Green Day - Trilogy era Interview [INROCK (October 2012)]
First of three consecutive new releases in a row, "Uno!" Released on 26th September! Green Day’s latest hilarious interview
"If I get drunk, I'll start tweeting on Twitter and that can be quite dangerous!!" (Billie)
INTERVIEW: MIHO SUZUKI
"Green Day is the best!" The new Green Day album makes you want to run around with a whoop and a holler. Moreover, there are three new albums: "Uno!", "Dos!", and "Tre!" (which means one, two, three in Spanish). On 11th July, just before the interview, I listened to the three albums at a rental house in Huntington Beach, more than an hour away from the centre of Los Angeles. Huntington Beach is known as the birthplace of the Offspring, but it is also a popular place for surfers. Usually, interviews are conducted in a room in a well-known hotel or recording studio, but as it was the height of summer, the record company may have been thoughtful and chic enough to arrange it for us. The room has a window on one wall on the seaside, with a view of the bright blue sky and the sea, and we were able to listen to "Uno!, "Dos!" and "Tre!" all at once. All the albums were so much fun and full of songs that you couldn't help but move your body. Even though I listened to three albums in a row without a break, I didn't get tired of them, but rather I got energised and listened to them twice in a row. The seriousness of their previous album, 21st Century Breakdown, is largely absent here, and the sound and vibe is closer to the garage rock of the Foxboro Hot Tubs, the masked band that preceded their last album. But it's definitely different from Foxboro Hot Tubs, and after listening to the whole thing, I strongly felt that this was a work that had to be arrived at with all of Green Day's previous work up to this point. After listening, we moved to the interview room and greeted the three members, who had been interviewed all day the day before, and although they were smiling, they were clearly tired, but they said a lot of fun things to liven up the interview and we were impressed by their good nature as always.
"Uno!" is Billie, "Dos!" is Mike, "Tre!" is Tre (technically, the 3 in Spanish is 'tres,' but I guess it's a nod to his name), and the jackets with their faces on the artwork are really cute, and I hope you'll enjoy all three. Firstly, "Uno!" in September, followed by "Dos!" in November, and "Tre!" will be released in January next year.
"Writing a political song is like putting handcuffs on your own hands. This time I'd rather handcuff them to someone else!" (Billie)
How are you all feeling today? All: (in unison) Great!
It's not over yet, but it must have been a long day. Mike Dirnt (b.): Yeah, we've talked to a lot of people from a lot of places, haha.
The new albums are phenomenal, they're amazing. I'm incredibly excited. Billie Joe Armstrong (vo./g.): Thank you.
I'm in awe that there are three albums and all three are full of great songs. Why do you think you guys have so much creativity now? Mike: We made a secret drug. It's just for us. Billie: (laughs). I don't know, I just think we have years of experience that we've been able to use to our advantage. And we were able to draw inspiration from our own influences and just keep writing songs. Simply because we like making music. It's a pure thing for us. So, I don't know why, but we just wanted to keep writing. So when we came up with the idea of doing a trilogy, we were really excited.
How do you feel the three albums have turned out? Tre Cool (dr.): We're really proud of these albums. It's still hard to believe it's finished because it's still fresh and we've only played it to a limited number of people. It's very new and fresh and we feel like it's the start of a new era for us, the start of something big.
After two epic masterpieces, "American Idiot" and "21st Century Breakdown", does this trilogy feel like the start of a new era? Billie: Yeah, I think it's a new era for us. In a quirky way, "Uno!", "Dos", and "Tre!" are like reintroducing ourselves to people under different lights or in different colours. Each of our albums is different, but at the same time they are all connected to each other. "21st Century Breakdown" was a darker album, so this one is more fun, sexy, and danceable.
Yes, there are all sorts of songs in this trilogy that make you want to dance, but I particularly liked 'Kill the DJ'. I think it's probably the grooviest Green Day song ever, how did it come about? Billie: Mike asked me to write a song with a four beat. Something like Blondie's 'Heart of Glass'. I'd never done a song like that before. So I took an old disco beat and made it punk rock at the same time. Disco meets punk rock. We jammed over and over again on that idea and came up with this song. It's ironic that it's a dance song when the lyrics say '♪ Kill the DJ ♪' (laughs).
Is this actually a song for DJs? Billie: No, it's a song about a sad culture. The noise and the clamour of the world has always been a theme that occupies a certain part of my songwriting. I'm trying to clear my head of that stuff. I think there's a lot of parallels with "American Idiot", and I think there's a lot of parallels with "Know Your Enemy" as well. It just happened to be a more dance-oriented song.
I didn't find many of the songs in the trilogy's lyrics referring to political matters from what I've heard today, what do you actually think? Billie: Yeah, definitely, it's less political. We wanted to make songs that were more personal. And then there were a bit more sexual, more love songs, and we went into that kind of thing. And in doing that, we tried to have more freedom than before. Because, you know, when you write too many political songs, you feel like you're handcuffing yourself. So this time I decided to put the handcuffs on someone else (laughs). Well, I feel like I've spread my wings and had more fun than before.
"It's impossible to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It's really… It's a bigger problem than the earthquake." (Mike)
So writing the lyrics to these new songs was a lot more fun than the last one? Billie: Yeah. This time, instead of trying to make sense of every verse of the lyrics like before, I used my vocals as an instrument. Sometimes I get tired of listening to songs like "Last of the American Girls". I wrote the lyrics to that song so that every verse had a meaning. But this time around, like in "Nuclear Family", the lyrics are vague. So I poured my soul into writing something that didn't make much sense.
Can I ask you about "Nuclear Family"? I reacted to the word 'nuclear' because it has become a very serious issue in Japan since the Great East Japan Earthquake last year, but what is this song about? Billie: This song doesn't mean what you think it means. "Nuclear Family" is about a nuclear family - a husband and wife, two kids, living in a white fenced house in the suburbs of a city. So it has nothing to do with nuclear power stations. And of course it's not about the tragedy that happened in Japan.
Oh, it was literally about the nuclear family. I'm sorry, this has nothing to do with the song, but… how do you feel about the disaster? Billie: It was the biggest tragedy of the 21st century. That's… That's all I can say. Mike: I agree. Billie: I can't even imagine. I can't imagine the same thing happening to a nuclear power station here… I don't know. I really can't even imagine it. When I saw the disaster area on TV, I felt so much pain for the people living there and their families. Because there is no reason, no reason why such a terrible thing could happen, it's really crazy… I don't know what to say, I don't have the words to describe it. It's just really… It's a tragedy.
Personally, I was awakened by that disaster, or I thought that nuclear power wouldn't be that dangerous until that tragedy happened. Now I strongly want to get rid of nuclear weapons from the world, but it's not an easy situation to change. Billie: Yes, it is. Mike: It's really horrible, but it's impossible to get rid of. It's really… It's a bigger problem than the earthquake. Billie: Exactly. (All three of them slump down and look very sad)
But after what happened, you guys went online and asked your fans to donate, and not only that, you donated, and I'm very grateful for that. Thank you so much. Billie: Yeah.
So, back to your question about the new album. I think this is true for all of Green Day's work, but this one in particular is very much in the spirit of youth. So I think it's music that teenage kids can love. How do you think you have managed to keep such a young spirit in yourselves and your music? Billie: I don't know why. For some reason I think my voice will forever sound like a 13 year old (laughs). All: (laughs).
That's right!!! You don't age at all, I think it's phenomenal. Billie: I don't know why, but I always sound like I'm going through puberty. It always sounded like that, all the time. Simply, we've always had that kind of energy. And I'm grateful that we still have that. I think that energy probably comes from the desire to be a great rock 'n' roll band and the passion to write good songs and to always live life to the fullest. I draw energy from that passion and put it into the music. That's about the only reason I can think of. Mike: Also, we're constantly exercising as a band. We keep playing music without a break, and that's what allows us to keep going like this. Tre: But I think we keep getting smarter. I don't know. Mike: Yeah, I think so. I think I'm getting wiser as I get older. I've matured a lot in that respect. It just comes naturally. But I'll always be a kid. I still like eating cereal (laughs). Tre: Well, if I fell off a roof or something, it would take longer for my injuries to heal than it used to, but that's about it.
But you look the same as you did 10 years ago, or rather, I feel like you've gotten better as you've got older, but you don't make any particular effort to look younger? Mike: Apart from various plastic surgeries. Billie: Hahahahaha! Tre: It's got nothing to do with that oxygen tank you're breathing in while you sleep. Mike: Yes, it does. Tre: I hang upside down every day. Because I love Twilight. Mike: I try to take a shower every few days. Billie: That might help.
(laughs). You modelled for John Varvatos' spring/summer collection this year. I spotted you on the big billboard on Hollywood Road and was so excited because you were so cool. Billie: No, not at all! Mike: Haha.
You haven't modelled before, have you? Tre: But it's not that different from a magazine photo shoot.
I see. Billie: John Varvatos likes to use musicians as models for his clothes. And he likes Green Day, so when he asked us to do it, we said, "Sure". Mike: I think we were the only band that wasn't scared of filming on top of a skyscraper. It was about 500 (jokingly) storeys high.
Was it actually scary? Mike: It was crazy. We had these big boots on.
On a different note, I saw the musical production of 'American Idiot' in Los Angeles and was really impressed with how Green Day's work turned out to be such a great musical. I didn't get to see Billie's performance in New York, but how was it being on stage in the lead role? Billie: I was really nervous about it, but I said, "I'll do it." Saint Jimmy is me, but it's hard to play Saint Jimmy on stage. But it was a great experience. I was surrounded by a great cast, all great actors and singers, and I got to be friends with them, so it was a great experience in every way. I had to take my shirt off though (laughs).
Has that experience influenced your new albums? Billie: I think working with those great performers and becoming friends with them, and then living and performing in New York, definitely influenced the new music. When you're in New York, you discover something new every day. In addition to that experience, we've been writing on the West Coast near the beach, we've been writing at home in Oakland and in Austin, Texas, and we've been in studios in Europe while we've been on tour. So we got a little bit of something from every place we went. But I think the New York experience was the biggest influence on the album.
Mike and Tre, how did you feel about your music being turned into a musical? I think it proves that Green Day's music is truly timeless. Mike: I thought our music fitted into the musical really well. Tre: It makes me happy just to think that somewhere in the world today, this musical is being performed. It's like our songs are on tour. The performers are great, it's great. Not many bands can say they have their own musical production.
Yeah, it's true. I also heard that you're filming a documentary to accompany the new album. Could you tell me about that? Mike: Yeah, we've been filming it for the past 14 months or so. It's not a run-of-the-mill documentary, it's more like a surf documentary in approach. It's a peek into our lifestyle, and of course you get to see the process of making the new album, but it's also about what inspires us, what's going on in our lives and what's behind the scenes of this process. So it's a documentary that we're really looking forward to watching. The cameras were around us the whole time, but we didn't know what was being filmed. We know a few bits and pieces in places, but we don't know what it's going to end up being like. It's going to be great.
When do you plan to have it go out into the world? Billie: I think it will be out by the end of this year.
I'm looking forward to it. You have a total of 37 songs on these three albums, which is your favourite at the moment? Billie: I think "8th Avenue Serenade". I don't know why, but it was the first one that popped into my head. No, I'd have to say 'Stray Heart' (both included on 'Tre!')! It's very danceable, it's a different approach, it starts with a Motown-ish sound and then goes into a huge chorus. I like it because it's got so much heart and soul in it. Mike: There's two songs that I'm trying to decide which one to pick, both of which I've been listening to on repeat today: 'Fuck Time' and 'Nightlife' (from 'Dos!'). Tre: Yay.
I thought you were going to say that. I love it too (laughs). Billie: Hahahahaha. Mike: There's a really nice part to fire. Billie: Hahaha. Tre: At the moment, I'd have to say 'Oh Love' and 'Fell For You' ('Uno!').
It's a lovely love song, isn't it? Tre: Yeah, because I'm lonely.
(laughs). By the way, you're using the internet more than ever to promote this new album, what do you like about the internet and what do you often do with it? Mike: (grinning and touching his chin) Heh, heh.
I know what you mean Mike (laughs). Tre: I make computer viruses and destroy people's computers.
Again (laughs). Tre: Yeah, I haven't. Mike: I think now, rather than being afraid of the internet, you can value it as a tool. If you don't have a record shop in town, you can find artists online, and if you're an artist or musician, you can let people know online. When we were kids, we used to hand out flyers announcing shows. Now we can just put it on Facebook. Tre: Now, thanks to smartphones, we can carry more technology in our pockets than the rocket that landed man on the moon. It's suddenly irrelevant, but I just wanted to speak with two words in one sentence: mankind and rocket.
"I want to see what Lindsay Lohan's poop looks like so badly!" (Tre)
(laughs). Do you like Twitter? Billie: I have a Twitter account, but I leave it to other people. Because if I get drunk, I'll start tweeting on Twitter and that can be quite dangerous. So I leave it to other people and just tweet about what's going on in the band. But it's got to be my official tweets. Tre: You know what I love so much is when you can see when Lindsay Lohan is in line at Starbucks to get a coffee. I'd love to see what her poop looks like. Twitter is very useful. Some people tweet too much, though. Billie: I like Instagram. It's good. Tre: People take pictures of food all the time. Billie: Just take pictures of the booze. Tre: Yeah. Mike: Or body parts. Tre: Yeah, after a few drinks. Billie: Hahahaha. Tre: The tequila made me take my clothes off! (laughs).
(laughs). It's time to go, so what's your final message to our readers? Tre: Japan! I'll be over there soon! See you soon! Mike: We're really looking forward to meeting you guys. Tre: We miss you guys. Mike: We'll put on our best show for you. We love you guys. We can't wait to see you. Tre: Let's all have a great time! Billie: We're doing a club show in Japan. It's going to be great.
(Interview recorded before Summer Sonic on 11th July)
Translator's Note: Translating this interview made me notice something. Namely that back then, things felt loose and free. Like I know and am aware that that's not the case, but you just read these and can't help but feel as though it's a glimpse back to a time that was far more lax in ways that today doesn't feel like it. Or maybe that's just nostalgia speaking to me.
