Off With The Horns; On With The MacMystery!—By PJ
Hayley St. James, watercolor based on one of Hayley’s photos by Kelly Eddington, 2025.
Off With The Horns; On With The MacMystery!
PJ DeGenaro
In which a cranky, cantankerous crone meets a minty-fresh mini MacPhisto whom she thought she met once before — only it must have been a different minty-fresh mini MacPhisto. Confused? Me too. Either way, read on to meet a very cool U2 fan!
Hey there, Achtoon Babies! Back in the day, when Achtoonbaby was “merely” a feature on AtU2.com, Kelly sometimes devoted a cartoon to a U2 fan who had a strange or startling story to share. The following is kinda like that. But not exactly. But sort of. It is also a tale of mistaken identity!
For the last few months, I have labored under the impression that I met Hayley St. James in front of the Beacon Theatre in New York City on the opening night of Stories of Surrender, in November of 2022. I’d been crushed into the fan-gaggle under the everpresent scaffolding for most of the day, hoping for a chance to say hi to Bono after failing to do so on multiple occasions. No such luck, but I did get to watch Gavin Friday, Edge and finally Bono dart from their respective rides right through the theatre doors! #WorthIt.
The fan-gaggle broke up for pre-gaming, but a few of us hung around just in case. One of the last hangers-around was a smallish young person decked out in MacPhisto regalia. I said, “Hey MacPhisto!” And we ended up commiserating about our failure to make contact with our lord and savior Bono. The weird thing is, I was absolutely positive that I met the same MacPhisto at the Unforgettable Fire concert I wrote about this March. I even said “Hey MacPhisto!” again, and didn’t realize until much later that it could NOT have been the same MacPhisto!
Long story long, this secondary MacPhisto and I found each other on social media and I was stunned to learn that Hayley (their name is not actually MacPhisto) was not a U2 fan at all until after they saw Stories of Surrender for the first time, in the spring of 2023. I was curious to learn how Bono’s one-man show propelled a neophyte into such extreme U2 fandom, so Hayley and I decided to have a virtual chat.
PJ: Achtoonbaby readers know me as an old-school U2 fan, a staunch Bono defender, and the Poet Laureate of the U2 fandom – according to Kelly Eddington. Can you introduce yourself to our adoring public?
Hayley: Yes of course! I’m Hayley St. James. That’s my pen-name. I named myself after New York City’s St. James Theatre where I saw my first Broadway show, and the show that saved my life — Something Rotten!, in which two playwright brothers have a rivalry with William Shakespeare, who is portrayed as a leather-clad rock star. Fitting! So that theater has a lot of meaning for me. And the name St. James just sounds good!
PJ: It’s a very cool name!
Hayley: The anglophilia accusations will never cease. It’s a very British-sounding last name for someone who loves all things British — and Irish too for that matter.
PJ: So apart from your name, who is Hayley St. James?
Hayley: I wear many hats. I am a published playwright – not produced yet, but I’ve had a lot of readings. Theater has been my longest passion in life. I was taken to my first play at four years old — I saw Peter Pan. It changed my life. Starting in 2008 I basically came to New York City every year to see shows, then moved to New York to actually get my degree in playwriting, but from about 2008 onward, music became a major thing for me, and during the pandemic, music was my outlet. Music got me through everything, so I’ve kind of pivoted. My passion is live music, fan engagement, community engagement. Music fan culture, specifically, and that’s the thing I’d wanna do with my life full time if possible. But I would work in music in any capacity.
PJ: I understand. Music has gotten me through entire decades of major and minor horrors. I believe I am twice your age.
Hayley: I’m thirty.
PJ: I am soon to be twice your age. I thought you were 18 when we met! Or a college kid, anyway.
Hayley: It’s probably the autism. I’m quite open about my autistic experiences on social media and in my writing, and am painfully aware that sometimes my brain’s wiring to certain special interests plus my short height and sorta baby face make me appear younger than I actually am.
PJ: Appearing young is certainly not a problem! So let’s talk about our shared special interest. You came to be a U2 fan by an unusual route. Please tell!
Hayley: Everybody is shocked when they find out that I’ve only been a U2 fan for just over two years. Coldplay was my main band most of my life.
PJ: Gentle readers will appreciate my kindness about this fact. (Just kidding, Hayley.) Let’s get into it! Because, to me, someone becoming a U2 fan after being a major Coldplay fan is sort of analogous to someone being a major Oasis fan and not knowing about the Beatles.
Hayley: U2 influenced Coldplay so much, there’s so much overlap, and it’s been kind of fun to discover that overlap. I got into Coldplay the week after my Bat Mitzvah, and getting into Coldplay was my real coming of age.
PJ: Ha, I love that! Mazel tov.
Hayley: And one of my best Coldplay friends is the one who got me into U2.
PJ: That’s an interesting trajectory, because for so many people it was the other way around.
Hayley: It is not the norm. It’s unorthodox.
PJ: Unorthodox is good! If I recall correctly, it was around 2019 that rumors began to circulate that Bono was writing a memoir. A couple of years later, when we knew it was a reality, Kelly and I did our “genre” parodies and then our MacPhisto version. We assumed Bono would do a tour where we would have to struggle with fans and celeb-seekers to get into book stores for a reading. So how fabulous that he decided to make it a one-man show! – especially as the pandemic was becoming less scary and we could get out more. How did you end up there? What happened?
Hayley: In 2022, just before Surrender came out, I spent the entire summer following Coldplay on tour: six shows in the U.S. and four shows in London. And while I was in London, I lost my job in New York [after my manager had assured me that wouldn’t happen]. I was depressed when I got back because of that, and I was looking for things to keep me cheerful, and my best friend asked if I wanted to go see Bono’s book tour with her. “Oh, you’ll probably like it, it’s kind of a theater thing!” Sounds fun, cool, okay. And she got tickets. She said I should start listening to some U2, so we listened to some albums, and we watched U2 Live At Red Rocks and ZooTV. I figured I would be listening at my own pace, and this would just be a thing to have in common with my best friend. I am deeply grateful to have such a close, dear friend.
And then we went to Bono’s show, and I just fell completely in love!
PJ: It’s hard not to!
Hayley: As someone who’s seen a lot of theater and who loves a one-person show, this was my first real experience with Bono, and it’s the most vulnerable, human — I always like to say he’s doing open-soul surgery.
PJ: He would LOVE that.
Hayley: I mean obviously he talks about his open-heart surgery in the show but it’s not even that! It’s his soul! He’s baring his soul on that stage for two hours. I don’t think I’ve fallen for a famous person that fast since probably pre-pandemic. It was crazy. And I was like, “Oh, okay I see you, Bono. This is gonna be fun.” And then I just started deep-diving the way I deep-dive any of my favorite artists when I get into them. But somehow it got to the point where two years later, U2 are actually tied with Coldplay as my favorite band. And sometimes, depending on who I’m talking to, I say they’re my favorite band.
(We indulge in a little sidebar about bad reviews U2 has received – particularly of the Rattle And Hum film and Songs Of Innocence – which we feel are unfair.)
Hayley: Songs Of Innocence is one of my favorite albums of all time. Literally shut up [critics]! It’s one of the most personal albums in U2’s entire discography. It ties in so well to the memoir and the film and the book tour. If I ever meet Bono I will thank him for that album.
PJ: Agreed completely, and he would love you for it. So, do you want to tell the folks how you came to be MacPhisto in some situations? You’re a really good one, too!
Hayley: Yes. It helps with the gender stuff. That’s really the big thing. My gender is the ZooTV tour, after all.
PJ: That’s a good gender. Mine is sadly much more basic. Can you expand on this — if you want to?
Hayley: I realized I was non-binary when I moved to New York in 2017 and became deeply aware my brain and soul did not love being trapped in an AFAB body [assigned female at birth – Ed.]. I remember vividly the first time I contemplated the possibility I was not my birth gender — I was seeing another musical, Natasha Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812, and this one beautiful androgynous man named Lucas Steele walked on stage, looking like David Bowie as a sexy Russian aristocrat, and I thought to myself “I kinda wish I could be as beautiful as him.” It all just kinda built up from there. My gender journey’s been as varied as my taste in performing arts!
As a queer and non-binary person, drag didn’t really fully enter my life until I moved back to NY post-pandemic. I’ve always loved drag and genderplay in general, and have gotten some mileage out of wearing full Chris Martin outfit replicas to Coldplay gigs, and I have a long history of cosplaying characters I find gender-affirming to dress as. But upon really getting into U2 and finding such comfort in Bono, I guess something in my brain switched and decided doing actual full drag for a very specific niche (my kingdom to meet even more queer U2 fans!) would be immensely satisfying. Gender is a performance! And there is something just a little androgynous about Bono.
Me: There are definitely plenty of queer U2 fans out there, and there is definitely something androgynous about Bono. Kelly and I have talked about this a lot. I call it “Bono’s Idiosyncratic Androgyny,” because he’s not ethereal like Bowie was, and he didn’t do the 80’s “gender-bender” thing either. But he has a playful softness about him, and for all his talk about “machismo,” he doesn’t really have any.
Hayley: Even The Fly, and even the Pop Era Muscles Guy [weren’t very “macho” or classically male]. His gender is Bono! I’m glad you mentioned Bowie, though. In my published play, the ghost of David Bowie is one of the main characters. He was my muse during the pandemic.
PJ: I love that. It’s important to have a muse. Let’s tell people where they can find your play if they want to read it. Oh, it’s right here! And let’s get back to your own version of MacPhisto. What made you do it?
Hayley: When I get into a band and I realize I love the frontman, I think, “But wait, I feel like I’d actually look good as them. When I saw ZooTV I thought I’d look good as MacPhisto.
PJ: You do! I’ve seen it!
Hayley: There’s something that’s a bit of musical theater about Bono. He can do anything or learn to do anything, and I’m glad the film [of Stories of Surrender] has been such a success. I wonder: Do I love it because I loved him so much to begin with, and I’m always glad to hear anything he has to say, and I love to hear him talk about himself, or is it just really that good? So it was nice to have people who aren’t obsessed, deranged fans actually appreciate the film. It’s also fun that [his live show] was my introduction to him, because it’s kind of just colored everything, and I love that my deep emotional attachment happened because my introduction was Bono at his most human, at his most vulnerable.
(We chat about Unforgettable Fire, the U2 tribute band, for a bit. Hayley has seen them many times, as opposed to my singular time. But I will be back guys! I’ll build a bridge across the sea and land!)
Hayley: At the Unforgettable Fire gig I was at last week, I was next to a seven-year-old child for the whole show. He was having the best time. Anthony [Unforgettable Fire’s “Bono”] gave him his rosary at the end of the show, and I’m a little jealous because I need that for costume work!
PJ: I’ll bet Anthony has zillions of them.
Hayley: Probably!
PJ: Give Hayley a Bono-rosary, Anthony! And Hayley, it has been so much fun talking to you. Anything else you’d like to share?
Hayley: Three more fun facts about me and U2:
I once talked to Coldplay’s Chris Martin about our mutual love of U2. He shut down the rumor that he was the backing vocals on “Iris” to my face. We both bonded over how much we love the lads, though. It was very cute, he gets so excited when people share interests with him.
My favorite U2 music video is probably “Electrical Storm,” simply because I like to describe it to non-fans as “the one where Larry boinks a mermaid.”
I have a crush on not only every member of the band, but also Ali and all of Bono’s kids.
PJ: I’m sorry to tell you, but that last item is fairly standard for U2 fans. Wanna tell the people where they can find you?
Hayley: I’m mostly on Discord these days at @peopleofthepride, doing admin duties for both the Coldplay server and One Tree Hill (the U2 server). I occasionally go on Twitter, at @hayleystjames, when I’m at Coldplay concerts specifically. I’m on Facebook too, but I mostly just use it for networking.
PJ: Awesome. Thank you, Hayley, for making yourself available to Achtoonbaby!
Hayley: *Puts horns on and immediately phases into an impeccable MacPhisto voice* You’ve made me very famous, and for that I thank you! *Takes horns off and smiles like an idiot* Seriously, though, thank you, you and this site are a joy. See you at the next UF show?
PJ: Thank you, you’re welcome, and we will definitely do some UF!
***
PJ here: If anyone can help me with the MacMystery of the MacPhisto I (mac)met in front of the Beacon Theatre on November 2, 2022, I sure would appreciate it, because [see “Crazy Pills” gif, above.] Maybe that MacPhisto was not decked out in full MacPhisto regalia. Maybe they were just another smallish person with a pixie cut who was wearing horns and cool lipstick. I don’t know! We’ve all been through a lot these last few years, but I really don’t want to start taking Prevagen just yet. Thanks, lovelies!