U2 frontman Bono has told of his delight that millions of people have heard the group's new album after it was given away - and joked that even the band have been known to delete their music.

The group's first new release for five years, Songs Of Innocence, was given away to 500 million iTunes customers last week in a deal with technology giant Apple.

Some have complained they did not want it on their devices so a special tool has had to be created to enable them to easily delete the tracks.

But in an interview with Radio 2's Jo Whiley, Bono said he was pleased with how many people had bothered to listen to it.

"I've just heard that 38 million people have listened to Songs Of Innocence in the last seven days. If you're a songwriter, if you're in a band, that's kinda all you can ask for," he said.

He went on: "We get people might want to delete it, but believe me, no-one has deleted more U2 songs over the last five years than U2. It's just a thrill that so many people have heard them.

"All I can say is that there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears which went into your junk mail."

The Apple stunt was to mark the launch of the iPhone 6.