Green Day
I'm sitting in a falling-down hovel on a ramshackle back street in downtown Berkeley. All around me are boxes of memories: old records, demo tapes, broken guitar strings, bent staples, pointless pieces of paper and cardboard, a million shards and fragments of a punk rock dream.
This is where Lookout Records used to live. This is where some goofy kids banded together to set the world on its ear with the East Bay punk rock explosion that produced groups like Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine, Rancid, and, of course, Green Day.
Now, in the name of 'progress,' the place is being turned into condos and I've got a few days to pick up the pieces, figure out what goes, what stays, and most of all, what it all meant. To help me in my musings, I'm listening to an old mix tape - stuff like "Disappearing Boy," "Who Wrote Holden Caulfield," "Welcome To Paradise." The nostalgia is thick enough to cut with a knife.
I'm roused from my reverie by the phone. Of all people, it's Billie Joe. "Hey man, we'd like you to write something about our new album, Warning." "That's really flattering," I say, "but why me? I'm just some old school dude who knew you guys back in the day. People don't want to hear more stories about Gilman Street and backyard shows and touring the country on a shoestring. What do I know about Green Day in the year 2000?"
"Dude, just listen to the record, okay?"
So I do... once, twice, five times. It's catchy, it's infectious, almost habit-forming, but it's definitely not the Green Day I knew when they were gawky 16-year-olds. I don't know quite how to describe it until Billie mentions in passing, "I've been listening to a lot of old Bob Dylan lately, especially that album where he first used a band."
I know the album: it was called Bringing It All Back Home, and I suddenly realize that's what the new Green Day record is all about. It's been a long strange trip since Green Day exploded out of the close-knit East Bay punk rock scene to become international superstars, and not all of it was smooth going.
On the surface, it's every kid's dream come true, but the reality of it is a hard slog, with people turning against you, your core values being tested and questioned at every turn. By the time they released their last record in 1997, Green Day knew it was time to take a break, to step back, spend some quality time with families and friends, and figure out what really mattered.
For Billie especially, it was all about home. Most of all the home where he and his wife are raising their two sons, but also "the regularity that comes with being a normal human, just a guy who does the shopping and stops in at the local cafe." With five albums under their belt, the bandmembers were in no hurry to make another one, at least not until they were sure what they wanted to do next.
"Our last album was kind of transitional," Billie says. "We weren't really sure which direction we wanted to go. But this time I knew I wanted to let every single vulnerability about myself come out. Most of all, I wanted to write songs that one day my boys could look back on and say, 'My dad, he was a guy who had a lot of hope.'"
And hope comes shining forth all over this album. There's still the dark sarcasm and inyour- face rebelliousness that have always been a part of Green Day lyrics, but when, in "Macy's Day Parade," Billie sings, "I'm looking for a brand new hope, the one I've never known," there's no doubting where his heart really is.
The theme of hope is there again in "Hold On," a song Billie wrote for a friend who'd gone through an unthinkable series of personal tragedies. "A cry of hope, a plea for peace, and my conscience beating," he sings. And then, "As I run to the edge of a shadow of a doubt, with my conscience bleeding, there lies the truth, the lost treasures of my youth, as I hold on to the break of day."
Of all the treasures of youth, hope is one of the hardest to hold onto, especially when you're working in an industry that's constantly telling you you're only as good as the last great thing you did. Growing up is confusing enough as it is; growing up as rock and roll stars without becoming terminally jaded and cynical must be next to impossible.
Yet somehow that's what Green Day have managed to accomplish. Here are three guys who've been playing music professionally for more than half their lives, who were touring the country and the world when they were still teenagers, who were just 21 when Dookie went gold and then mega-platinum. Most bands would be content to rest on their laurels, to enjoy their success and, most of all, stick to the formula that got them where they were.
But the only "formula" Green Day ever had was to have no formula. From the beginning their success came from going against the grain. People once tried to pigeonhole them as a punk band, but as Billie recalls, "We never fit in completely to that scene because we were writing love songs that were heartfelt and endearing. Some of the punks didn't know what to make of us, but I finally realized that was what made us punk. We sang what we meant, from the heart, and didn't worry about what anyone was going to think."
Okay, maybe I lied. Maybe there is a formula of sorts, and if there is, it revolves around those "heartfelt and endearing" love songs Billie was talking about. Back in 1988 most of them were about girls and unrequited love and adolescent insecurity; now, in 2000, they've grown to include things like family and home and finding a place in this world where you can live and grow and feel as though you belong. Broader themes, maybe, but they're still love songs in the best possible sense of the word, and every bit as heartfelt and endearing.
In 1964, at the height of Beatlemania, a reporter stopped a kid coming out of a store clutching the new Beatles album. "What are you going to tell your kids in the year 2000 when they ask you what that whole Beatles thing was about? Was it the crowds, the screaming and fainting girls, the haircuts, what?" The kid, obviously wise beyond his years, said, "Just listen to the songs, man."
Good advice then, and just as good today. I could go on for hours telling you about Green Day, where they came from, how important they are, what gifted musicians and songwriters they are, how exciting their live shows are, what wonderful people they are, how much they love their moms, but I'd be wasting my time and yours. Everything you need to know is right here on this record. Just listen to the songs.
I'm sitting in a falling-down hovel on a ramshackle back street in downtown Berkeley. All around me are boxes of memories: old records, demo tapes, broken guitar strings, bent staples, pointless pieces of paper and cardboard, a million shards and fragments of a punk rock dream.
This is where Lookout Records used to live. This is where some goofy kids banded together to set the world on its ear with the East Bay punk rock explosion that produced groups like Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine, Rancid, and, of course, Green Day.
Now, in the name of 'progress,' the place is being turned into condos and I've got a few days to pick up the pieces, figure out what goes, what stays, and most of all, what it all meant. To help me in my musings, I'm listening to an old mix tape - stuff like "Disappearing Boy," "Who Wrote Holden Caulfield," "Welcome To Paradise." The nostalgia is thick enough to cut with a knife.
I'm roused from my reverie by the phone. Of all people, it's Billie Joe. "Hey man, we'd like you to write something about our new album, Warning." "That's really flattering," I say, "but why me? I'm just some old school dude who knew you guys back in the day. People don't want to hear more stories about Gilman Street and backyard shows and touring the country on a shoestring. What do I know about Green Day in the year 2000?"
"Dude, just listen to the record, okay?"
So I do... once, twice, five times. It's catchy, it's infectious, almost habit-forming, but it's definitely not the Green Day I knew when they were gawky 16-year-olds. I don't know quite how to describe it until Billie mentions in passing, "I've been listening to a lot of old Bob Dylan lately, especially that album where he first used a band."
I know the album: it was called Bringing It All Back Home, and I suddenly realize that's what the new Green Day record is all about. It's been a long strange trip since Green Day exploded out of the close-knit East Bay punk rock scene to become international superstars, and not all of it was smooth going.
On the surface, it's every kid's dream come true, but the reality of it is a hard slog, with people turning against you, your core values being tested and questioned at every turn. By the time they released their last record in 1997, Green Day knew it was time to take a break, to step back, spend some quality time with families and friends, and figure out what really mattered.
For Billie especially, it was all about home. Most of all the home where he and his wife are raising their two sons, but also "the regularity that comes with being a normal human, just a guy who does the shopping and stops in at the local cafe." With five albums under their belt, the bandmembers were in no hurry to make another one, at least not until they were sure what they wanted to do next.
"Our last album was kind of transitional," Billie says. "We weren't really sure which direction we wanted to go. But this time I knew I wanted to let every single vulnerability about myself come out. Most of all, I wanted to write songs that one day my boys could look back on and say, 'My dad, he was a guy who had a lot of hope.'"
And hope comes shining forth all over this album. There's still the dark sarcasm and inyour- face rebelliousness that have always been a part of Green Day lyrics, but when, in "Macy's Day Parade," Billie sings, "I'm looking for a brand new hope, the one I've never known," there's no doubting where his heart really is.
The theme of hope is there again in "Hold On," a song Billie wrote for a friend who'd gone through an unthinkable series of personal tragedies. "A cry of hope, a plea for peace, and my conscience beating," he sings. And then, "As I run to the edge of a shadow of a doubt, with my conscience bleeding, there lies the truth, the lost treasures of my youth, as I hold on to the break of day."
Of all the treasures of youth, hope is one of the hardest to hold onto, especially when you're working in an industry that's constantly telling you you're only as good as the last great thing you did. Growing up is confusing enough as it is; growing up as rock and roll stars without becoming terminally jaded and cynical must be next to impossible.
Yet somehow that's what Green Day have managed to accomplish. Here are three guys who've been playing music professionally for more than half their lives, who were touring the country and the world when they were still teenagers, who were just 21 when Dookie went gold and then mega-platinum. Most bands would be content to rest on their laurels, to enjoy their success and, most of all, stick to the formula that got them where they were.
But the only "formula" Green Day ever had was to have no formula. From the beginning their success came from going against the grain. People once tried to pigeonhole them as a punk band, but as Billie recalls, "We never fit in completely to that scene because we were writing love songs that were heartfelt and endearing. Some of the punks didn't know what to make of us, but I finally realized that was what made us punk. We sang what we meant, from the heart, and didn't worry about what anyone was going to think."
Okay, maybe I lied. Maybe there is a formula of sorts, and if there is, it revolves around those "heartfelt and endearing" love songs Billie was talking about. Back in 1988 most of them were about girls and unrequited love and adolescent insecurity; now, in 2000, they've grown to include things like family and home and finding a place in this world where you can live and grow and feel as though you belong. Broader themes, maybe, but they're still love songs in the best possible sense of the word, and every bit as heartfelt and endearing.
In 1964, at the height of Beatlemania, a reporter stopped a kid coming out of a store clutching the new Beatles album. "What are you going to tell your kids in the year 2000 when they ask you what that whole Beatles thing was about? Was it the crowds, the screaming and fainting girls, the haircuts, what?" The kid, obviously wise beyond his years, said, "Just listen to the songs, man."
Good advice then, and just as good today. I could go on for hours telling you about Green Day, where they came from, how important they are, what gifted musicians and songwriters they are, how exciting their live shows are, what wonderful people they are, how much they love their moms, but I'd be wasting my time and yours. Everything you need to know is right here on this record. Just listen to the songs.
posted by bidad at
8:12 PM
