"This is the first time I've ever done an interview like this, and it's a lot of fun," U2's Bono says cheerfully. He is sitting at my desk in the Rolling Stone offices with a cigarette, a cup of coffee and a pile of pictures of his band, taken in the 1990s by acclaimed Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn. In celebration of the release of U2's new greatest-hits collection, The Best and the B-Sides of 1990-2000, Bono is walking through U2's last decade via Corbijn's unique, intimate portraits of tbe group.

Eight of Corbijn's photographs, with commentary by Bono, are featured in the current issue of Rolling Stone (RS 910) and here. But Bono talked for nearly two hours, going over more than twice as many shots and reminiscing freely about U2's recent adventures in fame and of his admiration for Corbijn, who has been shooting the band for twenty years. "A lot of photographers feel their art is to discover who you are," says Bono. "Anton is about who you might be. I don't mean in terms of the different characters that lie under the skin -- I mean your potential as a person. You're always more in his photographs, rarely less.

"I actually started to think, 'Gosh, I might really be this interesting,'" Bono adds, laughing, "until I saw a photograph he took of a waitress, which had the same gravitas. But that's a powerful thing. Anton was really a part of bringing us out of ourselves."

Here are all the images and memories from our conversation.

DAVID FRICKE
(Story by BONO and Photographs by ANTON CORBIJN)

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