Bob Geldof on the return of The Boomtown Rats

In the latest issue of Hot Press, he tells Colm O’Hare about his rocky relationship with Margaret Thatcher, why he will never try and re-create the past and how he got back into being 'Boomtown Bob'.

"I got myself into a snakeskin suit, made to measure, which was débuted at the Isle of Wight and I wrote four new songs".

For an Irish band to make such a noise when they exploded out of Dublin in the summer of '77, Geldof insists that the noise of music itself has lost it's quality and is angrier then ever at what he describes as the dilution of the message of Rock 'n' Roll.

But armored in snakeskin and a remaining passion for the cause, Geldof explains that the music of the Boomtown Rats is just as relevant today as it was three decades ago.

"When I started singing the words of 'Looking After Number One", I was thinking, I could have written this yesterday. I don't see what's changed. It was the same with 'Rat Trap' - there was contemporaneousness to the words and the sound that seemed to me to be completely appropriate to the times that are in it. I genuinely mean that.

So what has reunited the original punk rockers, who were the first Irish rock band to secure a UK no.1 while also clocking up an impressive mileage of nine top 20 hits?

"There's no particular incentive for us to do this again - obviously the money is good but that wouldn't have been enough for me. I completely got into being in this band again within half-an-hour. I was enjoying myself and saying, 'Will we do this one or that one - and we'd do it'. I thought 'f**k me -- that's a blinder as well'. And not only were we great but that I was f***ing amazing!"

Never one to hold back, Geldof also opens up about his relationship with Maggie Thatcher and the late nights he was summoned by her to Dowling Street for meetings.

"I guess Dennis was in bed but she couldn't sleep and she'd say, 'Would you like a glass of whiskey Mr Geldof?' I'd say 'OK do you have some red' - but she'd look at me with disgust. She just wanted to talk. She didn't really know anything about Africa. She'd argue - she liked to engage in the intellectual argument, but she was useful to me at the time."

To read the rest of the intimate interview and for details on their upcoming Vicar St. and Belfast gigs, check out the latest issue of Hot Press, out now.