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Do you know this man? Compulsive artist or egotistical fraud? From his Dublin beginnings to the global pillage of Zoo TV, 40 friends and enemies tell the Secret Life of Bono.



Sinead O'Connor: was recording the theme song for a movie soundtrack by the Edge when she first met Bono. Her vitriolic and oft-quoted attacks on U2 in the early days are said to have dismayed Bono.

"The first time I met him he gave me an Ella Fitzgerald album and I love Ella Fitzgerald. I don't really know him. I think he's a good songwriter and he's a great singer. He's a little boy."



Paul Byrne: former In Tua Nua songwriter and drummer. One of the first songs In Tua Nua recorded was written by a 14-year-old Sinead O'Connor after Byrne heard her sing at his sister's wedding. Bono was a friend of Steve Wickham (of In Tua Nua and later, the Waterboys) who played electric violin on U2's War LP.

"It was Bono who instigated the Mother Records deal. He told Steve [Wickham] he was setting up a label. We called a meeting in a little cottage by the sea near Howth where we rehearsed. He said he wanted to call the label Mother and to use a little old granny in a wheelchair as a logo, just like in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. It was very wacky. He really is quite wacky, but he very quickly passed it on to Adam, the business brain in the label. Then the single was made and sat there for three months when they realized there was no 'record label' to take it any further. I never found him that serious...he was always a real joker. If he was meeting the whole band he was always into having a bit of fun and making wisecracks."



Terry O'Neill: a legend in the Irish music business. At 18 he "sold" management of Thin Lizzy for £150 so the band could get better equipment and have a stab at recording. Later a music publicist for Hothouse Flowers, the Pogues and Mother Records, he lost the latter job after a bitter falling out with U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr.

"I booked U2 into McGonagles lots of times in the early days, but the incident that always sticks in my mind was a couple of years later. They were just becoming a success abroad. I had a house in Harold's Cross and I was looking out the window one day and could have sworn I saw Bono running by the window. Then I saw him run by again in the opposite direction. So just as I went out the door, he runs in through the garden gate and I says, 'Bono.' And he says, 'Terry, I didn't expect to find you here. I'm looking for someone completely different.' I said, 'There's no such thing as a coincidence.' "



Kate Hyman: vice president A&R International, Imago Records and her husband, Phil Joanou: Rattle and Hum director, explain their sudden decision to fly to Las Vegas and get married in the Graceland Chapel on March 19, 1992.

KH: "What inspired us was...well, Bono was singing and in between songs he said, 'Let's go to Vegas and get married for a while.' And he should be careful what he says because there are some impressionable people in the audience, and we're two of them and we did it."

PJ: "We were not even sitting together at the time either. In fact, the subliminal advertising from the concerts is not on the screens, it comes from Bono -- it's not like 'Your Mother Is A Whore' or whatever."



Barry Devlin: former Horslips bassist, producer of early U2 singles, director of several U2 videos, scriptwriter, filmmaker and friend.

"They are a band who are very careful and sparing about how they put out the thing they call U2. There are two entirely separate entities -- there's the four guys and the way they are and what they do, and then there's this monster which is called U2. Nobody knows how that thing functions better than they do, nobody, and they're very careful about what they do with it. They take advice, but very sparingly. Nobody gets to go, "Well I know what U2 is, so I'm going to tell you...' They know what U2 is. You can't fault them, in a way. Whatever you make of it, it is an extraordinary and unique thing..."

"Yes, they document everything they do on video. They also have the good grace to can about 90 percent of it...But aside from the visual thing, this is the ticket that America has been waiting for. The last tour, people wanted Bono to save the world, but this tour is much more demanding, they want him to save the American recording industry."



Barbara Skydel: executive vice president, Premier Talent Agency, on her first meeting with U2 in 1980.

"We went out to dinner that night in Pete's Tavern near Greenwich Village. At one point I had to leave and Bono and Larry jumped up and said, 'Oh, we'll find you a taxi' -- they didn't want me to walk out alone. We went out and they were running down the street. We ran for about a block and they hailed a taxi for me and they said, 'Do you remember the restaurant we came out of, do you know how to get back?' They had actually forgotten and they wouldn't have known where to go..."



Frank Barsalona: president of Premier Talent, the world's biggest rock agency, on the first show he ever booked for U2 in America.

"The group comes in and I see them for the first time. And the only applause is from 100 people -- the rest of the audience are either hostile or silent. And I go, 'Oh my God, I've made a major blunder.' But the group starts and there's no panic in their demeanor -- as far as they're concerned those 2,200 people were their audience. And after that first number there's the stalwart 100 people and the rest do either nothing or boo.

"It was the most incredible way to have seen U2 for the first time, because it wasn't a pre-sold audience, it was an audience that was hostile, that they had to win and turn around. It was the most incredible thing, because with every song a little bit more of the audience would start listening and getting involved. So as the show developed you would see this wave from that 100 all the way back. About 60 or 70 percent of the audience were now listening, because once they got about 70 percent then they were loud enough and everyone else said, 'Oh, hold it, what are we missing?' Then they got everybody, and from that point on it was a triumph -- I think they got three or four encores, they probably could have done more, but they probably didn't have any. It was just so exciting, I was choked."



Fachtna O'Ceallaigh: a reporter on Dublin's Evening Press when he began a music management career with Clannad, and later discovering the Boomtown Rats. He helped out Bananarama before becoming general manager of Mother Records. He was fired when he described U2's role in Mother as "precious and meddling." He went on to manage Sinead O'Connor, and now manages the West London raga crew Dread Broadcasting Federation.

"Like almost all popstars, Bono -- Plastique Oh No! -- carefully picks and chooses his 'issues.' He has, for example, shamelessly turned a blind eye for years to the continuing existence of British controlled and funded death squads murdering his fellow countrymen and women. And when he has spoken about the war in Ireland, he has invariably mouthed the words of the oppressor against the oppressed. Like many others, he appears ashamed to be Irish. Musically he is the lard-arsed, pompous godfather of constipated white rock. I would recommend a strong laxative and early retirement."



Charlie Rafferty: former singer with the Real Wild West, now manages infamous Soho drinker the Coach and Horses, Jeffrey Barnard's local.

"I was at one of their earliest gigs in St. Brigid's hall in Finglas and they were supported by the Virgin Prunes. I remember Adam, Larry and the Edge were the backing band for the Prunes. But by the time I met Bono he was a post punk Cliff Richard. It was during the whole Mother debacle. We had this two-hour meeting with him in the Factory. He promised the sun, the moon and the stars. He made me feel spiritually enriched. He kept saying, 'I'll see if I can get this done and that done.' And I stopped him and said, 'Hang on a minute, you own the fucking company.' "



Anton Corbijn: photographer and man often credited as U2's "image-maker" for work on their videos and record sleeves.

"If it wasn't for that famous quote, 'Elvis is alive and he's bleedin' Irish,' the notion of Bono the singer would nearly have gone past me. No disrespect, it's just that he means so much more to me.

"This fellow Taurus has been in front of my camera more than anyone else, either in a Trabant, behind a cactus or in a dress, and he still argues. How brilliant!

"Always analyzing and constructively criticizing my work, he helped me grow in many ways -- and I am not just talking about bank accounts.

"In my pidgin English, Bono means good egg. He is my big brother and I love him."



Eamonn McCann: prime mover and student agitator in the Northern Ireland civil rights movement. Co-founded the People's Democracy Party with Bernadette Devlin. Rock columnist McCann and Terry O'Neill once wrote a film script for U2. He MCed the recent four-day San Francisco Festival of Celtic Arts and Music because they mistook him for B.P. Fallon.

"I can genuinely say from the first time I met him he was a star. He was a great performer but one of the few who learned his trade as he went along. He obviously studied how to be a rock 'n' roll star. I remember after the book (The Unforgettable Fire) and The Joshua Tree, and all that palaver, I was sitting in a pub in Dublin with him and people were taking no notice of him. The kids in the street used to laugh at him. Instead of being awestruck, they'd just laugh and jeer, 'Jaysus, it's Bono.' And he handled all that well. He's very likeable, even if some of his opinions and ideas are a bit wild.

"He couldn't sing well, he couldn't hold notes, but he sang as if he was singing brilliantly. In the early days, in the Gaiety Green Centre, he was the Eddie the Eagle of rock 'n' roll -- but unlike Eddie, Bono got better."



Dave Fanning: DJ who gave U2 their first radio exposure while he and producer Ian Wilson were working on Dublin pirate stations. When Wilson and Fanning were later recruited for national radio's 2FM pop station, Fanning invited U2 to air their debut single and ask listeners to nominate the A- and B-sides. He is still a close friend.

"I was in Bono's house a year ago and he showed me the gazebo down the end of the garden and said, 'I'm painting down there.' And I said, 'What color?' God, I really blew that.

"He is very committed, very sincere and very honest. Many people lost U2 when they went looking for their musical roots, but I thought that was great. Anyone who can appear on the cover of Vogue and keep their rock cred intact must be good. He used to waffle a lot, but he was a quotable person.

"I loved the growing up in public. Things they did like waving the white flags were embarrassing. Now he's less eager. Bono has mellowed and matured, so a lot of that stuff about him is redundant now. When they did that last show in the Point on New Year's Eve in 1989/90 he said they were going to go away and dream it all up again -- and they did it."



Gavin Friday: Island artist, former Virgin Prunes frontman and Bono's best friend.

"He lived at the other end of the road, Number 10 Cedarwood Road. I lived in the cul-de-sac; there was an almost subliminal divide in the road -- Protestants at one end and Catholics at the other. Bono was an interesting diversion because his mother was a Protestant and his da's a Catholic.

"I was shy and retiring apart from my clothes. I was into Marc Bolan and had an earring and I used to walk up the road past Bono and his gang, with Marc Bolan and Bowie albums under my arm. He approached me one day; he was wearing white jeans and a T-shirt and platforms. He had suddenly decided I was an interesting person to talk to. I was immediately suspicious. I was right, he just wanted to borrow my records. I got them all back with jam on them and lyric sheets missing.

"Bono had an old reel to reel and couldn't afford cassettes, so he borrowed records and recorded them on this reel to reel that belonged to his father. We all had a lot in common. We hated football. We hated sitting around the green drinking cider. So we all hung out together in Lypton Village, our gang, sitting around in each other's living rooms. We all painted and fantasized and plotted about becoming famous and changing the world. We gave each other names: Bono was called Bono Vox of O'Connell Street after the hearing aid shop down there; and I was called Gavin, because of my square-shaped head and Wavin pips, and Friday because I was able to get on with anyone.

"Bono is totally misunderstood. I find it hard to talk about him because we're like brothers. I know by the smell of him what mood he's in. He's probably one of the funniest guys I know. He's a fucking lunatic. He's all those things and those characters in Zoo TV, and they make sense to me.

"He's a performer, an entertainer, an artist. We formed bands at 15. We're not normal."



Jackie Hayden: of Hot Press. He was marketing manager with CBS (Ireland) which co-hosted a talent contest with the Evening Press in Limerick. U2 won, and first prize was a chance to record a single. Jackie numbered the first 10,000 limited editions by hand.

"There are two Bonos I know. Bono One is the marketing/media created saint with all the problems of the world on his shoulders and some of the answers in his heart. The other Bono knows that Bono One is not to be taken too seriously and is normal enough to steal your drinks at any time necessity or poverty or the true rock 'n' roll spirit demands it."



Bill Graham: writer and veteran rock journalist, one of U2's early champions who introduced them to their manager Paul McGuinness. Graham wrote the text for 1989's U2, The Early Days: Another Time, Another Place.

"When I went to Ethiopia five or six years ago, Concern (Irish Third World charity) said, 'We can take care of you when you get there, but you'll have to find the cost of the flight yourself. At the time it was something like £800, so we started asking around to see if anyone would sponsor the trip. We went to Principle Management and two days before the flight I had a long chat with Bono and he said, 'Go ahead.' When I got back I met Paul McGuinness and he said, 'Where did you get the tan?' And I said, 'Ethiopia, of course.' But he knew nothing about it, and it was then that I realized Bono had just paid for the ticket out of his own pocket.

"People who know him better always felt he was a funnier, more humorous person than has been portrayed. People who know him will know his instinctiveness and attentiveness and hyper alertness. The whole nature of U2 not using stage shows before means it exaggerated the emotive personality of the character at the front. The Zoo TV technology helps him because it allows him to show other aspects of his character."



Phillip King: singer, producer and director of Bringing It All Back Home and Rocky World, a documentary on Daniel Lanois.

"The first time I met him we (Scullion) were recording 'White Side of Night' in Windmill Lane ('80/'81) and Larry and Bono came into the Green Room with a copy of the new video, and they showed it to us and we had a perfunctory conversation. Years later I worked with him when we were making Bringing It All Back Home. I've always found Bono very engaging and interested in finding out things. It's a testament to the man that he's always inquisitive and interested. And if he has a lack of knowledge on a subject he won't be arrogant and pretend he knows about it. He'll call somebody and ask them.

"But they do move on. Three years after Bringing It All Back Home we were standing on a bridge in Montreal doing an interview and he's talking about making industrial rock music with Daniel Lanois in a freezing studio in Berlin. His inquisitiveness is the key, it's what keeps him going. There is great drive and tremendous energy in Bono."



The Edge: on Bono in Musician, March 1992.

"Maybe over our career our ability to create music that shows the full range of the personalities of Bono and the other members of the band was very poor -- but that's the truth. That guy is totally different to the way most people think of him. He's far funnier, takes himself far less seriously than most people think. He's wild, you know, he's not reserved, none of the clichés that spring to mind when you think of people's perception of him."



Jim Aiken: Irish promoter who has staged most of U2's major Irish concerts, including the New Year's Eve concert in Dublin's Point Depot, 1989/90, and this summer's final Zooropa '93 shows in Dublin and Cork.

"I have promoted U2 and I have met Bono on a number of occasions. The thing about him is, the impossible happens when Bono asks for it."



Keith Walker: of Power of Dreams

"Our album had just come out and people were asking us about 'I Don't Want to Go to Texas,' which was about them seeking their roots in America with B.B. King. So on the night of our first gig in the SFX (in Dublin) Bono sent us a bunch of flowers, a big chocolate cake, Smarties, a B.B. King record and some condoms. He thought it was really cool to do things like that, God help him. We sent him back a Dinosaur Jr. album and some of our own condoms. I think he's Mr. Cool now, he's really happening with his shades and all."



B.P. Fallon: U2 camp guru, Mr. Ramalama, King Boogaloo, the High Priest of Happiness...

"(Bono is) warm, generous, insecure, questing, believing, self-doubting, enormously talented, funny, shy, loyal, hard-working, sharp, determined, loving. I can't say any more because I'm a client of his."



Dave Pennefather: general manager, MCA Ireland and Mother Records.

"A few years ago when I had just started with MCA, the Damned came to play in the Top Hat in Dun Laoghaire. It was really stuffed and the lads from the band spotted Bono at a table in the corner. So they said they'd really like to say hello to him and could I set that up? I said I'd give it a go, and I went across and introduced myself and explained why I was there. He listened patiently and then he said, 'No.' I nearly died. I was faced with going back to the Damned and telling them what had happened. Then Bono said, 'I'll go over to their table and say hello. If they're visitors in my town then I should go up and say hello to them.' It doesn't sum the man up by any means, but it was a lovely attitude."



Chris Blackwell: MD of Island Records.

"The first time I saw U2 was at a small club in South London: it must have been of their earliest shows in Britain. I thought they were absolutely great. Everything seemed to be right: the singer brilliantly held the audience, the guitarist had a real streak of originality and the rhythm section kept the whole show together. I guess it's easy to say in retrospect that U2 were destined to become one of the world's greatest bands but, that evening, you had a real sense of their future."



Niall Shortall: U2 sound engineer in the early days who was dropped by the band. Has since toured with many Irish bands, most recently the Saw Doctors. Runs a studio maintenance company.

"I hold no grudges against anyone in the band and I occasionally see them around. The book (Eamonn Dunphy's Unforgettable Fire) was a real shock and what it said about me was completely untrue. We didn't part on bad terms -- our working relationship just changed.

"Bono was extremely devoted to his band and his religion at the time. He was careful not to break his own rules regarding sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll before marriage. We were typical roadies, devoted to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Adam began to lean our way until the band decided he should go theirs. I was a bit of a tearaway and I said the wrong things, but I don't regret it. If I'd been as devoted to them as they were to themselves I might be with them still."



Hugo McGuinness: friend and band photographer in the early days. Photographed the cover of the band's debut album, Boy.

"The band were playing in Dandelion Market on a Saturday afternoon and the place was always under one foot of water. Suddenly the PA went bang and everything fused. Then this guy walked in screaming and shouting at Eric, their roadie. He lifted up a cable from an amp, ran a lighter under it, stuck it in his mouth and bit the cable, exposing the wires. He plugged those directly into the amp and everything worked again. 'Who was that?' I said to Bono. 'That's Paul and he's our manager,' says Bono. 'Now you know why every band should have one.'

"I remember they were always playing jokes on each other. One night we were in the Yacht, a bar in Sutton (North Dublin suburb) and everyone was talking about this really important showcase that was coming up. The problem was Bono had been called for jury duty. Someone told him the only way he could get out of it was if he had a criminal record or he said he was homosexual. Bono was in a dilemma for days."



Patrick Brocklebank: fine artist and one of U2's early photographers.

"One time Bono was clowning around in my front room and he said, 'We've decided to relieve you of your silver.' And he picked up the family silver and put it inside his leather jacket.

"He was very interested in other bands. U2 worried about detail. There was a newsagent in Grafton Street and when their first cover story appeared in Hot Press they went down there to ask the newsagent what kind of people were interested in them. Bono is unique in many ways. He's concerned about things other people don't worry about."



Neil Storey: publicist and former head of Island Records' Press. Remembers Bono as one of the only major artists with whom he has ever developed an enduring friendship.

"I don't think Bono's any different from you or me, apart from the fact that he fronts a rock 'n' roll band. The real guy is warm, loving, caring, sharing and one of the funniest guys I've ever met. He's a great mimic and a master of the one-liner and a great host. There's a very private side to him and that's when you discover the warmth and the caring, sharing human being.

"They knew what they wanted from day one although the trappings were never that important. When October came out it went straight to Number One and I drew the short straw to present them with the gold discs. They were playing in the Lyceum supported by the Bunnymen, as far as I can remember, and I went down to present these things. But Bono was more interested in getting something to eat with Ali, who had just arrived in town. And I have this memory of him disappearing down the Strand with Ali and leaving me holding the gold discs. For some bizarre reason Bono has always been portrayed as a really serious person. He's very serious about what he does, but he's always portrayed as this serious person. Like with the current thing they have going (Zoo TV), they have to explain that it's a joke. It's either not a very good joke or something has been lost. It is inconceivable you should have to explain a parody to anyone."



Shane O'Neill: lead singer with the Blue Angels and former lead singer with Blue in Heaven.

"The Edge heard a tape of ours and he was impressed enough to offer us a support slot in Galway. This would have been around 1982. Then he offered to produce a demo for us down in Windmill Lane. Bono came to one of these sessions and spent some time with the Edge discussing guitar sounds -- we were in awe because they had names for individual guitar sounds. He told us our music was 'highway music.'

"Another thing about it all was just how much in control they were. There was always a feeling of 'drive' about them. We were really impressed that they took time out from such a heavy schedule to spend it with us. We were just before the Mother thing started, which was kind of a pity, but the demo helped us get signed in London."



Simon Carmody: drinking partner and singer with the Golden Horde, former Mother signing.

"There's a thing that's overlooked about Bono -- he's a good man to drink with. He'll drink you fucking dry. With Bono it's champers all the way.

"I'll never forget one night, there was myself, Bono, Cuddy, Bowyer and Dolan, all the lads, and we were having a bit of a session. And I put my hand in my pocket to get a round in, when Bono grabbed my arm and he said, 'Put your money away, it's no good here.' And he pulled out £15 and slammed it on the bar, and he said, 'Right lads, we're not leaving here 'til that's gone. And we didn't. We fell out of the place and it was early houses, the lot.

"And that's the kinda fella Bono is..."



Wayne Sheehy: former drummer with Cactus World News. More recently the drummer with Hinterland and the Sun Gods, and has just finished a tour of Japan with Ronnie Wood. Bono produced Cactus World News' The Bridge EP.

"We were in Windmill Lane II (St. Stephen's Green) and Bono had just got this really old green Humber. He was producing The Bridge EP for us, and every time we got a mix done we all piled in the car and drove round and around the Green listening to a cassette. At one stage the police followed us, but we waved and they must have recognized him.

"On one of the tracks, we were just sort of jamming -- it was 'Frontiers' -- and Bono got into Hiawatha mode and stripped down to his keks and wrapped himself in loo paper. He stood at the desk and finished the mix that way."



Jimmy Iovine: long-time U2 collaborator, produced Under a Blood Red Sky and parts of Rattle and Hum.

"In my old neighborhood, the jazz guys used to have a tag for something that was true and original. It was "The Shit." This was the ultimate tribute in Brooklyn, where we were bred to presume that most people were the opposite of The Shit, and that was Full of Shit. Bono is The Shit. After years spent working with such artists as John Lennon, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen, I have learned one important thing: the pain required to make a truly great record is almost unbearable because the journey sometimes leads to some very dark places. Most people are only willing to make that journey once or twice before they start taking shortcuts through Malibu. But Bono, Larry, Adam and Edge don't seem to be intimidated by the darkness. As a matter of fact, they often seem to take a perverse enjoyment in it. Bono, in particular, seemed to be having the most fun when I was on the verge of suicide. And out of that willingness to not only be at risk, but also find humor in it, comes some of the most amazing and death-defying tightrope walking I have ever seen."



Dermott Hayes: "the Andrew Morton of the Irish music industry," Sinead O'Connor biographer, Bono-watcher and Evening Press rock columnist.

"There are memories of a short, thick-set youth on a tiny stage in a derelict and waterlogged stable, singing his heart out on a Saturday afternoon in Dublin. The performance was all the more compelling for the singer's total self-possession in the face of loud opposition from some of the audience and his own amateur awkwardness, and melody, pitch and tune defying style. I hated him.

"That's what you did back then. A new band in Dublin was 'fucking brilliant' or 'fucking awful.' U2 were 'fucking awful,' Bono was a 'fucking eedjit' and him and his pals were a bunch of Bible-bashing bollocks. My own mindless prejudice kept me away from their music after Boy. With that album, I thought, they had said what they could say, now they would disappear. They didn't.

"In Dublin they are feared and admired. The awesome scale of their operation and its presence in this small city has always drawn fear and love, attraction, curiosity and repulsion. As the band has grown, so has their image. They sell newspapers now -- the birth of Bono and Ali's first child was front-page news. Rock stars like them are our Royal Family.

"Two years ago, one week before the release of Achtung Baby and shortly before Select's preview of the 'new U2,' I met him in the car park of Mother Records' Dublin dockside headquarters. He spoke about what his life depended on -- U2. He spoke about the need to explain and the fear of explaining.

"Caught in the web, Bono is an A-list star who just wants to be one of the lads. He never learned how, and it's too late to start now."



© Select, 1993. All Rights Reserved.

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