Echo and the Bunnymen: 'Bono is not a pr**k, just a sound bloke'

As the veteran Liverpool band return to Ireland, they talk glory days, vinyl revivals and that spat with U2

Echo & The Bunnymen: Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant. 

In recent decades we've had such spats as Kanye v Taylor Swift and Blur v Oasis, but back in the 1980s, it was U2 v Echo and the Bunnymen that briefly lit up the music press. Bunnymen singer Ian McCulloch – who brings his band to the Olympia in Dublin on Tuesday, February 9 – once referred to the Irish group's ouput as “music for plumbers and bricklayers”, among other insults.

But now, according to Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant, peace has broken out. Apparently, the new-found respect is partly down to encounters with Bono's son Elijah, who fronts emerging band Inhaler.