Sunday, July 8, 2012

X Kid Billie Joe Armstrong

Rolling Stone July 2012
Billie and the boys of Green Day are putting out not one, but three new albums this fall. I was kind of wondering when they were going to do something new. While I've been in Jack White fever, I was reminded of the period of time when I was addicted to Green Day's American Idiot. I had the same kind of 'Oh my god I have to play this all of the time' feeling. I was late to American Idiot, but I caught up fast. I loved the manic, driving guitars and frenzied, controlled lyrics. Power punk. I loved it!

I know that Billie got side-tracked by Broadway and the stage version of An American Idiot. I saw it. Didn't love it. Sadly, I've never seen Green Day perform live. The last time a ticket was available to me, I had to draw a straw and I lost to my sister. She got to go. I was excited to see the musical, but while sitting there I thought ... man, I wish that this were a Green Day concert, and not whatever it was I was looking at on the stage. I guess that it sold a lot of tickets ... maybe because of the novelty of it?

The good thing is that while Billie Joe was actually performing in the Broadway version of his work, he wrote 70 songs. And so the 3 albums using 40 of those songs.  The band loves themes. Billie said in Rolling Stone, "With the first album, you're getting in the mood to party," on the second, "You're at the party ... and the third album .... you're cleaning up the mess." The songs were rehearsed for over a year to which the producer said that they, "Own their shit," and Cool, another guy in the band said, "This is the sound of our room, our guitars, our drums- of us playing together."

On the third album, Billie sings a requiem for an old pal, who took his own life. He says of him that he never wanted to grow up ... Billie says, "I don't want to admit I'm a fucking adult, that I'm middle-aged. But I can admit I'm not a kid anymore. 'X Kid' - that sounds a lot better."

Yeah, I'm ready for this. Punk Rock by X Kids. Hey, that would be a good name for a band!

No comments:

Post a Comment