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Green Day
by Scott Harrell
So what has Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt been doing since his band’s most recent hit, 1997’s acoustic departure ‘Time Of Your Life’, faded from seemingly interminable radio and prime time TV-soundtrack ubiquity?
“I filled my swimming pool with gold and diamonds, and I invited all my friends over for a barbecue,” he quips.
Dirnt’s sarcasm only reinforces the anti-star attitude he, drummer Tre Cool, and guitarist/singer Billie Joe Armstrong brought with them to international attention eight years ago, and carry still. Staying grounded is fairly easy when you’re slogging anonymously through innumerable, identical all-ages shows as the middle band on the bill; remaining that way after something like ‘Longview’, however, is a different proposition altogether. For a guy whose band has scored three consecutive platinum-plus releases, a double handful of hit singles, and sold out shed-headlining tours, as well as forever altering the landscapes of both commercial and underground music, Dirnt pulls off the Regular Guy thing like a natural.
Probably because he is one. Following the hat-trick success of Dookie, Insomniac, and Nimrod, Green Day took their first real break from the write/record/tour/repeat cycle since 1993. Speaking via phone from Los Angeles’ Ocean Way Recorders, where the trio were putting the finishing touches on their next release, Dirnt recalls spending the down time pretty much the same way any of his hometown punk-rock friends would – namely, hanging out with his vintage car club (“We’ve had it since high school, it’s called the Backyard Believers. It’s not like a satin jacket car club. You could have bullet holes in it, duct tape on the windows and duct tape on all the tires, but if you get it to run, and you love your car, that’s great”), and jamming with his side project, The Frustrators, who recently put out their first record on Armstrong’s Adeline imprint.
“I actually got to play a show at [seminal Berkeley punk venue] Gilman Street, and that was really fun. It was rockin’. Everything was the same,” he adds. “It’s still a great club, because that’s where people with a tape recorder in their living room can make any kind of demo tape and still get a show. And there’s very few places like that in the world.”
Green Day’s stripped, melodic punk-pop has always been infused with exactly this sense of everyday, world-around-me realism. It was a large part of their initial breakthrough success, which coincided with the wane of Lollapalooza’s heyday. The ‘alternative generation’ was tired of angst and funk-rock, Jeremy and partying on your pussy, baby; they and their younger siblings wanted to hear something they could relate to, like, oh, sitting on the couch and getting stoned because there’s nothing better to do on a summer afternoon, or something. Armstrong, Dirnt, and Cool’s familiar combination of restless energy and unfocused motivation, delivered with volume, hook, and Attention Deficit Disorder-friendly brevity, was immediately engaging. The timetable unquestionably aided Green Day’s exposure to a wider audience, but their closeness to their fans (both figuratively and age-wise), their refusal to court the trappings of stardom, and their knack for nearly-perfect three-minute pop songs are the things that fuel their enviable staying power.
Of course, it’s been over three years since Nimrod, and the commercial punk uprising Green Day catalyzed two albums before that has trickled down to a single, infantile pop entity (also a trio, coincidentally enough). Dirnt and company have largely kept quiet since the media saturation blitz of ‘Time Of Your Life’. Their forthcoming full-length, Warning, will not be released until late fall, giving the currently tepid mainstream climate plenty of time to go even farther awry. When asked if he feels any pressure to equal or better Green Day’s previous triumphs, Dirnt’s reply is ambivalent, and what one might expect from a guy who started this whole deal because he just wanted to make some music.
“As much as I would really like this record to do well, I, personally, could lose all the stardom. I really don’t care about it. If anything, it just complicates my life and I don’t need it. I don’t need other people having preconceptions of who I am or what I am. I just like to make good music and put it out, and I like to have as many people as possible hear it.
“I’m not worried about it,” he continues. “We’ve gotta please ourselves first, and be honest with ourselves. As long as we’re not being fake, as long as we’re not lying to ourselves, people can read through that. They know what’s shit and what’s not, and what’s honest and what’s not.”
Regarding the album itself, Dirnt gives little away:
“It’s a Green Day record. There are more acoustic guitars, but they’re played…tough. They’re played like electric guitars. Look at the way Pete Townshend played acoustic guitar. That would describe it a little bit. Seven years ago, you could take one of our songs and play it on acoustic guitar, and it would still be a good song. This year, you can do the same thing.
“I don’t know what I think. We recorded a bunch of songs. They’re good songs. I like ‘em. I hope you like ‘em. We’re happy,” he concludes the subject with a laugh.
While most bands of Green Day’s stature would almost certainly opt to ride the hype of an impending new album by waiting until its release (or at the very least until the first single drops into the Buzz Bin) before launching a massive headlining jaunt, the threesome aren’t willing to restrain themselves until the first marketing figures arrive from the polling firm. They’ve always depended on roadwork to stay connected to its fans, and this summer’s Vans Warped Tour offers them an incomparable opportunity to touch base with their original and most loyal core of supporters. Green Day has never participated in the annual punk and extreme-sports traveling circus, but Dirnt earnestly acknowledges that the Warped crowd is their crowd, where they came from, the pundits who can relate whether the new album sells two million copies or two thousand.
“It wasn’t like we were even going to book a [summer] tour, but the Warped tour came up, it’s a really good tour, a way for us to get back out and in the swing of things before the record comes out. The Warped tour is just a chance for us to get out and on the road again, get the feel again play for those people who most likely know our other records,” he affirms.
“It’s for people who’ve been with us forever; it’s a good way for us to play with punk bands, for a punk crowd. If we weren’t doing the Warped Tour, we probably wouldn’t be touring before the record comes out. There’s what, twenty bands? A buck a band. How do you beat that? There’s something for everyone there. I really don’t think you can go wrong.”
THE END
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