Smells Like Green Spirit

“It was in this tiny room above a bar, which even by the standards of the places we’d been playing in the States was a bit of a dive. Anyway, we were about to go on when somebody, the promoter I guess, told us: ‘No one’s allowed to pogo or jump around ‘cause if they do the floor’s going to collapse.’ It’s the first and last time I’ve told a crowd to ‘go fuckin’ crazy… but can you do it standing still please!’”
A newly peroxided Billie Joe Armstrong is recalling Green Day’s December 18 1991 visit to The White Horse Inn, the Dublin 2 boozer whose upstairs Attic venue was indeed in danger of becoming its downstairs Attic venue.
As mythologised at this stage as U2 in The Dandelion Market and Sonic Youth and Nirvana in the Top Hat — unlike the majority of the Irish population I was at neither — the gig was put on by the Hope Collective who, with only 40 people paying in, lost fifty quid on the deal.
“I didn’t even think there were that many there!” laughs the affable singer who in a few hours' time will be entertaining a rather more sizeable audience in the Dublin 02. “It was a huge deal for us because with the exception of Canada, it was the first time we’d toured outside of the States and played something mad like 64 dates in three months — most of them in places I can’t for the life of me remember now! What I do remember is a lot of sleeping in vans and on floors, and clearing everything that could be eaten or drunk out of the dressing room at the end of the night. Without all that free shit we’d have starved!”
European promoters being veritable Father Christmases back then compared to their American counterparts.
“The first time we found a crate of beer backstage, we thought, ‘Who’s that for?’ and ‘If they’re not here maybe we can steal some!’ We were never given free beer ‘til we came to Europe, which made us love the place even more!”
Interesting Green Day factoid #1: The band’s first Irish foray also included a Belfast gig in Richardson’s where they pulled a hundred people and Billie Joe, as was his wont in those days, ended up stark bollock naked on stage.
While not exactly pariahs at home — their sophomore Kerplunk album stunned them by selling 10,000 copies in a day — Green Day did wonder if there was a place in the greater rock ‘n’ roll scheme of things for them.
“There were a lot of little underground scenes going on around the country, but nothing big to sort of galvanise them. Then Nirvana exploded and we thought, ‘Hey, maybe we’re not on our own here!’ Then you got the next wave of Seattle
bands like Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden, and suddenly half the records in the top 30 were ones you wanted to own. ‘91/‘92 in the States was a bit like ‘76/‘77 was in the UK with the Pistols and The Clash. Everything felt like it was up for grabs. We’re overdue another band to come along now and do what Kurt, Dave and Krist did then.”
Was it love at first listen when Billie Joe came across Nirvana?
“No, Nevermind was an awesome record but Bleach sounded like Aerosmith!” he asserts. “A lot of people grew up listening to those AOR bands because it was the best of the limited range of stuff they could hear on the radio. Luckily, Tre, Mike and myself had The Clash and Hüsker Dü and The Replacements to show us the way!”
Interesting Green Day factoid #2: Mike Dirnt and his partner Britney named their son Brixton last year in honour of The Clash’s ‘Guns Of Brixton’.
Has Billie Joe ever met any of the Westway Warriors?
“I met Joe Strummer once at the airport,” he reminisces fondly. “We ended up driving to a gig together in my car — he was squeezed in the back with the baby-seat talking at a million miles an hour about all these records he was into! He was everything you wanted him to be — funny, inspiring, humble and really interested in what you were doing. I also met Mick Jones at the University of Michigan who was with his mum and his American stepdad. He was cool too.”
Green Day’s third album, Dookie, peaking at number two on the American chart and then going on to sell 15 million copies internationally, was met with inevitable cries of “sell-out!” from the punk underground who, if you ask me, need a good clip round the ear and sending to bed without their tea.
The backlash once again posed the $64,000 punk rock question of whether it’s better to remain fiercely independent like Fugazi (apparently working on a new record) and NOFX have done and risk spending your entire career preaching to the converted, or to try and fuck the system from within by signing to a major?
“There’s an argument for both,” Billie Joe reflects. “I’m enormously respectful of bands who work things at a grassroots level. Those tight punk communities are really important to people, but if you’re living miles from anywhere and don’t have access to one it’s all about what you can hear on the radio or see on the TV. What was so important about ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is that it was on MTV 24 fucking hours a day! Nirvana would still have been a great band if they’d stayed in Washington State, but by going out there and conquering the world they totally changed things.”
Despite their phenomenal success and obvious careerism — Armstrong later declares that “We want to sell more records than Jay-Z!” — are there still occasions when Green Day feel like outsiders?
“You do when you see Kanye West terrorising a 19-year-old girl at the VMAs,” he says reffering to the rapper’s storming of the stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. “What can you say in response to that?”
Er, how about “wanker”? Kanye fans will point to the fact that he’s subsequently apologised to Swift in CAPITAL LETTERS on the VMA blog, but we’re not letting him off the hook that easily. What other surreal moments has Billie Joe witnessed?
“50 Cent nearly having a fist fight at another MTV awards — something always happens at them!” he laughs. “Woodstock in 1994 was surreal from start to finish. There was a huge mudfight when we were on (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=h275pulfwHE for the mucky evidence) and Mike got punched by a security guy who thought he was a stage invader. We’ve had better days!”
One of them being January 21 this year when the Bushes handed back the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“I think we were more anti Bush than we were pro someone else,” Armstrong reflects. “You asked earlier whether it’s good to be part of the mainstream — well, it was when we got to play in Bush’s home state a fortnight before the election and sing, ‘Well maybe I’m the faggot America/I’m not part of the redneck agenda’ to an arena-full of people!”
Interesting Green Day factoid #3: Billie Joe wrote ‘American Idiot’ after hearing a particularly jingoistic Lynyrd Skynrd song on the radio.
I imagine dissing Dubya in his own backyard didn’t go down well with everybody in the audience?
“Half of them cheered and half of them booed, so it was a tie!”
Although delighted that Obama was elected President, Armstrong sounded a cautionary note recently when he said: “If you compare where we’re at now to, like, five years ago, I think we’re actually in a worse situation. We’re fighting two wars… it kind of goes from one crisis to the next. From the swine ‘flu to financial meltdowns and people losing their homes — there are a lot of desperate people in the world right now, and it can make you feel paranoid and out of control.”
Add in Billie Joe’s scepticism about Barack’s Nobel Peace Prize win — “You’ve got to create a little more peace before you get something like that” — and it’s obvious he has reservations about the new administration.
“The guy’s great and I’m delighted he got elected, but now that the euphoria’s died down it’s time to deliver.”
Did he get to tell the President that when Green Day visited the White House in July?
“The family wasn’t there, but we saw Bo. We didn’t go too near because those Portuguese water dogs have sharp teeth! We got the invite from a friend of mine who’s a diplomat rather than the President, so we weren’t expecting to meet him.”
Interesting Green Day factoid #4: the Federal Election Commission archive shows that on July 31 2008 “self-employed/musician Billie Joe Armstrong" donated $2,300 to the Obama Victory Fund.
If there’s one thing that Green Day take more seriously than politics, it’s tattoos. Are his bandmates envious of Tré’s plans to have Bansky ink his chest with “rats that are like bouncers. They’re standing outside a rat hole with a red rope and a little red carpet coming out to guard the entrance to my heart”?
“Envious?” Armstrong snorts derisively. “We might be if he didn’t pass out every time he’s worked on from the pain. Mike and me have had way more stuff done than he has!”
One of the more gruesome journalistic tasks I’ve had to perform was checking whether The Enigma from The Jim Rose Circus Sideshow really had a jigsaw-pattern tattoo on his penis — he did. Is that something which would appeal to Billie Joe?
“Would I get my dick tattooed? Sure, I’d have a heart or better still a cherry bomb waiting to go off!”
Before kicking the European leg of the 21st Century Breakdown tour off in Lisbon, Green Day got booted and suited for the premiere of American Idiot: The Musical. Despite the potential for huge disaster, it’s turned out to be the best-selling show in the Berkeley Repository Theater’s history and now looks almost certain to hit Broadway in the New Year, where it could be in direct competition with Bono and The Edge’s Spider: Man Turn Off The Dark epic.
From the LA Times’ “kinetically-entertaining in a way that intentionally reflects the shallow, media-saturated culture the album rails against” to The Sacramento Bee’s “Green Day can be applauded as artists daring to expand their work”, the reviews have been almost universally positive. How’s Billie Joe enjoying life as the Crazy Colored Andrew Lloyd-Webber?
“You were asking about surreal moments — well, watching the rock opera version of one of your records for the first time was another! We really didn’t know what direction the musical director, Michael Mayer, would take the songs off in but the cast — all 19 of them! — and him really did us and Green Day fans proud. It’s a brilliant show, which is a compliment to them rather than us because they’re the ones who did the hard work while we sat in the front-row with our popcorn!”
Given the even stronger narrative, which runs through 21st Century Breakdown, American Idiot is unlikely to be the only Green Day album that gets the thespian treatment. Indeed, Billie Joe has already picked out who he wants to play Gloria in the film version.
“Were that ever to happen, I think the girl who played Juno, Ellen Page, would be perfect,” he enthuses. “‘East Jesus Nowhere’ gets its title from the scene in the film when Juno’s mother says, ‘Why are you driving out in East Jesus Nowhere’ to go hang out with that couple?’ The imagery in that was just so vivid!”
Inspiration for his heroine’s name was found closer to home. Well, closer to our home!
“I’ve always loved the Van Morrison and U2 songs ‘Gloria’ — one being a celebration of womanhood and the other a celebration of God, which is kind of the same thing!”
Interesting Green Day factoid #5: 21st Century Breakdown was recorded under the influence of The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow, Ray Davies, the first two Doors albums and, we kid you not, Meat Loaf’s Bat Out Of Hell.
As a rampant U2 fan, Billie Joe admits to being “totally, completely and utterly blown away” when The Edge rang up to see if Green Day fancied helping them give The Skids’ ‘The Saints Are Coming’ a noughties makeover. It was very much ‘mission accomplished’ as the resulting single and video not only highlighted George Bush’s gross dereliction of Presidential duty, but also raised a cool couple of million for the Hurricane Katrina charity The Edge supports.
“I like to think it made a genuine connection rather than being one of those typical ‘supergroup’ things,” Armstrong reflects. “Knowing that the money was going to go to musicians who’d had their houses and livelihoods destroyed made it very focused.”
While conflicting World Tour schedules — “we always seem to be on opposite sides of the Atlantic” — means that they haven’t sunk a beer together in a while, Billie Joe and The Edge remain in regular phone contact.
“The last time we spoke he was raving about how much he loved Eagles Of Death Metal! He’s still a complete fanboy!”
And likely to be in the VIP enclosure next summer if Green Day decide to acquaint themselves with the joys of rural Meath.
“We know all about Slane and the fact that U2 played some amazing shows there. It’s something that’s being looked at.”
Which, glass half-full kind of guy that I am, I’ll take as a “Yes, Stuart, we’re definitely playing Slane and would like you to helicopter down to the gig with us!”
Put it like that, Billie Joe, and how could I refuse?!