Bono turned 51 on May 10th. From a New York Times Magazine profile in 2005, an excerpt:
The band has been together ever since. Even Paul McGuinness, their manager, has been with them from the beginning. This is not only rare in the rock business; it is just about unheard-of. U2 is also one of the very few bands in which all revenue is shared equally; Bono and the Edge could have claimed the songwriting revenue but didn’t. Nor do any of them appear to have succumbed to drugs, alcohol or raging ego. Religion played an important role in the band members’ lives, if not always in their music; indeed, the band’s survival was threatened only when, early on, Bono, the Edge and Larry Mullen Jr. thought of leaving to join a Christian fellowship. Bono remains religious, and not in the cosmic, New Age sense you expect from rock stars. He describes himself as a “meandering Christian,” and his four children attend the Church of Ireland, which is Episcopalian (and thus splits the difference between his mother and father).
Wanted: Concert tickets for June 2011
