If you are a U2 fan, you may also be interested in my recent post, “My Top 10 12 Spiritually Significant U2 Songs.”

I was lucky enough to catch the interview with Bono Friday (11 August 2006) at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. I thought the interview was amazing. Bono is very articulate — for a rock star 🙂

The taped interview by Bill Hybels was peppered with great footage from U2’s Elevation 2001 – Live From Boston DVD (Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com), their Vertigo 2005 – Live From Chicago DVD (Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com), and Rattle & Hum (Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com).

I thought the interview was a great introduction to Bono, U2, and the various campaigns Bono is involved with, such as DATA and the ONE Campaign.

There were many highlights in the interview for me. Perhaps the most refreshing thing he said was in regards to his “celebrity” and how ridiculous the world is to pander to celebrities as it does. He sees his celebrity as currency, and he’s decided to spend it to raise awareness for important causes such as global poverty and the AIDs pandemic. Bono’s challenge to the church? Get involved! “‘Love thy neighbour’ is not advice; it is a command.”

I was going to type out a transcript of the interview, but instead decided to make an mp3 of it available for download (see below). I have edited out all of the music and down-sampled it so it is not too large a file. This is a personal recording I made of the interview and I am making it available for free for personal use only because I believe that Bono’s message needs to be heard and acted upon.

Bono and the Willow Creek Association are going to make the DVD available to churches, so make sure to bug your pastor to get a copy to show to your congregation!

Here is the link to the mp3 file of the interview:

• Bono-Hybels_interview.mp3 (7727 KB; right-click to download)

The only question I wish Bill Hybels asked Bono was if the rumours that U2 is scheduled to return to the recording studio this September! That would be sweet!

UPDATE:  As you can see from the latest comment, someone over at Willow Creek (who didn’t even include their name in the comment!) thought that making this this personal recording available for download is some sort of copyright infringement. Of course, I’m not sure what a U.S. organization could really do to me up in Canada, but  I took down the mp3, though more because it was maxing out my download limits on my server. I find it a bit odd for a Christian organization (who said they were going to make DVDs available of the interview for churches for free) to be so uptight about this MP3 version — especially since it is a message that you would think they would want spread through whatever means possible. Such is life. If you really want a copy let me know and we can perhaps arrange something privately.