With Billie Joe Armstrong sober and Green Day enjoying a deserved Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction, it was time to get back to what the trio did best…
On August 11, 2016, Green Day dropped Bang Bang out of nowhere. A three-minute cherry bomb of hyperactive punk, with snarling guitar and lyrics that dealt with the rise of mass shootings in America, it didn’t just announce that they were back, it firmly exorcised the ghost of ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!, and saw the band storming into the public eye as a force to be reckoned with once again.
The intervening years had been relatively quiet. With Billie Joe Armstrong having checked into rehab in September 2012, following his infamous “One fucking minute” iHeartRadio incident, things moved more slowly than they had in years. On top of that, Mike Dirnt’s wife began treatment for breast cancer – something she is, thankfully, now clear of.
There were tours – including headline slots at Reading & Leeds 2013 – but they were not long, and with extended breaks in which to unwind. Teaming up with U.S. singer Norah Jones, the frontman released an album of acoustic Everly Brothers covers in 2013, Foreverly, just for the hell of it. And when it came to Green Day business, there was the small matter of their 2015 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Three days prior, as a warm-up to their performance at the ceremony, the band played their first show in over a year under their original name Sweet Children, with founding sticksman John Kiffmeyer joining them to boot. Afterwards, for the purposes of a benefit show, 924 Gilman Street lifted their ban on Green Day for a night.
But what they concentrated on most was to take their first proper break since, well, ever.
“I think we had to just kinda do nothing for a while,” Billie Joe mused. “It’s great to be home in Oakland. I found the biggest piece-of-shit 1962 Ford Falcon, just to bring it back to life. Every day I was in the garage with it. I got bloody knuckles and got pissed off with it and just rebuilt this car. It was fun. And I got to spend time with my family, watching my sons become young men, sitting shotgun with my wife on some of the [charity] things she does.”
Through all this, though, as ever, Billie Joe continued to write songs. Not for anything, just songs. Until he came up with Bang Bang, and Somewhere Now.
Working in their own studio, Otis in California – where Billie Joe himself admits, “We didn’t know if that would work because it’s so small, but we got in there and nailed the first songs and went, ‘Well, sounds good to me!’” – the band described the sessions as having the vibe of Kerplunk, “but with more time”.
“We simply thought,” said Tré Cool, “‘Let’s just fucking be Green Day.’”
Though parts of Revolution Radio were written long before Donald Trump began his ridiculous journey toward the White House, the more piss-and-vinegar elements raged in perfect harmony with his ascent, as well as that of the alt-right. It was a point even the band themselves acknowledged.
“Bang Bang is about American gun culture and the mentally insane,” explained Billie Joe. “It’s about the kid who went on a shooting spree in Santa Barbara in 2014 [22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people and shot himself on the campus of California University on May 23 that year]. It was way before the elections or anything, but you can definitely turn that into Donald Trump, and how the trend of gun culture and mass shootings keeps going up and up and up.”
When it came to the soon-to-be-elected president, speaking three months before he won, Billie Joe had strong words indeed.
“I actually feel bad for Trump’s supporters, because they’re poor, working class people who can’t get a leg up,” he explained. “They’re pissed off and he’s preying on their anger. He said, ‘You have no options and I’m the only one, and I’m going to take care of it myself.’ I mean, that’s fucking Hitler, man! I don’t even know how else to explain it. I wish I were over-exaggerating. I can’t wait ’til he’s gone.”
As with American Idiot, it would be wrong to think Revolution Radio was simply a politically-minded tirade (even when, shortly after the November election, the band used a performance of Bang Bang at the American Music Awards to lead a chant of, “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!”). Youngblood fizzes with the romance of youth, while Outlaws is a touching love song. Still Breathing, meanwhile, deals with Billie Joe’s personal recovery, and people “going through drug problems.”
“It’s about how people feel desperate, and just taking it day by day,” he explained. “Was it cathartic and helpful to put my feelings about that time down in a song? Yeah, I think so. I was pretty clear-headed throughout the process. It felt pretty good.”
Upon its release, Revolution Radio went straight to Number One in the U.S. and the UK. The trio hadn’t just returned, they had found their hunger again, and rediscovered their voice in a world that was going increasingly mad. Most of all, though, they had reconnected with their love of being Green Day again.
“After the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame there was a feeling of gratitude, and I attributed that to the fact that after all these years we’ve never really stopped or looked backward,” pondered Mike. “We finally did and went, ‘Holy shit! That’s a lot of stuff!’
“The gratitude for me is, with all the chaos we’ve been through in our personal lives, and all the chaos going on in the world around us, I’ve got these two guys who I can get into a room with and still make something really special and meaningful happen.”
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