Last fall, Bono was busy telling anyone who would listen that he feared for U2's continued relevancy, admitting to Rolling Stone that "I'm not so sure the future hasn't dried up." But now that the band has been in the studio for a few weeks working on its next album, it seems like things have changed.

"We’ve had the best three weeks in the studio since 1979," he enthused during a recent visit to Ireland's 'Late Late Show.' Saying that "as a band, there’s no sense of entitlement," Bono described their current state of mind by talking up his bandmates' hunger for great new music: "They’re amazing men ... they really, really want it."

That doesn't mean Bono isn't still concerned for U2's future. Speaking on behalf of the band, he admitted, "I think they are very aware that U2 have to do something very special to have a reason to exist right now."

Although the last U2 record, 2009's 'No Line on the Horizon,' was generally regarded as one of the band's weaker efforts, it wasn't exactly a flop, selling more than 5 million copies around the world and topping pretty much every album chart on the planet. While Bono's bandmates might wish he'd be a little less gloomy about U2's artistic viability -- as he put it to Rolling Stone, "The band are like, 'Will you shut up about being irrelevant?'" -- we think his lack of complacency is admirable. Don't you agree?

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