“I craved my father’s attention, so I sang louder and louder.” Watch the trailer for Bono: Stories of Surrender, a new documentary based on U2 frontman Bono's one-man show
Bono: Stories of Surrender will premiere globally on May 30 on Apple TV+
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U2 fans can expect to hear frontman Bono share some of the most insightful, poignant and open-hearted stories from his life and career in a new documentary, Bono: Stories of Surrender, premiering on Apple TV + next month.
The documentary, filmed at the Beacon Theatre in New York, is described as "a bold and lyrical visual exploration of Bono’s one-man show by the same name, based on his celebrated memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, and the accompanying book/theatre tour."
A synopsis for the film adds that it captures the 64-year-old Dubliner as "he pulls back the curtain on a remarkable life and the family, friends, and faith that have challenged and sustained him, revealing personal stories about his journey as a son, father, husband, activist and rockstar."
Along with never-before-seen, exclusive footage from the Beacon Theatre shows, the film features Bono performing iconic U2 songs that have shaped his life and legacy.
In a newly released trailer for the doc, Bono introduced the show as “the tall tales of a short rock star”, but it also features the singer talking candidly about his family.
"The last time I saw my mother alive, was at her own father's funeral," he says in the clip. "This sounds almost too Irish I know. My father’s response to this tragedy was to never speak of her again. I craved my father’s attention, so I sang louder and louder."
Watch the trailer below:
Last November, guitarist The Edge revealed that U2 are working on new music, but perhaps not the kind of music that anyone was anticipating.
Previously, Bono had told The New York Times that he wanted to make a “noisy, uncompromising, unreasonable guitar album”, stating “Right now I want to write the most unforgiving, obnoxious, defiant, fuck-off-to-the-pop-charts rock ‘n’ roll song that we’ve ever made.”
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However, this does not appear to be where the band's thoughts are currently, if The Edge's comments to BBC Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley on November 25 are to be believed.
“Bono and I are working on some crazy kind of sci-fi Irish folk music,” he said. “Which could end up becoming a part of the new U2 album. We’re not sure yet, we’ll see.”
Teasing that “a bunch [of] beautiful, Irish musicians” could be contributing, the guitarist added, “Part of our kind of process is to go so widely away from, off track, and the sort of the process of bringing things back on track is kind of how you get sort of unique sounding music.”
“We’re at that great phase where we don’t have to over think it, we’re just making music and loving that process. And then we’ll figure out where things belong afterwards.”
U2's last album of new material, Songs Of Experience, was released in 2017.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
