McCulloch has regularly stated his aversion to Bono and friends and appears to love using the press to express his disdain. Last year he referred to them as “spud peelers” whose ambition was to join music’s elite stars like Bob Geldof, Sting and “all them c—-s who no one really likes.”
This time around, while he was slightly less vitriolic, McCulloch continued to ridicule U2 for appealing only to a younger, less-mature fan base and being nothing more than a commercial enterprise. “Bands all say they want to be as big as U2, but weirdly no one ever says they’re influenced by them,” he told New York magazine. “That’s because there’s nothing there, really.”
He continued, “They’ve got good tunes, and you can see that it works on 14-year-olds. But I can’t see mature people or kids, who are looking for something, something deep — something that you just know it’s art and it’s going to change your life — caring. For U2, it’s always flag-waving and ‘Yippee.’”
Not that McCulloch’s jealous of course. Echo & the Bunnymen begin a UK tour of mid-sized theatres in December, while U2 have recently concluded a tour of the world’s biggest sports stadiums.