Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor who is best known as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter, and guitarist of the punk rock band Green Day, which he co-founded with Mike Dirnt. He is also a guitarist and vocalist for the punk rock band Pinhead Gunpowder and provides lead vocals for Green Day's side projects Foxboro Hot Tubs and The Network...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth17 February 1972
CityOakland, CA
CountryUnited States of America
What annoys the hell out of me is the arrogance of some people. They don't even listen to our music, they decided in advance that they don't like it.
We stayed very close to each other [with Leek Kirk], and Lee was amazing. We'd go through the script together, rehearsing it before every shot with the other actors. He was just easy to work with. We were able to put it in my language, which was really important.
The thing about punk is that there are purists. Once you start going outside of that, they don't think what you're doing is punk rock.
Life isn't pretty but it sure is beautiful.
I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It's fragile. I don't have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.
Madisyn [Shipman] was great. She's a really talented kid. We got along great. It was fun, in between scenes, I'd pull out my iPod and show her different old rock 'n' roll and punk stuff, and she was really into it.
We're not a political band. We don't want to tell people what to do or what to think. We just want to tell them to think.
The thing is, my education was music. I knew I'd be playing music no matter what. That's all I thought about, I was obsessed with it. I'm still obsessed with it. It gets the best of me sometimes.
Just because you sing songs about a certain feeling doesn't mean you have to go feeling that way forever. You can sing about that for the rest of your life, but that doesn't mean things aren't going to change in your own life.
That's the gamble that you make when you decide to become a rock musician. It's totally unpredictable.
It's okay to grow up, it's just slowing down that's the scary part. Running out of time. It's okay to grow up, but it doesn't mean you have to become like your parents.
Rock 'n' roll can be fun and dangerous at the same time.
You have to search the absolute demons of your soul to make a great record.
I think that's the big difference between this one [Ordinary World] and a lot of the other rock 'n' roll movies. They're playing to tape, but Fred Armisen and I were actually in a rock 'n' roll bad together. I also really related to the character, especially when it came to the parenting part. I'm a pretty klutzy parent.