Irish artist and punk musician Guggi has a little-known fact about Bono and himself that he likes to divulge.
“I gave Bono his name, and he gave me my name. He said, ‘It doesn’t just describe something of your physicality, and it doesn’t just describe something of your essence. It’s a painter’s name.’
“As young kids, we were fascinated by the idea of finding a word that sounds the way somebody looks, something of their physicality. We had this humorous thing, naming people,” Guggi told WWD in an interview Friday. It was a mechanism that helped get him through each day, as one of 10 children in his family, growing up in a working class community sandwiched by two rough areas.
“I don’t really have any memory of Bono not being my friend. He was 3 and I was 4 when we started hanging out — and we never stopped hanging out,” Guggi told WWD. “We backed each other up in the tough old days of living in a rough area sometimes with our fists, sometimes just covering our heads if we were attacked by a gang. But yeah, he’s my oldest mate.”
Guggi’s life (his real name is Derek Rowan) — including his years performing in the punk band The Virgin Prunes and later as an abstract painter and sculptor depicting everyday objects like urns, bowls and vessels — is chronicled in a documentary directed by Ian Thuillier titled “Guggi.” It premieres Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival and will subsequently play at the Village East.
