Killing Bono by Neil McCormick

Author:Neil McCormick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2004-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

The spirit of electricity

Flickers like a torch through the bones of my hand

Dreams are making a mess of me

They say I’m looking like a ghost, but they don’t understand

I’m the haunted not the haunting

I need to get some peace,

I’m walking in my sleep…

I surprised myself by hitting a sweet falsetto at the song’s dramatic peak. My singing was dramatically improving under Peter’s tutelage. The recording was gorgeous. The best thing we had ever done.

While in Ireland, we also had a session with a fashion photographer, complete with hair and makeup (we had learned something hanging around with models after all). My glasses had been replaced by contact lenses and with that change came a growing sense of confidence in my physical appearance. I was losing some of that skinny, boyish gawkiness that I felt might have impeded my attractiveness to the opposite sex. My face was decently proportioned, my teeth nice and even and, once in a while, one of the models I was chasing about would even describe me as handsome. That was praise indeed, given that physical appearance was about the only thing to which they gave any serious thought.

Ivan had longish hair and I kept mine short but otherwise we tended to coordinate our appearance. Our image at the time might best be described as colorful. For the photo shoot, we wore luridly bright-orange and red shirts, matching green army fatigue waistcoats and oily blue Levi 501 jeans. Who could resist us?

Well, Lucien for one, apparently. We returned to London in high spirits but our meeting did not go well. Lucien glanced over our photo sets and declared, in his Jack-the-laddy fashion: “I thought you guys were meant to be pretty. You look like a couple of rent boys from the sticks.”

“Look who’s talking,” sneered Ivan. “Do you wear those specs just to distract people from your ugly mug?”

Lucien recoiled as if wounded. “What’s wrong with my glasses?” he asked, all bonhomie suddenly absent.

“Maybe you need a new prescription,” I said, joining in the abuse. “Could be you’re too shortsighted to see how ridiculous you actually look.”

Ivan and I thought our cheeky irreverence was part of our appeal but I don’t suppose many others felt the same. Lucien made us an offer nonetheless. He said he could set up a singles deal with a major label. “We want to make albums,” I pointed out.

“Look, boys, what can I tell you?” he said. I got the impression he was enjoying our disappointment. “You’re a pop act. It’s a very expensive market to operate in. And it’s all about hits. You’ve got good songs, you’d have a shot. We’d have to do something about the way you look, obviously. We want you to make the little girls scream but not ’cause they’re having nightmares.”

We told him to stuff it. And not in so many words. It went against everything Ossie and Dave had been advising. It did not escape my attention that our offers seemed to be getting worse rather than improving, but I wasn’t impressed with Lucien Grainge.

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