BONO has insisted that U2's best years are yet to come.

Despite the band being formed almost 40 years ago and members hitting their mid-50s, the Dublin rocker vowed the group still had the ability to forge classic songs.

"I'm humbled that in our little post-punk combo from the northside of Dublin, to think that maybe our best work might be to come, even if the odds are against us," he said.

"There's no one, no band, who has done their best work, who has been around for 30 years," said Bono, attending the Palm Springs Film Festival in California.

"That's not true for filmmakers, that's not true of a novelist, that's not true of a poet, so why should that be true of a rock 'n' roll band?"

Fans will be hoping that it is true when they buy the new album due out in April, which has been hailed as a return to U2's roots.

Bono admitted that he used song-writing to fill a void within him, and that it was a form of therapy. He said his ability to write and perform depended on what was happening in his personal life.

"Performing for me comes on like a twitch, really. I have no choice. The songwriting piece is different. It comes out in two ways: despair and attempt to put things right that have been wrong, or joy, just ebullience, you know, it's just overflowing."

Irish Independent