Bono
Paul David Hewson, known by the nickname Bono, is an Irish singer-songwriter and activist. He is a founding member, the lead vocalist, and primary lyricist of the rock band U2. Bono is known for his impassioned vocal style as well as his grandiose songwriting and performance style. His lyrics frequently include social and political themes, and religious imagery inspired by his Christian faith.
Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where in 1976 he began dating his future wife, Alison Stewart, as well as forming, with schoolmates, the band that became U2. During U2's early years, Bono's lyrics contributed to the group's rebellious and spiritual tone. As the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with the other members. As a member of U2, Bono has received 22 Grammy Awards and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Aside from his music, Bono is an activist for social justice causes, both through U2 and as an individual. He is particularly active in campaigning to fight extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa, for which he co-founded DATA, EDUN, the ONE Campaign, and Product Red. In pursuit of these causes, he has participated in benefit concerts and lobbied politicians and heads of state for relief. Bono has received numerous honours for his philanthropic efforts, including being named one of the Time Persons of the Year in 2005, being granted an honorary knighthood by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom in 2007, being made a Commandeur of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2013, and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the United States in 2025. Bono has also attracted criticism for bypassing African businesses in his activist efforts and for tax avoidance in his personal finances.
Outside the band, he has recorded with numerous artists. He has collaborated with U2 bandmate the Edge on several projects, including: songs for Roy Orbison, Tina Turner, and Martin Garrix; and the soundtracks to the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and a London stage adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. In business, he invested in the refurbishment of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin, and was managing director and a managing partner of the private equity firm Elevation Partners, which invested in several companies.
Early life
Paul David Hewson was born in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin on 10 May 1960, the second child of Iris and Brendan Robert "Bob" Hewson, then living in Stillorgan on Dublin's Southside. His brother, Norman, is eight years older than he is. Bono's family moved to a new house on Cedarwood Road, between the Northside suburbs of Finglas and Ballymun when he was six weeks old, and he grew up there.The Hewson brothers grew up in an interdenominational Christian household; their mother was a member of the Church of Ireland, and their father was a Roman Catholic. Both parents initially agreed that the first child would be raised Anglican and the second Catholic. Although Bono was the second child, he also attended Church of Ireland services with his mother and brother, while his father also sometimes brought him to Mass at the nearby Catholic church, St Canice's. In 2000, Bono learned that Scott Rankin, a relative he thought to be his cousin, was actually his half-brother; Rankin was the offspring of an affair that Bob Hewson had with his wife's sister Barbara.
Bono attended a Protestant primary school, Glasnevin National School, rather than the local Catholic-managed primary school in Ballymun. His teenage musical idols were Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan of T. Rex. After attending St. Patrick's Cathedral Grammar School for a year, Bono moved to Mount Temple Comprehensive School, a multi-denominational school in Clontarf.
Bono's mother died on 10 September 1974, three days after suffering a ruptured cerebral aneurysm at her father's funeral. Many U2 songs, including "I Will Follow", "Mofo", "Out of Control", "Lemon" and "Tomorrow", focus on the loss of his mother. He said "because of the way I grew up in Finglas—sleeping on a couch, or because my mother died when I was a kid, I was in the house on my own a lot of the time, so I'd knock on the door of the Hanveys at teatime, or the Rowens at lunchtime."
During his childhood and adolescence, Bono and his friends were part of a surrealist street gang called "Lypton Village". Two of his closest childhood friends, the artist Guggi and the musician Gavin Friday, lived on the same street; Guggi was also in Lypton Village. The gang had a ritual of giving nicknames. Bono had several names: first, he was known as "Steinhegvanhuysenolegbangbangbang", then just "Huyseman", followed by "Houseman", "Bon Murray", "Bono Vox of O'Connell Street", and finally just "Bono". "Bono Vox" is a modified form of Bonavox, which is the name of a hearing aid shop just off Dublin's principal street, O'Connell Street. The name derives from the Latin phrase for "good voice". The nickname was given by Guggi; Bono initially disliked it but after learning of its translation, he accepted it. Hewson has been known as "Bono" since the age of 14 or 15. In addition to it being his stage name, close family, friends and fellow band members also refer to him as Bono.
After Bono left school, his father told him he could live at home for one year, but if he was not able to pay his own way, he would have to leave the house.
Musical career
U2
On 25 September 1976, Bono, David Evans, his brother Dik Evans, and Adam Clayton responded to an advertisement on a bulletin board at Mount Temple posted by fellow student Larry Mullen Jr. seeking people interested in forming a rock band. The band had occasional jam sessions in which they did covers of other bands. Tired of long guitar solos and hard rock, Bono wanted to play the Rolling Stones and Beach Boys songs. The band could not play covers very well, so they started writing their own songs.The band went by the name "Feedback" for a few months, before changing to "The Hype" later on. After Dik Evans left the group to join another local band, the Virgin Prunes, the remaining four officially changed the name from "The Hype" to "U2". Initially, Bono sang, played guitar and wrote the band's songs. He said of his early guitar playing in a 1982 interview, "When we started out I was the guitar player, along with the Edge—except I couldn't play guitar. I still can't. I was such a lousy guitar player that one day they broke it to me that maybe I should sing instead. I had tried before, but I had no voice at all. I remember the day I found I could sing. I said, 'Oh, that's how you do it. When The Edge's guitar playing improved, Bono was relegated mostly to the microphone, although he occasionally still plays rhythm guitar and harmonica. As of 2006, Bono has taken piano lessons from his children's piano teacher as a means to improve his songwriting.On 13 July 1985, U2 performed at the Live Aid benefit concert at Wembley Stadium before a crowd of 72,000 fans and a worldwide television audience of 1.5 billion people. During a 12-minute performance of "Bad", Bono climbed down from the stage to embrace and dance with a female fan he had picked out of the crowd, showing television viewers the personal connection that he could make with audiences. Bono's impromptu departure from the stage extended the length of "Bad", cutting into their allotted time and forcing them to drop "Pride ", their biggest hit at the time, from their setlist. The group initially regarded the concert as a missed opportunity, but many journalists called their performance one of the show's highlights; The Guardian cited Live Aid as the event that made stars of U2 and their performance as one of 50 key events in rock history.
File:Sting-Bono-Conspiracy of Hope-by Steven Toole.jpg|thumb|Bono with Sting during A Conspiracy of Hope in 1986
Bono writes the lyrics for almost all U2 songs, which often have social and political themes. His lyrics frequently allude to a religious connection or meaning, evident in songs such as "Gloria" from the band's album October and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from The Joshua Tree. During the band's early years, Bono was known for his rebellious tone which turned to political anger and rage during the band's War, The Joshua Tree, and Rattle and Hum eras. Following the Enniskillen bombing that left 11 dead and 63 injured on 8 November 1987, the Provisional IRA paramilitaries threatened to kidnap Bono. IRA supporters also attacked a vehicle carrying the band members. These acts were in response to his speech condemning the Enniskillen bombing during a live performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Bono had been advised to cut his on-stage outburst from the Rattle and Hum film, but it was left in.
The film also contains footage of the band's 11 November 1987 free "Save the Yuppies" concert at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, during which Bono spray-painted "Rock N Roll Stops the Traffic" on the Vaillancourt Fountain sculpture. Bono was criticised by Mayor Dianne Feinstein and faced a misdemeanour for defacing public property. He apologised in a written statement to local officials, and the band's promoter Bill Graham agreed to pay to clean up the graffiti. With the band feeling a sense of musical stagnation towards the end of the Lovetown Tour, Bono hinted at changes to come during a 30 December 1989 concert; before a hometown crowd in Dublin, he said on stage that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again".
U2's sound and focus dramatically changed with their 1991 album, Achtung Baby. Bono's lyrics became more personal, inspired by experiences related to the private lives of the members of the band. During the band's 1992–1993 Zoo TV Tour, Bono assumed a number of costumed stage personae in an attempt to be more lighthearted and escape the group's reputation of being overly serious and self-righteous. Bono said: "All through the Eighties we tried to be ourselves and failed when the lights were on. Which is what set us up for Zoo TV. We decided to have some fun being other people, or at least other versions of ourselves." Bono's primary persona during the tour was "the Fly", which originated from him wearing an oversized pair of blaxploitation sunglasses, given to him by wardrobe manager Fintan Fitzgerald, to lighten the mood in the studio. He developed the persona into a leather-clad egomaniac, and described his outfit as having Lou Reed's glasses, Elvis Presley's jacket, and Jim Morrison's leather trousers. To match the character's dark fashion, Bono dyed his naturally-brown hair black. In contrast to his earnest stage demeanour of the 1980s, as the Fly, Bono strutted around the stage with "swagger and style", exhibiting mannerisms of an egotistical rock star. He often stayed in character as the Fly away from the stage, including for public appearances and when staying in hotels.
For his "Mirror Ball Man" stage character, Bono dressed in a shining silver lamé suit with matching shoes and cowboy hat. The character was meant to parody greedy American televangelists, showmen, and car salesman, and was inspired by Phil Ochs' Elvis persona from his 1970 tour. Bono said that the character represented "a kind of showman America. He had the confidence and charm to pick up a mirror and look at himself and give the glass a big kiss. He loved cash and in his mind success was God's blessing." Mirror Ball Man appeared during encores of concerts in 1992 and made prank calls from the stage, often to the White House in an attempt to reach U.S. President George H. W. Bush. Bono portrayed this alter ego on the first three legs of the tour, but replaced him with "MacPhisto" in 1993. MacPhisto was created to parody the devil and was named after Mephistopheles of the Faust legend. As MacPhisto, Bono wore a gold lamé suit with gold platform shoes, pale makeup, lipstick, and devil's horns on his head. As the character, Bono spoke with an exaggerated upper-class English accent, similar to that of a down-on-his-luck character actor. According to him, "We came up with a sort of old English Devil, a pop star long past his prime returning regularly from sessions on The Strip in Vegas and regaling anyone who would listen to him at cocktail hour with stories from the good old, bad old days." As MacPhisto, Bono continued his routine of making in-concert prank calls, targeting local politicians and mocking them by engaging them in character as the devil; he said, "When you're dressed as the Devil, your conversation is immediately loaded, so if you tell somebody you really like what they're doing, you know it's not a compliment."
During performances, Bono attempts to interact with the crowd as often as possible. He is known for pulling audience members onto the stage or moving himself down to the physical level of the audience. In 2005, during U2's Vertigo Tour stop in Chicago, he pulled a boy onto the stage during the song "An Cat Dubh / Into the Heart". Bono has often allowed fans to come on stage and perform songs with the band.
While accepting the 2003 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Hands That Built America", Bono called the award "really, really fucking brilliant!" during the live television broadcast. In response, the Parents Television Council condemned Bono for his profanity and started a campaign for its members to file complaints with the FCC. Although Bono's use of "fuck" violated FCC indecency standards, the FCC refused to fine NBC because the network did not receive advance notice of the consequences of broadcasting such profanity and the profanity in question was not used in its literal sexual meaning.
In apparent reaction to the refusal, a group of congressmen introduced House Resolution 3687, the "Clean Airwaves Act", on 8 December 2003, aiming to amend section 1464 of title 18 of the United States Code to provide an explicit list of profane words and phrases and remove ambiguity that could enable certain uses of the phrases to be allowed. The bill was not enacted. The incident has had a long-term impact on the handling of profanity on live broadcasts.
U2 were criticised in 2007 for moving part of their multimillion-euro song catalogue from Ireland to Amsterdam six months before Ireland ended a tax exemption on musicians' royalties. Under Dutch tax law, bands are subject to low to non-existent tax rates. U2 manager Paul McGuinness stated that the arrangement was legal and customary and businesses often sought to minimise their tax burdens. The move prompted criticisms in the Irish parliament. The band later responded by stating that approximately 95% of their business took place outside Ireland, and that they were taxed globally because of this. Bono was one of several wealthy figures whose tax arrangements were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008.