(CNN) -- Bono is not your average rock star.

He is just as comfortable meeting with the pope or world leaders to lobby for
social causes as he is being the lead singer for U2, the enduringly successful
Irish band with total record sales of more than 75 million.

"Rock stars are good at making noise," Bono said, explaining his talent for getting
out messages he thinks are important.

In 2001, the 41-year-old rock star seems at the top of his game.

U2 is going strong after more than two decades. Its latest album, "All That You
Can't Leave Behind," topped the charts in 31 countries and racked up the largest
first week sales for any U2 release in the United States. The band's North
American tour "Elevation 2001" ended in November after 113 shows in 64 cities.

But U2's phenomenal commercial success is not the only thing that makes it
noteworthy. The band distinguished itself early on by using music to make overt
political statements, a sensibility shaped by its Irish origins. One of its most
famous anthems, "Sunday Bloody Sunday," is about the conflict in Northern
Ireland between Catholics and Protestants.

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A band is born

Bono was born in May 10, 1960, in Dublin, Ireland, as Paul David Hewson. He
was the second child of Iris, a homemaker, and Bobby, a postal worker. They were
a typical middle-class couple but were considered a mixed marriage by Irish standards
because he was Catholic and she was Protestant.

The young Bono grew up in the Dublin neighborhood of Ballymun, wedged
between the countryside and the city. Tragedy struck in 1974 when his mother,
Iris, died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage.

That fall, Bono entered the nondenominational, coeducational Mount Temple
Comprehensive School. His years there would have an enormous influence on his
life.

Larry Mullen Jr., then 14, posted a notice on the school bulletin board in 1976 to
recruit people for a band. Bono, 16, showed up for a jam session in Mullen's
kitchen, along with fellow Mount Temple students David Evans and Adam
Clayton. Bono's charisma was evident even then.

"I was in charge for the first five minutes," Mullen told TIME magazine in 1987.
"But as soon as Bono arrived, I was out of a job."

Around this time, a friend gave Bono his nickname after a Dublin hearing-aid
store called Bonavox, which happened to be pidgin Latin for "good voice." Evans
played guitar and also gained a nickname, the Edge, while Clayton played bass
and Mullen was the drummer.

The fledgling group called itself Feedback, a wry reference to its early sound.
The group later changed its name to the Hype before it finally settled on U2.

"We formed a band before we could play our instruments," Bono said. "It's really
like a street gang, you know, people who are joined by their sense of humor and
their sense of what they are against more than what they are for. We were a
pretty crap wedding band actually."

Dublin businessman Paul McGuinness recognized the band's spark when he went
to see it at the urging of a local music journalist.

"They were doing then badly what they now do very well, but the constituent
parts of it are exactly the same," McGuinness said. "It's the primary colors of
rock 'n' roll: guitar and bass and drums and vocal and four guys on a stage
making an enormous noise and producing something very exciting."

In 1978, U2 won a talent contest in Limerick, with a prize of 500 Irish pounds
and a studio recording session. They produced a three-song single "U23."

In 1980, the group signed with Island Records and released its first album, "Boy."
Critics hailed the band for its original, shimmering sound, marked by the Edge's
echoey guitar and Bono's yearning voice.

"I think his voice, which is this soaring instrument, ... and the Edge's guitar
playing, which is full and doesn't sound like anything else, and it's just rousing
and inspiring to hear. It's a great sound," said Kurt Loder of MTV.

Only nine people showed up for one of U2's first London shows, according to
U2.com, the band's official Web site. But slowly the group built up a following
through its original sound and uplifting live performances, including its debut
before American audiences in 1980.

Bono took time out of the band's busy touring schedule in 1982 to marry Ali
Stewart, whom he met while they were both students at Mount Temple. Clayton
was Bono's best man.

"I'm lucky I have an extraordinary friend that I've been married to for a long
time, seems like (since) we were kids," Bono said.

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Weathering conflicts

The group continued to evolve its sound and expand its political voice. Its 1983
album, "War," featured "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day," a tribute
to the Polish Solidarity movement.

U2 was one of the standout acts at the 1985 Live Aid concert in London, giving
an electrifying performance that was broadcast worldwide. The next year, U2
dedicated two weeks to the "Conspiracy of Hope" tour that benefited the human
rights group Amnesty International.

The band's profile became larger with the 1987 album, "The Joshua Tree,"
which spawned the hit singles "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found
What I'm Looking For."

The band moved from arenas into stadiums for a major tour of America. The
resulting concert film, "Rattle and Hum," reflected the band's growing interest in
American music genres such as country and the blues. But some critics attacked
the soundtrack, which included recordings with B.B. King and Bob Dylan, as an
attempt by U2 to elevate itself to the status of such music icons.

So the group sought to reinvent its sound on the 1991 album "Achtung Baby,"
which moved beyond the solid structures U2 had employed so successfully on
"The Joshua Tree," by adding industrial and electronic textures to its sound.

Initially, there was disagreement among band members over the new sonic
direction. But their bond was strong enough to weather the conflicts.

"A band is a very difficult thing to keep going, and when you're in a good one,
you try to make it work whatever way you can. I don't think any of us would
have imagined we'd still be together after so many years, but it's great that we
are," the Edge said.

The band also radically revised its live act. Its 1992 "Zoo TV" tour featured the
band playing while surrounded by televisions that broadcast an array of images,
both taped and live, at the audience. Bono adopted a persona called the Fly, which
represented the ultimate rock star, and another one called the Mirrorball Man,
which parodied television evangelists.

For the European leg of the "Zoo TV" tour, Bono put on a gold lamé suit,
platform shoes and red horns to portray a character called MacPhisto, which he
said was the Fly when he was old, fat and playing Las Vegas.

The band's willingness to innovate has paid off artistically and financially. Critics
gave favorable reviews to "Achtung Baby" and the follow-up record, 1993's
"Zooropa," and the band's gross revenues topped $1.5 billion during the 1990s.

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Staying grounded

Despite all the success, Bono tried to stay grounded, working hard to carve out
time for his growing family. He and Ali have four children.

"He's a mad dad; they get in cars and go to strange places, but he just loves to
spend time with his family," said Barry Devlin, a friend of the band since its
early days.

In 2000, even though the band was working hard on a new album, Bono
devoted a large amount of time to the Jubilee 2000, a campaign that lobbies
Western governments to cancel the debts of Third World nations.

Bono asked the U.S. Congress for funding to help pay off the debts and
met with U.S. President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to ask for their support.

He and other debt relief supporters met with Pope John Paul II. Knowing the
value of publicity, Bono gave the pontiff his rock star sunglasses, and the pope
tried them on. Afterward, Bono told the media that John Paul was the world's
first "funky pontiff."

It snagged far more copy than a dry speech in favor of debt relief. "People have a
short attention span; you need a picture of a pop star and a pope together, that
usually gets their attention," Bono said.

In 2001, when tragedy struck the United States on September 11, Bono, like
many, was deeply shocked.

"The world was completely and utterly changed at that moment," he said in an
interview with CNN.

It was not long before Bono devoted his time and his talents to raise money for
victims.

In late October, Bono released a remake of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?," a
song recorded by some of the industry's top artists. Originally recorded to help
raise money for AIDS relief, the release was re-formatted to help both causes --
AIDS relief and the United Way's September 11 Fund.

"Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don't know what to say,
and I think music can be more eloquent than words," he said.

U2's 2001 "Elevation 2001" tour, which opened in March, ended in Miami,
Florida. Bono says the tour changed after September 11, as did the meaning of
the band's music.

"If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never
been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea
of despair," he said.