pucky Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 Well, I don't know if I should have created a new topic for this but, since I spent the whole evening translating the interview, I thought the effort deserved it First of all, I apologize if there are some parts that don't make sense or some errors, I just did my best with the translation. Also, the magazine made some mistakes (mainly with the title of some songs), but I left them for the fun, I just translated what the article says. Finally, as I don't have a scanner, I just did some photos of the interview, but there is nothing special. I just did it so the spanish fans in the forum can read the article directly from the original source. http://i.imgur.com/bErB5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/GfWdL.jpg http://i.imgur.com/q9ehS.jpg http://i.imgur.com/u4pB5.jpg Well, here it goes the translation. There is nothing really new, but I highlighted the funny parts and what I think is interesting. WHO DOESN’T LIKE A THREESOME? Tired of rock opera albums, great concepts and seven-minute songs? So is Green Day. That’s why their new album, ¡UNO!, the first one of the trilogy they will release from now to January, brings back the energy and urgency of their best records. We meet the biggest punk band in their hiding place, in South California. With more than 65 million records sold all around the world, Green Day are to Punk Rock what Metallica are to Metal. The greatest exponent of a genre that is vocationally considered underground but, in the past 25 years, has been assimilated by a massive public. Just like in any long career, the band formed by Billie Joe Armstrong (voice, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass) and Tré Cool (drums) has gone through ups and downs. From a humble beginning in which they toured Europe staying in squatter houses, to the explosion they lived with Dookie. From a bad period with the release of Warning (in 2002 they had to swallow their pride and be the support band for Blink-182) to the amazing reemerge with American Idiot, which made them bigger than ever. That ambitions rock opera changed everything. But after releasing another conceptual album like 21st Century Breakdown, which was received with much less enthusiasm (although it allowed them to make a tour in stadiums for the first time), it was clear that Green Day had to calculate really carefully their next movement. The answer to the “what are they gonna do now?” question will be known the next September 24th, when they release ¡Uno!, the first volume of a trilogy that will be followed by ¡Dos! in November and ¡Tré! in January. 37 new songs, more than two hours of music that have been produced by Rob Cavallo, their experienced collaborator in albums like Dookie, Nimrod or American Idiot. By the humorous character of the titles of the three albums and the colourful of their covers (each one of them dedicated to the faces of the band members), it is clear that, despite the ambition of such a project, Green Day wanted, in the first place, to have fun. That jovial spirit took us last July to a luxurious house in the town of Newport Beach, a few miles south of Los Angeles, where they have summoned several journalists and where the band members and their families usually relax and, in case of inspiration, work in their music. Selling so many records has to be useful somehow... After having listened to the vibrant album ¡Uno! entirely, as well as a selection of songs from the other two albums, it’s time to meet Green Day. Funny as always, but with some more wrinkles showing that not even the punk rockers can avoid getting old, Billie Joe, Mike and Tré told us the reason of this avalanche of new music. Considering you are from San Francisco Bay, why are we meeting in Newport Beach? Mike: We have been coming here and Costa Mesa for the last 5 years. We rented a place where we could relax and play, and for the family is like being on holiday too. We can enjoy the sun, surf and work on the evenings. I love riding my bicycle and it’s a difficult thing to do in Oakland because you get your bike stolen there (laugh). Billie Joe: It’s hotter there, and there aren’t so many sharks (laugh). That particular area is very conservative. BJ: Yeah, Orange Country. It is weird because the surf culture was born here and some of the best punk bands are from Huntington Beach, like TSOL or Social Distortion. Mike Ness lives like two streets away from mine and I see him walking his Chihuahua at night. So there is a really strong subculture related to skate, surf, rock… Obvious question: why three albums? BJ: Well, we started with a couple of songs. During the European tour we rented some studios in Berlin, Helsinki, Stockholm, Glasgow…We used the days off to play and have fun. In Helsinki we even started a new band, T. Rex style (laugh). When we finished the tour I started to write songs next to the beach, like “Nuclear Family”, “Stay Tonight” or “Carpe Diem.” It was there where I realised I was starting to have good material and got excited. Our intention was to make a 12, 13 or 14 song album, but then I went to New York and continued writing songs. It was when you were playing in the American Idiot musical. BJ: Yes, in the second part of shows I took part in. To me, it was really inspiring being surrounded by all those actors and singers with so much talent. It was like an energy shot. Every day before going out on stage I wrote a new song. Just ideas, like 30 seconds or one minute songs, but I felt I was in the right way. In the end I had like 70 songs, but when we started to rehearse, we focused on 30 songs and noticed that there were like three different types of songs. Some were more power pop, closer to the classic Green Day sound. Some were more “festive”, more garage rock like “Fucked Time”, “Makeup Party” or “Lady Cobra”. And other ones were more reflexive, more personal but epics like “Brutal Love” or “99 Revolutions”. So we said “let’s forget about the rules and make three albums, three volumes.” But, considering the last two albums were too serious, we wanted to give this ones more colour, make them more funny. So, we got the idea of making ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! (laugh). Do you know any other band that has ever done something like that? BJ: No. But you had some references like the triple Sandinista by The Clash or what Guns N Roses did with Use your Illusion… Mike Dirnt: No, the idea was that we didn’t want to make a really long album, and we thought making a double album was old-fashioned. They are three different albums, but all of them have gone through the Green Day filter. BJ: What is really exciting is the fact that there is not a real reason for the three albums. It is something that happened spontaneously. It came out of the joy of making music. We found a creative vein and decided to explore it deeply. You were tired of making rock opera albums. BJ: We wanted to go away from that at least for now. Do you think the American Idiot franchise, with the musical and all that was outshining everything else? BJ: We didn’t want to repeat ourselves. I think that, with 21st Century Breakdown, we reached the limit. Making a rock opera has its limitations because if you have a good song but it doesn’t fit in the concept of the album, you have to let it out. This time we haven’t had those limitations. The funny thing is that we didn’t want to do something epic, but we ended up making three albums, which is pretty epic (laugh). Did you want to go back to your origins? Did you have the question “Can I have childrens and still be punk?”? BJ: I think you can be punk forever, if it’s something natural, if you have it in your DNA. We’ve always written songs with melody. We never were a hardcore band or anything like that. We have always liked melodies and we write romantic songs, and now we have go back to that. But we wanted the way of recording it to be different. We didn’t look for the modern guitar sound through a Marshall, but we wanted a more classic sound, more 70s, closer to The Who, to Give’em enough rope by The Clash or the album For those about to rock by AC/DC. Somehow, in its origins, Punk was meant to be something ephemeral, like an explosion that was mean to disappear. Is it strange for you to be still there? BJ: I think that, with punk in the 70s, people also had expectation. They didn’t say it, but they had it. The Buzzcocks, Billy Idol, the had their careers. Even John Lydon, after Sex Pistols, had it with PiL. But in the 80s what ended up becoming strong was the hardcore sound. In the last 80s we were in Guilman Street and were like isolated while all those subscenes were being born. From that scene, we ended up breaking, but it could have been any other band. Going back to ¡Uno!, what references did you have about power pop? BJ: Plimsouls, Cheap Trick, even earlier stuff like Substitute by The Who, bands like The Boys, The Barracudas, that beach sound that we always liked. We wanted to dive in that field. Especially with the sound, with clean guitars and more “live”. “Lady Cobra” is a fantastic song. BJ: I wrote it in Austin, Texas. We played with this band, Mystic Knights of the Cobra. They are like a crazy collective that mixes punk with hip hop. The singer is a tattooist and is really pretty. She is from our city too. So I wrote the chorus and told her to write the verses about having the devil on your shoulder, like a temptation. She agreed and did a great job, and that was the starting point to write this other song,“Lady Cobra”, which fitted even better in the concept of “¡Dos!.” Note: I suppose the first part of this paragraph is about “Nightlife” since the last part talks about “Lady Cobra” like a totally different song of the first one mentioned. “Amy”, the ballad dedicated to Amy Winehouse, is also in “¡Dos!” BJ: ¡Dos! is like a great party, but it ends being an infernal party, and the consequences of that party could be summarize in “Amy”. It’s a song that stands out on its own. To me, it was a great loss. It was something really sad that happened last summer. Her roots were in Billie Holliday, Sam Cooke, ska…She was very young that knew how to take those roots to the modern age. She was the link that broke, and it was a great loss for the musical community. I wrote that song as a way to send my condolences. Did you ever meet her in person? BJ: No, I never met her. It seems like Kill the DJ will be the next single. Is that an attack to the actual electronic music, dubstep and all of that? Tré Cool: It’s more like a dance song. It’s a type of rhythm that had always escaped from us. Mike said “let’s do that rhythm” which is called four on the floor, and we started to play it, and Billie came out with that riff. It reminds of that cool part of disco music, something like Blondie or Gang Of Four. Although these albums are far away from politics, “99 Revolutions” (which will be in ¡Tré!”) seems to be inspired by the Occupy Wall Street Movement. What do you think about that? BJ: The catalyst of the Occupy Wall Street ideas is brilliant. To me, it goes from working class people to radical people, politicians, firefighters, teachers…which are the people that holds the country’s infrastructure. To me rich people, who are the 1% of the population against the 99%, should pay much more taxes to ensure that infrastructure. If that movement goes on, I think it can make a difference. I wanted to make a song about the topic because, although I belong to that privileged 1%, I come and feel part of the 99%. It was easy to write that song. Do you feel as confused as when you were an adolescent? BJ: I think it is always confusing. América is the most confusing country of the world. Each state represents something different to the rest, there are big cultural differences, and what happens in California is very different to what happens in Idaho or Montana. New York is almost a country in itself. Even Manhattan. That’s how I see it. So each one has its own idea of what is the American dream or its political agenda. It’s good to have that diversity, but it causes constant arguments. And people that rule causes even more arguments because the republicans are not capable of reaching an agreement with the democrats. A year ago, while you were working on the albums, you gave some concerts in small clubs where you played a lot of new songs. What motivated you to do so? BJ: We wanted to go back and experience what we felt when we started the band. Playing a lot of songs that nobody knew and see the reaction. We played like 20 new songs in a row and it was great and terrifying at the same time. At that time we didn’t even knew when we were going to finish the record. It was like going back to being a starting band. Where do you get so much energy after all these years? Tré: We sleep inside coffins, just like in True Blood (laugh). BJ: I don’t know. I think we just love making music. Mike: Making music with other people gives you energy. I am sure that you have experienced it…When you go to a concert with your friends you feel a different energy than when you listen to music on your own in your car. It’s much more fun. It is said that you can learn a lot more from your mistakes than from your successes. Which ones would you point as the biggest lessons you have learned? Tré: Never take a shit in the tour bus. (laugh) BJ: I learned that lesson through the hard way and everybody let me know (laugh).
justcause Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 Well, I don't know if I should have created a new topic for this but, since I spent the whole evening translating the interview, I thought the effort deserved it Thanx so much for doing that!! Great interview.
WalkingContradictionPL Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 Wow! You're awesome! Thanks to you I know new brilliant Tre's quotes Is it only me, or some of those anwsers are quite the same in many other interviews?
pucky Posted September 12, 2012 Author Posted September 12, 2012 Wow! You're awesome! Thanks to you I know new brilliant Tre's quotes Is it only me, or some of those anwsers are quite the same in many other interviews? Thank you! Yeah, you'r right. But consider that this interview was made in July, which was pretty much the beginning of the promotion, so the questions (and, consequently, the answers), were basically the same. But I find quite interesting what BJ says about America, how he sees the country; as well as the definition of Amy and all the bands he mentions as influences for the trilogy. And, of course, Tré's quotes.
Karol Oliveira Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 Thanks for translating this and posting it! It is said that you can learn a lot more from your mistakes than from your successes. Which ones would you point as the biggest lessons you have learned? Tré: Never take a shit in the tour bus. (laugh) BJ: I learned that lesson through the hard way and everybody let me know (laugh). I don't want to even imagine what happened... damn, too late, it's in my head now!
justcause Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 Thank you! Yeah, you'r right. But consider that this interview was made in July, which was pretty much the beginning of the promotion, so the questions (and, consequently, the answers), were basically the same. But I find quite interesting what BJ says about America, how he sees the country; as well as the definition of Amy and all the bands he mentions as influences for the trilogy. And, of course, Tré's quotes. I think there's quite a lot of interesting stuff there - like that Lady Cobra wrote her part on 'Nightlife', that was something I wondered about.
Mandy_PunkRock Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 Thank you so much for posting this interview!
Annie, get your gun Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 Thank you for posting the scans! For once I wanna read an interview in my own language < the easy way And it's very nice from you to translate it for the others
Heather. Posted September 12, 2012 Posted September 12, 2012 That first statement got me thinking "Tired of rock operas, concept albums, and 7-minute songs?" Yes, yes, and NEVER. I don't need or want any more concept albums, but why would anyone say no to an epic 7-minute song? The two that they've done are some of their best work.
InsideOut Posted September 13, 2012 Posted September 13, 2012 Thank you so much for translating this!
July21 Posted September 13, 2012 Posted September 13, 2012 wow how many hours did it take for you to translate it? seems like a lot of work for an evening, thank you so much well, gonna read it later. i'm kinda lazy right now
sara_gd Posted September 13, 2012 Posted September 13, 2012 Thank you very much for posting (and for translating of course, but it doesn't affect me, so )
elisa Posted September 13, 2012 Posted September 13, 2012 i'm giggling like an idiot at the true blood reference. thank you for translating!
Hermione Posted September 18, 2012 Posted September 18, 2012 Thanks so much for the translation! Interesting stuff. It's so great having all these new interviews and details about the albums to read.
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