By JEFF NELSON
ALICE BAXLEY; INSET: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGE
Green Day has been rocking on for more than three decades, but frontman Billie Joe Armstrong recently wondered if he’d gone soft. For the first time, the punk revivalist wrote a song dedicated to his sons Joey, 28, and Jakob, 25. “I was like, ‘How do I sum this up without getting too sappy?’ ” Armstrong, 51, says of the new track “Father to a Son,” which appears on Green Day’s 14th studio album, Saviors (out Jan. 19).
The band—rounded out by bassist Mike Dirnt, 51, and drummer Tré Cool, 51—broke through in the ’90s with playful ponderings on growing pains and has long made noise with sneering protest anthems. But Green Day’s music has always been packed with heart, soul and a powerful punch of vulnerability. Their new record is no different. Armstrong still tackles politics, but he also gets personal, writing about his struggles with mental health and substance abuse as well as his nearly 30-year marriage to his wife, Adrienne, 54. “We started out as kids—now here we are spending our middle age together. We’ve been through so much in our life, and we’ve always been able to come out stronger,” says Armstrong, whose new song “Bobby Sox” was inspired by nights on the couch watching The Office with his wife. “I’ll take all of the good and the bad; I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Since forming in 1986, Green Day has sold more than 75 million records worldwide, earned four Grammys and claimed a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. All these years later, Armstrong’s early punk-rock ethos remains steadfast. “I still try to maintain that kind of spirit about what we do,” the Oakland-based singer says, “which is just being independent and free to express yourself the way that you want.” Here Armstrong looks back on some of the band’s most beloved hits.
That song [from 1994’s Dookie] was written about panic attacks, but it was a way of being self deprecating, and that was the way of dealing with it. I wasn’t so sure about that song—I didn’t think it was going to be a single, so when it came out and got so big, I was really surprised. It’s become this song that has been in our set for the last 30 years.
I was living my life as just a pre-bachelor or something. I was carousing around a little bit, and didn’t really have any connections. I just felt like, “Ah, whatever happens, happens. That’s life.” I wish I had a little bit more of that attitude now. I’m way more stressed-out now than I was when I wrote “When I Come Around.” But I still love the groove that it had. It was a different sort of feel, and we knew that song was going to be a special one on the album [Dookie].
I had my first real girlfriend, and she went to Cal [University of California, Berkeley]. Me and Tré and a bunch of other guys lived at this house on Ashby Avenue, and she and her roommates lived above us. I remember going to this party one night and listening to these college kids play these acoustic songs, and I was like, “Oh wow, that’s pretty cool.” She was moving to Ecuador, and I was pretty heartbroken about it, so I wrote that song [from 1997’s Nimrod] for her. It’s a simple love song on a guitar, and it has ended up being played at graduations and bar mitzvahs; it’s at funerals and weddings. It’s wild what it turned into.
1. Armstrong famously started a mud fight when Green Day performed at Woodstock ’94. 2. Armstrong (in 1993) and the band cut their teeth on the Bay Area punk scene before finding mainstream success. 3. “It’s like friendship, but it’s a bigger, broader bond,” he says of his relationship with his musician sons (Jakob, left, and Joey, with Adrienne in 2020). 4. The trio celebrated the opening of American Idiot’s Broadway adaptation in 2010. It won two Tonys and was up for Best Musical. 5. They won the Best Rock Album Grammy in 2005. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE; FRANK MICELOTTA/ GETTY IMAGES; GREG SCHNEIDER; DANNY CLINCH; KEN SCHLES
It’s just about loneliness. Anytime that I would be writing songs for a record, you feel like a sense of isolation. At that time, I went to New York by myself. I was staying in an apartment, and I was there for quite some time—over a couple months—and I was just trying to focus on writing [2004’s American Idiot] with no distractions. There can be all of this chaos going on around you, but ultimately you can find yourself pretty alone in the world.
I think there was a false narrative that was created to go into war after 9/11. It was like we were looking at our generation’s Vietnam. I wrote that about how scary it was watching cable news, watching as the tanks were rolling in to search and destroy. It was the first time I really felt a big divide in our country. That song [from American Idiot] is just anti-war.
‘Green Day has been a purpose for us’ — ON WHAT HAS KEPT THE BAND TOGETHER
My father died in September of ’82, and I purposely, up until that point, never went there. I think really what I was doing was processing that loss that I had with this person that I never really knew. So I wrote that song [from American Idiot] for my father and about that loss and how 20 years had passed. I remember right after I wrote it, I felt this huge weight off my shoulders.
There’s a band called 5 Seconds of Summer who wanted me to write a song for them. All of a sudden I was writing the lyrics, and I was like, “Oh my God, there’s no f---ing way I’m giving these guys this song.” There’s all those moments where it’s the last moment of someone’s life—it’s so intense. It’s just a song [from 2016’s Revolution Radio] about being a survivor.
It definitely deals with mental health and addiction. When I say, “I was sober, now I’m drunk again,” that could be looked at two different ways. It could be someone going, “F---, yeah. I was sober, now I’m drunk again,” at a party, or it could be someone that’s fallen. That’s what it means to me, anyway. For me, alcohol gets in the way of everything, from my relationship with my family to just trying to get a good night’s sleep. It gets in the way of my happiness. So I don’t drink. Now there’s no shame and hangover and all that s---. I feel really good.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: ALICE BAXLEY; COURTESY BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG; RON POWNALL/GETTY IMAGE; SHIRLAINE FORREST/WIREIMAGE
