His inner circle suggested that he cancel the shows, but Bono wouldn’t hear of it. And for the first time in his career, maybe even his life, he accepted his limitations. He kept the dates but stood still during performances. “I started to realize I had just been shouting for a living,” he says. As one fourth of U2—a band in which, famously, everyone has equal say and an equal stake in the revenue from the music—Bono has spent much of his life locked in a game of creative tug-of-war. But the filmmaker behind Blonde and Killing Them Softly pushed the singer in ways he didn’t expect.

  • Bono shares an anecdote that he was standing next to Clayton when the latter received a text from JJ Burnel, a punk legend and bassist for the London band the Stranglers.
  • He made it past a serious health scare (one that he’d played down in public) and emerged with a more balanced perspective on how to enjoy the everyday pleasures in life.
  • Accusations of tax avoidance have burbled over the years, though Bono has always been quick to remind people that nothing they’ve done is illegal—and that they do indeed pay a shitload of taxes.
  • “House parties, dance parties, our mates,” as he recalls of the early days’ scene.
  • They are working with Brian Eno again—the superproducer behind The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and Zooropa.
  • The results aren’t just in the work; they’ve had a butterfly effect on his whole life—setting him free of decades’ worth of pent-up rage and resentment.

Personal life

At some point, he even caught some Love Island. Not as much as he should, but more than he had. And as his foundations (RED) and ONE chugged along, he finally reconsidered his involvement. “Maybe I should fuck off into the background,” the thinking went. Mainly, he spends a lot of time here alone. “Working like a dog, living like a shih tzu,” he quips.

“This place saved our musical lives,” says Bono a few days later, sitting in one of the living rooms. The space around us is stunning but informal. Two big gray couches, a wall of windows to stare at the sea. A piano in the corner and a giant fireplace behind us.

How did he get his start in music and when did he form U2?

As comfortable as he is here, after all these years he hasn’t adjusted his wardrobe to the setting. While his neighbors are walking around in linen skirts and pastel vacation wear, he’s dressed like a rock star from Dublin in black jeans, a black V-neck T-shirt, and an army-green chore coat. Led by vocalist Bono, U2 gained popularity on a global scale that few musicians have ever experienced.

  • His inner circle suggested that he cancel the shows, but Bono wouldn’t hear of it.
  • In 2016, Bono was flat on his back, chest cut wide open, in the operating room of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
  • He opens with the devastating and dramatic tale of his 2016 surgery to repair a potentially fatal aortic aneurysm, leaping on a table that will become symbolic for many reasons in the show.

Bono Has Another Story to Tell

But as much introspection as Bono may have done here by the Mediterranean, it’s not in his nature to sit idle or live in the past. The relentless drive that has propelled the singer and his band for nearly fifty years now is very much still there. And much like in his early years in the South of France, he’s feeling newly energized. U2 is in the studio working on songs—perhaps the band’s first album of new music in nearly a decade—and his excitement about the material is palpable.

Film

In 2022 it was given a Kennedy Center Honor. Bono (born May 10, 1960, Dublin, Ireland) is the lead singer for the popular Irish rock band U2 and a prominent human rights activist. The origin story of U2 has become part of the band’s mythology over the decades. In 1976, fourteen-year-old Larry Mullen Jr. hangs a flyer on the bulletin board of his Dublin high school, Mount Temple, reading, “Drummer seeks musicians to form band.” Paul Hewson, David Evans, and Adam Clayton all show up. Mullen knew how to play his instrument, the drums. And Evans (you know him as the Edge) was showing early signs of guitar-god talent.

The U2 frontman spent the past few years reexamining his life and career. Now he’s back with new projects, new music—and a fresh sense of urgency to change the world. ” Bono says with a smile before imitating Bob, who died in 2001, bellowing at him as a teenager, as he does with that subtle head turn in the show. You’re the baritone who thinks he’s a tenor,’ ” Bono sneers before pulling out of character.

He shares the unfathomable story of his mother collapsing at her father’s funeral and dying that day from an aneurysm when Bono was only 14. Bono’s life and career have been shaped by his passion for music, his Christian faith, and his desire to make a difference in the world. TED rejected the third wish as being a sub-optimal way for TED to help Africa244 and instead organised a TED conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Bono attended the conference, which was held in June 2007. His eldest, Jordan, got him into https://p1nup.in/ Fleabag. His second daughter, Eve, an actress who has found onscreen success in Bad Sisters and The Perfect Couple, introduced him to The Kardashians.

Bono’s most high-profile trip occurred in May 2002 when he traveled throughout Africa with U.S. In addition, in 2006 he helped create (Red), a project of the ONE Campaign that partners with companies and consumers for donations to fight AIDS in Africa. From the 2010s, however, Bono’s activism has mostly taken place behind the scenes.

And Dominik wouldn’t tolerate anything that felt performative. While they were rehearsing one particularly intense set piece, Bono recalls standing up on a wooden table (in that moment representing a hospital bed) and playing both himself and his father, Bob Hewson, during his father’s final breaths. He was going for it—screaming his father’s final, explicit words—but it wasn’t enough for the filmmaker.

He embraced long lunches and late nights. “House parties, dance parties, our mates,” as he recalls of the early days’ scene. Bono flourished, finding lightness in himself for the first time in a long time. Bono is an Irish singer-songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band U2. The group was first formed in Dublin in 1976 and have had hits like With or Without You and Beautiful Day.Born as Paul David Hewson, Bono is also known as an activist and philanthropist.

They hadn’t yet learned how to enjoy it. Yeats was buried just down the road,” says Bono near the end of our first afternoon together, name-checking the famed Irish poet. It’s early April and the U2 singer is walking me up the driveway of his vacation estate in the South of France, toward my waiting car.

He’s gone deep within himself and come out different. Using empty chairs as stand-ins, Bono unwraps his U2 mates Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton and his brother in all but name, the Edge. In his 25 performances, Bono – one of the most mega of music stars on the planet – played to intimate theater crowds a fraction of the size of the stadiums U2 commands and learned that sometimes the most gripping props are an empty chair and a spotlight. He is best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the Irish rock band U2, which has sold over 150 million albums worldwide and won 22 Grammy Awards.