Bono has been speaking about U2’s new album Songs Of Innocence and describing an eventful encounter with Apple’s founder Steve Jobs.
The singer compared the band’s recent free album to an unwanted bottle of milk from a stranger.
Bono has backtracked a little bit on the group’s LP giveaway, after initially defending the venture. At a recent Facebook Q&A, he apologised for the intrusion of Songs Of Innocence on 500 million iTunes subscribers’ accounts.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Bono revealed that U2 didn’t understand the intricate details of the promotional stunt beforehand, something he now regrets.
Bono said, “It’s like we put a bottle of milk in people’s fridge that they weren’t asking for. It is a gross invasion! But it was kind of an accident. The milk was supposed to be in the cloud. It was supposed to be on the front doorstep.”
“I had this beautiful idea and we got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing.”
The singer also spoke about losing the rag with Steve Jobs, he told the late Apple founder to “go f**k yourself”. “I had a tantrum, like a child.” The argument saw the Irish band working with Apple’s rivals Blackberry for their 2009 ‘360 Tour’.
When Jobs passed away in 2011, Bono said, “He changed music. He changed film. He changed the personal computer and turned telephony on its head while he was at it. He was tenacious in the extreme, his toughness never more evident than these past few years in his fight for his life as well as his companies”. Bono described the Apple founder as “the hardware software Elvis.’”
This week, U2’s frontman had an awkward encounter with the band Slaves. U2 performed on Later With Jools Holland, unfortunately for one of the musicians speaking with Bono, he opened his mouth without thinking first.
