U2 and the Family business

[RonJonSurfer]

U2's Families Helped Launch Their Career

The families of rock legends U2 funded their first tour in the late 1970s, after their record label tried to rip them off.

The rockers had been left broke when a publishing deal, which they hoped would lead to a record contract, fell through.

Frontman Bono says, "With the money we booked a tour of the UK. But, on the eve of that tour, the publisher rang up and halved the money, knowing that we had to take it, because we'd already hired the van, the lights, the whole thing.?

So the band went to their families and asked them to contribute an equal amount to fund their tour.

The 45-year-old rocker says the money strengthened his troubled relationship with his father Bob Hewson, who he was living with after his mother died: "(It was an) extraordinary moment in the relationship."