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The thing that was really good about this one is that so many other interviews have focused on the anniversaries of Dookie and American Idiot, and only have a little about Saviors. This one really focused on Saviors, which is what I want to hear about. Interviewer- When did the songs come together, the pandemic, more recent efforts... Billie: God, where should I start from? That's how we've felt for the past few years! Wanting to know everything, all the details.

Brand new interview with BJA and Rob Cavallo on the Song Exploder podcast, when they talk about the writing and recording of Basket Case. https://songexploder.net/green-day Some pretty rare listens to snippets of the individual stems of the song and some insights I certainly haven't heard before.

Great interview! Elliot Cahn /Jeff Saltzman were also the music supervisors of Angus and Rob Cavallo is an executive producer on the movie!

I saw a Reddit post the other day asking if Saviors has a story. Give me strength. I think American Idiot has puddled some people's brains. Why can't a GD record be just a collection of songs like 99.999% of every album ever?

It's a great podcast. Concise and informative and they seem to get great access. That moment also stood out to me. Him thinking he'd written the greatest song ever whilst on meth, only to sober up and think exactly the opposite and that it was one of the worst things he'd ever penned. 😄

My bf doesn't seem to like this song: "This is such a lazy excuse for a chorus. Don't you think?" Me: "BADA BING! BADA BING! BADA BOOOOOM!"

Name a more iconic duo: Green Day enjoyers, and trying to find deeper meaning where there is none. Let's not pretend it isn't one of the worst album artworks ever created. Everything about it just exudes edgy and - dare I say it - boomer energy. THAT poster just summed it all up, really. And with G**y G*****r being in the news this week, I'm reminded that the band thought it was a good idea to sample one of his songs on this album. The publishing details of which I'm almost certain their team didn't know about until it was too late to pull the song from the record. Hence the charity pledge once it was made public. The album was just a series of awful decisions.

My poor virgin ears will be SCANDALIZED.

"This episode has some explicit language including a mention of drug use." Wouldn't that be all interviews with rock stars?

What a great episode. I’m definitely going to listen to some more of this podcast. The fact that he wrote the original Basketcase lyrics on crystal meth is bananas. It was nice to hear Rob Cavallo too. It would be so cool to hear more about their recording processes from his perspective.

My vinyl finally arrived!!! and boy does it sound glorious. Rob's production is just so so good.

The American Dream Is Killing Me - 11,244,410 (+70k) Look Ma, No Brains! - 7,205,030 (+63k) Bobby Sox - 4,043,694 (+81k) One Eyed Bastard - 6,317,397 (+85k) Dilemma - 8,089,435 (+89k) 1981 - 2,222,712 (+48k) Goodnight Adeline - 2,014,813 (+41k) Coma City - 1,697,237 (+32k) Corvette Summer - 1,733,378 (+34k) Suzie Chapstick - 1,837,312 (+41k) Strange Days Are Here to Stay - 1,661,461 (+33k) Living in the '20s - 1,650,137 (+39k) Father to a Son - 1,368,940 (+26k) Saviors - 1,351,077 (+28k) Fancy Sauce - 1,304,008 (+26k) TOTAL - 53,741,041 (+735,625)

It was my first too! Prior to this the only thing I knew about Green Day was the International Superhits commercial I saw once when I was young. My takeaway from the ad? "Those guys are weird."

The other day I listened to American Idiot from start to finish, which I haven't done in a long time. What an amazing album. Of course I know it's a good album, but something about listening to it again really struck me. The songs are damn near perfect. The performances are out of this world. It's absolutely fantastic. For a long time I could never decided if Dookie or AI was my favorite GD album and after that playthrough, it's definitely AI. I fell in love with it all over again! I still remember when I first got a copy of the album. My mom took me to Circuit City and I picked up two CDs: AI and Maroon 5's Songs about Jane. Out of the two, I never would've guessed that I would continue to follow Green Day 20 years later.

Only 11 million more streams to a billion. We can do that TONIGHT, people. well, you can because I'm on a Strange Days are Here to Stay kick.

I discovered this podcast a while back and since then I'd been wishing they featured Green Day. Great episode! Now I still wish Billie appears on Chris Demakes a podcast. His podcast usually focus on bands' big hits but there's an episode (or more) where The Interrupters talk about their (then) new song. I want to hear Billie talk more about Goodnight Adeline or Suzie Chapstick.

This was incredible. I’d love to hear this kind of breakdown for all of Dookie. I liked how Rob explained that the reason he signed them was that they each had a distinct personality with their instruments. And it was sheer luck that they came together. They happened to have the same managers as The Muffs, the managers knew Rob because of that connection and that’s how the demo got to him. Even still, Rob was so stressed out working he nearly threw it out! It’s always so fascinating to me how luck plays a role in the timeline we know. One change and there might have been no (or a very different) career for Green Day.

Last 2 days of spotify streams The American Dream Is Killing Me - 11,104,276 (+69k) Look Ma, No Brains! - 7,080,104 (+62k) Bobby Sox - 3,877,513 (+86k) One Eyed Bastard - 6,143,045 (+90k) Dilemma - 7,907,886 (+92k) 1981 - 2,121,848 (+55k) Goodnight Adeline - 1,929,540 (+45k) Coma City - 1,632,344 (+34k) Corvette Summer - 1,664,211 (+36k) Suzie Chapstick - 1,754,139 (+42k) Strange Days Are Here to Stay - 1,593,987 (+34k) Living in the '20s - 1,570,087 (+40k) Father to a Son - 1,316,142 (+30k) Saviors - 1,293,691 (+29k) Fancy Sauce - 1,249,538 (+28k) TOTAL - 52,238,351 (+771,598) The American Dream Is Killing Me - 11,174,697 (+70k) Look Ma, No Brains! - 7,142,471 (+62k) Bobby Sox - 3,962,266 (+85k) One Eyed Bastard - 6,232,332 (+89k) Dilemma - 8,000,212 (+92k) 1981 - 2,174,221 (+52k) Goodnight Adeline - 1,973,455 (+44k) Coma City - 1,665,725 (+33k) Corvette Summer - 1,699,565 (+35k) Suzie Chapstick - 1,796,586 (+42k) Strange Days Are Here to Stay - 1,628,565 (+35k) Living in the '20s - 1,611,278 (+41k) Father to a Son - 1,343,415 (+27k) Saviors - 1,322,721 (+29k) Fancy Sauce - 1,277,907 (+28k) TOTAL - 53,005,416 (+767,065)

You weren’t wrong 😂😂 I remember liking Dookie but thinking Billie looked a bit of a nasty little oik and then saw AI and remember thinking, “wait, that’s the same guy”!!

Album 15 will Magnum Opus of the Inglorious Kind. Trust me. Oh and that was (or still is being 😎) recorded in Canada @Little Boy Named Booze

They're gonna record album 15 in Canada. A canpop album. Ever since Tim Hortons died it hasn't been the same Maple Syrup going crazy, Gretzky on the Fentanyl now. Ice hockey are here to stay

I revisited FOAM last night and it's definitely a weak album. Don't get me wrong, I still like it, but after hearing the Saviors singles it's so apparent how weak the singles are for FOAM. They're just not the same quality. The album is fun, but there's little staying power. Even as a FOAM defender, it's an album I easily forget about until one of the song randomly pops up on shuffle. There are still some bangers on there, but a lot of the songs feel incomplete, which is a shame. Graffitia seems like the most realized song, while the others are ideas that they couldn't fully get off the ground. But I still have fond memories of the FOAM era. I'll never forget being at work when Father Of All single dropped and seeing the mass reaction come in on GDC. It was a lot of "OH NO! IT"S BAD!!" Promotion was definitely weird (I still blame Crush) but we got some fun performances. I really liked their performance at the video game awards, as random as it was. I was watching it in a gamer's livestream and there were like two of us in chat that were psyched for Green Day. Everyone else was confused as to why they were there. And if it wasn't for FOAM who knows if we ever would've heard from The Network again. Clearly they saw Green Day floundering and felt it was their chance put the band in their place. FOAM is definitely weird. Everything surrounding it is bizarre, but I still had fun and I like that I can still enjoy the album while recognizing its faults more clearly.

Anybody still waiting for their signed CD? I didn't received a single email since I bought it...

For me I can never see this as a complete album, with the combination of so few songs and them being so short it always just feels like a long EP. I like it but I can't compare it to other albums because it doesn't feel like an album, it's just a few cool songs.

What an interesting podcast, far too short though, should have done whole album!

Yeah, I respect your opinion on all of your points. I do think the instruments are produced much better, but the actual composition of Revrad songs is pretty top notch, which is extremely evident when listening to the stems. I also have to give it credit for trying out some new things that I am not sure I have even heard in music before, specifically the violin bow on the electric guitar sound (which let's face it, was pretty fucking badass). I think what hurt the album for me the most really was the loudness wars aspect and overall production quality, seriously, I tried listening to the album in my car a few days ago straight after Saviors and I was reminded immediately of how I had to keep adjusting the volume because it was either too damn loud or nowhere near loud enough (looking at you, Outlaws). Saviors is production perfection... but production alone doesn't make an album among one of the greatest things the band has ever done for me personally. I guess if I were to raise it to a 9 for the better lyrics and production alone, the predicament for me then becomes about whether or not I think it's fair to say it's better than Dookie, Nimrod or Insomniac, because I'd give all of those an 8.5 personally and I just don't think this album quite gets there. I think even giving it the same score as those albums just kind of feels wrong to me. Here, I'll go into a little more detail on one of my previous points as to why I just don't think I can put it up there with the other records. One thing I immediately noticed on my first listen (and I don't want to use the word "annoyed" because it's not accurate), but one thing that kind of "irked" me is that this is now the 3rd album in a row that Billie Joe sings in the Too Dumb To Die/Sugar Youth melody during a verse. Like I get it, after writing easily over a hundred and fifty songs in the same genre, it's getting harder to write stuff that doesn't sound similar to things that he's written before.. but 3 albums in a row? Then when you throw in that Bobby Sox uses the When I Come Around riff, then Goodnight Adeline uses it again, then both Dilemma and Fancy Sauce use the Give Me Novacaine and Lazy Bones riff, it all starts to kind of add up and I just can't really keep ignoring stuff like that you know? Again, I still love this album, but I just don't think it quite deserves the soaring hights that many of the previous records reach. 8 is still a really solid score. It's 3 points above FOAM, which I give a 5, the lowest score I have ever given a Green Day album. It's above the Trilogy, all of which I give a 7 and it's on par with Warning and Kerplunk, which I also give an 8. It's just not quite as high as some of the most iconic records from the band, so I think I am going to stick with it because I think it's very fair and very generous, and again, it's just my personal opinion. If you wanna give it a 9, then by all means your personal score is a 9 and I am not going to try and take that away from you. Oh and on your last point about Bang Bang using the same guitar riff as St. Jimmy, I just don't really hear it. Granted, the bridge melody, the overall strumming pattern and drum style throughout the song is very similar, but think the overall song melody has more in common with Territorial Pissings by Nirvana than St. Jimmy. I like this interpretation of the record, I'll definitely keep it in my mind next time I listen to it in full. Again, it wasn't a criticism of the album. It was just something in my head I know I get a dopamine hit from and any album that does it gets bonus points. Simple as that. I always heard Forever Now as a multipart track with a seamless transition, and then considering it reprises the opening song with updated lyrics, it just did astronomically huge things for my soul, like I cannot put that kind of happiness into words but I literally cried tears of pure joy the first time I heard it. Hope that gives you guys a better understanding of where my head is at with my personal ranking of these albums and why some are just a tiny bit more special to me than others.

i didn’t know where else to post this but I love this channel and it’s mixes. Crazy to here songs from a different sounding era and this one in particular sounds incredible

Green Day's biggest songs are the ballads, so that kind of makes sense.

I definitely agree that defacing the American Idiot artwork was not a good move at all and rubbed fans the wrong way, including myself, but it’s possible the artwork wasn’t meant as a “fuck you” to people who don’t like it when they venture off musically. It might’ve been just a representation of what they felt the album was. It was a record that was less complex in structure and arguably felt more carefree than their previous works. Maybe the band wrestles with the expectations they feel to live up to their past and the cover just represented them saying screw it, we can do whatever we want. As for the FOAM snubbing during the tour, it’s possible they could’ve been too hesitant to play them due to the overall reaction that fans had to the album. Covid also changed the world and maybe they felt the album wasn’t fresh anymore, having come out a couple of years prior. And, throughout the last 10 years or so, they usually only play songs off of their new albums if they’re currently promoting them, and at that point, the FOAM promotion was over. It’s also possible they felt the vibe of the record didn’t feel appropriate in a post Covid world. I might just be grasping at straws though.

Even moreso than a jarring note....its a chromatic pattern similar to last night on earth, and it builds I think in the last third of the song. It's also used in the verses. This song is definitely the mega-hit for this album IMO, even though American Dream has done commercially better (which I think is unfair since it's the main single)

It’s funny how after Goodnight Adeline it’s Suzy Chapstick that has a consistent out of order bump above the others

Just saw this it went up yesterday I’m surprised no one saw it or posted about it

I had no knowledge of Green Day even when I first got into Holiday in June. Then I heard them on the alternative radio and thought "this sounds familiar" and looked for the song, had an accidental listen to Boulevard and found out the song was American Idiot.

That was great! I loved it was more Saviors focused. I love getting some insight about Coma City and Corvette Summer and that comment about Living in the 20s being a hives-esque really made me happy (I love the hives!) Good stuff. I hope we keep getting more interviews like this leading up to their tour. I would love to hear Tre do one. He's been offering some great responses, not just his usual jokes, which has been a nice change.

If Foiled Can is there then bring in some old shit! Boys in the Bathroom Stall, Minnesota Girl... maybe even bring the rock Christmas album from 2002-2003!

40 bucks for a Dookie shirt? Loooool

I'm telling you, we need to get a betting pool going as to the date we hit it.

Now do the trilogy 1 Billion plays is the new selling out!

Noooooo, please not yet,

We need the album 15 thread that's for sure!

I agree with them reusing old riffs (Strange Days is exactly Basket Case and has to be intentional). I disagree that the songs are disconnected. I feel they flow excellently and have a thematic thread. Also criticizing it for not having multipart songs or songs with seamless transitions seems like an odd criticism. You’d rather they force it?

I thought this was the most detail he’s given on the Saviors recording timeline and how it evolved from just recording a handful of songs to bringing in Rob and going back and making it an album. Although he didn’t specifically mention “1972”, it seems like the first UK recording session was pre-Rob

All I can say is I ❤️ your keyboard. Other than that, nice finds! I'm definitely never getting all these rare exclusive to other country promos

Thanks @pacejunkie punk, that was pretty neat. I love how Billie says “gosh” 😁 Same as with RS, is there a coolest conversation with Tre?

I always considered 86 a "quasi-single" since we got a live version released during that era and they played it on David Letterman as opposed to any of the other Insomniac singles. I guess it makes sense that it was going to be a single and then scrapped it. Did they film the unreleased FOAM video at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo where they did the album photoshoot? I thought I read that somewhere but I might be remembering it wrong.

Remember, Blink leveraged their 'reunion' to spike their current popularity. It stirred nostalgia. In contrast, Green Day has been consistently present, dropping new material fairly regularly. This consistency means their album releases don't create a buzz among non-fans like a grand comeback would. If they had taken a hiatus or disbanded and then staged a reunion tour, I'm pretty sure they'd be huge. We have to come to terms with the fact that the world isn't really into rock n' roll anymore, particularly from veteran bands. Popularity is often for the young artists, largely because it's the youth driving consumption. Green Day has enjoyed their moments of glory with two massive hits and now occupies a comfortable niche. Their enduring fame ensures they'll always retain a substantial following, even if they never recapture the huge successes of the 90s and 2000s. Holding out for a repeat of their past triumphs is setting ourselves up for disappointment. That ship has sailed, it ain't happening again unless there's a massive shift in the music industry somehow. But it's not within their power to make that change.