U2’s Bono claims his voice “opened up” after the death of his father
Bono has recently spoken about how he believes his voice changed after his father, Bob Hewson, died in 2000 from cancer. The U2 frontman had been promoting his new memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story when he began to discuss his father.
The Irish icon and his father are said to have had a complicated relationship, and when he died, Bono believes that the way that he sang changed. Bono believes that it’s something of an “unscientific theory, [a] folksy idea that when someone you love passes on”.
My voice opens up,” Bono said, “and there’s a physiological reason for that too because if you’re more relaxed as a person, your voice does open up. In the last few years, I’ve been singing in ways I never could have imagined.”
In the memoir, we discover that Bono’s dad told him he was “a baritone who thinks he’s a tenor.” But Bono didn’t necessarily get himself down about that; rather, he saw it as proof that he likes to “punch above [his] weight”.
As to the memoir’s title, Bono noted a contradiction to it and his personality, claiming that he was born with his “fists up” and is “naturally combative.” Bono said, “I need to be more silent and surrender to my band; it’s been at the core of what I’m trying to do with my life. [I need to] surrender to my wife, surrender to, you know, our maker. These are not things that come easy to me.”
“And when I say ‘surrender’, I do not mean making peace with the world,” Bono added. “I’m not ready to make peace with the world. I’m trying to make peace with myself, I’m trying to make peace with my maker, but I’m not trying to make peace with the world. The world is a deeply unfair place, and I’m ready to rumble. I’m keeping my fists up for that one.”
