Henry Rollins, who has never hidden his dislike of U2 in general and Bono in particular and whose entertaining spoken word shows often featured an elaborate and frankly rather funny story called ‘The night. I had the chance. To kill Bono.’ ^*), is getting mellow in his old age.

Guesting on Howard Stern’s radio show on Thursday, Rollins admitted he admired Bono’s humanitarion efforts. From Stern’s website:

‘Henry noted he’s never liked U2’s music, but he admires the humanitarian efforts of Bono. Henry did comment, though, he had a problem with photos of Bono he saw that were recently taken in the Oval Office. Henry explained Bono was unshaven and his clothes were disheveled in the photograph, which he took as a sign of disrespect for the history of the Office itself. When Robin responded most of the reason politicians have given Bono so much clout was because of his rock star image, Henry conceded she was right.’

It’s not the first time Rollins’ has said U2 ain’t all bad. In a recent Washington Post chat he was asked if there was any song of the band that made him say ‘that’s not bad’:

‘Yeah, absolutely. A song called “Lemon” is a great song because Brian Eno overhauled that guitar sound so much it sounds like an interesting Eno song.’

But Henry isn’t keen on the band’s rhythm section, as he told CrazyWire.com:

‘U2, in particular, bug me because it’s like such a bad rhythm section. They’re kind of a one-trick band that’s propped up by really good production. I do applaud Bono’s humanitarian efforts; getting third-world debt acknowledged, trying to help AIDS in Africa and lending awareness to that. I think that’s great and I’m sure he contributes a lot of his own money to that. That stuff is also great because it keeps him out of the studio, so there’s no downside to this.’

More Rollins at his website, 21361.com, or check out the cool video for the single ‘Liar’ directed by none other than Anton Corbijn.

*) It involves his crazy mum’s love of the band, a night out on the town with a rather dim date, and a chance encounter with the cowboy-hatted Irishman. You’d have to hear him tell the story, really.