaign less organic. The early part of the campaign was a bit too compressed.
<Paul> But these were the consequenes of our own decisions and our own delays. But we’re adults and we take the responsnibility.
<Tonster> Ibon says:
<Tonster> Paul: Where you at Barcelona’s concert? What is your opinion about the happenings in the karaoke?
<Paul> Oh it was a disaster. It was just a complete misjudgement on our part. That song, the Macarena, is very much identified with Spanish-speaking Spain. In Barcelona, they really thought it was utterly gauche and I think we just didn’t do our research properly.
<Paul> I hope the population of Barcelona will get over it by the time we come back there.
<Tonster> U2Reverand says:
<Tonster> Question: do you think Bran Eno’s gonna come back for a future U2 album?
<Paul> Oh yes, I’m sure we’ll work with Brian again in some way. We’re actually meeting him tomorrow in Sarajevo.
<Paul> We remain in closetouch with everyone we’ve ever worked with! Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois are all very much friends of ours and people whose oopinions we take very seriously.
<Tonster> u2pride says:
<Tonster> Paul: what do you feel about boot legs
<Paul> Well, I would distinguish between bootlegs and counterfeits. Counterfeits I take avery dim view of because they’re taking money from my clients’ pockets.
<Paul> The bootleg phenomenon I’m very relaxed about, quite honestly. I think everyone knows the difference between an authorized recording we’d put out.
<Paul> The fact that people circulate and swap recordings they’ve made at our concerts I’m actually very relaxed about even though the industry is formally opposed to it.
<Paul> I do have a problem with the recordings produced in Europe, particularly in Italy — you can find a whole range of things that look like official U2 recordings in full color packaging — they are extremely poor quality with a very high price tag and I think there should be more legal protection against things like that.
<Paul> But in Italy the law is inadequate to deal with that.
<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, do you have any say in what goes in and what dosen’t in a setlist?
<Paul> I have an opinion — I wouldn’t call it a veto. One of our rituals is that we have a post-mortem after every single concert and discuss what worked, what didn’t work.
<Paul> Now it’s not just the 4 members of the band and me, now it’s Howie B as well. He’s much more musical than I am.
<Paul> It’s the old Chinese communist technique of ruthless self-criticism. Because a day later you can’t really remember much of the show. I will certainly make suggestions about what should and shouldn’t be in the setlist.
<Paul> At the beginning of this tour, neither Still Haven’t Found nor Pride were in the set and I really thought that would be very bad. I still meet a lot of people who want Sunday Bloody Sunday and Bad. Who knows, maybe they will turn up in the set list before the end of the tour.
<Tonster> Ai says:
<Tonster> It is said that U2 will move on to smaller venues/concerts after Popmart. Any truth to that?
<Paul> We have no such plans at the moment. I wouldn’t rule it out. I get asked whether we’d like to play clubs and the answer to that is no. We were pretty crap band in clubs. It was really only when we got into the bigger places that the scale seemed right.
<Paul> At the same time we played two nights ago to 150,000 people at least. There’s an obvious loss of contact and intimacy even with a show like PopMart with that size — but it’s still a very big crowd.
<Paul> When I walked through the crowd, even way in the back, I was amazed that people were still singing along.
<Paul> It’s really not planned at the moment. One of the things about having developed the expertise of playing very large shows is that you want to extend it and see how far the art form of the stadium rock spectacular can be taken.
<Paul> I’m very surprised there aren’t more bands who want to take it on. The only other people in modern times who do anything on this scale are the Rolling Stones.
<Paul> But there’s a change in the culture at the moment and it’s becoming hip again to be big. I think that may lead other rock and roll artists into performing on a large scale rather than doing that veryboring thing of putting a stage up at the end of a stadium.
<Paul> You really have to embrace the scale of a stadium.
<Tonster> ^BadCop^ says:
<Tonster> Paul : What is the secret of keeping a huge band like U2 together for 20 years?
<Paul> I don’t know that there’s a secret. I think it’s about getting the right people together in the first place.
<Paul> They were a band before some of them before some of them could play very well. The peole were more important than the instruments. Over the 20 years we’ve been toegher we’ve learned how to be together and how to keep out of each other’s way at times.
<Paul> I think that’s the secret to any friendship or any business relationship.
<Tonster> sirkits says:
<Tonster> Paul: do you sing along at the shows?
<Paul> I think I have caught myself singing along once or twice. But I don’t think anyone would want to hear my harmony.
<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, who has been your favorite bono character so far? macphisto, the fly…etc…
<Paul> I think MacPhisto. MacPhisto who came from lots of different directions — I don’t know if you know the character of Archie Rice in John Osborne’s The Entertainer — I think MacPhisto derived a lot from him.
<Paul> I thought MacPhisto was terrific and I definitely miss him.
<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, does it surprise you when people ask you for an autograph and/or a picture?
<Paul> It does a little. I’m not as good as dealing with it as the band are and I do sometimes feel they’re only asking me because they can’t get an autograph from the band.
<Paul> If I have time, I certainly will always sign somebody’s autograph.
<Tonster> swagger says:
<Tonster> Paul…Do you spend a lot of the time in the studio when U2 are recording?
<Paul> As little as possible <laughs>. The recording process is definitely not a spectator’s sport. I’m filled with admiration but certainly no wish to be there!
<Paul> I’m filled with admiration for the concentration that’s required to spend months in a studio producing a great album. For a non-participant it’s a bit like watching paint dry.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul–how does your family handle these long tours and what do you do in your precious spare time?
<Paul> My family are old enough now to come out and visit the tours, so I see them every couple of weeks. My son is 11, my daughter is 12. I’m delighted that they think U2 are pretty cool.
<Paul> They go to school in Ireland and send me tapes of music they’re listening to and try to educate me what’s cool.
<Paul> This is obviously a difficult year in that we’re away from home.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul…what is the most fulfilling aspect to your job?
<Paul> Managing a great band like U2 is still enjoyable for me because they still are getting better. They’re doing their best work now. I’m sure the work they do after this will be even better.
<Paul> i’m sure it’s very hard managing a band who’s lost its creative spark. I’m sure if that ever happens with U2, they’ll hang up their instruments and stop. The fact that it hasn’t happened is exciting.
<Tonster> sirkits says:
<Tonster> Paul: what exactly did you grow up listening to?
<Paul> Very much the Beatles and the Stones, Dylan . . . I was never into Led Zeppelin until Adam turned me on in the early 80s. I also listened to opera, classical music. I have an involvement in an ethnic label from Ireland called Celtic Heartbeat.
<Paul> Riverdance is one of our records. I would like to think I have very broad tastes. I’m always a little disappointed when people express their interest in a single genre.
<Paul> This is ag reat failing in the record businss in that they don’t care to address the great variety of people’s taste.
<Tonster> Victum says:
<Tonster> Paul: who else do you manage?
<Paul> Through Principle we manage PJ Harvey. We recently starting managing Sinead O’Connor. And we manage another artist called Lazlo Bane. He’s just made his first record.
<Paul> Those are our only management clients. We’re also involved in Celtic Heartbeat which is a business of mine.
<Paul> With U2 I’m owner of a label called Mother Records, which is a joint venture with PolyGram.
<Tonster> L`edGE says:
<Tonster> Who chooses what bands open for U2 ?
<Paul> Like many other things that’s a committee process based on who we like and who’s available. We rarely choose those bands on the basis of selling tickets.
<Paul> We do expect people to come to a U2 show without trying to attract them with the opening act.
<Paul> We tryto have bands that the audience will be into even if they’re unknown to them. We’ve had some good bands on this tour — Rage Against The Machine, Oasis, Fun Lovin’ Criminals.
<Paul> In some countries we try to choose bands from that country — in Italy we had a band called Casino Royale. In France and Spain we had a band called Placebo. In Ireland we had Ash. In Wembley we had Audioweb and Long Pings. We had a band called Skunk Anansie.
<Paul> It’s a fairly organic process and I think U2 audiences have learned if youcome early the opening act will be worth seeing.
<Tonster> Gibigiane says:
<Tonster> Paul – what are the plans for the POPMart stage after the tour is over – can we bid on the inflatable olive or slices of the lemon?
<Paul> <laughs> if anyone wants to buy the lemon, theyshould get in touch with us! Adam has said it’s the transport of the future.
<Paul> The screen will probably be sold to a sports facility. The other bits — who knows. I’m not sure anyone will have much use for the arch. I don’t know. Maybe we could have an auction.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul…any truth to the rumours that Pearl Jam will open in Seattle?
<Paul> That’s the first I’ve heard of it, so I suppose the answer is no. But if they want to, that would be fine. They know how to get in touch.
<Tonster> Victum says:
<Tonster> Paul: What are your thoughts as to the state of the music industry today? Bono believes music is too boring. Do you share this thought?
<Paul> Boring music is too boring, but there’s a lot of good music around. I think what I was referring to before, the lack of interest by the industry and the diversity of people.
<Paul> Selling lots of one thing is not good for developing acts, or baby acts, as we call them. I’m delighted by the phenomenon of Oasis in that candidly admit they want to be a big band.
<Paul> Big is cool again whereas for a few years it was decidedly unhip to be in a big band which is ridiculous. People join bands in order to get onstage and sell lots of records. That’s the rock and roll instinct. I believe that’s why people join bands.
<Paul> The grunge movement was very joyless and there’s a lot of joy being a rock and roll band on a roll.
<Tonster> With your filmmaking background, did you ever find yourself sitting on your hands during Rattle & Hum?
<Paul> I was the exectuve producer of that and I was deeply involved in that! I never sat on my hands. I thought it was a good film but a band campaign. I’ve said before that we underestimated the impact of a full-blown 1400 screen movie release.
<Paul> I think movie marketing operates in a very different way from record marketing in that you get hit over the head with it all at once. It’s an inappropriate way of marketing formusic and I think our audience were turned off by that. Underlying it was a very good film and a very good record.
<Paul> The movie had one of the most unusual openign weekends of all time. It had a huge Friday night, Saturday it tailedoff, and no one turned up on Sunday. Gave Paramount a bit of a shock, but exciting to U2 fans.
<Tonster> teafan says:
<Tonster> Will there ever be a U2 “box” set ?
<Paul> I wouldn’t rule it out and in fact we need to do it at some time. There’s an enormous quantity of records made — B sides that have never been compiled properly, remixes . . .
<Paul> We’re wary of it to the extent that the release of a boxed set signals the end of somebody’s career and we’re certainly not at the end or anything like it of U2′s career.
<Tonster> ^BadCop^ says:
<Tonster> Paul : What makes you really angry?
<Paul> In the context of our business overzealous security people, ticket scalping, people taking advantage of our audience, those sort of things.
<Paul> People doing things in U2′s name without our approval. It’s not so much that we’re control freaks, we just want to ensure if you buy something U2, it should be worth the money.
<Tonster> salome269 says:
<Tonster> paul, do you ever get frustrated with the americans’ taste in music? bands like the spice girls are topping the charts while bands like u2 are not doing as well?
<Paul> I rather like the Spice Girls, actually. It’s in a long tradition of pop-of-the-moment and I think they do what they do rather amusingly.
<Paul> I can see why people are drawn to it. They’re all very pretty.
<Tonster> What kind of conclusions have you drawn on online U2 fans? How do we differ from other fans? Are they positive or negative differences?
<Paul> There’s been a lot of U2 web activity over the years and the people who go online are slightly more studious.
<Paul> Sometimes on individual pages you can see a sort of party atmosphere generating. I don’t think the people who tune into the PopMart site on MSN are different from U2′s other fans.
<Paul> We seem to have intelligent fans wherever we go.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul…why is U2 choosing to perform at awards shows?
<Paul> Like the MTV Awards? MTV hhas an enormous reach. The VMA’s had a verysignificant rating. It’s a way of reaching the audience. Showing people who might not otherwise see U2 perform live how good they are.
<Tonster> Vini-Brazil says:
<Tonster> PAUL TALK ABOUT BRAZIL TOUR !!!!!!!! We WAIT many years FOR THIS !!!!!!!!!!
<Paul> We’ve been putting together the last details of the South American tour. We’re very excited about going to South America and indeed we’re overdue.
<Paul> I’m sure the concerts in Sao Paolo and Rio, Buenes Aires and Santiago will be absolutely wild.
<Paul> We’ve had recent experience of the Latin audience in Spain and Portugal and no doubt about it, the further south you go, the more exciting it is.
<Tonster> Victum says:
<Tonster> Paul: can you describe, as briefly as possible, your various tasks and responsibilities in a typical day of touring?
<Paul> An awful lto of it is to do with staying in touch with the record company in all the countries in the world where we sell records.
<Paul> This album went to #1 in 29 countries. Stay in touch with the production — our command structure is quite military adn the people who run the stage show are briefed to put up the show physically in an identical way in each city.
<Paul> I’m responsible to the band to produce a working environment. Watching out for trouble. I’m basically in charge of worrying.
<Tonster> ^BadCop^ says:
<Tonster> Paul : Why is the Red Hill Mining Town video still locked up in a vault? A lot of fans would love to see it.
<Paul> The real answer is that it’s not very good. We thought that song was a hit and went straight into making a video before the song was played on the radio.
<Paul> The moment it was played on the radio it was the 11th most popular track in 1987 so clearly it wasn’t the hit single we imagined it to be.
<Paul> We threw ourselves into amking that video withNeil Jordan without checking to see whether the audience liked the song.
<Paul> The other part is that the video was really terrible and embarassing. That’s the reason it’s been deep sixed.
<Tonster> U2isABLE says:
<Tonster> Paul..who’s idea was it for the band to walk through the crowd during Pop Muzik?
<Paul> I think it was Bono’s idea. Then we were in Vegas and Oscar de la Hoya — we wanted to copy an authentic boxer’s robe and I think he suggested the traditional Las Vegas boxer’s entry.
<Paul> Like most good ideas it came from the ether — good ideas have many claimants. Success has many parents and failure is an orphan.
<Tonster> Zye says:
<Tonster> Is U2 really doing that Simpson 200th episode. Any cameos from you ?
<Paul> That is true. I can indeed confirm that U2 will perform in the Simpsons episode. I do not have a role myself.
<Paul> Keep logging on and let us know what you think of the site at u2popmart@msn.com.
<Tonster> Thanks to all of you for coming!
<Tonster> Paul has left the v-building.
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