Wise Guys!

ADAM CLAYTON – DUBLIN, 1998

I interviewed Adam shortly after the first broadcast of the 200th episode of The Simpsons, in which U2 played a memorable cameo. For some reason, the writers had decided to pick on the bass player – portraying him as a spoon-collecting nerd, who’s only just barely tolerated by his bandmates. Not only do Larry and Edge refuse to allow Adam to accompany them to Moe’s, but, during the hilarious end credits sequence, Bono delights in stealing his Springfield spoon (thus reducing his collection’s size to eight).
In a moment of what I imagined was journalistic inspiration en route to the meeting, I liberated a coffee spoon from a bar, wrapped it up nicely, and presented it to him at the start of our interview. A bit of an obvious joke maybe, but it worked a charm. He seemed quite amused at the gesture, and the interview went well. When we’d finished, we shook hands and he bid me farewell. I was still sitting there a minute later when he suddenly reappeared. “I’m sorry,” he apologised, reaching down to the table. “I almost forgot my spoon!”
I’ve no idea how big his collection is now.

GRACE JONES – NEW YORK, 1999
Grace Jones has a formidable reputation for hitting journalists, but luckily I got off with just a light slap on the hand and a mock scolding (for lighting a cigarette from the butt of the last one).

I met Jones in her Manhattan apartment on St. Patrick’s night, 1999. We had been supposed to meet the night before, but her manager rang to tell me that she’d just got her period and was feeling too cranky to meet me. It was more information than I needed.
I arrived there around 10PM and left just after midnight. Her place was enormous, full of artworks and sculptures, but really dimly – and strategically – lit. Even though she was sitting beside me on the couch, she was always in silhouette; it might seem odd, and in a way it is, but I don’t really have a clear memory of her face from that night.
Towards the end of the interview, she told me that she’d liked my questions and asked how I was going to write it. She said that she regarded journalism as a “minor art-form” and absolutely detested the Q&A format – making me promise not to use it. We had a great chat about the various journalistic legends she’d met and, secure in the knowledge that she would definitely read whatever I wrote, I left her apartment vowing to myself that I was going to write the best damned article of my career!
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. I was also “researching” a magazine feature on New York’s hippest Irish bars and the various owners were being more than generous with their hospitality. I was moving around a lot and by the time word reached me that hotpress’s schedule had changed and they now wanted the Grace Jones interview yesterday, I was already several days into the kind of drinking binge that, like a speeding juggernaut on an icy road, simply can’t be brought to a sudden halt.
Fuck! Fuck! I’d planned on writing it when I got back to Dublin, but now I had less than 12 hours. After much pleading from me, Irish writer Helena Mulkerns very kindly transcribed the interview tape, while I slept the booze off, as best I could, on her couch. When she’d finished, she tried to wake me, but apparently it wasn’t happening (“I would’ve had more luck waking John Lennon!” were her exact words). I eventually came around with a throbbing head and just a couple of hours to my final final deadline.
There was absolutely no way I could get it together to produce the kind of purple prose the redoubtable Miss Jones so obviously expected of me. It was about all I could do to write an introduction and put together a coherent Q&A. I think it actually worked quite well, but I never rang for her opinion. I’m sure she wasn’t particularly impressed.

DBC PIERRE – LEITRIM, 2003 [pictured]
I picked up a copy of DBC Pierre’s Vernon God Little in an airport bookshop, knowing nothing about it, and genuinely thought it was one of the most brilliant debut novels I’d ever read. When I discovered that its mysteriously named author was based in Leitrim, I was even more intrigued as I’d only just moved out of Ireland’s least populated county, having lived in the village of Dromahair for eighteen months (about fifteen months longer than I’d intended, but that’s Leitrim for you).
I still had some stuff to collect and decided to try and interview him while I was up there. I got in touch with his publishers and, although they were initially enthusiastic, they soon stopped returning my calls and e-mails. I really couldn’t figure it out. Most publishers would be delighted with the publicity – especially for a first time author. Eventually, I figured Pierre was probably doing a Salinger on it, and just gave up.
Then, out of nowhere, he got nominated for the Man Booker in September and all hell broke loose! The Guardian broke the story that DBC Pierre – real name Peter Finlay (his nom de plume stood for Dirty But Clean Peter) – was actually a rogue on the run, a former heroin and cocaine fiend who’d left a messy trail of debts, disasters and broken hearts behind him on three continents.
The article accused him of being a con artist, but the worst allegation concerned a very literal kind of house robbery – according to this script, he’d sold his best friend’s home in Spain in the mid-80’s and then legged it with the money. Suddenly I understood why he hadn’t been too keen on publicity.
I got back onto his publishers straight away but they were already being deluged with interview requests from all over the world. After he won the Booker, Pierre took off on a lengthy European and American book tour and so was unavailable. When he eventually returned to Ireland in mid-December, his publishers told me that he was interviewed-out and didn’t want to do any more press.
I was totally pissed off at the injustice of this. I’d been looking to interview him purely on the strength of his writing – whereas most of the journalists he’d been talking to probably hadn’t even heard of him until the controversy broke.
Leitrim’s a small place and it wasn’t hard to get his home address. I posted him a copy of one of my books and a letter explaining why I felt I deserved an interview. He rang back almost immediately and invited me up. We met in a hotel in Ballinamore just six days before Christmas, but didn’t get started into the interview immediately. I think he wanted to suss me out first. Eventually he obviously decided that I wasn’t going to stitch him up and started talking.
Time loses all meaning in Leitrim and we spent an afternoon doing a pub crawl around the town, before heading back to his house on the mountain. Most of what had been written about him had been wildly exaggerated and he was keen to set the record straight. He’s a genuinely nice guy with a truly amazing tale to tell – if he ever writes an autobiography it’ll be a classic of the genre.
When I submitted an 8,000 word piece to Hot Press their first reaction was that it was far too long for an author interview and would have to be heavily cut. Then they read it and the plan changed. Most of the words were Pierre’s own telling of his life story so I can’t really claim the credit, but it’s definitely one of the best pieces I’ve done.

LIAM GALLAGHER – LONDON, 2002
Roy Keane might have stormed off the World Cup stage, but he got me some extra time with Liam Gallagher. I met him with the mouthy Oasis singer in a North London pub, just up the road from his house. Moments before we were introduced, his publicist informed me that the schedule had changed and I now had only twenty minutes, instead of the previously agreed forty-five.
Fortunately, my nationality worked in my favour. When Liam realised I was Irish, he immediately began asking about the reaction at home to the Saipan shenanigans. I have no real interest in soccer (I can barely support myself, let alone an entire team) but the Keane thing was unavoidable so, to my amazement, I managed to bond with someone over a football conversation. Once we were friends, I told him that I wasn’t happy about only having 20 minutes.
“It’s alright, mate,” he reassured me. “There’s only some fooking German journalists waiting. Let ‘em fooking wait!”
So we did. The Germans were really pissed off and kept on appearing behind Liam’s back, glaring furiously at me and pointing at their watches. He had to go and record a live TV thing directly afterwards, so I really was eating into their time. It wasn’t very nice – and I’d hate to have it done to me – but it’s hard to a decent interview even with someone as street-eloquent as Gallagher in less than three quarters of an hour.
An odd thing about Liam, though. A few months later, he had his front teeth knocked out in a bar in Germany. I don’t know if the incidents were connected.

These interviews and many more are included in Olaf Tyaransen’s Palace Of Wisdom: Confessions of the Famous and the Infamous, out now on Hot Press Books. For more information or to order your copy visit www.hotpress.com/books