Green Day's 'American Idiot': Everything You Didn't Know

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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings you the secret histories and little known, fascinating facts and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. We are your two Billie Joe's of the bottom line, I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan run Tug and today Jordan's As you might have gleaned from that intro, we are talking about one of the defining pieces of post media, a second win for one of the biggest bands of the nineties, and a seemingly universally lauded work that spans mediums. That's right, we're talking about Green Days American Idiot. Uh. Green Day were one of my gateways into punk music. International Super Hits was one of the like five CDs that I bought as like a child, but I kind of stopped checking in with them around the time this came out, just because like I had already discovered like, quote unquote real punk, and by the time this came out, I was like ignoring pop culture basically, but god, it was hard to ignore this this record. I still remember there was like a card dealership in my area that had like clearly contacted some anonymous band of studio musicians to just recreate an instrumental version of American Idiot for their like fourth of July super weekend of sales. And I was just like, even as a child, like the cognitive dissonance struck me. But yeah, I was really pleasantly surprised. Like going back on it, I was like, you know what, sure, sure, well yeah, yeah, yeah, what about you? Yeah, it's funny. The same error when you were getting into jazz was the same era where I really didn't engage with anything that I couldn't find on Nick at Night or Altast one or three point three. So my initial reaction when you told me you wanted to do this was I have nothing to say on this. But after studying up on American Idiot, I realized I knew way more Green Day songs than I realized Because of my high school band, we were called Pitched to Johnny. We were named after a line from the Rick Morani's kids sports movie Little Giants, and we played a bunch of Green Day songs, stuff like Minority and J A. R. In basket Case. And for years I operated under the mistaken assumption that our lead singer wrote most of thoks last, So those were some of the These were some of the first baselines I ever learned. Oh yeah, minority is still like one of my one of my party pieces. Yeah, And so I assumed that those were, like at least a few of them were originals. Then years later I'd hear him on the radio or something and my mind would be blown. So I actually know a lot more Green Day than I thought. So I do have a soft spot for them. But my main memory of American Idiot specifically is from the September of my senior year in high school back in two thousand five, and most of my best friends were in the grade above me, and we just had one of those amazing sandlots summers where we were just goofing off every day and it was incredible. And it was now September and they were all gone there at college and I felt left behind the loan and I was working my weekend job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant and my shift was about to wrap up around eleven o'clock at night. I was running the trash out to the bins, and it was like that first chilly night of the season, you know, mid September. Summer's over, and this place served really exotic food like wild boar and elk. So my smock was covered with dishwasher and like the blood of wild game. And so I was cold, I was smelly, I was tired. It was Sunday night, I had school in the morning, my best friends were all gone off to college. Nothing was ever going to be the same. And just so happened that the grandparents of a girl that I liked happened to live next door to this restaurant, and we've taken prom photos there just a few months earlier. Now she was off with college men, and I was covered in nailk blood, logging bags of rotting food to a dumpster. I was I was in my feelings, let me put it that way. And suddenly, from the nearby parking lot, I hear one of the cars to start playing Summer's Come and Pass. The Innocent can never last wake me up when September ends. So if fans would like to tweet at us about this episode, please use the hashtag cold, tired, and covered in elk blood. Between that moment and nine eleven, this record really comes jam packed with traumatic teenage moments. It's an album about love and loss and paranoia and politics, released after the wave of jingoistic post nine eleven patriotism had given way to anxiety and cynicism and belise you. Armstrong told MTV in two thousand and five, a lot of the record is about the confusion and what's going on today, the non reality of reality television meets what you can see on CNN, and what kind of fears are being imposed on you as the watcher. So a rich text for a band whose breakthrough album was called Dookie, Dookie, Dookie, Dookie Dookie. I guess it's a variation. I've been thinking about this a lot, because if I wrote this a few few days ago, there is a really annoying strain of liberal smarm from around this time that I feel is actually exemplified by this record. Um, yeah, I do you know. The two thousand election was kind of the opening salvo and what would sort of become this country's inexorable slide to like religious fascism, which is, you know where we're at now, and the like response from the democratic establishment and like bands like this were to just like make fun of George Bush and feel like and look at Comedy Central and like that's my Bush and all that. Yeah, And it's like, you know, knowing what like the Republicans have been up to in terms of like and not like a judgment, just I'm saying the quality of their machinations like court packing and redistricting and suppressing voter rights and like all of this, and then the liberals wing of this country was just so far behind, like chess versus checkers, you know, they were like they were like appointing. They were like appointing conservative justices who are going to like help overturn Roe v. Wade and live rules were like wearing George Bush masks and going on yeah yeah, and like register to vote kids, like that'll fix it, like going back on it. It's like especially Green Day two, it's like lauding this is some kind of like big political work. I'm just like these guys were millionaires. This made them richer and it did not it helped, It helped nothing. I know they were involved in like Rock the Vote. But like it's weird to me because like I'm not you know, like I'm not an activist man, but I am like peripherally aware. And when you think about like this era, people were so asleep at the damn wheel. I mean, like this constituted lefty art. I mean, I get that it's mainstream and so it's but but I'm like, you guys really could have tried harder. You know, not that I need you to boy that I expected Billy Joe arm starting to like be bombing the Supreme Court or anything, but like, that's it, that that was what you had. Just goes to show art can't change things. Has been a production of I Heart Radio Anyway, from the act of larceny that precipitated the record to its debauched recording process. So the strange second life of the album is a Broadway musical. Here's everything you didn't know about Green Days American Idiot in the Only two thousand's Green Day was at a cross rights. One of the biggest success stories of the UH nineties alternative culture becoming the mainstream. The band went from a trio of Berkeley based punk's bashing out odes to Weed and Masturbation in the East Bays Hallow d I, Y Venulman Street and co writing songs with Rancid, to a world conquering force with February Dukie. You know, Rancid asked Billy Joe too have joined them. No, I didn't. Yeah, he's been very open about how big of an influence. Operation Ivy, which is the band to the guys in Rancid started when I in high school. They'd like a huge influence on him. They cover Operation Ivy songs, one of them in concert all the time. And Yeah, Rancid asked him to join it, and he declined because he was in Green Day. And then I think the year before Ranci's big breakthrough Upcome the Wolves came out, Dukey came out. Billy Jarmstrong has a co writing credit on one of the best Love Francis songs Radio and he is not related to Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong, despite having the same name and growing up in the same geographical area. Anyway, the bands we all somehow related to francisally vocalist Tim Armstrong. God I wish the band's pre Dukey record for the Seminole East Bay label Lookout Records. Ker Plunk sold a reported ten thousand copies on its first day of release, and that's what got major labels sniffing around. Man between Rancid and Jawbreaker in being in San Francisco, like the East Bay was like really kind of second to Seattle at the time. I mean, people always forget that Metallico was from San Francisco at one point. You know, ker Plunk is also supposedly Serena Williams favorite record I just found out was found it on Twitter. She was just just they were like, what album can you listen to over and over again without getting tired of? And Serena Williams like Green Day or Plunk incredible. I didn't realize until recently that the band's name green Day was taken from an expression and I think an early song about doing nothing all day but smoking weed. I think a green Day. I guess I probably should have put that together. Have you made a pilgrimage to Gilman Street since you moved out to Berkeley? I haven't yet. Someone told me I was too old, too old because it's an all ages venue, and it's like, it's like, yeah, someone told me I was too old. I really spat in their face. Yeah I am too ventures out And the hell my anti teeth grinding mouth guard I have to wear well. I sleep U Dookie won the band of Grammy for Best Alternative Album, and was eventually certified Diamond by the r I Double A, selling close to twenty million copies worldwide. Consequently, there is pretty much nowhere else to go but down for Green Day. Um. Their Moody or follow ups nim Rod and Insomniac sol nowhere near as well, although they do have beloved Green Day songs like brain stew and Good Riddence, Time of Your Life a k a. The Graduates Graduating song, the song that they played during the final Seinfeld episode really either immediately no, I'm not, either immediately before it or immediately after. They had a montage like a slow in my head at CPA. I don't think it is, but like a slow mo montage to that look it up. I remember watching it live well. By their own admission, they were somewhat creatively spent by the time of two thousand's Warning, which, despite having minority as you mentioned, that song does in fact whip that record did not sell anywhere is near as well. It uh rips off the Kinks picture book. It's one of those songs remember so yeah, Well live with that. It just steals picture book That Kinks baseline on picture Book that was incredible. That riff is amazing. That's up there with like you really got me in terms of how much I love it, And I would argue in terms of influence. I feel like a lot of songs of it that there's a I think a Mac DeMarco song where he pretty much just steals one of the picture book melodies or hooks or something, and I'm just a rich text anyway between Warning and American Idiots. So four years, the only things that the band would release would be a Japan only live EP, the aforementioned International super Hits collection, and a B sides and rarity comp And I think at least we're insomniac. They had instituted like the self imposed press blackouts. They were very much tired of this whole fame thing at this stage. Yeah. I mean when we were researching this, we were like, it's like Billy Joel felt old, he had just turned thirty, and we're like to that, and four he was thirty no way, And then you realized that they got famous when they were like children. Yeah. Um, there's one important song on Warning that could be seen as a precursor to American Idiot and that is the album's first single, The aforementioned minority Billy Joe said in this Mark Spitz book from two thousand seven, Nobody Likes You Inside the Turbulent Lifetimes and Music of Green Day. Uh, he said, we were starting to think about how there was going to be a changing of the guard from Clinton to somebody else. It didn't look good for al Gore. It was just a sort of feeling that I knew there was going to be someone really conservative who was going to come into office. And after he was elected, we watched the culture sort of sway. Song was released August two thousands, So good on you, Billy um. But they were still kind of in a in an awkward place when that record came out. You know, this is the era of new metal, Limbiscuit and corn or kind of battling it out for like number one and number two of that era. Um, they're both number two. Hey, that's a Green Day friendly joke right there. Yeah. The NYC rock renaissance was still like it was basically right around the corner. But did white blood Cells come out? And two thousand I thought that was a one Maybe that's elephant. Yeah, So either way, they were like old considered old, I guess because like Blink Wnity two was also the big pop punk band at the time, and Green Day were like elder Statesman. Anyway, Yeah, their personal lives and intro band dynamic had suffered from both their diminishing sales and the roller coaster ride of fame. So as you mentioned, by age twenty three, they were all millionaires and all married, and eventually, as it was laid out in a two thousand five Rolling Stone profile, five kids and three divorces between them, uh Mike turned second wife told him that she was leaving him the day they finished American Idiot. Why, he later said, when we mastered the record, I cried through the entire thing. But Bill Jo Armstrong has been married to his uh well, I think a high school sweetheart. They got married like completely spurred the moment. In fact right adorable. But in two thousand one they put out, as you mentioned, the Greatest Hits album and went on the road for the Pop Disaster Tour, co headlining with Blink one eight two and the Warped Tour. The fact that they released the Greatest Hits album I think is very telling because it's hard to imagine now, But in the lead up to American Idiot, Green Day very much seemed like a band that had just run its race and we're now past it. And you know you mentioned they were now considered old. They were gasp in their thirties. And it's funny the Beatles had a similar thing happened to them just before Sergeant Pepper when they'd stopped touring and did solo stuff or individual stuff, I should say, for a few months. But these very triumphant live dates on this Pop Disaster tour were, as you say, a band aid on a larger wound festering within the band. Billy Joe later said, seeing a decade of your songs laid out like that is an invitation to a midlife crisis. Suddenly we were asking why are we in this band, why do we want to keep doing this? And you know what might happen if we challenged ourselves, and Mike Dirt added breaking up was an option. We were arguing a lot, and we were miserable. We needed to shift directions, and Billy Joel had supposedly become distant from his bandmates, basically afraid to bring songs to them for fear of them being too critical of them, and all three, by their own admission, we're drinking too much. Drake Cool, what have an awful name that's up there with the the edge Um. With this as the context, the band returned home from this stretch of tours in September two thousand and one, at which point the obvious occurred. UH. Talking to USA Today three years later, Billy Joe said, I think after September eleventh, I took a step back. As an artist. You get kind of like hesitant, thinking, I don't want to speak too soon. I know something's going to come out of it, but right now I don't have to process things because it just seems so unreal. Obviously broad strokes. In the period following nine eleven, America swung to the right, with jingoism and hawkishness. Hawkishnessness the prevailing moods across the country. Uh and Armstrong also turned thirty in two thousand two, as we mentioned, which put him in a reflective mood. But amidst all the personal and professional turmoil, Billie Joe decides that the camp to New York City, going right for the center of it all by himself for a month to try to break his writer's block, and he rented a small apartment downtown and spent a lot of time drinking and partying in East Village bars like Niagara and Black and White, both of which I think are still there. Um, both of those bars are owned or at least worth the time by Ryan adams associate named Johnny t. Yarrington. That sounds like a made up name. I think that sounds like something you put in there just because you want to hear me saying. But sure, uh, And this Johnny t Yarrington guy rented a rehearsal space under a bar on Avenue, a hi Fi a kind of notorious early two thousands musicians hang out definitely like meet me in the bathroom type spot, right, Yeah. Yeah, So Billy Joll gets involved in this whole lower Reasside early two thousand's rock scene and ends up singing on Ryan adams album Rock and Roll, which I didn't realize. Yeah. I mean, if there's a sure way to uh detonate your personal life around this time, it's hanging out with Ryan Adams. Um. Uh. Jesse Mallen told Mark Spitz, I don't really know what Armstrong's full experience was, but I know it didn't last too long here, and suddenly I didn't hear from him for a while. His wife Adrian told Rolling Stone later, Billy Joe was really questioning what he was doing. It was scary because where he had to go to get this record wasn't a place I'm sure I wanted him to beat. Oh uh. Photographer Bob grew In told Spits in the book. A lot of people talk about that time, and probably some of the ideas for what became songs for American Idiot were germinating. During that period. Brian was drinking a lot. I don't think Billy had come to New York to be that drunk, and so he went home. I don't think it was the inspiration he was looking for, and so he went home within a couple of weeks. I love that Bob Gruin shows up in the story. I love him. He's the guy who shot all these really famous photos of John Lennon in the seventies, in his New York era, like on the roof of that apartment building, in the New York T shirt with the sleeves cut off, and the one where he's given the peace sign about the Statue of Liberty. I sat next to him at Ronnie Spector's funeral. H I love him. Yeah. Uh, I think Billy Joe was also robbed at gunpoint in New York during this period. Uh, it was by Ryan Adams. Ryan Adams is like the villain of Meet Me in the path Throom. Oh, he very much is. Yeah, I mean he got They basically blame him for giving Albert Hammond Jr. Heroin Abbot and that was written before all the cree be phoebe Bridgish came out. Yeah. Overall, it's interesting Billie Joe's aversions of violence played into this album American Idiot in a small way. His two sons were starting to get old enough where they were asking questions about the world, and he went out of his way to try to shield them from nine eleven coverage and said that he forbade them from playing violent video games. You see kind of an awakening of this more politicized consciousness, or at least overtly so around this time. I mean it's obviously not eleven politicized the whole generation of people, but um, you start to see little elements that would influence American Idiots. So with all of this in the background. The band had been working on their seventh record, tentatively titled Cigarettes and Valentine's at Studio eight eighty in Oakland, and one day they showed up in November of two thousand two and found that the master tapes for the record had disappeared. Albums are gasp, Yeah, you have to make that. Yeah, albums are kept on tiny discs these days, Armstrong told Time magazine, and someone walked off with ours. Uh. Spits obviously asked everyone in the band's orbit about the possibly purloined material for the book, and most people clam up about it, like like weirdly, like we can't talk about this kind of stuff. Uh like n d a style. UH. Studio owner John Lucassie said emphatically, though it was not taken from here. Everybody's been writing that it was taken from here. It was not. I mean they took their drives with them at the time. There was nothing that was ever stolen from here. There are safe everything, surveillance safe, multiple steel doors you would have to go through. UM. I guess the band has since recovered these and may release them in the future. The title track has been heard on a live record I find this all really suspicious. I mean the fact that it didn't get leaked, It wasn't like help for ransom or anything. I mean, those are like the only two reasons why you would steal tapes is to either leak them or hold them from ransom get money for it. Do we think the Green Day made this whole thing up and for either did it themselves or because it makes for a better story. Yes, yeah, I mean maybe it's just very bad. Maybe it was just a really bad album. I guess the prime their creative pump in this period at the beginning of these sessions, they were recording like polka songs and dirty Christmas songs and salsa numbers and stuff. So I'm gonna go with it probably sucked and maybe it was an inside job and they stole it themselves. Is there like insurance on that kind of thing, like if something goes wrong with your masters during a recording session, Like I've never heard of that, but but you know what I know just came to my mind that could explain why this guy is so piste off in the in the book, is that maybe they used it as an excuse to get out of recording at that studio. Oh, maybe somebody a bad reputation too. Yeah, it's m let's let's we're gonna spawn these nine eleven style conspiracy theories about the lost Green Day album that I don't give you about. It's kind of brilliant, Like, we made a bad album, what do we do? We pretend to gut stolen. If there's some kind of weird insurance thing or financial thing that we can get out of it. Great, and then twenty years we mysteriously find it and suddenly it has this mythology around it and we sell it. Then that's how you make a good album, bad or bad album good. It's true. Well, whatever the case, it was an opportunity for the band to take a beat, and, aided by their longtime producer Rob Cavallo, they decided this lost record was not irreplaceable, hunkered down for a heart to heart with each other that was apparently mediated by Cavallo, and decided to start from fresh um. He was a music industry vet when his work on Dukie with the band catapulted him into the mainstream. He would stick with Green Day, but then go on to have a hand in multiple hits from other bands, including Google, Dolls, Omnipresent Iris I, and also multiple cuts from Phil Collins Tarzan soundtrack. I Can't Deal with Iris. That's a song that I subconsciously plagiarized in a love letter I wrote in ninth grade. It's a good song. What's it's a good song? Really? Yeah? Okay, intense sidebar? You know John Man, Yeah, Brooklyn band guy about town, John Mann one of my groomsmen. Uh. I call him Guy Patterson because he looks like and it's just as sweet as uh, the Guy Patterson character from that thing you do the drummer. Yeah, he looks like Tom Everett too. He loves early Google dolls when they were like really influenced by the Replacements, and we're like closer to Jawbreaker than than Iris. And he told me this like heartwrenching story about like Johnny Resnick growing up in Buffalo, New York and being like forced to take accordion lessons and having to lug this accordion from like the B side of Buffalo where he grew up to take these lessons. Um, I don't know, just really humanized Google dolls for me. I bear them. No quarrel I played a charity as a little kid and tried to impress a little girl who lived down the street for me when I was like eight, by playing accordion marching back and forth outside of her house. Oh yeah, you've told me that before. Super weird. When that that didn't work, I didn't know her mom came out and told me to go home because she wasn't there. Well. At some point, Armstrong was driving along and did not hear the sound of a young lovelorn man playing accordion in the street. He heard a song by Leonard skinnerd called That's how I like it. It's even worse than me playing accordion at age seven. Yeah, nothing like three guitars and Confederate apology sympathists. Um I don't I I like a lot of leon skinnered Um. But but this song I didn't know this song at contains the lyrics. It reads like a parody. It reads like like are you ready for some football? Kind of Vanzanti. It probably is their state fair I call their state fair years. Oh oh yeah, it's from two thousand three, which explains why these lyrics are so awful. Like my women hot and my beer ice cold, real fast car and my whiskey old. I can slow drive down an old dirt road, That's how I like it. I can turn my music way up loud. Ain't nothing better than the sound of a crowd American flag. It makes me proud, That's how I like it. And Armstrong was so cheesed off, justifiably so, that he that was the genesis of American Idiot, But apparently the notion of a punk rock opera had been kicking around his head for years. There's a profile in CMJ from that mentions um the notion of such a thing, along with a two CD concept album, as among the wild ideas that Billy Joe was kicking around in those days. Yeah, even in the early days they talked about wanting to have a Beatle like arc to their creative life, and now they were getting into their more experimental era, and Billy Joel later described the ambition by saying, we decided we were going to be the biggest best band in the world or fall flat on our faces. And hilariously, there was a review of American Idiot in Slant magazine that opens with this tremendous lead. Of all the negative effects the Bush administration has had on the world, the most unlikely bit of collateral damage has to be the return of the rock opera. As you meditate on that, We'll be right back with more too much information. After these messages, the songs for the record started to take shape during these demo sessions in Oakland. The opening suite for the record, Homecoming, came together out of necessity. Mike Dirt was left alone in the studio after Armstrong was summoned to community service stemming from a d u I and Trey Cool was meeting with divorce lawyers, which is a grim, grim couple of reasons to miss band practice. Dirt came up with a thirty second song and sent it to the other two and they kind of took it as a challenge to develop their own. And that, folks, is how you get a mini suite. UM. You know, the big obvious touchstones for this are like those who records you know, quick one while he's away, the biggest one. UM. They demo these students in Oakland, but then they split for l A and uh, those sessions did not start auspiciously. They arrived at Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood on April two thousand three, and the studio caught fire. So they went I have dinna say, I feel like Trey Cool has something to do with this. Well, yeah, with what I'm about to say, wouldn't shock me. Uh. They got back to their hotel and, according to him, went and partied. Um despite the fact that this was a major I mean, they could still pull budgets. We wrapped up this stuff at Capital Studios. Trade Cool brought something like seventy five snare drums of varying vintages to these sessions. This whole, the whole tracking phase seems like a very bizarre mix of unrepentant hedonism and slowly maturing as people, which I guess is a lot of people's early thirties. Maybe they just didn't want to make this album. Okay, first time around, all right, how do we get out of recording at the studio? Somebody steal our masters? Okay, second time around, how do we get recording it? Burn it to the ground? Alright. So, but things did start to fall into place once you know, the studio blaze subsided. Tray Cool later said that he remembered thinking, Wow, we're nailing it. There was just such energy to it. I felt like Frank Sinatra was in the Room with Us, which is a surprising choice of studio. Ghost was the King of He was the King of Student of Capital Studios though, I guess. But but I'd like to talk a bit more about the hedonism element, if I may. I think this was at their previous studio, Studio eight eighty in Oakland, so maybe this is when they were making their lost prior album. But I guess they set up a pirate radio station in the studio and broadcast their work in progress and various jam sessions just out across the Bay area. Um and also considering that the show Cranky Anchors was at the peak of its popularity. They would also make prank phone calls and broadcast those, and Trey Cool apparently would do stuff like call an animal crematorium in Hawaii and claim that they lost his monkey. They're just yeah, I guess he had to be there. They're the Verily Brothers of punk rock. Um. Yeah. They also did this our side project, The Network. They wrote an entire album in a Day of the Strange, like fake New Wavy thing, and they released it under the title Money Money in two thousand three, and they pretended to be this fake band The Network and they were just masked characters with names like the Snow and Captain Underpants, And for years they would pretend like they had no idea who these people were, They had nothing to do with them. It was always just like wink wink thing whenever they were being interviewed and asked about the network, they had always I've never actually seen them in person before, I've heard about them, and they were all like pretending that it wasn't actually them, but it obviously was so clearly they had a lot of steam to blow off during sessions for American Idiot Um. Anyway, now that we've discussed the slightly more sophomore excited green day, HI tell us about all the ways they matured during these sessions. I guess, Uh, you know, being in a band with a bunch of guys who you're bonding things were smoking weed and masturbating. Uh, and then you've just been friends with them for like thirty years and been in a band. It doesn't lead to the best band bonded differently, it doesn't lead to the best communication practices. Yeah, I guess they started Armstrong pitched essentially like weekly touch base and touch Bases slash Heart to hearts within the band. Yeah, you never did that. No, and I never will. Uh, this is not you wouldn't therapy go elsewhere. As reported in Rolling Stone, we bared our souls to one another, Mike Dern said, Admitting that we cared for each other was a big thing. Trey Cool added, we didn't hold anything back. He said, before Billy would write a song get stuck and say get the imaginary Mike and Trey and his head would say that song sucks, don't waste your time on it. He stopped doing that and became totally fearless around me and Mike. Bullie Joe later told the Alternative Press there was a lot of talking going on with this record, and a lot of the growing up process for us was like, dude, even saying the same thing to me since you were fifteen, and I've been hating it for fifteen years. We just let it all out and declared our places and then felt comfortable in our places, and it was a very big deal because now the weird thing is we feel younger and more revitalized, and we're having more fun than we ever had, hence the prank phone calls, and of course on the other side, of that was all the drinking that they did. Uh. Talking to Spin in two thousand four, Armstrong said, as a songwriter, I get so deep into what I'm writing about. It's almost like I have to stir up to write about it. And I think when we were in l A recording the record, we were also living it out. I'm not going to lie to you. Got weird, Mike Dern told them Armstrong apparently had to schedule vocal recording sessions around his hangovers, oh, saying that the time period involved kind of a conscious effort to have a lack of conscience. Uh, there's this great anecdote from alternative press that comes out of this this Hollywood period. Uh what that magazine deemed the drummer of a respected British band was staying next door to Cool and burst into his room yelling, turned down the music. I've got a gig tomorrow. So I hear from a hotel security the next day that one of this band's guys got locked in his room during the night. Mike during explained somebody apparently tied a rope around his door handle, then tied it to a nearby handrail. At this point, Trey Cool weighs in, saying, see, you just do a slip knot on the door knob, then you pull it really tight against the handrail and do a good sailing knot. I've got a boat and stuff, so I'd know how to tie a knot like that really good. Without admitting it, he says, I would know how. Uh, And then for the rest of the night, I guess Trey Cool apparently just kept playing that band's music through the room so that this guy was tormented by his own music and unable to get out of his hotel room. Who do you think that is? Do we think it? I'm gonna guess Radiohead. I would like to think it was not Radiohead because Phil Selway seems like a cool guy. Um, well yeah, but I mean everybody's gonna sleep. I would, I bet you, Tray Cool, I'm just annoying as hell the middle of the night. Yeah, i'd say cold Play. You know, I was thinking cold Play. But yeah, I guess it is around clock Sarah. Yeah, and they do seem ripe for him to be Yeah. Um, Tray Cool is a ridiculous person. Multi instrumentalist Josh Freese, who plays on American Idiot, recalled to spits that he showed up to record, and quote, Tray comes down, runs up to me and goes, hey, if you and I were camping and you woke up with my junior ass, would you tell anybody? And I said, uh no, and he goes, you want to go camping? Those were his first words to me. So, yeah, the medium funny bits of some kid in your gym class in seventh grade is also a millionaire drummer, and that's Tray cool, very aggressively competent drummer. He's fine. I really like Mike Dirnt. I think, oh, he's amazing bass player. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize that Dirt wasn't his real name. His real name is Mike Pritchard and Dirt is from the South. He used to play air Base all the time. Yeah he is. I cannot stress enough how how great the base on those records is, especially like stuff like Dukie and and um yeah, even even up to a warning. It's kind of annoying to me how they dumbed down his stuff on American Idiot because I remember watching all these live performances and Billy joels like, gentlemen, Mike Dirt the greatest bass player in the world and he's just going dung ding ding dung, ding dung du dung dung dung. And I'm like, man, you had a lot cooler bass lines boy back in the day. I mean minority. Yeah, that's like, I mean, like the most psycho bazing the the Yeah. He said he came up with it on acid up. His family situation is nuts. This is from the two thousand five Rolling Stone profile. I guess Mike Durn's adopted parents divorced when he was seven years old and basically made him choose between his rich father, who was this white computer programmer, and his financially struggling mother, who was a Native American who this is a quote from the Rolling Stone piece didn't hide her racial animosity. And Mike said, I grew up with my mom hating the white man and loving me, which, yes, that's rough. Um, that is intense. Anyway, Mike Dirnt has a great way of summing up his band. He said, Green Day is like sex. When we're good, we're really good. When we're bad, we're still pretty damps. I mean they are they are a tight band. I mean, you gotta really like watching some of the I watched some of that bullet in the Bible, that live thing, and like they are tight. There's not a ramshackle punk experience. Man really on the money live anyway. Outside of the explicitly political numbers on the record, the title track and Holiday probably the most too strident, uh and these ambitious multipart suites. There are two deeply personal songs on American Idiot from Armstrong, one with very well known source materials. I speak, of course, of Boulevard of Broken Dreams, one of my least favorite turns of phrase ever. Well look lovely that God. I hate that song. It's not one of my favorites. One here, which just like looks like something that I would have written on a trapper keeper in seventh grade. Anyway. He was written about his lost month in New York, inspired by the Gottfried Heilwin Heinwin Gottfried Helen wyin Um. That painting of James Dean, Humphrey Bogert, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley sitting in an all night diner, a fixture on the dorm room walls of people without imagination. I mean, it's it's the hopper painting, It's nighthawks, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's got like ed gy, like tragic pope culture figures. They they all died before, certainly before they were sixty, possibly even fifty. They did although young. That is interesting. There was a whole mystery about what real life bar, the Nighthawks Bar was based on. Like they're all these architecture blogs and stuff. They're trying to figure out like where that bar is in New York because Hopper painted it after a real place, like a census is that it' saw on granw Chavan seventh in the West Village. M little something special for all you art fans out there anyway. In the two tho VH one Storytellers program for Green Day, Billy Joe stated that the title of the song was nicked from a painting of James Dean walking alone. That's funny you said it was a painting. I was thinking of that famous picture of him walking through Times Square at dusk, but it's all foggy and he's by himself and looks all dejected, Like that's kind of what I always thought it was based on. Maybe he confused a painting with a photo, wouldn't surprise me, Yeah, that will happen one person who believes that this song was nicked from them is No gallaghery of Oasis, never one to shy away from saying things that would get a non celebrities teeth pushed in ah. He criticized this song in two thousand six based on having the same chord progression as Wonder Wall, which is faking rich of him, yes, saying they should have the decency to wait until I am dead before stealing my songs. I at least pay the people I steal from that courtesy. He did not narrator voice, Well, what's the isn't don't look back an anger? Basically imagine and then he also he's admitted the ripping off Burt back or act too. But yeah, my favorite is uh Liam Gallagher's feud with George Harrison imag a feuding with George Harris, and I mean, I guess he does have some spy I mean, this is the opposite of the George Harrison Mike Myer's story we told in the Awesome Powers episode. George was pretty open when asked about Oasis ripping off the Beatles, and he said in their music lacks depth and the singer Liam is a pain. The rest of the band don't need him. He apparently was a big fan of Oasis. Is h MTV unplugged gig where Noel handled all the vocal duties. Uh. Liam responded to this in the sane and measured way that one would expect. He told MTV if any of them old farts have got a problem with me, then they should leave their zimmer frames walkers the British term for a walker at home, and I'll hold them up with a good right hook. They're jealous and their senile. If they want to fight, I'll beat them up. This Liam Gallagher, one of the foremost Beatles fans on the planet, threatening to beat up George Harrison. Uh I still love the Beatles, and I still love George Harrison as a songwriter in the Beatles, but as a person. He calls him a nipple, which is an expression I don't think that exists. I think that's just like when Liam called Nola thetation. I think it just sounds good. Um. Yeah, this doesn't have to do with Green Day. But when there's a Beatle or in a way suce anecdote to be shared, I try to take the opportunity. I just want to interject taking Morning Glory, what's the story? Morning Glory has two songwriting lawsuits connected to it. Shaker Maker wound up costing them five hundred thousand dollars because of the similarity to I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing by the New Seekers, and they lost ten of their royalties to Stevie wonder based on the tracks out sounding similar to Uptight Everything's all Right, Stevie Wonderer was worth noting very much alive, Yeah, oh my god. Um. Speaking of bands that ripped off the Beatles, Green Day wanted to end the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams with a nod to the Sergeant Pepper closer A Day and a Life, but producer Rob Cavallo talked them out of it. He later said, originally the band wanted the outro to be something like the huge crescendo at the end of the Beatles of Day and of Life. Then they thought they'd maybe try it with Calliope's and Circus music and craziness like that. I told them, look, you're a rock band, let's just do it with guitars. My favorite anecdote about the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, though, is that they used it in the office Dwight and Andy singing at the holiday party one in one episode, and apparently Billy Joe literally didn't get the memo, or maybe it was during his drinking years because he had no idea that it was used in the office. And then a few years ago he was binging the series like ten years after it aired, and he was shocked to just find one of his songs in one of these episodes, which is great, that's kind of adorable. Wake me Up when September Ends Meanwhile, was written about the death of Armstrong's father from esophagal cancer he was just ten. Apparently the title comes from something that Billy Joe actually said, I guess following his dad's funeral, he locked himself in his room and said, wake me up when September ends. His dad died in September. Yeah. He and his five siblings were raised by their mother, who worked as a waitress at a twenty four hour restaurant called Rod's Hickory Pit. Uh. She worked a lot of graveyard shifts. He said, my brothers and sisters were put in a position where they had to grow up really fast and become parents to me. If there's a song on American Idiot that veers away from the story for the album. It's that one. He This is on Storytellers. He said, it's a personal thing. I've never tackled an issue about that, About singing about my father. It's hard to sing, but definitely therapeutic because it deals with the passing of someone you love. The seven years have gone so fast line is thought to maybe deal with the gap between when his father died in nine and green Day's first DP in nineteen. It's just a theory, and the twenty years has gone so fast line as the period between when his dad died and when Billy wrote the song in two thousand too, So it's sort of like the theory of American Pie being written about Don McLean's dad. You know, for ten years we've been on our own um. Perhaps unfortunately for him though, Despite this song's also heavy handed Iraq War themed video, this song is popularly remembered for neither his father nor the Iraq War because it came out in June two thousand five, and then when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans two months later, this song became associated with that which you can trace back to a single blogger by the name of Karma Girl a K s Z eight. She posted an edit of this song paired with TV coverage of Katrina and put it up on her website, which is still you could smash face dot com slash vlog. I don't know. I just got that from Wikipedia and it went viral. Oh no, I got that from the New York Times of all places. Surely the first time smash phase dot com slash flog appeared in the August pages of The Gray Lady. Um. Yeah, I guess it went viral and became like a sort of anthem for the recovery following that disaster. Um. They performed the song days after Hurricane Katrina on React Now Music and Relief, which was a benefit concert broadcast and MTV, and a live version of the song recorded in September was released soon after, dedicated to the hurricanes victims. I read dedicated. I wonder if proceeds went to them or they just said this is dedicated to you and kept the money they had they have donated something. They also performed it for some reason with the Edge at the first game played in the super Dome in New Orleans after the hurricane I mean statistically proven that if you have a charity single and you loop in any members of you too, it's gonna do better. I Mean there's something about the presence of YouTube that just provokes guilt and makes you want to fork over cash. So yeah, I'm just thinking about like a lesser disaster and they're like all sitting and like Clayton I was gonna say, yeah, they're all sitting around and they're like, all right, we can't get onto the edge, but we can get Larry or at them to play really anonymous space guitar and drums that could easily have just been programmed by literally anyone in the world. I just love these bands where it's like Black Keys or someone, where it's like half the band is clearly doing the work, the other half is just kind of there. You do such a perfect example of that, Just like you've got the guy with the big voice and the and who just clearly will put his own face in front of everything, and then you've got the guy who lucked into one of the most identifiable guitar sounds of the past fifty years, and the other two and the aristocrats. Anyway, the other big thing about Wake Me up when September ends. Is that has become a meme online starting in September, with people bothering and tagging Billy Joe about it enough that he mentioned to Vulture at one point it's like, when Jesus was born on December, people go, hey, it's Christmas time went okay. When the Easter bunny comes, people go hey, it's Easter. When September comes, people go hey, it's that guy in Green Day. And he joked that he wanted to write a song called shut Up when October Begins, which is medium funny. Yeah. I think of that whole phenomenon as being like the seasonal book end to the It's gonna be May justin timber like man, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more too much information and just a moment. Jesus of Suburbia is the I guess one of the only parts of this that gives it. It's like quote unquote rock opera thing. I don't know, do you he's a big question. Do you think this counts as a rock opera? No? Yeah, they're thematically linked, but like it's not. I don't think it's a real concept album. But we mentioned the Who earlier. Man, you want to see a great who clipped? Did you see that rock and roll circus performance? Have you seen that? One of my all time of course I have that when they're doing a quick one. Yeah. That last when they're doing the last you are Forgiven part is like one of my favorite rock moments that live. That live performance whips so much. I mean, just the fact that they Green Day could never guess where The Rolling Stones never released it anyway, Jesus of Siberia compared variously by the band to a Quick One While He's Away and Bohemian Rhapsody. Is Armstrong Get serious? Guys? Uh? His Armstrong's favorite Green Day song? Apparently he also name checked Greece when talking about inspirations for the album as a whole, which I think is hilarious and kind of adorable, but also one of the least punk things I've ever heard. The fact that the female character on American Idiot is called What's her name would definitely cause this album to fail the Bechdel test, that's for sure. Yeah, everyone talks about sort of the more obvious touchstones, but I guess he's a big fifties guy. Maybe that whole Everly Brothers tribute album. No I knew he was a big Everly Brothers fan, but what did he do a song on it? Yeah, him and Norah Jones, whoa for an album called Wait for It Foreverly. That's actually not I mean, it is bad, but it's also it's very clever. It's also it's not even one of the it's not even one of the like big Everly Brothers songs. It's the album songs are Daddy Taught Us, which are like all old traditional folk songs. Interesting. So yeah, that's interesting digression anyway. Jesus of Suburbia is the band's second longest song, after the other multi part suite on American Idiot Homecoming. Billy Joe had had a rudimentary version of the song kicking around for a while, and the sweet part of it was sort of stitched together over extended jams. The band has uh The guitar sound in particular on that I read was achieved by using the old nineteen seventies classic rock technique of when you buy amp or split the guitar signal and you run half of it directly into the mixing board. And then the other half into a tradition like an amp miked amp set up, and then you blend the two of those signals together. Did Mark Bowland do that Rex stuff? Yeah, a lot of the t Rex stuff has that. Kathleen Hannah of pioneering Riot Girl band Bikini Kill was asked to seeing the aforementioned female part of What's Her Name, which doesn't exactly square with Riot Girl, but I'm sure she got some cash from it. Was nice um, although she was told to sing like a female Billy Joel, which sounds like a terrible experience for someone. But they called her up just because they like Bikini Kill, which is nice good. He's a great quote from Billy Joe about his process. He told us to MTV in two thousand of five. Right after I came up with the phrase American idiot, I came up with the album's protagonist, Jesus of Suburbia. I felt like, across that line between church and state, or politics and religion, I thought, how would I interpret the Bible even though I've never really read it. Incredible, but he considers the song the best that he's ever done, he told Vulture in I'm tooting my own horn, But I think it encompasses so much about my life and friendship and family, and it's flamboyant and big and bombastic. It's one of those moments where I was feeling like I wanted to take a big risk. It's so fun to play live seeing how the entire crowd sings along. It's just one of those songs. But when it came to actually getting the label on board back in two thousand four, that was a bit of a trickier proposition. He'd say, American Idiot was such a difficult album to explain the people before it came out. I would be talking about things like nine minutes songs, and the response from Warner Brothers was like, Okay, they've finally lost their minds. The band could barely bring themselves to say the phrase punk rock opera themselves for the longest time because it just sounded so bloated. Yeah, Billy Joe has a lot of what I like to call first bong rip ideas um, which is exactly what it sounds like, just like Jesus of Suburbia. That's a keeper. The videos for this record, we're all directed by veteran director Samuel Bayer, who counts among his many credits Nirvana's music video for Smells Like Teen Spirit and Blind Melon's No Rain. Um. I guess all the videos for this are thematically connected. In the American Idiot video, it's basically kind of a live shoot. The band gets sprayed with green liquid after the stripes of the American flag melt. In Holiday, they drive I know, just high concept stuff, guys. In Holiday, the band drives around in the Mercury Monterey convertible. It is a sweet car which eventually stops in the same field that Boulevard of Broken Dreams begins in. For that video, Bear opted for older school visual techniques like rear projection instead of green screen, and he would like physically attack the film negative like scratching with razor blades, pour coffee on it, put out cigarettes on it. All you can do in my movie these Days. In thirty seconds, uh for the weight me up with some tembur End's video, which give it his CV. Incredibly, Bear calls this hands down the greatest thing I've ever done. He did bold words, Wow, he's done. I mean, did you look up this guy's Aside from Smells Like Teen Spirit, which is like one of the most the most. I don't know, what do you think iconic videos in the nineties short list? Yes, I feel like visually there are maybe one more time for example, like the other songs that visually have more of an impact, even though I think the song is like top three era defining songs of the nineties. And the only reason I'm not saying that's number one is because I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting right now. But yeah, obviously that video is up there. Doll parts for whole uh oh we mentioned this later, pull it with Butterfly Wings. Um, we did some stuff with Marilyn Manson. That's a terrible idea, Blancadi to stay together for the kids. Oh um, this was all pre American idiot. Yeah, and he likes all of those things less than the Wake Me for September in video anyway. Um. They cast Evan rachel Wood and Jamie Bell in speaking roles, and I guess they aimed for a look similar to ninety nine the Smashing Pumpkins video, which is all kind of like the camera's rear facing back at a person. I don't know where else to put this. The Records cover of an arm holding a heart shaped hand grenade first ball rip idea should have stayed in the drafts folder was inspired by Saul Basses poster for The Man with the Golden Arm Um I vertigo to write like all those great oh yeah, all the best ones Anatomy of a murder, Oh yeah yeah. It was done by an artist named Chris Billheimer, who, despite feeling that red is the quote most overused color in graphic design, rendered it in red, black and white. Uh. This was, of course, three years after the White Stripes had done that exact same thing, So draw what conclusions you will from that. The band also leaned into that color scheme at this time, started wearing black and white and red outfits on stage, like sort of like suit tailored suit looking things for which they adorably went on a band diet while they were recording the album to fit into. Billy Joel also started wearing a lot of eyeliner. In the Mark Spitz book, Uh, a friend of the band named DJ Miss Guys Uh said, Billy Joel really does wear more eyeliner than most drag queens now, but they all had the face for it and could pull it off. Um. Courtney Love is also quoted in this book as saying, this level of fame has been very good to them. Billy Joel looks absolutely beautiful. You know how when people get super a list their face gets prettier. I think it's perception, it's something that happens in your subconscious. But he looks stunning. He looks like a beautiful girl. So I just it's like de rigor that you have to ask Courtney Love to say something ridiculous if you're making a book about anything about the nineties. American Idiot became green days first number one album in the United States, selling two seven thousand copies in its first week of release. The biggest opening sales week, Dukie was a bit of a slow burn if memory serves um. The album became two thousand five fourth highest seller overall, moving over three point four million units and stuck in the top ten of the Billboard two hundred for over a year following its release. As of two thousand seventeen, is worldwide sales or something like sixteen million copies. That is really wild that these scrappy pop punks notch to the biggest selling records in the past thirty years. Yeah, but you know they're really trying it. With Me. Their press release for the album declared the quote Neck and Neck with Sergeant Pepper is the greatest album of all time. I can't stand by and let that aggression stand. I mean, yeah, just leave. You don't even have to just let them shoot themselves on the foot with that. Come on guys. In his retrospective piece in Krang last year, Ian Woodward wrote, in terms of its sales figures, American Idiot can be justly regarded as the world's last truly blockbusting rock out a title will likely hold forever never again, or a group playing this kind of music likely to sell records in these kind of numbers. What do you think of that? You think there's any anyone that came later? Do you think, like, no, I actually actually something, No, I actually looked this up and I under heavy dress have to hand it to them. This is probably the last pure rock record to do these numbers. Um, who sells seventeen million? I mean, the thing is this came out eight years before Spotify, right, so that was an eight year window in which someone could have beat it, and no one did. Um. I think the only other bands that I could really think that would come close would be like Queens of the Stone Age or Red Hot Chili Peppers. And I looked up Queens of Stone Age because I thought Songs for the Deaf was a way bigger hit than it was. Not. No, I was extremely wrong about that. And then what's the Chili Peppers record from two thousand from around this time? By the way, Staty of Arcadium? Yeah, by the way, it was two thousand two, By the way, was the big one? By the way, went double platinum? Suits Stadium Arcadium did four times platinum. I yeah, I mean, who who sells sixteen million copies? Now? Except for like a Dele and Taylor Swift? Yes, I begrudgingly must hand it to them. Uh. This was a simpler time, not far removed from when the Dixie Chicks were crucified for slandering George W. Bush Post nine eleven for just saying he was ashamed they were ashamed he was in Texas. Come on, God, remember that. Anyway, the records quote unquote incendiary content resulted in it not being carried by some retailers, notably Walmart, which is hilarious because when I was trying to verify that, if you search American idiot and Walmart. All you get our current sales links selling seventy five various reissues of American Idiot on vinyl at Walmart. Uh. Some radio stations declined to play the song, not on the basis of the homophobic slur that Armstrong uses, but rather because that uses the word redneck. Really shows where America was at the time. I guess at one point they guessed it on Letterman with John Kerry, like the day before this album dropped. I do not remember this. They also performed the title track. I thought it was on the letter and it was on a different show in a bush mask in the weeks leading up to the two thousand four election. And Billy Joe later said, we did everything we could to piss people off. But you know, I mean, if you actually listen to this record, it's really just the title track and holiday that are overtly political, and the rest of it is just, you know, a thematic narrative about those characters st Jimmy and what's her name. Obviously they were outspoken in interviews and on stage of concerts and stuff, But the record itself, Uh, isn't that inflammatory? And Billy Joe said as much in the Rolling Stone profile, and it's a sentiment that would probably get him canceled, if not crucified. Today, he said in the US that puritanical feeling takes over. It's not a business who I vote for. It stops people from thinking so much. They developed a hard nosed opinion, and then suddenly they stopped taking in information. I don't have a million things against conservatives. Johnny Ramon was a very nice guy about a total Republican. I still like the guy. That's where it gets screwed up. If someone believes one thing, it turns into us against them. This album is about feelings. I didn't want to make a rage against the machine record. I wanted to make an album of heartfelt songs. Uh. Last great billy quote about all this this time from the alternative press. I've always written about what's around me, whether it's about being a kid master banking in front of the television or now being scared to death in front of the television. Yeah, I mean all that. Uh well, I don't know if you want to cut in my thing earlier about like this being like the most low stakes political age a prop of all time. I mean, like, of course you don't want to make a rage against machine record You're not smart enough? Like this is it bothers me because like I really do love the writing, but like every single thing that comes out of this guy's mouth makes me want to molly whop him, you know, just like go upside his coal rimmed little head. It's you know why, it is because he's rich, because he's been a millionaire since he was eighteen. Like, that's why you can afford to say things like I don't want to be political. I just want to write songs about my feelings. Like different, rich white guy from California. That's why he says that that's why he can be friends with Johnny Ramone. Although you know, I guess admittedly he made a bunch of empty noise recently about wanting to renounce his US citizenship and move to the UK because of Roe V Wade, So I guess he's got that going for him, which is nice. Um. In two thousand five, American Idiot Want a Grammy Award for Best Rock Albums, nominated in six other categories, including am of the Album of the Year, though because of a quirk in the way the Recording Academy structures the eligibility Windows, Boulevard of Broken Dreams one Record of the Year. The following year, video for Boulevard of Broken Dreams won six MTV Video Music Awards, making it apparently the only song to win both Record of the Year at the Grammys and the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year. God, what a quainter time when that matter to people. Um So, now we have to get into the musical. At some point it director named Michael Myer mayor something is making the two thousand six horse Girl drama flicker, and for some reason he is obsessively listening to American Idiot on his drives to and fro from work. He's rock infused. Take a Victorian era teen angst called Spring Awakening was a hit on Broadway at this point, and it would go on to win him a Tony Award for directing in two thousand seven. And I guess he was being interviewed about that musical by Variety and they said, do you think there'll be any more rock in musicals? And he answered, well, obviously American Idiot could be turned into a musical. Somebody's probably already doing it. Narrator voice they were not, But I'm a Dais star and producer Tom Holse. Tom Holsey, I don't know how you pronounced that guy's name. Guy who played Mozart in Almadeis read that article and suggested that Mayor move forward with the idea, and within weeks Green Day had flown out to New York to see Spring Awakening and meet him. He told the Orange County Register in we spent the whole night talking at this little theater bar. The incongruity of seeing Billy Jo arms Strong in a bar with Nathan Lane and Bernadette Peters was bizarre. Amen bolstering the album's fifty seven minute run time with four songs from the European only release, Mayor was given free reign by the band to do whatever he wanted with the material. They didn't see anything from it until a two thousand eight reading of which Mayor recalled I looked over and all three were sitting there with tears streaming down their faces, which I will never forget. It was one of the most satisfying moments in my life. After he run at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in two thousand nine, the show moved to the St. James Theater on Broadway opening on April two thousand ten. Decent for twenty joke there, a show for which Donald Trump was apparently in attendance. What he thought they could get a capsule review from Donald Trump loves musicals. Um. He was also at the opening night of Studio fifty four. He was like, I think he was like the first person there, Like he was early to the party and they were still like getting stuff set up. Jesus Christ. The show closed a little over a year later after four all so close to another four twenty Come on, guys, he should have canceled two of them four hundred twenty two performances, uh, some of which saw Billy Joe appear as St. Jimmy. Other guest stars playing that role included fellow Bay Area punk Davey Havoc of a f I UH and Melissa Etheridge. Um shows cast recording when the two thousand one Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album, although it was ineligible for a Tony Award because less than fift it was written for the adaptation, but it did win for Best Scenic Design and Best Lighting Design, so a lot of tech crew people were happy about that. I guess um American Idiot fever continued to burn unrestrained through this country as of at least two thousand eleven, when production company playtoned option the musical for film, with Mayor attached to direct and Universal Pictures in talks to distribute. Armstrong was asked to star as St. Jimmy in it, but he was waffling on it, and the film was initially slated for a two thousand thirteen release. By July two, Mayor was saying at a performance of the musical, though, that the adaptation was still happening, but was delayed due to quote Hollywood bullshit. In March of two thousand fourteen, I bet it was, Buddy. In March of two fourteen, playwright this is wild Rolin Jones, who is a playwright who is a pullets Are finalist for one of his plays and an Emmy nominee for episodes of Friday Night Lights. He was apparently tapped to write a screenplay for this and at that time he said, I'm going to finish it by the end of the month. Uh. Fast forward over two years. In October, Billy Joe tills n m E that the film had moved to HBO and was getting more rewrites and that he would be starring in it. And then fast forward to February where he told an Emmy that plans for the film adaptation had been pretty much scrapped without elaborating, so sorry, I guess all you green Day heads, I'm kind of amazed that they didn't run longer. Green Day Natics? What do you call green Day fans? Jordan's this isn't a bit, I'm not doing a bit big greeners. Uh. Green Day has put out six records since American, including two thousand twelves Astounding Run, where for some reason they released they pulled their kiss move and each released a solo album, won Os Does and Trace. Their follow up to that, one Century Breakdown did really well. Weirdly, I looked up the sales records for that and it did way better than I expected or remembered it. I don't remember a thing about that. Was there a single or is it just sell really well? I think this single was the one that was like bo yeah, yeah, you know that old chestnut Lulu, Well that won a Grammy, sold four million worldwide. God, green Day cannot be stopped. This is where I have to put aside all my cynicism because one of the things that I do and have always loved about this band is that live they pull kids up on stage and hand over their instruments and either teach them how to play one of their songs or teach them how to play earlier on. It was that op ivy so acknowledge and multiple people who are currently musicians have come out and been like, this was like the biggest moment of my life. The Matt Healey uh said that the moment he became determined to become a musician was when, at thirteen, the band pulled him on stage to play bass with them in front of ten thousand people at the Newcastle Arena. Billie Eilish was not even born when Duke came out. She said it's one of her favorite albums and remembers her brother phineas getting a pair of trade Cools drumsticks at a Green Day concert. And Billy J. Armstrong said that even Edge Shearon saw them at Wembley Stadium performing Time of Your Life and that was a big formative moment for him. That kind of sounds like an edge it does. Yeah, and you know what, talk a lot of this episode, but more music is not rarely a bad thing. And if you're inspiring kids to pick up an instrument and being a band and changed their life, I'll take any amount of your bullshit. What do you do if the more music is bad music? And then I just don't listen to it, and I'm I'm caddy about it on my podcast. Uh, there's a great anecdote from that Spitz book, But I guess we have to leave on. In March of two five, Corey George, a nine year old kid in Wales, was in a coma following a car accident. He woke up after his mom played him the American Idiot album. He literally woke out of a coma because someone played him American Idiot probably would have kept me in. But now you know what, if nothing else, they've got that going for him, which is nice. Which is nice. Oh, I've made so many enemies. I swear I wasn't going to be this mean. I swear I didn't come in guns loaded. Cut most of that. All right, thank you folks for listening. This has been too much information. I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan run Tug. We'll catch you next time. Too much information was auction of I heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan runt Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel, with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts on I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows