大象传媒

Bono is one of the small number of global stars known by a single name, and together with three school friends he has enjoyed more than four decades of international success. Their band, U2, with Bono as the front-man, is one of the most successful acts in music history, selling more than 170 million albums and winning 22 Grammys – more than any other band. Even more remarkably, they’re still together 45 years on.

He’s combined his music career with high-profile activism, campaigning on issues including debt relief, poverty and HIV/AIDS. Here’s what we learned from his Desert Island Discs, which you can listen to first on 大象传媒 Sounds...

1. He knew he’d be a singer after a revelatory moment in the school gym

“I didn't start out as singer, for sure. And when I tried to sing like The Clash or whatever else, I just didn't have a great rock and roll voice,” explains Bono.

“I sang this song by Peter Frampton called Show Me the Way. It was in the high school gym, and the band were there, and we’re singing and we’re crap. It's an awful mess.”

“But when I sang that song, something went off and... I turned the song, a teenage boy turned this song into a prayer. Honestly, at the time I didn't tell the band, but something in me was just wanting to know what to do with my life.”

Show Me the Way, recorded by Peter Frampton, is Bono’s first choice of disc for the desert island.

2. His father found a way to bridge the religious division within the family

Bono’s mother was a Protestant and his father a Catholic.

“I think my father's family didn't turn up at their wedding,” says Bono “and there were some issues.”

“My father, was very, very elegant about all this. And he used to drive us to Saint Canice's Church of Ireland church, because he felt that my mother should have the choice in what religion we grew up in. So we went to this little Church of Ireland church and then he would drive to Saint Canice’s the Catholic church that was 100 yards away.“

“It was so mad. You know they say you get just enough religion to inoculate you against it. I didn't. They spared me, both of them, from any doctrinal stuff.”

3. Bono’s second choice of disc brings together two of his great heroes

“This very morning,” explains Bono, “I walked to Piccadilly and there's a Christopher Wren building there, a church and you can just sit there.”

Bono is talking about St James's Church in the heart of London, not far from Piccadilly Circus. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the church was consecrated in 1684.

“But on my way in,” continues Bono, “I saw this is where William Blake was baptised and I saw on the door written there on the plaque:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand”

The words are from the poem Auguries of Innocence by the poet, painter and printmaker William Blake.

“This,” explains Bono, “must have been in the back of Bob Dylan’s mind [when he wrote] Every Grain of Sand,” a song from 1981, and another of Bono’s choices.

Two U2 album titles, Songs of Innocence and the follow-up Songs of Experience, are taken from William Blake's collection of poems Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

4. He’s kept his teenage nickname – and thinks he did better than his friend

Until he was a teenager, Bono was known as Paul Hewson. His friend, who lived a few doors away, was called Derek Rowen.

“[We were] like a street gang, but humour was the weapon we chose to defend ourselves,” Bono recalls. And finding new names was part of their humour: Paul became Bono, and Derek became Guggi.

“We gave each other the names,’” says Bono. “Guggi, I gave him his name - I think I might have won! He gave me the name Bono, and I've been known as Bono since I was 14 or 15 years old.”

The name Bono came from a Dublin hearing aid shop called Bono Vox.

5. Early U2 rehearsals were rough – but their drummer saved them

In September 1976 Bono auditioned for a band at school with drummer Larry Mullen Jr, The Edge who played guitar and Adam Clayton, the bassist.

“Larry posted a notice on our Mount Temple comprehensive school board. It's a free school, non-denominational, pretty experimental school, so posh people get to meet not so posh people - like me. And Adam arrives.”

“He's been thrown out of a posh boarding school and he walks in and people are going ‘Like whoa, wow, who’s that?’ And he's going: ‘Where's the smoking room?’ What smoking room?” continues Bono.

“Edge was following him around because he was his friend, and Edge therefore wouldn't tell us that Adam couldn't play. But Larry could, and even though we were really crap it was just brilliant.”

“The noise, the sound of a real drum kit, the silver and gold of the cymbals, the orchestral sound of those cymbals. You know, a kind of out-of-tune extraordinariness, it was still extraordinary and even when we eventually got a record deal we were still very, very erratic.”

6. Bono’s high-profile campaigning sometimes led to conflicts with his band mates

“It was very difficult for the band to see me in certain company,” says Bono. “It was excruciating for them, but they gave me their blessing.

“I do remember Edge very early on saying to me, ‘but please not Senator Jesse Helms,’ who was a sort of right-wing firebrand,” explains Bono.

The late US Senator Jesse Helms had introduced legislation to prohibit the use of central government funding for HIV/AIDS educational material which might ‘promote homosexual activities,’ but later supported AIDS education and care in Africa.

“He was really helpful,” explains Bono “And Edge said, ‘But you'd never invite him to a U2 show,’ and I said, ‘I have,’ and he came with his wife.”

“He had given me the blessing as he said, he'd repented for the way he'd spoken about AIDS publicly on the steps of the Senate.”

“There's a picture of Edge dodging him in the backstage area. But you don't have to agree with everyone and everything, if the one thing you agree with them on is important enough.“

7. Bono’s final choice of disc comes from a band who were a vital early influence

“I remember meeting them in our 20s and I remember just thinking wherever they were, wherever they were sitting, wherever they were staying, whatever city they were playing in, they were in the moment fully.”

“Very few people get to own a sound and I think in U2 we've gotten to own certain colours of the spectrum that we own, or certain feelings that I think are ours. Well, some of them are from [this band].”

“You'll feel some early U2 in it and we learned it from them.”

The song is Someone Somewhere (In Summertime) and the band is Simple Minds. It’s a song which Bono feels expresses great hope,something he would want with him if he was castaway to a desert island.

8. Life alone on the island will give him plenty of time for guitar practice

Bono’s choice of a luxury item is a guitar – a Spanish guitar which was a gift from his mother-in-law.

And he says he would aim to improve his playing, recalling that he’s struggled with the instrument in recent years after damaging his fingers in a cycling accident.

“I remember saying to the band after the accident, ‘I don’t think I can play guitar. And they were looking at me [saying] ‘When could you ever?’” he laughs.