There’s a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence. We crossed it on the Passengers record.
I joined a band to hit things.
It’s a tough life being a pop star. You know, at the end of the day when you’ve paid all the bills and put the kids through college and that, you know, there’s only enough left for a small island off the South Pacific.
I’ve often thought that it would be great to do some acting because nobody would think that I would be able to do it and it scares the living hell out of me.
When you’re in the music business, everything is very personal, because you are invested in everything; there’s a very deep, personal attachment to your music.
It doesn’t matter what songs we sing. I’m a drummer. Chicks dig me.
I think I look cool. I don’t know about the other three but I look cool, I am cool.
The big issue with rock stars becoming actors is that sometimes it’s not believable, and vice versa with actors becoming rock stars. Sometimes just doesn’t fit.
If Bono left, we could carry on. If I left, we’d be screwed.
I love the Elvis movies. I used to watch them. In every single one of his movies he wasn’t acting as a car salesman – he was acting as a car salesman who loved to play guitar.
I don’t think anybody could imagine the life that I’ve been lucky enough to have. It’s been an incredible journey.
And if I had to spend 20 years in the band just to play that show, and have done that, I think it would have been worthwhile.
People say, ‘Why don’t you do interviews? What do you think about this? What do you think about that?’ My job in the band is to play drums, to get up on stage and hold the band together. That’s what I do. At the end of the day that’s all that’s important. Everything else is irrelevant.
Relevance is a big, big question. It’s more about what’s your definition of being relevant. In the music world, agism is a big issue. It’s about youth and youth culture. There’s no other art form that I know that requires you to be a certain age.
Relevance, for me, is about being creative and doing things that you believe in, whether that’s music or acting or painting a picture, or whatever that is.
Unfortunately, as far as the music is concerned, what defines relevance is whether you are on the radio or whether you are on the cover of a magazine or whether you’re winning MTV awards, and so on and so forth.
The longer you’ve been acting, normally, the better you are at it. As a musician, it doesn’t work like that.
I will never be a career actor, I don’t think. I don’t feel that I have the skill set to jump into it that way, although I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.
The only thing I wouldn’t like to do is to play roles as a musician. I’m not sure that I would be comfortable doing that, and I’m not sure I’d be very good at it. I think I would be better served, and would be a better partner, if I was in something outside of myself.