Bono was born Paul Hewson on May 10, 1960, in Dublin, Ireland. His father Bobby, a postal worker, was Catholic, while his mother Iris was Protestant.
Paul was originally nicknamed "Bono Vox" by his friend, Guggi, a high school cohort who stole it from a hearing aid store on O'Connell Street in Dublin. Fittingly enough, the original moniker meant "good voice" in cockeyed Latin. Paul later shortened it to Bono, which remains his name to this day.
Described by Bobby as "a bloody exasperating child", Paul got a reputation at an early age for being both absent-minded yet argumentative...traits which earned him the unholy and ironic nickname "the Antichrist" from both family and friends.
At the age of 15, Paul suffered a tragic and devastating loss, when his mother died of a brain aneursym while attending the funeral of her own father. (It's this incident which many fans and writers alike speculate may be the reason Bono has such a restless and inquisitive nature).
One day in 1976, he answered an ad posted on a bulletin board at the Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, asking for anyone who was interested in forming a band to meet after school at the house of one Larry Mullen Junior.
Bono joined Sting, Paul McCartney and dozens of other musicians in Bob Geldof's charity supergroup Band Aid; their 1984 single "Do They Know It's Christmas" sold three million copies and raised millions of pounds for famine relief in Africa..
Bono joined Sting, Paul McCartney and dozens of other musicians in Bob Geldof's charity supergroup Band Aid; their 1984 single "Do They Know It's Christmas" sold three million copies and raised millions of pounds for famine relief in Africa..
In 1987, U2 rose to superstardom with The Joshua Tree and Bono was quickly placed in the center of international media attention. His righteously candid interviews -- combined with a tendency to preach on stage -- eventually made him the target of the press' more cynical circles.
