Bono Talks 'Stories of Surrender', U2's Legacy, Larry Mullen Jr.'s Medical Leave & More

06-12-2025

Irish rock legend and U2 lead singer Bono sits down with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to discuss his new documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender, now streaming on Apple TV+. During the candid interview, Bono opens up about fellow bandmate Larry Mullen Jr.'s medical leave, reflects on U2's iconic Live Aid performance, and more.

The full interview aired for free Thursday, June 12 on Apple Music 1, and is available anytime on demand with an Apple Music subscription here. The Zane Lowe Show on Apple Music 1 sent over some highlights:

Bono Tells Apple Music about having Noel Gallagher and his son attending his one man show performance for "Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief..."
It was a funny moment, this table and chairs. Noel Gallagher and his son came to see us in London, and I'm standing up at the very opening. If you make it through the first three minutes of "Stories of Surrender", you're going to be okay. This table can become operating theater, it did, where I would get my heart surgery.

It can become a kitchen table, where all operas really start in the family, and it can become the hospital bed where you say goodbye to your father. That table and chair is important, and then I get up on it, as you know in the first few minutes. Noel Gallagher came to see us with his son, and his son says, "Bono's lost the plot. Ah, he's up on the kitchen table." He's a kiddo.

Bono tells Apple Music the greatest lessons to take from his book, "Surrender"
If I have any regrets, it's a lot of book. That's why I call it 40 Short Stories. The lesson, if you're asking me, is a practical one, something to do with the daily practice of writing. The other one is to shut up and listen. I saw this quote. This woman is a Sikh, Valarie Kaur, she said, "To listen to the other side does not grant them legitimacy. It offers them humanity and restores your own."

She also said deep listening is an act of surrender. There it was. In politics and activism, I've always tried to be on the other side of the barricade, try out every different point of view, but if you're asking me then, "At the end of the book, how did you feel apart from just exhausted and worried that the other band members would write their own?" Oh my god, what would happen if Ali was to write her memoir, but you don't have to agree with somebody on everything; just one thing, if that thing is important enough. That's how the ONE Campaign came into existence.
The emptiness that gave me everything. It's the last, it's toward the end of the film, it wasn't in the stage play, it wasn't in the book, and it just came out in the narration voice. I asked myself the question, was I ready to give up the emptiness that gave me everything? At some point, you got to let go of those demons. I feel like I'm walking a little different now.

Bono tells Apple Music about being "ready for the sound of the future," and finding vocal freedom
I feel that my voice has got to a place that I've never been there before. I thank the project of writing the memoir and the play and the book and the f**king film and all the rest of it for just getting all that out.

I'm ready now for the future, ready for the sound of the future. We've already been recording, but my point that I started about 45 minutes ago, freedom, there's no point singing songs about freedom. You have to be free yourself. Freedom is a thing you can access, and we all need to be able to access it. Even with my faith and even with my family and good fortune, there are times where self-consciousness has me awkward and not free.

Bono tells Apple Music about drummer Larry Mullen Jr.'s medical leave during U2's Las Vegas Residency
Bono: I think at different times in this band, various people, you feel them just go, "Is this worth it?" Larry just had the smarts to know he needed to take time out to get himself sorted, and he did. That was a very difficult moment to be in Las Vegas doing Achtung Baby without him. We found this unbelievable drummer, Bram. Then Larry came, and Larry was really generous to Bram, wished him the best. Larry, he's the only member of U2 who's come to see the band as a guest.

Zane Lowe: What did he say? What was his feedback?

Bono: We were there before we went on, and it was a real moment. He was very, very generous to Bram. Every band, you can hang on like a bad marriage. You can have people around and laugh at each other's jokes.

Zane Lowe: A marriage of convenience.

Bono: Yes. U2 can't work like that. If your injuries have you not sure about your participation in the band, we have to take that very seriously. I think others have felt like that at times. It's a strange thing to be blood brothers when you've all hit 60. It's like this gang thing, are we going to grow out of it? Why would we grow out of it? Are they sort of remnants from your teenage years?

What's so important about a band is, the verticality is not there. I don't want a boss. I don't want to be a boss. I'm in a band with people, we're all on the same level. These are horizontal relationships. Even if you're the singer and you have an ego, like I was saying to somebody, "Yes. Okay, but the U2 ego's even bigger." It's massive, the protection of each other. If we lose that, we've lost a lot.

I'll tell you, whoever walks away, and it could be any one of us at any time, you will lose the best arguments you could ever have had. We are as good as the arguments we get. We are as good as, that's it. As people get older, we get calcified. It's like, I don't really want to move out of his way, maybe as much as I used to. Somebody's having a bad day.

Bono tells Apple Music about playing Live Aid and how it led him to connect with his idol, Lou Reed

Zane Lowe : Is it true that the band were furious with you after Live Aid because you pulled that stunt?

Bono: Oh, yes. No, there was proper fire in the squad. I really felt for them because we'd just made Unforgettable Fire, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" was our big song. You only got to play three songs. You had to play them quickly, according to Bob Geldof. We never got to the third one. They were very, very, very upset.

Zane: Meanwhile, the rest of us all around the world were astounded at the spontaneity and the humanity of that experience and just how it was a game-changer.

Bono: Do you know what was amazing? This is a tiny little thing, but it's a gigantic thing to me. I'm sure it was a tiny little thing to Lou Reed. Lou wasn't on the bill, and he was watching the TV that day. He was my hero, Lou Reed. He was sitting there and he felt not connected with the world. Maybe the world had gone in a different direction than him. Are there five songwriters that can touch that in the entire world?

Zane Lowe: We're still all susceptible to that feeling, right? No matter what we've done.

Bono: All of us. He was sitting there watching the TV, feeling completely forgotten about. Next thing, this Irish man with a mad mullet started going, [singing] do, do, do, do, do, do, do, and started singing to the crowd. Because I used to, I don't know where it came from. "Satellite of Love", I guess. It was bam, bam, bam satellite, because we're on this satellite. That's what Live Aid was.

Zane Lowe: That was a spontaneous decision at the time. You didn't go out there and be like, "Okay, I'm going to work a little bit, walk on the wild side into this." It just came to you in the moment.

Bono: No. We'd been doing improvisations of different ones over the time. Just because I'd gone out there and I was out there for a while, I could do this. I met Lou Reed later. He was such a hero to me. He told me that meant something to him.