Green Day: Troubled Times Requires Serious Punk Politics
Let’s face it: the American presidential involves two awful candidates. The electorate is faced with deciding which candidate is the least awful. Not and ideal situation for choosing the next leader of The Most Powerful Country on Earth™.
If there’s any good news from this clusterf*ck it’s that trouble times often leads to exciting music. When the status quo turns weird, artists step into the breach to articulate our angry, fear, frustrations, anxieties and dreams. Green Day did it once before during the junior Bush era with American Idiot. Now they’re determined to ride this new wave of bullshit American politics as long as it lasts. Music-News.com quotes Billie Joe from an appearance on Apple Music:
On dealing with anxiety:
I think with like feeling nervous or having anxiety or something like that. You know I feel everything. I think when you’re playing live it plays itself out and I realized that and it’s like wow this is life. Life is awkward and unpredictable and I think that’s probably one of the most beautiful things about it.
On writing when sober and being the most awkward guy in the room:
Green Day for me has always been those moments of clarity. You can do all the drugs that you want, you can drink all the booze that you want but when a band is at their best it’s when they’re clear headed. I didn’t write American Idiot on drugs, I was clear and it felt really positive. I think that there’s an awkwardness that comes along with it. I think I’ll always have that teenage awkwardness, the most awkward guy in a crowded room. I’m pretty socially inept. The awkwardness that you feel it never goes away its just a matter of how you deal with it.
On choosing the album title Revolution Radio:
I think the song is kind of a call to arms to our fans. It’s sort of a love song to our fans and how far everyone has come in the last thirty years. But I think Revolution Radio it’s a protest song when I watched the Ferguson protests that were going on in New York and I felt compelled to jump in line with everybody. And it definitely has that connotation but it’s also a big sing along for all the weirdos to just kinda keep being weirdos. Everybody just do it together.
Read more here.
