Interview With Rob Cavallo- Hits Daily Double

[1039Mike]

Rob Cavallo was recently interviewed by Hits Daily Double, about the trilogy.

Here it is: http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/newsPage.cgi?news09067#.UBalXlGdUMQ.twitter

[drugstore hooligan]

Really cool article. I love reading about the new songs. Gets me even more pumped for the trilogy. Some cool descriptions in there. The one that got me most intrigued was Nightlife.

[bollard_11]

Link aint working

[1039Mike]

Link aint working

Try google chrome?

[whitechristmas]

and the cinematic, Beatleseque finale, "The Forgotten," which ends the odyssey on a gorgeously affirmative note. "Don't look away," Armstrong sings on that uplifting closer, "from the arms of love."

Based on that quote, The Forgotten seems like an epic song to end the trilogy. It kind of reminds me of The End by The Beatles ("And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.")

[bollard_11]

Try google chrome?

Thats what I am using! Keep getting the cannot display quote, can someone please copy/paste the interview in this thread?

[Heather.]

Based on that quote, The Forgotten seems like an epic song to end the trilogy. It kind of reminds me of The End by The Beatles ("And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.")

I am so ready to embrace such a cheesy, epic ending. As long as it's legit good music, unlike See the Light.

[Hermione]

How cool! Some nice juicy details about the songs in there.

[Fuzz]

Very awesome interview. I smiled seeing a shout-out to Pat and Bill at the end of the article. This interview only further cemented my excitement.

[Daughter.of.Rage.and.Love]

Cool interview! I think it really characterizes the albums and individual songs, I haven't heard most of it yet but it gives me an idea of what to expect.

though I'm not quite sure about a rap part in a Green Day song... won't judge until I actually hear the song, but hm.

[bollard_11]

“You’re on this journey,” Warner Bros. RecordsChairman Rob Cavallo told Green Day frontman-songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong. “Keep writing.”

It was Cavallo’s second trip in a few weeks to the Bay Area, where Armstrong once again played him song after dazzling song. Plenty of great material had piled up already, but the modern-rock hitmaker was clearly on fire and Cavallo—who signed the band in the ’90s and produced most of their albums (including the Diamond-certified Dookie and sextuple-platinum monsterAmerican Idiot)—didn’t want to interfere with the process. “We weren’t under any pressure to turn in the record quickly,” he points out. “So I said, ‘If you’re feeling it, keep going.’”

Armstrong had been traveling, most notably to New York, where he appeared in American Idiot on Broadway. Inspired by the creative energy there and other in ports of call, he found that the songs just started pouring out.

The result of this prolific phase is THREE new Green Day albums, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!—which will see staggered releases between late September and mid-January. The hook-heavy, relentlessly uptempo ¡Uno!streets Sept. 25; its infectious lead single, “Oh Love,” brings the band’s first new material to the airwaves since 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown.

“At first we thought of releasing them in a three-week period, one per week,” Cavallo recalls. “We did a lot of research.” He credits the marketing department—which was understandably daunted, at first, by the prospect of bringing so much product to the marketplace in so short a span—for its diligence. “They discovered if you tie in schedules, singles, touring, international, licensing, brand partners and so on, the best thing to do was space them out six or seven weeks apart.” It didn’t hurt that the material was so strong; the WBR staffers who spoke to me about the albums tended to sound more like geeked-out superfans than industry veterans.

Cavallo once again produced, favoring a mostly live recording setup designed to capture the energy of Green Day’s frenetic shows. “We just got ourselves in the right headspace every day,” he notes, “and got great performances straight off the floor.” (Armstrong, bassistMike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool were joined throughout by resourceful second guitarist Jason White, whom Cavallo says is “practically the fourth member.” Cavallo himself added keyboards.)

Helpfully, the band had—with help from Cavallo and trusted engineer Chris Dugan—sequenced Armstrong’s huge trove of songs ahead of time, and recorded them mostly in order. This, Cavallo relates, helped them tell the “story” of this rock & roll triad that much more clearly.

While ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! isn’t a three-disc concept album—each album more than stands on its own—it is tied together thematically. “¡Uno! sort of represents the feelings and fun of getting ready to go to a party,” Cavallo explains. “¡Dos! is about being at the party, in the throes of alcohol, sex, drugs and rock & roll. And ¡Tré! is kind of the morning after—when you wake up and have that reflection about your life.”

That said, the project is highly eclectic and strongly showcases Armstrong’s ever-growing range as a writer, not to mention the band’s capacity for both crunch and nuance. The heart of ¡Dos! (due out 11/13) is sexed-up and dark, for example, but this party-hardy middle set concludes with “Amy,” a tender, stripped-down elegy for the ultimate party casualty, Amy Winehouse. The emotional directness and classic-pop finesse of this voice-and-guitar-only ballad invite comparisons to John Lennon’s stark solo records and the bluntly soulful work of Billy Bragg.

There’s far more to say about the voluminous material encompassed by ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré!, but for now I’ll point to a few other highlights. The first five slamming tracks on ¡Uno!—the stomping “Nuclear Family,” the yearning “Stay the Night,” the fierce yet philosophical “Carpe Diem,” the blistering call to arms “Let Yourself Go” and the funky-furious “Kill the DJ”—pack a musical wallop while probing emotionally complex territory. “They’re five perfectly written, diverse examples of where Green Day is right now,” Cavallo insists. “Every time I hear those five songs I just wanna hear them again.” ¡Uno! also offers dreamy power pop (“Fell for You,” “Sweet 16”) and jams that recall the uncompromising energy of Iggy Pop, theDead Boys, Bad Brains and other punk stalwarts (“Loss of Control,” “Trouble Maker”).

¡Dos! boasts (among other tracks) heady, hormonal fare like “Fuck Time,” “Wild One” and “Makeout Party”; the lovely acoustic ballad “Drama Queen”; the dubby, clubby “Nightlife” (featuring a sinuous rap by Lady Cobra); and garage-psych nugget “Wow, That’s Loud!,” the title of which refers not to the music but to a “dirty party dress” sported (no doubt temporarily) by one of the narrator’s nocturnal companions.

¡Tré! (slated for a 1/15/13 release) is arguably the most ambitious of the three albums, tying together tasty, irresistible pop-rock like “Missing You,” “Stray Heart” and “Sex, Drugs and Violence”; the string-laden, gospel-tinged “Brutal Love”; the pivoting suite “Dirty Rotten Bastards” (which Cavallo likens to Idiot’s “Jesus of Suburbia”); the Occupy-worthy anthem “99 Revolutions”; and the cinematic, Beatlesque finale, “The Forgotten,” which ends the odyssey on a gorgeously affirmative note. “Don’t look away,” Armstrong sings on that uplifting closer, “from the arms of love.”

Cavallo is generous in his praise of the people who made an enterprise with so many moving parts possible. He gives due credit to the band’s longtime manager, Pat Magnarella, for creating the requisite “protective space” around them. He’s also effusive about the myriad specialists who assisted in the album’s creation, fromBill Schneider and the other instrument techs (who kept Green Day’s beloved vintage gear in ship shape) to master mixer Chris Lord-Alge.

Is it a risk to bring out three albums by anyone in as many quarters? Of course. But Cavallo—who was picking out Roger McGuinn riffs on his Taylor 12-string during our conversation—seems unconcerned. “I like to follow the artist,” he says. “If the artist is doing something natural and great, you have marketing support the creative and not the other way around—and you just decide to be fearless about it.”

Thanks!!

[gmcloughlin]

Excellent interview. Words cannot express how much I am looking forward to listening to the complete trilogy, iUno! iDos! and iTré! one after the other. Can't wait to prepare for the party, go to it, and reflect on my life afterwords with Green Day

[ChelseaDagger]

"We learn a little more about the "rap" song "Nightlife." It's "dubby" and "chubby" and features a rap from Lady Cobra of Mystic Knights of the Cobra. This will be interesting."

Ummm....wut?? A rap???

*staying open minded* I am intrigued to what this will sound like , I just can't imagine it!!!!

This all gets more and more exciting!!

[drugstore hooligan]

I have total faith that this "rap" or whatever it turns out to be is going to be awesome. People forget Green Day always break the mold. Like back in 97 if this website was around I bet people would be all "omgzz king for a day is gonna be ska influenced and have a brass section omggg Green Day don't do ska"

Moral of the story, Trust the boys. whatever it turns out to be its gonna be awesome cos its fucking Green Day baby

[basKT_case90]

"We learn a little more about the "rap" song "Nightlife." It's "dubby" and "chubby" and features a rap from Lady Cobra of Mystic Knights of the Cobra. This will be interesting."

Clubby not chubby.

[Ritz]

I love the interview. While reading the descriptions of the songs, I got a feeling I can't describe. It was good ! The trilogy is gonna be epic ! Now I'm more looking forward to TRE ! The description got me.

[ChelseaDagger]

Clubby not chubby.

I just copied and pasted the quote directly, not my wording...

[greendepent]

I just have a mental mess cause there's saying that Stray Heart is on Tré.... again. Or maybe I just misread.

[Guest]

I just have a mental mess cause there's saying that Stray Heart is on Tré.... again. Or maybe I just misread.

I am a bit confused on this too.

[Disapperingirl]

Lovely interview, all that excitement from Rob must have been just more than good for the albums themselves!

And again some intriguing details, now I'm really curious about Dirty Rotten Bastard- a brand new Jesus of Suburbia?! - and The Forgotten, lyrics sound promising

[Comic Sans]

So here you are my updated list :

Uno

Nuclear Family

Stay The Night

Carpe Diem

Let Yourself Go

Kill The DJ

Fell For You

Loss of Control

Troublemaker

Angel Blue

Sweet 16

Rusty James

Oh Love

Dos

Nightlife

Wow, That's Loud

Amy

Lazy Bones

Wild One

Makeout Party

Stop When The Red Lights Flash

Drama Queen

Fuck Time

Tre

Brutal Love

X Kid

99 Revolutions

The Forgotten

Missing You

Stray Heart

Sex, Drugs And Violence

Dirty Rotten Bastards

Little Boy Named Train

Amanda

Dos/Tre (not confirmed):

8th Avenue Serenade

Ashley

Gabriella

Hello Firecracker

Crushing Bastards

State Of Shock

Last Gang In Town

Lady Cobra

Dreamcatcher

Oh Girl

See You Tonight

Baby Eyes

Walk Away

Soda Pop Curtis

Hybrid Moments

[Ritz]

Lovely interview, all that excitement from Rob must have been just more than good for the albums themselves!

And again some intriguing details, now I'm really curious about Dirty Rotten Bastard- a brand new Jesus of Suburbia?! - and The Forgotten, lyrics sound promising

I have always waited for another epic song like Jesus of Suburbia ! Its just too awesome. Can't wait to hear the brand new JoS !!

[Malleus]

Dude, Hybrid Moments is a cover. It's not gonna be on the trilogy.

[Comic Sans]

I know it's a cover, but it doesn't mean it can't be in the trilogy.

[DannyDirnt]

I love how they describe the songs with those words that hype me xD and how everyone is so confident about Green Day now. When Oh Love came out I was a little dissappointed, but Let Yourself Go brought my illusion back. And these cool interviews help a lot! Thanks for sharing!

I know it's a cover, but it doesn't mean it can't be in the trilogy.

This. Remember 'Knowledge'? It was in 1039... Yet I think it won't be in the trilogy, but not because it's a cover but because it hasn't been mentioned in any interview.