The lobbyist rock star
Bono brings passion to issues and music
 |  U2 lead singer Bono |
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 Rock star Bono is no stranger to center stage, both as U2's frontman and as a leader in the fight for social causes.
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(CNN) -- U2 lead singer Bono is just as comfortable meeting with the pope or world leaders to lobby for social causes as he is being onstage fronting the enduringly successful Irish rock band.
"Rock stars are good at making noise," Bono said, explaining his talent for publicizing issues important to him.
In May 2002, Bono and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill visited several countries in AIDS-ravaged Africa to draw attention to the acute needs of the poverty-stricken region -- one of many such humanitarian trips he's taken.
"When I'm on these trips I don't feel I'm an entertainer. I'm an activist," he said. "And I may appear friendly, and I may try to turn on what little charm I have. But deep down I'm very serious about these things and I'm very angry."
Bono was born May 10, 1960, in Dublin, Ireland, as Paul David Hewson, the second child of Iris, a homemaker, and Bobby, a postal worker. They were considered a mixed marriage by Irish standards because he was Catholic and she was Protestant.
He lost his mother in 1974 when she died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage. That fall, Bono entered the nondenominational, coeducational Mount Temple Comprehensive School. His years there would have an enormous influence on his life.
A band is born
Larry Mullen Jr., then 14, posted a notice on the school bulletin board in 1976 to recruit people for a band. Bono, 16, showed up for a jam session along with fellow students David Evans and Adam Clayton.
Around this time, a friend gave Bono his nickname after a Dublin hearing-aid store called Bonavox, which is Latin for "beautiful voice." Evans played guitar and also gained a nickname, the Edge, while Clayton played bass and Mullen was the drummer.
"We formed a band before we could play our instruments," Bono said. "It's really like a street gang, you know, people who are joined by their sense of humor and their sense of what they are against more than what they are for."
In 1980, the group released its first album, "Boy." Critics hailed the band for its original, shimmering sound, marked by the Edge's echoey guitar and Bono's yearning voice.
Only nine people attended one of U2's first London shows, according to the band's Web site. But the group built up a following through its original sound and soaring live performances.
U.S. success
The group's sound continued to evolve and so did its political voice. Its 1983 album, "War," featured "Sunday Bloody Sunday," about the conflict in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants, and "New Year's Day," a tribute to the Polish Solidarity movement.
U2 gave an electrifying performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert. The next year, the band headlined the "Conspiracy of Hope" tour that benefited the human rights group Amnesty International.
The band scored a major U.S. success with its 1987 album, "The Joshua Tree," and moved from arenas into stadiums for a major U.S. tour. The resulting concert film, "Rattle and Hum," reflected U2's growing interest in country music and the blues. But some critics attacked the soundtrack as an attempt by U2 to elevate itself to the status of rock icons like Bob Dylan.
In response, the band reinvented itself by adding industrial and electronic textures to its sound for the 1991 album "Achtung Baby." The band also radically revised its live act. The "Zoo TV" world tour featured the band playing while surrounded by video screens broadcasting an array of images, both taped and live, at the audience.
The band's willingness to innovate paid off artistically and financially. "Achtung Baby" and the follow-up record, 1993's "Zooropa," were critically acclaimed and the band has sold more than 75 million records total.
Staying grounded
|  In 1998, Bono joined forces with David Trimble, right, and John Hume, leaders of Northern Ireland's main Protestant and Catholic parties, at a Belfast concert to promote the Good Friday peace agreement. |
Despite all the success, Bono tried to stay grounded, working hard to carve out time for his growing family. He and his wife Ali met while at school at Mount Temple and were married in 1982. They have four children.
"I'm lucky I have an extraordinary friend that I've been married to for a long time, seems like [since] we were kids," Bono said.
In 2000, even though U2 was working hard on a new album, Bono devoted a large amount of time to Jubilee 2000, a campaign that lobbies Western governments to cancel the debts of Third World nations.
He met with several world leaders, including then-U.S. President Bill Clinton. But his most memorable lobbying effort was with Pope John Paul II.
Knowing the value of publicity, Bono handed the pope his rock star sunglasses, and the pontiff tried them on. Bono told the media afterward that John Paul was the first "funky pontiff." It snagged far more press attention than a dry speech.
"People have a short attention span; you need a picture of a pop star and a pope together, that usually gets their attention," Bono said.
U2 is going strong after more than two decades. Its last album, "All That You Can't Leave Behind," released in October of 2000, topped the charts in 31 countries.
The band's "Elevation 2001" tour ended in November 2001. Bono says the tour changed after the September 11 tragedy, as did the meaning of the band's music.
"If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair," he said.
U2 is currently working on a new album. Not afraid to poke fun at himself, Bono told Britain's Q magazine that the new record is "driven by a guitar player who's sick of the sight of me shaking hands with politicians."
He has continued to work on behalf of African AIDS victims, returning to Washington in December 2003 to lobby Congress to approve $2.4 billion in funding for Africa.
When asked in a CNN interview whether any of Democratic presidential candidates would be better advocates than President Bush, he answered like a nonpartisan lobbyist.
"I just want to work with the guy who writes the biggest check. And as it happens, that's President Bush. And he's been true to his word," Bono said.
But he added: "You know, writing it, then cashing it, that's the other bit."
