Green Day Q&A Thread

[Guest]

Power chords can easily be played in any tuning.

I can't tell you much about Nimrod or Warning, but I know American Idiot, and there aren't any American Idiot songs played in D# tuning. Whatsername is played in Drop D, but that's the only song I'm aware of that has a difference in tuning in that album.

Whatever about it being played in D#, Billie always plays them with D# tuned guitars.

And Billie is lazy. I dunno

[Antonium2200]

Whatever about it being played in D#, Billie always plays them with D# tuned guitars.

And Billie is lazy. I dunno

I'm lazy too. I only have one guitar so it's a pain in the arse to tune it up or down depending on what songs I want to play. If I got a Gibson, I'd have it in D standard and I'd have my ESP in D#.

[Spike]

American Idiot is all standard tuning, with the exception of Whatsername, which is in drop D, and the acoustic in Holiday and BOBD which has a capo on 1, making it F standard.

I get the feeling they prefer standard tuning these days because Billie's voice has got higher with age, so he's more comfortable with higher tunings.

Obviously it's easy for Billie to be lazy with tunings when he's got a thousand guitars he can just swap between instead of having to tune everything all the time.

[Jon Benjamin]

It would've been easier for him to play in drop d, only having to tune down one string and playing the same fret on the bottom 3 strings instead of the normal power chord formation.

[Spike]

It would've been easier for him to play in drop d, only having to tune down one string and playing the same fret on the bottom 3 strings instead of the normal power chord formation.

Well it worked well enough for him I guess Plus down tuning to drop D can affect the tone due to the slackness of the string, which would be unnecessary in context.

[Jon Benjamin]

Well it worked well enough for him I guess Plus down tuning to drop D can affect the tone due to the slackness of the string, which would be unnecessary in context.

Been playing in drop d for the last 6 years I've been in bands and I've never experienced that and I'm extremely picky on sound

[Spike]

Been playing in drop d for the last 6 years I've been in bands and I've never experienced that and I'm extremely picky on sound

It depends on what kind of music you're doing as to how obvious the effect is. Given Billie's relatively clean tone it could be pretty obvious.

Plus, if you look at a song like Letterbomb with all the open E chords, where he picks out the top couple of strings during the bridge, that would be harder to play in drop D as the fingering would be different. If anything he could have tuned flat for American Idiot and Jesus of Suburbia, and played open chords rather than power chords, but that hasn't really been his style since Dookie. And it sounds fine as it is

[Certified Nimrod]

It would've been easier for him to play in drop d, only having to tune down one string and playing the same fret on the bottom 3 strings instead of the normal power chord formation.

I think playing like that is uncomfortable.

[Jon Benjamin]

I think playing like that is uncomfortable.

I like it better, I guess it's not as big of a deal for me anymore, I prefer bass.

[alienlifeform]

A doubt, has GD ever realesed Life During Wartime?

I think I remember something in 2002-03 of an accoustic version of this song being realesed by the name of Green Day

[Katarina.]

A doubt, has GD ever realesed Life During Wartime?

I think I remember something in 2002-03 of an accoustic version of this song being realesed by the name of Green Day

Billie recorded an acoustic version of Life During Wartime if that's what you mean? It's on youtube

So I don't think it's been released as a Green Day song, maybe it was uploaded on gd.com at some point? Not sure.

[Liam]

It was originally a Pinhead Gunpowder but back in the early 2000's, Billie did an acoustic "cover' as one of their phone messages they did.

[Todd]

It was originally a Pinhead Gunpowder but back in the early 2000's, Billie did an acoustic "cover' as one of their phone messages they did.

Are you sure? Cause that's not in the phone messages download. As far as I know, it was only played acoustically at KALX by Billie, not Green Day.

[Liam]

Are you sure? Cause that's not in the phone messages download. As far as I know, it was only played acoustically at KALX by Billie, not Green Day.

I swear it was. I thought that's where I saw it, must have been wrong.

[alienlifeform]

thanks guys.. i thought it was realesed in some compilation back then, bur maybe it's just this accoustic on the radio

[Jon Benjamin]

thanks guys.. i thought it was realesed in some compilation back then, bur maybe it's just this accoustic on the radio

The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink was on Short Music for Short People

[alienlifeform]

The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink was on Short Music for Short People

thanks, this one I know

my doubt was that I was thinking that Life During Wartime had been realesed on Punk O' Rama or on Rock Against Bush.. but i checked out and it wasn't

[Spike]

Life During Wartime was originally released as track 1 of Pinhead Gunpowder's second album, Goodbye Ellston Avenue, in 1997 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_Ellston_Avenue

I'm guessing part of the reason Green Day have never released it is because the only Green Day members on it are Billie and Jason.

[Todd]

The Ballad of Wilhelm Fink was on Short Music for Short People

That has nothing to do with anything dude

thanks, this one I know

my doubt was that I was thinking that Life During Wartime had been realesed on Punk O' Rama or on Rock Against Bush.. but i checked out and it wasn't

It was released on a KALX compilation, I can't recall the title though

[Jon Benjamin]

That has nothing to do with anything dude

It was released on a KALX compilation, I can't recall the title though

just thought they might've thought it was that compilation, I used to confuse those

[Certified Nimrod]

Are you sure? Cause that's not in the phone messages download. As far as I know, it was only played acoustically at KALX by Billie, not Green Day.

I got it from the phone messages download.

[Annie, get your gun]

What are the "multitracks"? -I'm not asking for them 'cause I remember seeing once a thread of 'no more multitracks' but I never knew exactly why they exist were they always out there?

Yesterday I listened to Letterbomb acapella on tumblr and even when there is a little noise is just way too wonderful.

[Todd]

What are the "multitracks"? -I'm not asking for them 'cause I remember seeing once a thread of 'no more multitracks' but I never knew exactly why they exist were they always out there?

Yesterday I listened to Letterbomb acapella on tumblr and even when there is a little noise is just way too wonderful.

multi tracks are the basic units of a song - one is only vocals, one is only guitar, one is only bass, and then there are 2 or 3 for the drums. Sometimes there's "additional instruments" that have additional guitar to go behind the solo, or acoustic guitar, or whatever. but when they all are put together, they make up the song. I'll add an image in a minute for additional comprehension

[Spike]

What are the "multitracks"? -I'm not asking for them 'cause I remember seeing once a thread of 'no more multitracks' but I never knew exactly why they exist were they always out there?

Yesterday I listened to Letterbomb acapella on tumblr and even when there is a little noise is just way too wonderful.

To add to what Tman said, the Green Day ones became available when Rockband came out, as there was a way to extract each individual instrument track from the game. A lot of them got uploaded to YouTube but there are plenty of links to download the whole package if you know where to look.

[Certified Nimrod]

I'm so jealous that you have them. What song is that?