August 2nd, 2009

U2 frontman Bono has spoken out on the criticism he and his band have faced over recent months, after protests were held in the wake of allegations they had been expoiting a tax shelter in the Netherlands.

In a revealing interview with the Guardian newspaper, Bono shrugged off the complaints, saying: “What bothered me was it’s like you’re hiding your money in some tax haven and people think of the Cayman Islands and you’re campaigning for Africa and transparency, of course that looked like hypocrisy. People whom I’ve annoyed, people who wished us to fail, they finally got what they thought must have been there in the first place. It was a hook to hang me on. ‘We got him!’ You could, if you wanted, get, y’know, it could get you going. You look at it and say, ‘Well what have you done?’”

He also commented on the personal critisism he often faces from the public: “I can be annoying,” he said. “I have a kind of annoying gene. As Delmore Schwartz said, ‘Ego is always at the wheel.’ It’s just with rock stars, it’s more obvious. The need to be loved and admired doesn’t come from a particularly pretty place. But people tend to do a lot of great things with it. Ego, yes, but the ego that’s in everything human beings are capable of. Without ego, things would be so dull.”

U2 are currently on a huge world tour in support of new album ‘No Line On The Horizon’, and have recently completed three sold out dates at Dublin’s Croke Park. The tour will take them to the USA in September.

Below: Musician and activist Bono accepts the 2005 TED Prize with a riveting talk, arguing that aid to Africa isn’t just another celebrity cause; it’s a global emergency.

Alex Turner warned us that the Arctic Monkey’s new material was going to be different, and he wasn’t lying. Anybody still in longing for I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor part 2 are going to be pretty dissappointed, this new track couldn’t be anymore different.

Johnny Marr has revealed joining Yorkshire three-piece The Cribs has led to him enjoying playing live for the first time.

Speaking to the News Of The World, Marr said: “Before I was hellbent on being in the studio – touring took me away from writing. It took the frontman of my past bands to pull me out of the studio with a stick! But now I find the times I’m not on tour a bit of an imposition.”

Marr recorded the new album with the three members of the band, brothers Ryan, Gary and Ross Jarman, and then left them to make the decision as to whether he should join the band permanently. “I gave them a get-out clause,” he said. “Saying they were welcome to find someone else to play my part at the gigs. They just looked at me in disbelief and asked me why I wanted to leave.”

Marr also addressed the age-gap between himself and the other members of the band when asked if it leads to any problems: “Nah, I only had one stipulation,” he said. “I made them promise never to grow a moustache. Everyone who’s tried to make music with a ‘tache has been awful!”

The Cribs new album, ‘Ignore The Ignorant‘ is released on 7th September.

Check out The Realist , 2008 EP by the Cribs: