Bono has said he doesn’t like when fans call him by his real name.
The U2 frontman opened up about the origins of his fellow band members' nicknames when he spoke about his own name, Paul Hewson.
Speaking to Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio UK show, Bono said his father was the last person to call him by his real name, Paul, and he would prefer if fans just called him Bono.
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He said: “I've been called a lot of things over the years! I was three years old, [my friend] was four, and we had a sort of street gang into our teens and I had many nicknames. I'm very pleased that I qualified to Bono, even that is tricky in some quarters.
“We gave each other names that sound off our head, like, the Edge was never going to be David Evans.
“The really significant thing is, I suppose, that we decided to be called by those names when we went out into the public, because it implies a kind of intimacy with your audience, which is nice. Some people will occasionally come up to me and say, ‘Hey, Paul, how are you doing Paul?’ as if that's getting close. The last person to call me Paul was my dad, and he's dead. So don't call me Paul.”
The Dubliner also revealed that the band still champion the phrase ‘U2 can happen to anyone’.
“If U2 means anything, outside of music, it's that these people who really didn't have much, could have everything if they were ready to sublimate their ego and work together. That's what the story of U2 is. We shared everything, we lived our values. We succeeded with all our limitations. It's kind of amazing,” he said.
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