Green Day Dawning
America's premier punk band grows up on Warning
by Steve Baltin
October 10, 2000
If Green Day were to grow up, would their fan base stick with them? On 1994's Dookie, the album that made Green Day multi-platinum stars, songs like "Basket Case" established the group as the new voice of adolescent males everywhere. True, the 1998 hit ballad "Time of Your Life" found the Bay Area trio reaching an older demographic and going so far into the mainstream as to be played over the final minutes of the last episode of Seinfeld. Still, that was a one-off deal, and Green Day remained primarily the property of modern rock stations.
Warning, the trio's sixth album and first in two years, is unquestionably its most mature CD to date, one that reflects the changing values of lead vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong, now a 28-year-old father of two. On the poignant "Macy Day's Parade," Armstrong sings, "I'm thinking about a brand new hope/The one I've never known/'Cause now I know/It's all that I ever wanted."
Musically, Warning also finds Armstrong, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt expanding their sound with elements of early '60s rock on "Blood, Sex & Booze" and '60s pop on "Fashion Victim," as well as their trademark take on straight-ahead punk on the album's opening tracks.
In Armstrong's words, "We wanted to shoot for the moon this time around." Here's what else he had to say about the new album, his songwriting, the tight-knit dynamic of the threesome, and more.
DIY on Warning
“We've never been stifled by some prick who wanted to turn us into something else.”
How did you like producing the record yourselves?
I don't know if I definitely want to keep doing it because it's pretty hard. You have to play well, critique the way you play, and then you have to find the kinds of sounds you want to go for, that are best fitting for that particular song. It's pretty tough, and it's very time-consuming. After a while, it can really drive you crazy. At the same time, there's a real sense of independence in producing your own record.
Would the different rhythms and musical diversity have come about if you hadn't produced the record yourself?
Well, we always tend to have our records written before we get into the studio, and we always just have a concept of what we want to do. With Rob [Cavallo, producer], if we didn't know how to get a particular sound out of the guitar or bass, he was the guy who could help us get that. But after years of doing it, we could do it ourselves now. We've never been stifled by what we want to do creatively because of some prick who wanted to come in and tried to get us to change everything and wanted to turn us into something else. If that was ever the case, a couple of inside jokes and they would be out of the room in no time at all. We didn't really do anything different that we didn't do on the last record, except there wasn't a fourth person to either act as a mediator or a baby-sitter. Like I said, it was a real sense of independence being able to do it ourselves.
One of the difficult things about producing the record yourselves is that you have to be especially critical of your own efforts.
It's hard. We are our worst critics, especially to each other. We tell each other, "I think you could play that better." "Fuck you." It just depends on who wins the arm-wrestling match. But it's pretty tough. Somewhere you have to draw a line. There's always compromises that you have to come up with to help complement the other players in the band.
It's been two years since the last Green Day album. Did the time off rejuvenate your creativity?
I think that was sort of the whole point, to tell you the truth -- to take time off to begin with, because I think we were just a little tired after the last tour and the last record. We needed to take a break, because I didn't want it to feel like we were some sort of machine or something and going in and cranking out songs or trying to crank out hits. We needed to gather some sort of life experience and start writing songs from that standpoint.
Is it tough to go straight from all that time off into a summer tour, a new album, and a promotional tour?
Well, we're going to pace ourselves, definitely. I don't want to go out two months at a time anymore because I really can't. I have too much at home. And for me to have fun, I can only do it about three weeks at a time. So I'd rather we just take our time, do it right and let the record sort of write it out for itself.
Next Page: Songwriting: Methods & Results;....
Steve Baltin spent two years as senior rock editor for CD-Now before declaring his independence and going freelance. He presently writes for Rolling Stone Online, Maxim, Request, and several other publications and websites.
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