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The New York Times Profiles Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong

With Revolution Radio debuting at #1 on charts around the world this week, Green Day is once very much in the news. After four years out of the spotlight, it’s good to see them back–and it’s also interesting to see the kinds of things Billie Joe Armstrong is talking about these days.

Here’s what the New York Times profile on BJA looked like:

Billie Joe Armstrong may be punk rock’s biggest triple threat: the frontman of Green Day, which was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; the co-composer and sometime star of “American Idiot,” the Broadway musical on its way to becoming an HBO movie; and the lead of “Ordinary World,” an indie film out Friday, Oct. 14.

What he is not, though, by his own admission, is a social media maven. “I’ll try to catch up,” he said. “I get into Instagram, and the next thing I know, someone will say, it’s all about Snapchat now! It’s like, oh God, leave me in the Stone Age — I got one foot in the Stone Age and the millennium right now.”

Mr. Armstrong’s straddled take on culture is laid out on “Revolution Radio,” the new Green Day album, and the first since 2000 that the band — including the bassist Mike Dirnt and the drummer Tré Cool — self-produced with an engineer. “It feels more independent than we’ve ever been,” Mr. Armstrong said in a phone interview.

He’s also branching out — sort of — with “Ordinary World,” in which he plays a musician-turned-slacker dad who throws himself a last-hurrah 40th birthday party. “My thing was keeping my stubble on for the movie,” he said. “I had to make sure I shaved it in the right way, once every three days. And I wanted to show my gray that I have growing in.”

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Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39691 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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