Billie Joe Armstrong - My Life in 15 Songs - Rolling Stone - 29.01.20

[Rumpelstiltskin2000]

New article from Rolling Stone (at least I think it is because it goes up to FOAMF but then lots of old articles seem to be coming up on my timeline recently!):

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/billie-joe-armstrong-green-day-my-life-937805/father-of-all -938146/

Billie Joe Armstrong: My Life in 15 Songs

The Green Day frontman tells the stories behind his biggest classics, from punk squats in West Oakland to worldwide fame, broken hearts, and political fury

Billie Joe Armstrong remembers asking his guitar teacher a question that would change his life. “I said, ‘How do you write a song?’ ” says the Green Day singer-guitarist, 47, at his studio in Oakland. “All he said was, ‘It’s verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus — mix it up any way you want.’ ” Pretty soon, that was all Armstrong could think about. His three-chord anthems about growing up — with all the loneliness, anxiety, drug use, and masturbation that can come along the way — resonated with a generation on 1994’s diamond-certified Dookie and beyond. Whether he’s writing punk songs or a politically powered rock opera, Armstrong has the same rules: “It’s so important to try and be as honest as you possibly can with your audience,” he says. “When people find a deep connection, it’s because you’re trying to find your own connection inside of yourself. I think that that’s the thing that actually ends up transcending.”

Some hits have come to him in five minutes, others take longer. He recently finished a song he’s been tinkering with since 1993. And in February, 30 years into their career, Green Day will unveil an exciting new sound on their 13th album, Father of All … Armstrong says it comes from going on a soul kick — Motown, Prince, Amy Winehouse, and others — and “putting it through the Green Day filter.” On the title track, he sings in falsetto while drummer Tré Cool pounds out a wild, Mitch Mitchell-style beat that Armstrong calls “one of the most insane things he’s ever played.”

“Billie was pushing himself to get to a newer place,” bassist Mike Dirnt says. “And we had to chase that down. Which is par for the course, because nobody digs deeper than Billie.”

In conversation, Armstrong is friendly, but also a little reserved, taking long pauses between answers about his process. “I don’t want to sound like a baboon,” he says, stopping himself at one point. Cool, his bandmate and friend of three decades, once described him as “gifted and tormented. Billie’s brain is like 18 tape recorders playing simultaneously in a circle. Then he tries to have a conversation … and he’ll be looking you in the eye going, ‘Huh?’ ”

“Fuck him!” Armstrong says now, with a laugh, after hearing that quote. “What does he know?” But Armstrong admits that he’s not quite sure how his brain works when it comes to songwriting. As many songs as he’s written, he still gets anxious when he hasn’t written one in a while. “You feel like, ‘Oh, my God, am I ever going to write another song again?’ Then, all of a sudden, something pops up and you go from feeling like a loser to king of the world.”

“409 in Your Coffeemaker”

I’d just dropped out of high school, and I was feeling really lost — like a daydreamer who was being left behind. I didn’t know what life was going to be. I think that’s when I’m at my most honest as a songwriter, when I’m feeling lost. So I took this sad feeling and turned it into something that felt more empowering: “My interests are longing to break through these chains/These chains that control my future’s aims.” My songs were about infatuation up until that point. This one felt like a different version of who I am. I remember when we first started playing it, people were really receptive to it, especially the punks that were on the scene at the time. We had put out our first album and an EP, but this is where I felt like I had really found my rhythm as a songwriter. I was 18 years old.

“2000 Light Years Away”

The first tour that Green Day ever went on, I met my wife, Adrienne, at a house party in Minneapolis. She asked for an address because we had run out of our vinyl. Then we started corresponding and kind of became pen pals, and having these long talks, running up phone bills.

Then Green Day booked this mini-tour. We drove from California all the way out to Minnesota. Nobody really knew why we were driving all the way to Wisconsin and Minnesota to just play, like, four shows, but I was really just going back to see her. On the way back, I wrote “2000 Light Years Away.” The song just wrote itself. I put it down on an acoustic guitar and sent her a cassette of it. When you write a song for a person that you’re falling for, you don’t know what the response is going to be. The last thing you want is for someone to go, “Oh, you’re a stalker!” But it’s been a staple in our set ever since, and it led into many, many, many songs I’ve been writing about her for the next almost 30 years.

“Welcome to Paradise”

I had moved out of my house in the suburbs to West Oakland, into a warehouse that was rat-infested and in a really fucked-up neighborhood, with a lot of crazy punks and friends. I was paying $50 a month for rent, which was great, because, being in a band, you got paid a couple hundred bucks here and there — so it was easy to pay for rent, eat Top Ramen, and buy weed.

It was an eye-opening experience. Suddenly, I was on my own, smack out in one of the gnarliest neighborhoods in Oakland. You look around and you see cracked streets and broken homes and ghetto neighborhoods, and you’re in the middle of it. You’re scared, thinking, “How do I get out of here?” Then suddenly it starts to feel like home. There is a sort of empathy that you have for your surroundings when you’re around junkies and homelessness and gang warfare. “A gunshot rings out at the station/Another urchin snaps and left dead on his own” — I was describing exactly what my surroundings were. There’s not a part of that song that isn’t true. It’s a great live song to crank into. I think the musicality of the [bridge] is a foreshadowing of what things were to come for us in the future, whether we knew it or not.

She”

I had a girlfriend named Amanda, this Cal student. I learned a lot about feminism through her. She gave me an education that I think was very timely for me. I was just a dumb kid, high school dropout. She was telling me about the way women have been objectified for so many years, and I was just listening. I wrote this as a love song to her, but it was also about learning about her activism. When it says “Scream at me until my ears bleed,” I was kind of going, “I’m here to listen.” With any kind of activism, the first thing you need to do is be a good listener. The song becomes about an understanding. That song just feels so good to sing. I’m really proud of it; it’s very stripped down, simple, three chords. It’s kind of a cult hero. It’s one of those songs that wasn’t a single, but it had a life of its own. Those are the special kinds of songs.

“Longview”

I really loved the song by the Pretenders called “Message of Love,” and wanted to write a song like that, but we needed a bass line. We are all living in this house in Richmond, California, and I think I went to a movie. Everybody back at the house had dropped acid. So I came home and Mike is sitting on the floor in the kitchen tripping balls, and he had his bass on, and he goes, “I figured it out, man! I figured it out.” He played the bass line for me for the first time right there. I didn’t know what to think about it, because I was like, “Well, he’s on acid, so I can’t tell if he’s even going to remember it.” Then we ended up playing it the next day, and it just stuck.

The lyrics to it are about feeling like a loser, watching television, jerking off, and feeling lonely. I was pretty frightened at the time. I was in limbo. I didn’t have a girlfriend — it took, like, four years for me and Adrienne to get together, from like ’90 until ’94. We had signed to a major label, and there was a backlash at the time because we had been this underground band. Things felt out of my control, and it felt like a make-or-break deal. It’s such a unique-sounding song, when you really look at it. Nobody was playing rhythms that swing, or that kind of power in the choruses. Grunge had turned into something that was bastardized by lameness, and I think we were coming from a place that felt a little harder and more upbeat. And it was super-danceable and got people to go crazy.

“Brain Stew”

This song is such a dark horse. I had just gotten some recording equipment, and I came up with the riff when I was experimenting with it for the first time: “Oh, this is cool. It almost sounds like a harder Beatles song, like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps.’ ” The song is about methamphetamine, not being able to sleep, and staying up all night. It was something that was creeping into our punk scene at the time, and I definitely did my experimenting with it. It’s just such an evil drug.

Things were getting really scary. I’m such a dedicated songwriter and musician, and when Dookie got so big — it was on par with becoming one of the biggest pop records of all time — I really wanted to be like, “I’m a rocker. I’m a punk rocker. That’s what matters to me more than being some kind of pop star.” That sort of fueled that record.

Everything was happening. I got married, I had a kid, I was 23 years old, and people were climbing in my trees to look inside my house. It was the scary side of becoming a rock star, or whatever. You can’t control the outcome of your life. I wanted to show the uglier side of what Green Day was capable of.

“Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”

I wrote this back when I was writing for Dookie. It was for a girlfriend who was moving to Ecuador. I went to this house party in Berkeley, where all these college students were passing an acoustic guitar around and singing songs — a “weird dudes with ponytails and an acoustic guitar” kind of moment. I remember going, “Oh, man, I should try doing an acoustic song,” so I wrote that song about her and the end of our relationship. “Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial” — I had tattooed her name on me, and then I had to get it covered up, that’s all that was.

It’s about trying to be cool, accepting that, in life, people go in different directions. This was a wildly different direction: I was getting ready to go on tour and promote Dookie, and had a single on the radio, and everything was starting to happen. She was moving to Ecuador to continue her studies and live with a family there. People come into your life and it’s wonderful, but they seem to go out of your life as quickly as they came in. That’s what the song’s about.

So I wrote it in ’93 — the whole song was done — but I didn’t think it was going to be for Green Day at all. Then when we were doing Insomniac, I did a demo for it, but it wasn’t right for that album, either. I didn’t really know what to do. When we made Nimrod, I was just like, “Let’s see what happens.” We put this little string quartet on it, which was going way outside what Green Day was known for. And it was amazing. It opened up a brand-new world: “Oh, fuck, we can do so much more.”

It took on a life of its own. I was definitely not thinking about weddings and graduations when I wrote it. A girl just sent me a message on my Instagram [saying] she had a brother that just passed away, and that became the song her family would listen to that they related to their experience. It’s really beautiful when you think about it.

“Minority”

After “Time of Your Life,” I started getting into playing more acoustic guitar, and I really wanted to have more for Warning. And there was also a lot of kind of bad pop punk that was starting to happen, and I wanted to go against that genre. This felt like the next step. I had been getting into listening to more of the Kinks and the Who, who found a lot of power in an acoustic song, and used the guitar almost like a drum. “Pinball Wizard” is so percussive. I wrote this right before the election between George Bush and Al Gore. I started feeling the political wheels starting to turn toward conservatism a little bit. I think that song is sort of about declaring that you’re stepping out of the line, you’re not part of the sheep, and trying to find your own individualism. It felt like we were diving into something that was more conceptual for sure.

I’d like to go back and rerecord that album. It was right when Pro Tools started happening. I want to go back and just do everything more live, because I think “Minority” live is a lot better than it came out on the album. But that’s just one of those things that you think about too much.

“Jesus of Suburbia”

I loved “A Quick One” by the Who, and I decided I’d love to write a song that felt like a mini-opera. We had a studio that we could work everything out at and experiment, and Mike, Tré, and I had been coming up with little 30-second vignettes and trying to connect them in the studio.

After I wrote “American Idiot,” I was like, “Who is this character?” Then the ideas started firing at me: “I’m the son of rage and love/The Jesus of Suburbia/The Bible of none of the above.” It felt like I was in uncharted territory, really for the first time. I’d taken my songwriting to another level. It starts almost doo-woppy, and then it ends up almost going into this sort of Black Sabbath direction. It’s kind of around-the-world-in-eight-minutes or something. And Jesus of Suburbia ended up becoming the character that ran throughout the entire album.

“Holiday”

That was a time when our country was moving into a war for fictitious reasons. A lot of it had to do with politics and oil. It felt like the country was beginning to come apart. I think the catalyst of where we’re at now, really, is with George W. Bush. So this song was just about trying to find your own voice and your own individuality and questioning everything that you see on television, in politics, school, family, and religion.

I was jumping into character a little bit. I wanted something that sounded very nasty. I definitely wanted to do something that was provocative. So I was like, “Sieg Heil to the president Gasman,” invoking old Nazi Germany propaganda films, contrasted with the American branches of government. I was just kind of messing around and using the English language against itself. With the riff, I was messing around with chords in a different way and putting in some echo and delay on it, doing what I normally do and trying to come up with riffs.

“21 Guns”

I got really burned out, because I was pushing myself to take things to a new level musically and lyrically, and that got pretty serious and dark. I had this feeling of wanting to surrender. I was just kind of living like a tortured soul. And you end up kind of torturing the people that are around you, whether it’s your family or your friends, and nobody understands what it is that you’re going through, and maybe that’s just being an artist or the pains of getting older. So, that’s sort of what that song is about, where you just get so lost in what you’re doing that at some point all you’re doing in life is just trying to find your way back. Maybe back to sanity. Sometimes you have to figure out what’s worth fighting for, because you might just be fighting yourself. I think that that’s the one thing that’s a theme throughout a lot of my songs: the feeling of being lost.

“Fell for You”

I always wanted ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tre! to be our power-pop Exile on Main Street, and I understand it sounds a bit stiff and the production isn’t great. I love those songs, but a lot of it feels half-baked. It was a weird time. I sort of had my own private nervous breakdown. Well, it wasn’t really private. I think it was just a lot of exhaustion. There’s, like, 36 songs on that album. It’s insane. But when I revisit it, “Fell for You” is what stands out. I was listening to a lot of power-pop music. I always say that power pop is the greatest music on Earth that no one likes, whether it’s something like Cheap Trick or [another band]. That was like, “Let’s just write a gooey bubblegum song about dreams and love and crushes and all the stuff that kind of keeps us alive.”

Those things never really stop as you get older. You always come across people that you want to spend time with, but you have to be realistic about it. When you’re a kid, it’s OK to be more impulsive. When you grow up, it can cause a lot of wreckage in your life, so it’s best to maybe write a song about it.

“Ordinary World”

I was in a movie called Ordinary World in 2016, and the director, Lee Kirk, wanted a song that kind of summed up the character’s life. I had a couple of strikeouts with it. One of them was “Outlaws,” which is also on Revolution Radio. Then I ended up writing this song, “Ordinary World,” that sounded more country, and it just sort of fit the movie. It’s about family, really. [“Where can I find the city of shining light/In an ordinary world?/How can I leave a buried treasure behind/In an ordinary world?”] It’s just finding out that the things in life that are more simple are actually the biggest connections that you can have. We tend to overthink the things that are not really important.

I think about this song as an extension of “2000 Light Years Away,” 20-something years apart. I value my relationships so much. I’m very deeply connected to Adrienne, and I’m very deeply connected to Green Day. People ask me, like, “Why do you maintain these relationships for so long?” I don’t know. Roots matter to me, I guess.

“Love Is for Losers”

I recorded an album as the Longshot, which was kind of an extension of ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tre!, except where I produce it myself and not overthink it. I recorded all the instruments myself, and just started putting stuff out on SoundCloud and releasing little clips on Instagram. It taught me how to have fun with making records again, and how cool it can be, you know? It was this concept that ended up turning into a real band. I was dipping into music that’s way more rock & roll and more like, I would say, mid-career Replacements, or this band I love called the Exploding Hearts. I was also thinking of the Ronettes and early Beach Boys. I remember when I came up with the riff in that song, and I love the first line, “I’m riding shotgun in a car that’s broken down.” It’s just like, you’re going absolutely nowhere. It’s sort of like the anti-Valentine’s Day song. I think I got back to something that felt more self-deprecating and dumb, and when I’m dumb, I’m at my best.

“Father of All …”

I was getting deep into Motown and soul music, and trying to channel that. You have to kind of thread the needle with Green Day to make sure that all of a sudden we’re not just trying too hard to be something that we’re not. It takes a weird balance. I had the riff, and I sat down with Tré and we did a demo. I’d been listening to the first couple of Prince records. He really threads the needle on ticking every genre — he was taking funk, R&B, and old classic-rock music, and he was able to turn out this sound that is so uniquely Prince. And everything is in falsetto. I wanted to try to sing through a falsetto. I was like, “I don’t want to sound like me, necessarily.”

At the same time, I was in this weird kind of depression, and that’s what the song is about. I was just struggling in life, and I think it has to do with reflecting on the current culture that we’re in. It’s hard to write songs about Trump. With American Idiot, there was a rallying cry. With Trump, it’s this toxicity that’s in our culture and we’re deeply, deeply divided to a point of paranoia that we’ve never felt before. It’s just bloody, and it’s gross. There’s a line: “We are rivals in the riot that’s inside of us.” I feel like that’s what’s happening in our culture. There’s this civil war that’s brewing. With Mike throwing the bass on top of it, it just sort of created this ultimate Green Day song. And I’ve never been more proud of a single before in my life.

Photos from the article:

[Little Boy Named Booze]

3 minutes ago, Rumpelstiltskin2000 said:

And I’ve never been more proud of a single before in my life.

Duh.

[Beyza]

2 minutes ago, Little Boy Named Airplane said:

Duh.

I think they always say they’re so proud of the new stuff but he didn’t mention it so far this time. I found that weird cause Tré and Mike looked more exciting than him about the album in interviews. Now, I’m glad he finally said it lol 

[jengd]

Great interview, thanks for sharing!

[HAPPY ZOMBIE UNICORN]

Amazing interview and... 

“We drove from California all the way out to Minnesota. Nobody really knew why we were driving all the way to Wisconsin and Minnesota to just play, like, four shows, but I was really just going back to see her.” 

 

Also this one, I think he has never been so much self reflective and honest about those records. Pretty amazing, it’s nice to see this today. 

“I always wanted ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tre! to be our power-pop Exile on Main Street, and I understand it sounds a bit stiff and the production isn’t great. I love those songs, but a lot of it feels half-baked. It was a weird time. I sort of had my own private nervous breakdown. Well, it wasn’t really private. I think it was just a lot of exhaustion.“

[Beerjeezus]

Great interview, I just hope RS does one where they do this deep into FOAM songs

[The Grohl]

This was such a great interview! I feel like Billie really opened up and was very thoughtful about his answers. He provides so much insight into these songs and his frame of mind during recording and certain things make so much sense now! And it's cool seeing him talk about the missteps he took with the Trilogy. But my biggest takeaway is that I need to find someone who cares about me the way Billie cares about Aidie because hot damn! It's so gushy and sweet it makes me sick

[pacejunkie punk]

This is one of the most honest interviews I’ve seen from him in a long time. Nice to read.

[CherryBombs&Gasoline]

Such a great and honest interview. Thanks for sharing it with us! I always love to hear more about the background of the songs that I love. 

Also, I feel a bit sorry for not really digging FOA. They seem to be really proud of it and that's cool, so I guess it doesn't really matter that I think it's very average and probably one of their worst lead singles 😂. 

Anyway, I hope they'll break down the whole record when it comes out. 

[Beerjeezus]

1 hour ago, kaylubd said:

This was such a great interview! I feel like Billie really opened up and was very thoughtful about his answers. He provides so much insight into these songs and his frame of mind during recording and certain things make so much sense now! And it's cool seeing him talk about the missteps he took with the Trilogy. But my biggest takeaway is that I need to find someone who cares about me the way Billie cares about Aidie because hot damn! It's so gushy and sweet it makes me sick

This so much. Reading about his perspective on the songs and about the creative process makes me appreciate them more and some if it is very "aha". And yeah, his story about Adie also the fact that it worked out??? I wish I had that in my life.

What surprises me is that he paid rent in the Welcome To Paradise house. I thought it was a squat.

[Jimmy Strummer]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, but I would've loved it even more if it was a video, like the "Most Iconic Roles" ones GQ does with certain actors and directors? I've always wanted to see one of those videos but with Billie talking about some of his most iconic songs, and this interview is about as close as I'll get to that.

[Beyza]

3 hours ago, Rumpelstiltskin2000 said:

He recently finished a song he’s been tinkering with since 1993.

I wonder if this song ever gonna come out like Good Riddance one day, I hope it will. 

[desertrose]

Thank You!!! Great interview.

[JOE THE X-KID]

Its a real shame the Trilogy didnt do well, the potential is there but some outside factors really affected its success, not so much the songs themselves

[Guest]

Wow, this interview was great. I love to hear what artists have to say about their own work. 

[pacejunkie punk]

2 hours ago, Beerjeezus said:

This so much. Reading about his perspective on the songs and about the creative process makes me appreciate them more and some if it is very "aha". And yeah, his story about Adie also the fact that it worked out??? I wish I had that in my life.

What surprises me is that he paid rent in the Welcome To Paradise house. I thought it was a squat.

He paid rent to somebody. The squat refers to the fact that it was illegal to live in a warehouse. But yeah, he chose it because the rent was a lot less than what his mom was gonna charge him if he stayed at home.

[Beerjeezus]

1 minute ago, pacejunkie punk said:

He paid rent to somebody. The squat refers to the fact that it was illegal to live in a warehouse. But yeah, he chose it because the rent was a lot less than what his mom was gonna charge him if he stayed at home.

Oh, that's pretty sketchy to charge people to live in your warehouse, but I guess this is how my generation is going to live if rents keep rising

[Squashie]

2 minutes ago, Beerjeezus said:

Oh, that's pretty sketchy to charge people to live in your warehouse, but I guess this is how my generation is going to live if rents keep rising

And to think rising rent wasn't a huge issue in 1989/90...

Also, I couldn't do a warehouse. I'm at the point were I don't even think I could handle a roommate.

[The Grohl]

1 minute ago, DadBod said:

And to think rising rent wasn't a huge issue in 1989/90...

Also, I couldn't do a warehouse. I'm at the point were I don't even think I could handle a roommate.

Big mood right there.

[DookieLukie]

Was "She" not a single? Pretty sure it was.

[Beerjeezus]

1 minute ago, DadBod said:

And to think rising rent wasn't a huge issue in 1989/90...

Also, I couldn't do a warehouse. I'm at the point were I don't even think I could handle a roommate.

I wouldn't want to live in a squat long term (it's one thing to handle the rat infested place for a short stay, but weeks? months? years? no, thanks lol), but having to pay for it on top of it all? Poor guy haha

[Squashie]

2 minutes ago, kaylubd said:

Big mood right there.

1st world problems when you've lived by yourself for 10+ years...

[HAPPY ZOMBIE UNICORN]

Also the bit about Warning and making that record also to take the distance from the bad pop punk bands of the time is super interesting. 

[Squashie]

Just an overall great in-depth interview. I love it when he lets his guard down some and tells a more personal side to his music. 

[Yosuke Hanamura]

Just now, DookieLukie said:

Was "She" not a single? Pretty sure it was.

It most certainly was. The single’s artwork is unmistakable.. Shudder