Bono says listening to U2 makes him ‘cringe’

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Bono has admitted that listening to U2 makes him cringe.

In an interview with the Awards Chatter podcast, the U2 frontman confessed that he struggled to listen to his vocal performances.

About his own singing, Bono said it “makes me cringe a little bit” but he is “proud” of his performance on the 2004 hit “Vertigo”.

He also talked about his dislike of hearing the band’s music, saying: “I’ve been in the car when one of our songs has come on the radio and I’ve been the colour of, as we say in Dublin, scarlet. I’m just so embarrassed.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the Irish singer also talked about how he doesn’t like U2’s name: “In our head it was like the spy plane, U-boat, it was futuristic – as it turned out to imply this kind of acquiescence, no I don’t like that name. I still don’t really like the name.”

He added that the band’s first manager was a fan of the name for commercial reasons. He recalled: “Paul McGuinness, our first manager, did say, ‘Look, it’s a great name, it’s going to look good on a T-shirt, a letter and a number’.”

While saying that his bandmates sound “incredible”, Bono added that his voice was now “strained”.

He also stated that the late rock singer Robert Palmer once told U2 bassist Adam Clayton he wasn’t a fan of his singing, claiming Palmer said: “‘God, would you ever tell your singer to just take down the keys a little bit, he’d do himself a favour and he’d do us all a favour who have to listen to him.’”

U2 guitarist The Edge previously revealed that the longstanding group were currently working on a new album.

Their last album, Songs of Experience, was released in 2017.