THE RAT WHO WOULD WALK ON WATER

THE RAT WHO WOULD WALK ON WATER

FEATURES

by Charles Shaar Murray

Bob Geldof Interview

Autumn: A light drizzle is falling on Edinburgh. It lacks forty minutes of midnight and most good citizens are abed.

A few of the populace wander through the dampness, languidly travelling from here to there. On Princes Street, a knot of noisy young men search for a taxi, periodically collaring passers-by and interrogating them as to the whereabouts of an establishment known as the Astoria Club, where at this very moment Wilko Johnsons Solid Senders are filling a room with harsh incantatory R&B voodoo.

The tallest of the party is»getting spiritually prepared for the midnight chimes which will unofficially announce the commencement of the 27th anniversary of his birth. He has, however, soundchecked his birthday by erroneously announcing it 24 hours prematurely, thus insuring two nights worth of free drinks, and only a phone conversation with his girlfriend in London has brought this mistake to light.

Fuelled on pina colada and a plate of spaghetti and insulated against the damp in a garment which could only be described as a windcheater, he perceives another potential source of vital information, approaches him with a gait halfway between a shambles and a lope, asks the way to the club.

And—just like a "B" movie—the light hits the shambler from the darkness full in the face, and his victim turns round, checks the thick hair, the face slightly too loose for the skull, the lanky frame, the pyjamas under his closest companions trench-coat...and his minds in sync like clockwork and he gestures down the road with his thumb and says in the most perfectly pinched and pawky Edinburgh voice that any film-maker could possibly want:

"Ah doan leike yer reicuds tha much, but the clubs doon theire."

Sha lala lala lala la la. Happy Birthday, Boomtown Bob!

Fact: Any way you want to slice it, pal, The Boomtown Rats are probably the biggest group in the U.K. right now. Normally, statistics relating to mass consumer spending are only fit to line your lunchbox. By now, most people who follow these things have long lost count of the number of movies that are supposedly the greatest success in the history of the commercial cinema, and number of recording artists who have been touted as the biggest, fastest sellers of all time is probably astronomical. As ever, the Americans are the worst offenders in this respect: who can be bothered to whip out the calculators and work out whether The Bee Gees or Boston or Frampton or Fleetwood Mac or The Knack or whoever had the most impressive sales figures?

Its the smallest spin-off roek n roll brag-match of all: my sales are bigger than your sales! Worse, it encourages people to hero-worship execs and accountants as well as players. If the imaginary guitar was this much of a blight, are we ready for the imaginary calculator?

When... will...I... learn...to...keep... my...mouth... shut.

--Bob Geldof

So there are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damn lies and statistics and were hip to all that, but that still leaves us with the fact that in the U.K.,'the Rats have had two number ones on the trot, that their tour sold a quarter of a million tickets nationwide in one day (work it out: thats an average of 10,416 tickets^an hour. See what I mean about statistics?). Their last single did Irelands national drink honor by nudging "Mull Of Kintyre" out of the Guinness Book Of Records, and as Bob Geldof took great pleasure in informing Paul McCartney, "We didnt need fokkin bagpipes todo it with, neither."

The Rats third album, The Fine Art Of Surfacing, comes out in a week or two, and will probably bring more statistics in its wake. Maybe Sun readers prefer Abba and Wings; maybe NME readers ballot in The Clash as the main squeeze, but until its wrestled out on a, formal basis with some long-term institution from the days of the Rats 60s youth, it comes back to our Fact: The Boomtown Rats are currently in charge.

Go see the Rats and you find yourself without landmarks. Anyone accustomed to consuming music tribally will be astonishingly confused, because theres no clear-cut grouping at all, no neat punks/ mods/skins/dreads/ matazoids polarization. Outside Newcastle City Hall, the girls wait patiently to leap on Bob Geldof or Johnny Fingers in that no-mans-land between door and coach. Inside you find everyone from the tough, crusted punk diehards with the zips and the clips and the chains and the Sid slogans whitewashed onto the back of the Lewis Leather right through the pop kids and the older hey-weknow-about-music crew...and grannies, and people whove never seen a rock show before in their lives.

"Some of them," Geldof is explaining somewhere, in a hotel room or in a taxi or a coach or a restaurant or on the street, anywhere people talk, "have never been to any kind of gig in their lives, man. I had this theory and one night I thought Id check it out so I asked, “Hey, dont be shy now, whos never been to a concert before? and quite a few put their hands up. Theyd seen us on TV, and come along to see Top Of The Pops live..."

ACCESS ALL AREAS is what it says on Bob Geldofs backstage pass, and thus far in the game hes well on the way to achieving just exactly that thing in terms of— whats that charming expression—market penetration. All across the board, The Boomtown Rats are the pick to click. First new wave band on the playlist. First new wave band on Top Of The Pops. First new wave band with a unilateral number one single ("God Save The Queen" didnt top all the charts).

Whether you regard those as achievements or evidence of selling out and/or terminal blandness decides which side of the Rats fence youre on.

It also says that whether you attribute the Rats success to cunning, manipulation, exploitation and marketing or to suss, energy, instinct and equal dollops of raw talent and sheer brass neck is ultimately immaterial. What it comes down to is Bob Geldof and Paula Yates making the front page of the Evening Standard just for showing up at the Quadrophenia premier, or Geldof getting a round of applause in Newcastle just for taking his jacket off, or Geldofs slow leer and fast mouth front and center on a TV screen, or yet another smash single that artfully bestrides inspiration and scam, or Johnny Fingers signing his 17th autograph of the day before hes even properly awake...

I figure that if I shot my mouth off constantly people would get tired of seeing me.

—Bob Geldof

What it comes down to is TOP BAND. The Clash have the guns, but the Rats have the numbers.

And once you step out of the immediate environment of the band and their followers, a world in which cute eerie Johnny Fingers, shy shaded Gerry Cott, bouncy little Pete Briquette, rough red-eyed Garry Roberts and sensible immaculate Simon Crowe all carry their weight, play their part and make up irreplaceable portions of the whole Boomtown Rats thing, once you get into the outside worlds where television is real...then the man with the numbers is Bob Geldof.

"Obviously to a large extent people consider it to be a one-man affair, which it really isnt," Geldof is saying. He is sprawled out on a hotel bed contemplating a melting glass of Bacardi and Coke. He has three more hours of being 26 left to go.

"I could pull out endless examples...Im the most garrulous. I represent and articulate a lot of what they believe. I might say something and Garry or Gerry might not agree and well argue over it and in that sense I would not presume to speak to them, but in a larger sense the sentiments are the same. Theyll argue with you in pretty much the same way that I would argue with you-We were friends before the band because we shared common interests and when youve shared a friendship for a long time you share ideas. I just did the talking because I was the most gregarious and garrulous and had the habit of talking in one-liners like the person sitting opposite me..."

Cut Away: Geldof in a hotel lobby recounting the tale of the time that—in jocular mood—he regaled the audience at the New York Palladium with a comparison between the creative powers of Bruce Springsteen and the Rats which found little favor on 2nd Avenue. "When we said that thing about Springsteen..."

Gerry Cott, sitting opposite Geldof, raises his eyebrows sufficiently for them to be visible above his shades. He waggles them slowly and deliberately. " “When we said that, Bob? Did Pete and I say that?"

Cut Back: "It wasnt something that we considered or developed. To a certain extent it was foisted on me because once I started mouthing off about all and sundry people kept wanting more interviews with me as opposed to interviews with Fingers, say. They consider that they are far more likely to get something which is good copy from me than from Garry or Gerry or Pete or Simon, which isnt necessarily the case..."

Cut Away: Garry Roberts out to lunch, jammed into a hotel room which—support band blues—houses all of Protex, the Belfast band whore supporting the Rats on tour. Also present are Briquette, Fingers, Cott and lots of tapes and whisky. As Ian Hunter bawls out his deep concern about something or other over howling Ronson guitar and a drum sound that would make Phil Spector blow up his mixing desk, Roberts intones: "I dont give a fuck whether I get my name in the papers as long as its spelled right."

Jump: A rainy afternoon in Newcastle. On the second day of a two-day stand at Newcastle City Hall, the Rats are splitting up to undertake specific pre-gig responsibilities. Fingers, Briquette, Cott, Roberts, Crowe, guest saxophonist Dave McHale and the crew pile into the coach and head for the soundcheck while Geldof goes up to his room to get changed and watch Star ,Trek while waiting to go to the BBCs Newcastle studios to do a quick interview. He wears grey-blue baggy jeans, an old grey windcheater, a late-model Rats t-shirt and a red bandana and as the camera focuses in on him for the trailer, the media effect is readily apparent.

Science! Geldofs hair, skin and clothes take on brighter and more interesting hues as the engineers adjust the color. Even without TV make-up, Geldof takes on a slight glow. While they do the "later-on-inthe-programme-well-be-talking-to" bit, he ruffles his hair, grins, sulks and then comes back down to wait for the interview proper and have a quick drink. He $ tells the TV guys about the rise of the independent labels, retails a scabrous, surreal'anecdote about a night spent in Zurich in the company of HJR. Giger, the artist who designed Alien, fields their earnest whatsthe-answer-then-Bob probes with firm politeness, tells a couple of jokes, climbs the stairs again to do the real thing, dances through it without raising a sweat, charms everybody stupid and cabs it to the gig in time to eat spaghetti backstage with the crew and the rest of the band.

"Hes a genius!" enthuses a soldier on the train whose other faves include Ritchie Blackmore and Derek Harriott. "Magic!" says the cab driver, who doesnt buy records any more but listens to what his niece brings round. "Oh, hes so bigheaded," says Shelley, a lean, lively blonde girl who sings with a Newcastle punk band called Screaming Targets. Bob Geldof is called upon to have an opinion about everything, and just about everyone with more than a passing interest in todays vital, bouncy, alive pop scene has an opinion about Bob Geldof.

Talk to insiders with grudges and you hear that Geldof has O.D.d on media, that hes gone Hollywood and is now completely unbearable, that hes planning to dump the Rats and go solo...well, if Im any judge of anything at all, then all that is nothing but 57 varieties of bullshit. Bob Geldof is no more unbearable than he was two years ago, which means that hes still the same rapid, forceful, generous, ruthless, amusing, infuriating parcel of contrariness charm and ego that he was a year and a half ago. Hes wiser and warier now, a lot more skilled and a lot more paranoid, but...anyone who thought he was an asshole or a charlatan back then will undoubtedly consider themselves vindicated. Anyone who got on with him and instinctively liked him then (and Im that soldier) will have found no reason to modify that judgement.

So is he the same as when he began?

"What we were talking about earlier— the ACCESS ALL AREAS aspect of the dream—I still want that. In those countries where we havent done it I still feel this... need...to do it as I did here at the beginning. I feel driven to maintain what weve got, and I still feel a keen sense of competition. Everything to me is potential competition and must be viewed in that light.

"I dont know if I have any more ambitions, but I have a lot of dreams. Ambitions are things youll probably attain; a dream is something that you hope youll attain. An ambition is more readily definable than a dream, a dream has a nebulous quality. If your ambition is to get to number one, when you get there youve achieved that ambition. I dont think the dream that I had at the beginning has been attained, but a lot of the ambitions have beep."

People think Pm outrageous, but Vm not!

-Bob Geldof

How much of whats happened for The Boomtown Rats has been the way you thought it would be?

"All of it, and I wouldnt change any of it. In retrospect, I was very much aware of what I was going into, probably because of having worked on the papers. Im certainly not disappointed. Its all turned out just as brilliant and as wonderfully exciting and as challenging as I hoped it would be. Im coming out the other side a little dented and a little depressed about various things occasionally..."

Cut Away: Rust never sleeps and neither do telephones. Geldof had heard on the wire—London calling—that the Rats reviews had been a trifle uncomplimentary, but a slap in Sounds perused before the Newcastle gig had led to nothing more than Geldof mock-ordering the band, light and B sound men "More cock-ups tonight, § please. Were too slick. Lets have duff | sound, duff lights, naffo playing and street I credibility." However, the following day en 5 route to Edinburgh, an NME had materia ialized on the coach and he read it over my 8 shoulder, looking alternatively at it and I away like a kid at a horror movie.

He looks up then and catches sight of the headline on last weeks Live! review. When you get rich and famous you can afford to shit on the fans," it says. Even without looking around I know hes seen it, because a barrier slams down and the chatty, playful argumentative Geldof Id been sitting beside is transformed into a deflated, wounded creature Id never seen before. He wraps the hurt round him like a blanket, solidifies it into a cave. He draws his legs up until his knees are at chin level, then clasps his head in his hands. Half to me, half to himself, half out of the window, he hisses: "When...will...I...leam...to...keep ... my... fucking... mouth... shut? WHEN? AhhhhHh, Jazus..."

He turns to me, maybe seeing me, maybe not. "It was a joke, man. I said it like..." He switches into a ludicrous American radio voice, the phoniest voice imaginable. " “Heeeeeey! When you get to be rich and famous you can afford to shit on your audience! Its an old Steve Martin joke...

"No one could possibly think that even for one second I could have...when will I fucking learn, man!" A bleak vista opens up before him;,a year, two or three years maybe, of having to explain away that quote, a one-off joke delivered in what he felt was the most blatantly obvious manner. He appears near tears. I feel like The Compleat Schmuck.

Look. Geldof is my friend—I hope he is, anyway—and when a person you consider to be a friend is in distress or pain and depression, then your instinct should be to steam in and offer what crumbs of consolation you can: aid, comfort, whatever. Right now, Im the enemy. Whatever has been done to Geldof has been done by me and mine. Under those circumstances, comfort is an insult.

The silence is horrible. All the palling around of the morning and the night before seems a ghastly joke. Fingers spots his frontmans distress and aims the. coldest of gazes. It is nearly twenty minutes before Geldof speaks again. At this point, no formal interview material has been taped and the whole thing begins to look doubtful. "Youll have to bear with me," Bob says flatly. He gazes pointedly out of the window.

Later, Geldof pulls me aside and asks me to forget his little outburst. "Its like Jimmy Fursey on a bad day," he murmurs, a trifle embarrassed. Lots of people feel that Geldof is an arrogant, sell-important clown whom theyd like to see taken down a peg or two. I have, and I never want to see that again.

TURN TO PAGE 63

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 38

Cut Back: "...a little neurotic, more neurotic than I was before. Its all so public when you achieve those ambitions and youve got so much to live up to constantly; thats the only pressure that I could really do without. But then again its healthy...I suppose."

Earlier on during the coach ride, once Geldof had regained his equanimity, hed explained that the reason that hed blitzed the media, gone on every TV show that would have him, talked to every paper that was interested, was that he wanted to avoid the growth of any mystique, to allow familiarity to breed...not contempt, of course, but safety. A state whereby people could be as familiar with him as they were with their friends, whereby Bob Geldof would be no big deal, whereby he would be believed when he said something he meant, indulged if he got silly, understood if he took the piss.

On tape, the same topic: "A lot of people wont accept the demystification theory. Theyll think its bollocks, but believe it or dont believe it thats what I thought would happen. People must be so sick of seeing me by now on TV, or reading about me or just constantly being exposed to me. I thought that after a certain point it just appears normal that there is this kina of growing media stature, but after that point it works against itself. I can walk through Clapham and people just go, * Elio Bob. If you dont ponce about in limos...I dont make a point of walking,through the fokkin West End, but if I have to get to the Marquee Ill take the tube and walk. There are no riots in the street, but people come up and ask for autographs—and I wanted that accessibility, so that people wouldnt be afraid to come up and chat. I thought that was healthy.

"It wasnt any big crusade, any great plan to demystify as such, I just never saw any necessity to become a Rod Stewart or a Rolling Stone or a Beatle. The Beatles probably couldnt go out on the street without being seriously mobbed, but I figure that if I shot my mouth off constantly people would get tired of seeing me..."

Yeah, but if that backfired they could also stop coming to Rats gigs.

"Thats a risk you have to take. They kept telling me I was getting overexposed, that it was too easy to get to me." He lapses into the American Bullshit voice. " “Hey! Dont go down to the radio stations, dont go down to the TV stations. Create some mystery, Bob "...

After the Newcastle gig, the Rats put in an hour talking to fans, and two more hours with any fans who make it back to the hotel, though they sneak away from the bar for an hour to consume coffee, sandwiches and 60s poprocksoul Jiits from the jukebox.

The gig went off like clockwork; there was something drastically wrong with the event, and it wasnt the Rats performance. Rather it was that the Rats were trying to be a punching, jostling, all-action rock band with a high-energy low-bullshit presentation (apart from the set, which is at least deomocratic in that it dwarfs all six of them impartially), but the audience were—ahem—in a different space. They were in a Top Of The Pops star space, punks and Grannies alike. They applauded the removal of Bobs jacket, submitted with warmth and good grace, enjoyed themselves and went home. The great gigs happen when the passion of the performer is met and matched by the passion of the audience, but while it was a loving and acquiescent audience, it was not a strong audience. Their response was soft, and sitting amongst them halfway back was like being at the movie.

"You cqn get it if you want it and you need it baa enough/ sang Geldof, "cause youre young and good-lookin and youre acting kinda tough..."

Ay! And what then?

"There must come a point when people get sick of reading about you, but this seetns not the case. Weve had this kind of quasi-Ratsteria shit, which is flattering up to a point, but then I didnt think it would occur. I worked consciously to deflate that to show that it was no fokkin big deal, it was just six guys up on stage playin instruments, and that is it. I realize that a big part of the fairy tale is the projection of that dream: there you are on stage and you exist because they allow you to exist and by the same token theyre the projection of our fantasies. And of course theyre shouting and rearing and that was part of the fantasy, part of the dream. Theyre clapping for you and your songs; they know the words. I defy anyone not to be flattered by that.

"But I always thought that we neutralized idolatory to a tremendous extent by talking at a normal conversational level without going (into American Bullshit Voice) “Heeeeyyyy! Alri-i-i-ight! Rock and roll! and all that shit, you know?"

Much has been made lately of Geldofs reaction to what he considers to be the overrating of other artists like Bruce Springsteen, The Clash and The Jam. What thats down to is that he considers that their work gets taken seriously while the Rats isnt, that their mystiques reinforce their work instead of devaluing it.

"I read," he will expound heatedly, "that Springsteen brought his kid-sister and his fokkin mother onstage with him. Can you imagine what theyd say about me if I brought mothers and sisters on stage at Rats gigs?" Its like he wants to be taken as a Serious Artist despite his unwillingness to take himself too seriously, like he wants to be believed even when hes insisting on not being believed. Discuss an aspect of one of his songs and hell do it in detail, singing the words to you in taxi or bar or street, clicking his fingers.

"I remember saying to you that I thought I had maybe 50 more years on average, and that I didnt believe that there was very much after that. So if you take that as your viewpoint, it stands to reason that youre going to push your life to the limits..."

In rock circles, remarks like that are normally just a glib rationale for taking too many drugs.

"I dont mean that! I mean trying to push yourself and your abilities to their extremes. I dont mean drug excess or booze excess and hastening your end, I mean testing your capabilities as a human being. If youve only got those few years to do it in, you have to go at breakneck speed, which is maybe a pessimistic point of view because any minute a guy could walk in with a gun: bang! Instant wipeout. Im preoccupied with the romanticism of death, the finality of death..."

Whats so romantic about death?

"“Dead lovers dont have nothing but a certain desperate sense of style...I always wonder how Im going to die. Will I go quietly in my sleep, will I get mangled by a car and lie there screaming or maybe itll be some cancerous thing. Its going to happen and its final. Im not concerned with immortality, because if I believed in the Catholic concept of eternity Id be so frightened that I couldnt handle it. Immortality doesnt bother me. If people have forgotten about “I Dont Like Mondays two weeks from now, no problem. Ive never considered immortality in terms of rock n roll. I dont think rock songs should be remembered. Its a 20th Century art form, its here and then its superceded. Immortality doesnt interest me. Im purely concerned with the here and now. I reckon that if youre aware that youve only got a few years to do it, you end up with a fairly pessimistic viewpoint about most things. Ive got fairly gloomy ideas.

"That could be absolute bullshit, but Ive had to rationalize it in those terms. Im just preoccupied with...death, which is very Woody Allenesque. Some people would think Im trying to jump on some standard psychological bandwagon, but its not true."

That aint the side of Bob Geldof that crops up on the chat shows, though.

"When youre not actually consciously thinking about whatever it is that drives you, then you...I cant see a contradiction, because like I said, I want to push this lifestyle to its limits, which would fit in with me being this so-called outrageous person, but I dont think Ive ever been outrageous in my whole fokkin life. Im a reasonable chap. I have to reason things out with myself until Im blue in the face. Im Mister Liberal. I got a fokkin shitty review and instead of wanting to hit the guy I think God, hes right. Why did he think that? Lemme think back. “Mondays was a hit. Why was that?

"I suppose it was the way I was brought up. I do and say things very impetuously, which I know I will live to regret, but thats what I think so Ill say em anyway. People think Im fokkin outrageous, but Im not! Im Jack fokkin Average!

"We got to be a successful band and I got interviewed because they thought I could string two words together and that is it, but Im no more outlandish or outrageous than any Jack Average.

"Theres the desire not to be this huge star, and on the other hand I enjoy the trappings, getting into discos free, because Im not so removed from the normal that I dont get a buzz out of that. Im not so cool yet that I havent lost that.

"I wish sometimes that I had."

Fame fame fame faaaaaame.' Whats your name?

For the Rats, its only the* UK that had totally toppled. In Europe and America, theyre still fighting for a foothold. Geldof bookended the Springsteen furor by slagging Aerosmith at some awful California fest and totally pissing off all the Aerosmith fans, which had CBS execs turning pale: " “Errhhh, Bob,"heh heh," he -mimics gleefully. "I reckon we just lost another market there." CBS have contrived to lose "I Dont Like Mondays" in the radio shuffle, and on their next American tour the Rats are going to have to bust their balls not just to satisfy demands but to create them. Over there, theyre still fighting, and thats really what Geldof does best.

But what happens if Europe and the States fall on the same scale as the UK? What if that hunger to win audiences over is slaked?

"Then it just comes down to the joy of writing songs and performing. Thats what you have when you start, and hopefully even when there are no more worlds to conquer, thats what you should always have.."

And Bob Geldof becomes 27 on a bouncing danCe floor in Edinburgh, listening to the blues. Sha lala lala lala lala.

Happy birthday, Boomtown Bob. They say that theres no such thing as a sane star and the only guesswork you have to do is diagnose the exact method of going funny in the head that the artist in question has chosen, but Geldofs in better shape than most. He is the same as when he began, and we even managed to get through all of this without once calling him Modest Bo—

Rats! ®

Reprint courtesy New Musical Express