NOTE: The Negativland and The Edge Mondo 2000 interview can be found HERE.

In August 2007, on a whim, I emailed members of the band Negativland. My goal was to get an audio copy of the infamous Mondo 2000 phone interview with Edge from 1992. At that time, Island Records had filed a lawsuit against Negativland over their recent single “U2“. This interview is significant to U2 fans because and “unsuspecting Edge“ was interviewed by two members of Negativland who revealed themselves midway through the interview. The Edge and Negativland continued the interview and what followed was a fascinating discussion of sampling, copyright, fair use, art in the digital age, and what can go wrong when lawyers get involved.

To my knowledge, this great interview only existed in print, and the audio had never been released. My assumption was that somewhere there was an audio copy, perhaps kept by RU Sirius who wrote and edited the Mondo 2000 feature.

I was a bit stunned when Don Joyce of Negativland emailed me the next day, stating that he probably did not have the interview tape, but would look for it. A day or two after that, Don emailed me back, stating, “Well, SURPRISE! I found the whole call on cassette”.

The U2 Interview Archive would sincerely like to thank Don Joyce for his willingness to share this “lost” interview with U2 fans! You can find the audio interview HERE on this site.

As of this writing, the original Negativland single is no longer in print, but there is an expanded version of the single (minus the original artwork) available both at the Negativland website and at Amazon.com .