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I get to hear the really good or the really bad things in the press, but I don't read it. I can afford to say that because public opinion does not drive U2's audience.

U2 have a lot of religion, also people like Johnny Cash and Elvis. Those people weren't shy about it - it's nice there are people who've come before that were open about it.

There's only one band that could ever even pretend to assume the mantle of what the Beatles did, who have been so pre-eminent and world-dominating that they could effect a paradigm shift in the culture, who have been willing to leverage their success into musical change, and that is U2 - regardless of what the result of that is.

We need to be creative, on the cutting edge, challenged, and it's really hard going. It's relentless, and we're relentless, and we have a history of breaking engineers, producers. I mean, people come out of working with U2 and just go, 'I just don't know what's happened; it feels like a lifetime has passed by.' And that's just the way we work.

Have you seen U2's live show? It's boring as hell. It's like watching CNN.

U2 is an original species... there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

I just don't get that new hot music. I don't know anything about all these groups like U2.

U2 are a great band; they've given us an unbelievable body of work, and all of us musicians owe them at least something. I can honestly say that every time I have played the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, as soon as my drums are set up, I go into the beat of 'Sunday Bloody Sunday.'

When you see U2 or the Rolling Stones, after years of knowing each other, they don't have to look at each other to connect.