U2's Bono Says Thanks To Richard Bruton: hotpress.com exclusive

Bono has been talking to Hot Press about the difficulties of juggling his African anti-poverty/corruption campaigning with the rather demanding job of being frontman of one of the biggest rock bands on the planet.

In our current issue, all four members of U2 speak to Olaf Tyaransen about the initially adverse reaction to the iTunes giveaway of their thirteenth studio album, Songs of Innocence, the significance of Larry Mullen's tattoo on the album cover, their reaction to accusations of hypocrisy surrounding their tax affairs, and much more besides.

However, in material that didn't make our cover story for space reasons, Bono also spoke about his African campaigning – and the crucial role Richard Bruton played in getting anti-corruption legislation through.

Asked how U2's sudden surge into album promotion mode will affect his campaigning work, the philanthropist singer told Hot Press: "Well, next year is going to be a very big year for U2 if we tour, and it looks like we're going to do that. It's also a very big year in fighting against extreme poverty. It's 2015. The Millennium Development Goals, which is the 'report card' that's issued on how we're doing in this fight, ends – and a new one starts.

"At the moment they're called some shite name, the Sustainable Development Goals… Part II. 'SDGs'. It sounds like some sexually transmitted disease (laughs). It's really a failure of imagination.

"But the Millennium Development Goals end next year. It's also the 30th anniversary of Live Aid and you have a rising continent of Africa. The economy is going through the roof; by 2050 nearly twice the population of China, a third of the world's youth, will live there. Massively resourced with gold, silver, Coltan, forestry – the second biggest rainforest in the world is there. So how do we continue in the fight and celebrate the successes that have been made by new leadership in the developing world? And just as we're getting into this new rising-Africa narrative… boom! Ebola!"

The recent Ebola outbreak has changed the game, according to the U2 star.

"I've done this for a long time now," he said, "but even for me, seeing that child alone on a stone floor, naked, dying in her own excrement while health workers stood back, too afraid to pick her up, too afraid to hold her in her last hours, too afraid to warm her… you saw that on the cover of The New York Times? It's just the most upsetting thing. We're looking at how to deal with this, without resorting to the old narratives: the guilt narratives, the hectoring narratives."

Having been the face of numerous anti-poverty campaigns, the U2 frontman says he has taken a step back in recent times.

"A lot of what I do now is back office," he reflects. "Sometimes I just think, I'll keep my head down. The most important stuff of the last few years is anti-corruption legislation, which will probably bore the arse off you, but it's basically making it illegal not to publish what you pay for mining rights in a developing country, if you publish on a European or American stock exchange. And there's been a lot of resistance to it – but we've got it through in Europe, thanks to, believe it or not, Richard Bruton.

"Anyway, we got it through in Europe, got it through in the US, through Congress, through the SEC – and now the American Petroleum Institute wake up and injunct the SEC. It's amazing. Why would you do that? What could be so complicated about asking the oil companies to declare exactly how much they pay for these rights?

"The reason it's so controversial is because that is where corruption lives. The declared amounts are never the actual amounts. That $200 million can go into Swiss bank accounts."

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