Bono’s daughter, Jordan Joy Hewson, on music and growing up in Dublin: ‘No one was expecting a record from me’

F or most of her life, Jordan Joy Hewson has navigated the arts world from a side-angle. Photographed at launches and parties with her famous family – she’s the eldest child of U2 singer Bono and his wife Ali , and the sister of actor Eve – Hewson has long been viewed as the business-minded member of the clan, known for her entrepreneurship in the area of social enterprise rather than for her ambitions in the arts. That’s changing now. In April, Hewson (37), announced on her Instagram page that she was releasing a single under the moniker Jordan Joy: her full name is Jordan Joy Stillwater Iris Hewson. The song Don’t Kill the Vibe – a winsome slice of indie electronica – isn’t a one-off. Earlier this week, Hewson dropped her first EP, LED Moon, a five-track alt-pop affair that is as sleekly made and quietly persuasive as the first single. Praise has come from friends Jessica Alba and Laura Whitmore , with Michael Stipe of REM calling Don’t Kill the Vibe the song of the summer. Hewson is on a video call from Los Angeles, where she spends a lot of time writing and recording. It’s the week after U2’s 50th birthday bash playing on Dublin’s Grafton Street from the balcony of Bewley’s Cafe (she didn’t make it to Dublin, but says “I FaceTimed in, I was really excited to see them playing together”), and she’s also excited, if tentative, about having a big moment in her own life to mark. “No one was expecting a record from me,” she says. “I’ve obviously grown up with music around me. But it took going through a rupture in my life and the life I was building to be open to songwriting.” This time 10 years ago, Hewson was a tech entrepreneur living in New York. She founded a company, Speakable, in 2016, which had a product, Action Button, designed to promote civic engagement by helping people to get involved in movements or causes. She became a name to watch, making it on to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for European Social Entrepreneurs in 2019. Then, in 2021, Speakable was acquired in an off-market deal. “My life did a 180,” she says. When NationBuilder bought the company, Hewson left New York – her home for 11 years – to fly to Dublin, not realising she would have trouble getting back in again because of the pandemic. From living a big city life, she was back in her childhood home in Killiney in south county Dublin, with her parents, Eve and her two younger brothers, Elijah, frontman of the indie band Inhaler, and actor brother John. She had also recently gone through a relationship break-up. “It was a lot of change,” she says. “Music helped me get through things I was going through personally. Music came and found me.” Music has saved Hewson’s life before. When Ali and Bono were in hospital waiting to have their first baby in May 1989, Bono – who had brought a portable tape-recorder – decided to try to record his daughter’s heartbeat when still in the womb. He noticed that her heartbeat was starting to slow, so he told the doctor, who recognised he was right. “I understand tempo,” Bono told the Huffington Post podcast . Hewson was born in a rush, weighing just five pounds, and spent a lot of the first two weeks on her father’s chest as she was nursed to full health. Jordan Joy: 'I didn’t think it was possible for me to be an artist. The industry looked intimidating. I think you have to really know who you are to be an artist.' As a little girl, she and her sister Eve spent long days on tour with U2 with their teddy bears squeezed into backpacks, and a tutor on the road; the pair shared a bedroom until they were 12 and are extremely close. [ Bono on U2’s first days, 50 years ago: ‘Edge and Larry could play. Adam and myself were bluffing’ Opens in new window ] Hewson grimaces resignedly – the way any sister might – when I say Eve has called her sibling the A+ student in interviews. While Eve was prank-calling Justin Timberlake, having spirited the number from her father’s phone book, Jordan was the one carefully crafting English essays and inhaling reading lists. “Yeah, I was nerdy,” she says. “I liked school. I liked reading books and I was good at it. And I really did want to take that seriously.” At 19, Hewson went to Columbia University in New York to study political science, influenced by her early experiences touring the world. “Growing up with my parents being activists, I was exposed to really serious issues at a very young age. Even in school, we took a trip as a class to Uganda and visited schools over there. I felt inspired by people I’d met. I wanted to figure out if I could be useful.” There was another draw in her life, however. At Columbia, she was allowed to take classes outside her direct degree. “I took an introduction to poetry class with an insanely good poet called Josh Bell. He became a mentor to me. He was like, ‘What are you doing when you graduate?’ And I was like, ‘Oh I’m going to go and work in communications.’ He was like, ‘Why? We have an MFA programme here and I’d be happy to write you a letter of recommendation.’ I was like, ‘No, it’s cool, I’m going to get a job.’ A year spent working in the non-profit and communications sector changed her mind. ‘I hope that I can put an album together soon. That would be the goal. I’m happiest making music’ “A year in, I was on the phone to him, being like, ‘Can I please get a letter of recommendation? I would love to study this.’ Studying under Tim Donnelly and the late Lucie Brock-Broido, she graduated with a master of fine arts in poetry, publishing work in Boston Review and A Public Space. It may seem odd to some that Hewson didn’t pick up a pen in those early years to write songs as well as poetry. Did the family business have an inhibiting effect? “I didn’t think it was possible for me to be an artist,” she says. “The industry looked intimidating. I think you have to really know who you are to be an artist. I was too young ... And it wasn’t a part of myself I was open to.” Hewson had played piano from a young age, studying with the well-known composer and musician Dawn Kenny. “She was very inspiring to me,” she says. “She taught me a lot by ear and made sure I kept my love of piano going. We still text all the time.” Hewson also had the virtues that come with a life less ordinary – at a joint birthday celebration for George Clooney at Cafe Habana in Malibu in 2014, Bono and Jordan (father and daughter share a May 10th birthday) sang karaoke, performing the duet Something Stupid. The best-known version had been recorded by Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy. In 2023, with an early, musical project called Tenderhooks, she was trying to find both her sound and her nerve: “With Tenderhooks it was about getting comfortable with the vulnerability of being an artist.” London may be Jordan Joy's home, but she credits growing up in Dublin as being the reason she and her siblings stayed grounded. Her siblings all helped around the recording. “Eve has a lot of experience with putting herself out there. She’s very focused,” she says. “John is very wise and he’ll tell me if something is good or crap. He’s got a great musical sensibility. In the early days, when I was just starting to write songs, Eli [Inhaler’s Elijah] was showing me the ropes. And my cousin Duncan is the person who would help me demo my first songs to send to producers. So there’s a lot of support and interest in the family.” The gorgeously woozy closing song on the EP came about when Eli accidentally slowed down the title track while attempting to record backing vocals, and Jordan sang over her own pitched-down vocals, with harmonies from her frequent collaborator Jackson Phillips. Recently, Hewson went back to New York for a photo-shoot. “I had tears in my eyes,” she says. “I realised I was writing about my life in New York, and processing leaving it. But now I live in London and I love it too. A lot of my Irish friends are in London.” The EP is independently released, suggestive of an artist keen to do things her own way. Right now, she says, she’s “creativity dating”, finding new collaborators, and doing writing sessions in LA, Norway and London. “When you’re a solo artist you’re constantly meeting collaborators and figuring out whether you work well together. We have live shows coming up as well, so that’s exciting and also,” she laughs, “very scary. I’ve done open-mics and stuff, but no official shows for this project. The first official project will be in the UK in November.” [ Bono interview: ‘I have spent my life looking for the blessing of father figures’ Opens in new window ] London may be her home, but she credits growing up in Dublin as being the reason she and her siblings stayed grounded. “It’s been the best blessing for our family that we stayed there. Irish people respected our privacy and let us be kids and make mistakes.” She admires the new crop of artists coming out of Ireland – Galway band NewDad are on her playlist, she says, and she’s also enjoying LA band Warpaint. She’s currently reading the book I Dream of Joni by Henry Alford, an exploration of the songwriter Joni Mitchell ’s life. “I hope that I can put an album together soon,” she says. “That would be the goal.” So there’ll be no turning back to tech? “I’m happiest making music,” she says. “This is not a side-project.” Jordan Joy’s EP LED Moon is out now