Green Day Still Have Something To Prove
Punk band leader Billie Joe Armstrong said he's married, has a kid and doesn't give a 'flying fuck' what's popular. Addicted To Noise Staff Writer Chris Nelson reports :
In the world of music, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong may feel like an underdog again -- or so he says -- but he's not going to let it get to him. In fact, he says he likes the feeling. He's been there before.
The 25-year-old frontman for California-based pop punkers just may be the most relaxed he's been since his band was just an unknown pop-punk outfit on the tiny indie label Lookout. Certainly pressure on Green Day from the once punk-rock-crazed music industry has toned down.
"It was smart to put out a record fast," he said, referring to Insomniac, predecessor to their band's upcoming album Nimrod (Oct. 14). "We got that sophomore slump over with. Now it's like we're underdogs again. (Nimrod) is pretty strong, it's got some good songs on it. It's like we don't have to worry about anything." Armstrong said he thought the band dealt well with the pressure incumbent upon that album as the follow-up to the mega-hit Dookie.
Having survived a top 40 breakthrough with their 1994 major label (Reprise) debut and pushed through the inevitable scrutiny that greeted its successor, the band leader said he feels good about the new release -- due in October -- their fifth and what has been described as their most highly produced album.
Armstrong said that it doesn't matter to him whether Green Day's brand of pop punk is as popular today as it was after Dookie was released. "I don't really fall into that shit," he said by phone from San Francisco. "The whole reason that I got into punk was because I avoided trends to begin with."
The singer and guitarist said that he felt uncomfortable when his own music became radio's hot trend for awhile, which he addressed on Insomniac's "Walking Contradiction."
Now that electronica has replaced pop punk as the industry's flavor of the month, some of that tension from reconciling his roles as punk rocker and rock star has eased.
But while he's somewhat thankful that the industry's focus has receded from punk, Armstrong said the genre's standing has never really concerned him. His own conviction in Green Day's work, he added, overrides any pressure to be popular.
"I don't really give a flying fuck what everybody's into," he said. "There's one side of me where in the back of my mind you gotta think about stuff like that. But the other side is I don't care. This record really means a lot to me and that's all."
Still, as much as Armstrong tries to duck the industry's and public's perspective, at times he mirrors it. For example, he refers to Insomniac -- the band's second album for Reprise but fourth overall -- as Green Day's "sophomore" collection. That record was a deliberate move to be harder and more intense, Armstrong said. "For what it was, I was surprised it sold 4 million copies. I thought people were just adapting to some sort of trendy punk thing. Which a lot of people did."
The singer said that another key ingredient in the relaxed atmosphere that went into making Nimrod was his own home life. "I'm married, I got my kid," Armstrong said. "Joey's two and a half now, Adrian's great. We've had ups and downs just like everybody else does. I think it's working out; you never really know. I got a lot of my songwriting from those experiences being home, and being linked back to my relationships with my friends, and seeing familiar places, being on my old stomping grounds."
But just because the external pressure on Green Day has eased, that doesn't mean the band has lowered their expectations of themselves. Armstrong has stressed repeatedly that he and his cohorts worked hard on Nimrod, from creating strong material to start with, to seeing their songs to fruition even if that means adding unconventional elements such as horns and strings.
Armstrong said he will always feel like he has something to prove with Green Day records, no matter whether the album is their first on a major label or their 15th album 20 years from now.
"If I was to say I had nothing to prove, I'd be a liar. It sort of goes along with desire and passion. It's like being in a fight. If someone is gonna punch you in the face, and you're not knocked out on the ground, what are you gonna do? You either run away or you fight back. That's what we do. I don't take any shit from anybody, and I always have something to prove, no matter what. That's like the policy we live by -- the desire to be heard, and to fight back if someone wants to fight."
Tour News(sort of)
Though his band has added strings and horns to their potent-pop-punk sound, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstong is looking, in many ways, to get back to rock basics.
"I think a lot of people don't want to see these big rock shows anymore," singer/ guitarist Armstrong, 25, said, of the band's plans to tour small venues to support the upcoming Nimrod album. "If you think about Lollapalooza and H.O.R.D.E., and the U2 concert, no one's selling that many tickets. And that's a huge package tour."
After hearing Green Day's plans to add wind and string instruments to their new LP, some fans may have started to wonder if the pop-punk masters were planning to trade in the mosh pit for an orchestra pit when they hit the road in October.
While that's an unlikely scenario, Armstrong said the band will be stepping down from the civic centers and hockey arenas they played during their 1995 Insomniac tour. Rather, he said, he and bandmates Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt will look to invade theater-sized halls, such as New York's Roseland or San Francisco's Fillmore.
If fan interest exceeds the number of seats in smaller venues, he added, Green Day will play multiple night stands. For the time being, however, he remains cautious. "It's kind of like we don't want to bite off more than we can chew. We haven't toured the States for a while, so we want to ease into it, and go where the music's gonna take us."
Thus far, there's no word on whom Green Day might invite on the road as supporting acts. In the past, the band has brought along other groups from their original home at Lookout Records, such as Pansy Division and the Riverdales. For the Nimrod tour, Armstrong said he hopes to assemble a more diverse bill; however, he noted his own top choice, hot jazz revivalists Squirrel Nut Zippers, are busy and won't be able to join. Other acts being discussed include That Dog (whose Petra Haden plays violin on Nimrod), D Generation, Auntie Christ and Superdrag.
"We don't want to stick to a punk rock band," Armstrong said. "We want to help something a little bit different, so people won't know what to expect. I thought Squirrel Nut Zippers would have been amazing."
No matter who signs up to open, Armstrong hopes they have better luck than Green Day found at Japan's Mt. Fuji Festival in July. After trekking several thousand miles for what was to be the biggest festival in Japanese history, Green Day (along with half of the other bands) found their set canceled as the country was pounded by Typhoon Rosie.
"It was pretty awful," Armstrong said. "It was the only show that we had planned for the entire year, so we wanted to make it special for ourselves. Go to Japan, have a good time, play this big show with a lot of bands that we like. But it was disappointing -- a long trip out for nothing. We ended up getting drunk instead."
