Two hours with Bob Geldof on the presidency, the Rats and inspiration: ‘It could be about my …

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Bob Geldof: Strippers on Sunday morning in Sheriff Street, the girl at our first gig who wanted to ‘go to bed’ with me and why Phil Lynott said I had to get a ‘fking limousine’Celebrating 50 years of the band, Geldof says he’s ‘happy’
Bob Geldof is too busy on the Boomtown promo trail to throw his hat into the presidential ring. Photo: Mark CowneBarry EganToday at 06:30‘Is that you, Egan?” Bob Geldof says, putting on the voice of a belligerent teacher he might have encountered during his unhappy days at Blackrock College, when he and I meet via Zoom. “F**king hell! You are going seriously grey and bald, Egan!”With the distinguished salt-and-pepper hair, he looks younger than his 73 years.window[“__PRELOADED_STATE_GRAPH__Dp9Uaz4Wcg”] = {“qj78lk”:{“data”:{“article”:{“body”:[{“p”:”With the distinguished salt-and-pepper hair, he looks younger than his 73 years.”},{“p”:”We’re chatting to celebrate a new release – but a half-hour slot turns into a two-hour-long meander through everything from his children, his wife and the death of his mother to, yes, the presidential bid.”},{“p”:”He says he was asked in August at the All Together Now festival in Waterford if he’d consider running for the presidency.”},{“p”:”Earlier this week he told Sky News that: “Micheál [Martin] called me and I said, ‘What would you think about Bob Geldof being the candidate for the Fianna Fáil party?’ ‘I think it would be great,’ he said, ‘But I’ve already chosen someone’. I said, ‘That’s the end of the conversation Taoiseach, thanks very much’.””},{“p”:”Today, he explains how that conversation came about after the questions at the festival in Waterford.”},{“ad”:{“defaultHeight”:250,”defaultWidth”:300,”format”:”articlerectangle”,”slot”:”b1″}},{“ad”:{“defaultHeight”:0,”defaultWidth”:0,”format”:”cba”,”slot”:”bbw1″}},{“p”:”“I said something like: ‘Well, I am – typically – looking for something new, interesting, and useful to do. You know, 50 years of The Boomtown Rats, 40 years of Band Aid. I still do them.’ And that got extrapolated into ‘He’s going to go for it’.”},{“p”:”“Around that, some mates scoped down and said: ‘Why don’t you go for it?’ I said because I’m in The Boomtown Rats, I’m running Band Aid, I’ve got loads of other things. So they went off and said: ‘There’s a chance there.’ But I said I can’t do it anyway – the timing is all wrong.”},{“p”:”“I couldn’t go and hit the campaign trail. Couldn’t do it. I’d be talking about the f**king Rats’s new double album.””},{“image”:{“caption”:”The Boomtown Rats’s new album celebrates 50 years of making music”,”cropped”:{“height”:2644,”url”:”https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/McQrn9sBSbu70S1ZrutZfjBaSPM=/0x0:2644×2644/2644×2644/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”,”width”:2644},”id”:”IMG:48ff3a3e”,”meta”:{“aspectRatio”:1,”height”:2644,”mime”:”image/jpeg”,”width”:2644},”metadata”:{“cropping”:{“bottomRight”:{“x”:2644,”y”:2644},”topLeft”:{“x”:0,”y”:0},”height”:2644,”width”:2644}},”url”:”https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”,”sourceSets”:[{“width”:120,”height”:80,”key”:”xsmall”,”url”:”https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/9DDNZ-BXBXj8GIImc4uIrLI2X54=/0x0:2644×2644/fit-in/120×80/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”},{“width”:160,”height”:107,”key”:”small”,”url”:”https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/Rg3YPgmyQPYwX5bBql7o42eRB30=/0x0:2644×2644/fit-in/160×107/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”},{“width”:320,”height”:213,”key”:”medium”,”url”:”https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/y6M-BdxkeAd94Rm9bscCKXHXCcI=/0x0:2644×2644/fit-in/320×213/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”},{“width”:640,”height”:427,”key”:”large”,”url”:”https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/iS0TNPpkc4Kx7wAqBK9R6GfKzRM=/0x0:2644×2644/fit-in/640×427/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”},{“width”:960,”height”:640,”key”:”xlarge”,”url”:”https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/LQH8Gkyq3T1DiWJVuBdWCnuiv5Y=/0x0:2644×2644/fit-in/960×640/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”},{“width”:1280,”height”:853,”key”:”xxlarge”,”url”:”https://focus.independent.ie/thumbor/0TrvVZSb2YbtO2BOCname0–bkE=/0x0:2644×2644/fit-in/1280×853/prod-mh-ireland/a90e2203-0f3d-45d2-b926-b53eaa2a847b/c7862e85-b579-4889-930d-149ec0c00e48/SF%20Rats%20121.jpg”}]}},{“p”:”That new anthology album u003cspan class=”italic”>The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Gloryu003c/span> is out now, celebrating their 50th anniversary.”},{“p”:”“We’ve got a tour. Literally, I can’t avoid that. We’ve been contractually bound to that for a year already. So, if I wanted to do the round-robin of the county councils and then the campaign – when could I do it?”},{“ad”:{“defaultHeight”:250,”defaultWidth”:300,”format”:”articlerectangle”,”slot”:”b2″}},{“p”:”“I couldn’t. So that was never a goer. The timing was wrong. But you know, you only go for something if you are going to win it – and I wouldn’t win.””},{“p”:”Why not?”},{“p”:”“Because the big parties have got big teams, big money, behind their people. I think it’s very hard for an independent of any sort. I mean, Mary Robinson and Michael D weren’t independent, but they sort of got there by happy accident – and they proved to be excellent.”},{“p”:”“But I don’t know how these people go for it, and where they can rally the amount of cash they need to run a viable campaign and suspend everything they’re ­doing,” says Geldof,