Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong opens up about being sober after addiction
Billie Joe Armstrong has revealed what made him start drinking again after a decades-long struggle to stay sober.
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Billie Joe Armstrong knew almost the second he penned the lyric “I was sober, now I’m drunk again” it would become an instant crowd chant when Green Day tour this year.
He knows some of those screaming it back to the band may think it’s a rallying cry to get on the beers. It’s not.
Dilemma, the song which features the lyric in its chorus, is the most personal track Armstrong presented to bandmates Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool as they were recording their 14th record Saviors.
The 51-year-old rocker has struggled with addiction since he was a teen; he has been sober for the past 18 months and appreciates there are many Green Day fans who are on their own sobriety journeys.
“I had gotten sober for five years and then I guess you get FOMO, as they say, and I started drinking again,” he says, flanked by his bandmates on a small couch.
“It really started taking a physical and mental toll on me where I just felt like I just couldn’t stop. I’m a glutton, it’s an obsession.
“It started affecting on the people around me that I love the most. And that’s what I wrote about.
“I didn’t do it through any program or anything, I just decided one day, that I’ve had enough. There’s no party I haven’t seen, you know.”
Green Day’s campaign to launch their new record unexpectedly riled some folks after a televised New Year’s Eve performance.
The punk rockers, whose world tour this year will also celebrate the 30th anniversary of their breakthrough record Dookie and 20th birthday for the bold sociopolitical album American Idiot, changed a lyric and subsequently riled conservative pundits in the US.
During their set on the popular Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show, Armstrong, replaced the American Idiot line “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” with “I’m not a part of the Maga agenda”.
The song was released back in 2004 as a criticism of then president George Bush and Green Day have targeted Donald Trump, who is taking another tilt at the White House this year, on regular occasions in recent years.
The backlash directed at a punk rock band taking aim at authority from people who clearly missed American Idiot the first time it topped the charts bemused the band members.
“The song’s 20 years old, and we’re Green Day,” bassist Dirnt told Rolling Stone about the lyrics switch. “What did you expect? Come on.”
The American Dream Is Killing Me, the first single from the new record, also updated Green Day’s canon of politically-charged social commentary.
Saviors, the trio’s 14th studio record, sounds like a classic Green Day record while also revealing some unexpected nods to their influences.
The opening guitar riff of new song Corvette Summer could have been ripped from AC/DC.
“Oh yeah, there’s a little (nod) there with that three chord crunch,” Armstrong says. “Angus was one of my first teachers; one of the first albums I ever bought was For Those About To Rock.
“We always look to AC/DC and the sound of those classic records for what makes them sonically special.”
More surprising on Saviors is Green Day doing Britpop, most notably on the track Goodnight Adeline. The trio suggest there was a geographical influence at play as they made the album in RAK Studios in London where beloved songs from Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths to Pretty In Pink by Psychedelic Furs were recorded.
“There’s something about England … Tre was in a drum shop and Paul McCartney just walked in,” Dirnt says.
“Years ago there I jumped into a cab and the driver was Malcolm McLaren’s brother. You can sense all of the (musical) contributions the UK has (made) and … it was great to be away from all the distractions in America and just really hone in on these songs in a studio that had some history.”
Those songs will be given their due on the Saviors world tour in between Dookie faves Longview, Basket Case and Welcome To Paradise and American Idiot’s punk rock opera moments Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Jesus of Suburbia and Wake Me Up When September Ends.
The tour is expected to land in Australia in early 2025; Green Day last performed here for the Revolution Radio tour in 2017.
They cultivated a loyal fanbase here with semi-regular visits early in their career, playing pop-up pub gigs to launch records or announce tours and staging old-school press conferences, entertaining with their schoolboy humour and extolling the virtues of VB, the rock’n’roll beer of choice through the 90s altrock era.
The running joke back then was that Green Day had scored some secret VB endorsement. Not so, say the band members now.
“Maybe we got a free case here and there,” drummer Cool said.
Frontman Armstrong added: “Whenever I’d walk up to a bar, they’d say ‘VB, right?’ But no, no official endorsement.”
Saviors is out now.
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Originally published as Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong opens up about being sober after addiction
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