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If my memory doesn’t fail me, what we gathered from both interviews and Cuatro is that the production process there was quite different. The band almost self produced those records, when the recording started Cavallo took the demos and probably acted a bit too much as a yes man doing some polishing but not really steering them in any direction. I remember a bit of Cuatro where Cavallo essentially say that the tracks where so good that he didn’t really have much to do. And well, maybe that was not necessarily true for all of them. Maybe he actually believed that, maybe it was a time/budget constraint due to the amount of songs. Who knows. I would definitely love to see a good music journalist that knows the band interviewing them about those days. I’m pretty sure if asked the right questions in the right way they would have many things to say about that era that we still only partially know.

Also based on what they said in Cuatro, the band and Cavallo had been apart for a while and they referred to his return as “rekindling the friendship”. So he may have been treading lightly and just glad to be there to play a more supportive role rather than coming in heavy handed with a lot to say. Billie had a definite idea of wanting a clean sound for these songs and he did his best to deliver that and not do too much. I like when Mike gets the occasional whole lines and verses to sing. Even backing vocals he gets lost in the mix these days. His voice is a nice counterpoint to Billie’s and suits certain character voices. It’s what I like so much about the Network, how their voices are balanced more and used to great effect on certain songs. Reminds me of what The Beatles would do, knowing which songs would suit which vocalist.

I am so stoked to hear the production of the new songs. I mean Green Day + Rob Cavallo + Chris Lord-Alge already sounded amazing 20 years ago. Now think about 20 years progress in their skills and their equipment and add that to the high level they already had 😍

Completely possible but I don’t think its that. Combination of tech issues and of course the level of familiarity. I always found when playing live if there was any mistake (and yes they do happen at all levels) it was usually on new songs. Your crew or sound people never performed their duties for that specific song before, you need to remember new (and possibly ever changing) lyrics and you don’t really know yet how it comes across to the audience. Adding in technical issues with that just makes it feel like a doomed moment. What really sucks is that as music fans, musicians and just in general people who dive deeper into the band, we understand what happened but most people won’t. It will just be a “that song sucked” moment rather than “I want to hear this song properly”. I’m waiting for a legit studio version before my official judgement. I personally see some potential for the song. I cant wait to see what CLA did with these songs. A really great guitar tone could make this song pop. And of course just basing this off the last record, we need someone to EQ Billie’s voice properly. Butch Walker seemed to get that “band in a box” type sound which doesn’t work with this band at all. We need larger than life guitars with good tone. We need Tre’s great drum sound back. I would also like the band on backing vocals again, not just Billie on multiple tracks. I dont mind if he’s in the backing vocal track along with the others but not solo.

I think you nailed it here, we just need a healthy mix rather than sticking with the same method over and over. And totally agree about Mike’s backing vocals pre-AI days. It was a massive part of the band’s sound.

Listening to the uptempo full band arrangement of Good Riddance from the Audible, I think it would be a great way to freshen up this song for encores. Billie could still play acoustic but they could play it as a full band, it’s such a fun romp. You could still end with Good Riddance but change it up.

I think Mike is a great backing vocalist. However, I also think that the backing vocals can sound great with just Billie too. 21CB I think has the best backing vocals of any Green Day album and afaik that's mostly just Billie. Mike might be in there at points and I'm sure he's probably doing the "Hey"s and stuff (along with Tré maybe) but Billie sounds so good on those backing vocals throughout that entire album imo. I definitely am not opposed to Mike and/or even Tré doing more backing vocals though. Mike has great backing vocals throughout their pre-AI days where his contributions were a lot more evident

I never used in-ear monitors (this may have been a huge mistake of mine) but yes thats correct it helps them to hear but also at the same time protects their ears from the environment noise from the stage. My right ear wasn’t doing well for a better part of 15 years. I played a show where I couldn’t hear very well and it was god awful. I had to sing over distorted guitars, drums and bass without hearing my voice. It was probably our worst show but I was lucky enough to atleast have sounded good. The sound-man on the show just wasn’t the best to be honest. Listening back from the crowd’s perspective he could have done a better job out there too. Billie and the band were definitely pissed. Nothing is more frustrating than that. Someone also mentioned Billie was forgetting lyrics and that does happen especially with new songs. I would just make them up as I went along LOL

Could’ve also been nerves too, playing the song live for the first time

Excuse my ignorance, but I vaguely remember reading about how it all works on stage which I find fascinating. From what you've said with your own stage experience you will be able to correct me. I think the article said that there's so much distraction on stage, plus noise of crowd, that the earpiece in Billie Joe's ear keeps him in contact with his own voice and other band members instruments ? Making sure your in right key and tempo? So when it failed, he lost contact with everything, so it must be so easy to get lost as to where you are. But like a true professional, Billie Joe carried on knowing exactly where he should be when the technology worked again. As well as playing his guitar, Billie Joe is singing, reacting and talking to the crowd whilst listening to the device in his ear. Nice one Billie Joe. When he walked away on stage after the song, I could imagine he was well pissed off. You've worked on sharing a brand new song with everyone, and it gets fucked up thanks to the shortcomings of technology. Still I bet they had a laugh about it later. That's live music for yer.. Bet it'll be perfect next time

Yes he was. Forgot some lyrics too. I'm repeating myself but I can't believe I was there. 1981 will be the first single in October.

Hearing 409 in good quality makes me wish we had more songs from 1000 hours/slappy in this quality. Hearing something like dry ice or only of you like this would be incredible

Rob Cavallo was busy during the time they were writing and recording 21CB. In 2006 he produced The Black Parade by MCR and in 2009 he produced Paramore's Brand New Eyes. The fact that the very next project they recorded after 21CB they recorded with Cavallo means I don't think there were really any hurt feelings between them, even if their friendship was impacted. Not working together for 8 years after spending 10 years working together (1994-2004) does seem like something that would maybe affect their relationship Even if the band did actively choose not to record with Cavallo for 21CB, he doesn't seem like the type of guy to hold a grudge like that and I highly doubt he would let that affect the production of the following project they would work on together. The issues with the trilogy's production was probably more to do with Billie who seemed to want the albums to sound a certain way and so many songs being on the project that they didn't really get to put the necessary time and effort into all of them to make them stand out

A feature from John Oliver would be preferable

To wait for the official release would be the best decision and to judge the new song live under these circumstances wouldn‘t be fair tbh. Who knows if its really gonna be end up as the first single, there were so much changes/delay for the whole record we can‘t even be sure to hear it as the lead single. And if so, we should give it a try. They have a lot of second/third/… singles that got more air playing (BOBD, 21 Guns, wake me up, still breathing, etc). For the trilogy production I can imagine they ran out of time with the number of songs and unreleased material. But Idk I think it sounds much better than FOAM productionwise. I dont know but if you look at Offsprings latest release they took a lot of time and got a lot of great people working on it and it sounds terrible for that period of time 😂 Especially the first song (which was my favorite with Hassan Chop) you can‘t really listen to it because of the bad quality. Sounds like a leaked Napster version

Had a dream that Green Day was performing at an awards ceremony, and the voiceover said, "when we come back, a performance by Green Day" when Billie grabbed the mic and said "2 of the 3 members of Green Day". Cut to commercial and I was trying to figure out who wouldn't be playing. I remember that Tre was injured, figured it must be him, and was trying to figure out who'd be playing in his place. Chris Dugan? David from Prima Donna? Woke up before the commercial ended though.

Things could be changed before the official release. I’m not judging it off an insta story vid. I’m waiting for the official release. And they know this band well so they know how to make them pop. Not sure about the trilogy though. What happened there? I didn’t like the production at all.

I think most of these 4 million were generated after and because of the success of Dookie and American Idiot

I mean, we already have an idea on how the studio version sounds, with this Instagram Story accidentally posted by Billie

Someone on reddit said that credits are in tidal and the mix of 409 and Christie Road are from Chris Dugan, not Jerry finn

No trap beats

Enough. Talk about the song or go away.

I think Offspring hold the record but of course their label was much larger than Lookout and could meet the demand quicker. The Offspring rocked though so it’s totally deserved.

C'mon guys let's get back to the topic please. I've been a mod on April 1st so I know how to run this site and keeping everyone back on track.

I mean it's kind of obvious why they wouldn't play H&H live. It's a relatively obscure deep cut from 21CB and it'd be way too hard for Billie to perform along with 2 hours of other songs. It may not be a great live track but I still think it's a top tier track.

Not only equipment but guitar tuning as well, Dookie was actually the first album where Mike and Billie used a tuner on their guitars so Billie may have changed his vocal pitch to match the tuning better. I guess before Dookie Mike and Billie just tuned to each other without using a tuner lol

So we've had 13 songs released in advance of 30th to drool over, 4 track & outtakes. Thanks GD. They are all amazing recordings. But if I had to choose a few favs, for me, Basket Case would have to be first. (I'm in raptures with Billie Joe's guitar playing, amazing). Followed by 409 In Your Coffeemaker, Christie Road, When I Come Around. I'm sure yours will differ, which is cool.

I feel your pain, I already have one holiday and two weddings! Need those dates pronto 😂

Christie Road was everything I wanted it to be. Finally a good Christie Road version I can listen for the rest of my life that isn't live version from Awesome as Fuck.

I love the versions of Christie Road and Walking The Dog, reminds me of the Stones version, quite bluesy.

A crime have this hidden for 30 years

Dude: „omg you‘re Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day?!?!“ Billie: „Hi nice to meet you. New album“ Dude: „Thank you! Goodbye“ Yes, he did mention it 😂

probably to the fact that he/the character whose POV he's writing from is on the spectrum? He was relatively coherent on that album so make of it what you will in the context of the song. I wouldn't take it literally, because it's just a song, and there's a good chance he just threw that in, but also would it suprise me if a guy who couldn't make eye contact if his life depended on it was on the spectrum?