Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong Says People Want To Hear Records That Tell A Story
Posted by Joseph Lee on 07.17.2012
He's not going to conform to a consumer need...
In an interview with Billboard (via NME), Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong said people want to hear records that tell a astory.
The band are preparing for the release of their ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Tré! album trilogy, and just released their first single "Oh Love", from ¡Uno! yesterday.
When asked about writing albums with narratives, he said: "I'm not going to conform to some consumer need. I believe people want to hear this kind of music, that people want to hear records that have a story. Or maybe they don't. I have no idea. I want to write killer songs, but I want them threaded together and to speak to each other within an album, which in this case is basically inside three albums."
He also talked about how he chose the names for the band's album trilogy. He added: "Putting out even a double-record, let alone a triple-record, it didn't seem like it would work for us in this day and age. We wanted all of it to come out because we were proud of it, and then I was thinking in terms of volumes - one, two and three. I was in my kitchen and thought, 'What if we called them 'Uno,' 'Dos, 'Tré,' just as a joke?' And I told my wife about it and she said, 'Actually that's kind of a brilliant idea.' Then I brought it to the guys and asked them what they thought. They let it sink in and said yeah. Put my photo on the first one, Mike on the second one and Tré on the third."
¡Uno! will be released on September 25, ¡Dos! will be out on November 13 and ¡Tré! will follow on January 15. You can pre-order all three albums now on the band's official website.
The trilogy is a follow-up to Green Day's 2009 album 21st Century Breakdown and will not be a concept album like their last two. The band will also release two documentaries, one made by Tim Lynch (producer of Green Day: Bullet in a Bible) and Tim Wheeler (co-producer and editor of The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights) and will focus on the making of the trilogy. Another documentary is being made from vintage footage from the days before the band released Dookie.
Green Day will perform at Japan's Summer Sonic festival and France's Rock En Seine in August, along with three shows in Germany. They will also play the I-Day festival in Bologna, Italy on September 2.
