U2 frontman Bono finds himself "annoying".
The ‘With or Without You’ hitmaker has been the target of much criticism as both a humanitarian activist and a musician, along with the revelation that he uses tax avoidance schemes to save his cash, and he has now revealed he is his own harshest critic.
Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: "To be fair, I do have an annoying gene. I annoy myself sometimes.
"You know I’ve been writing about my own hypocrisy for 20 years. But the hypocrisy of the human heart is so much more interesting than a rock ‘n’ roll band trying to take its financial affairs seriously.
"I mean, come on, would people prefer I die broke? They try to say, ‘You’re not idealists really’ to a band who have shared everything, committed our lives to each other and various campaigns of social justice. It won’t wash. I think a lot of people might just not like us and try to find reasons to explain it."
And bandmate The Edge insisted that he wanted people to hate them, because it drives them to be more successful.
The guitarist – whose real name is David Evans – said: "We absorb it and use it to make what we do better.
"The kind of hunger and determination of the band early on, when it was a desperate search to be heard, that’s all over. We’re here, we’ve done it. So part of what drives us is to try and disprove the naysayers. You suck it up, get back to work and make sure that what you’re doing is the best you can. In my view, people don’t hate U2 enough."
Meanwhile, Bono – who had emergency spinal surgery in 2010 and five hours of surgery after a bicycle accident in New York in 2014 – recently revealed he had had a near-death experience.
Pressed for further detail he said: "No one needs to know the soap opera of it all. I mean, most people my age have gone through moments when they realise they can’t take their existence for granted.
"I had a few bruising encounters and then one I just couldn’t walk away from. It was a dark reckoning. Mortality can be a bit of a buzz wreck, to say the least."
But the 57-year-old Christian rock star admitted that the "extinction event" had lead him to question his previously devout faith.
He confessed: "My faith was something I never had to explain to myself. I was at home with its incoherence and contradictory patterns. It did take some bumps and scratches this time, if I’m honest. But I’ve emerged with gratitude for being alive."
Bono: I annoy myself
