My real name isn't Gavin. I was given Gavin Friday by my friends. I'm christened Fionan Hanvey, which is Gaelic and there is no actual English translation. I hated it as a kid but as I grew up I sort of went, "Now I like it."

Friday was added to my nickname because I have a talent of getting on with most people. So it's a bit of a man Friday thing.

We had similar interests with Derek Rowan and Paul Hewson; it sounds really pretentious at 12, 13 year old kids were like into art and poetry, but we were. We weren't into football, we were into making music or being into music and painting and stuff like that. And we called this sort of little gang Lypton Village and we made up imaginary games and this is one day we'll form bands and one day we'll make movies and one day we'll do this and one day we'll do that. A lot of kids do this in their own way, except 25, 30 years later legend happens because some of us have become quite well known.

What's so great is that we're making money for AIDS in Africa. There's a lot of love and spontaneity, we're doing something creative. That's what I love about Red. It's not just a charity, "Give us money, give us money." It's being innovative. Like here's a show that you won't see anywhere else and you can come and whatever you pay for your ticket it's going somewhere. You can go and buy a pair of Armani shades, like Bono, but the money goes to Africa. It's quite cool.

My main influences - I loved art. I sounds a little pretentious to say I was into art but I liked drawing. I liked music; music was my outlet from day one. I was giving you an image of Ireland being this dull, grey, massive unemployment, not much going on and the future was the dull queue or - and, for me, the window of hope was music and books. So I fell in love with sort of T-Rex and David Bowie very young. They sort of said, "Hey. You don't have to live in this north side of Dublin that's all grey and depressed. You can be a spider and go to Mars."

We don't have a long of natural resources as a country; we have a very beautiful country. Visually, I mean, everyone goes on about it's green, it's the mountains and the rivers and it's clean and it's not that populated. It is stunningly beautiful, but we've no oil. We've no coal. We've no money. We just have Ireland.

I think a lot of kids do dream in their own way, except 25, 30 years later legend happens because some of us have become quite well known. So the myth becomes magical. So I tend to sort of see it very practical for me. When I go out for a drink, Bono can buy the pints because he has more money than me. We're the same guys, do you know what I mean.