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
I definitely related a lot to Perry [from That's Ordinary World movie]. I liked how he put family first. I identified with the exhaustion and klutziness that comes with being a parent, and how he's just a rock-and-roller at heart. For me, it was fun to kind of imagine whether or not this could've been the path I went on, or not.
It's not only exciting to watch, but you can also speak a different language with each other. It's a music language that's unique, compared to what other parents do, especially in their professional lives. Not everybody can talk about being an accountant.
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.
I know I'm always going to be a musician, for the rest of my life. That's for sure. It's about how you balance between being a musician and being a parent, and making it intertwined.
No matter what, if you're a parent, you have to make sacrifices.
When I signed that major-label contract when I was 20 years old. I did it because I wanted to play music for the rest of my life. That's every 20-year-old's dream - to do whatever the hell you want.
We put everything we had into this record, just like we do with every other record that we make.
Formats are constantly changing, and there are really no rules for the way you put your records out anymore.
School is practice for the future, and practice makes perfect. But nobody's perfect, so why practice?
There are always young bands playing in their garages. A lot of punk rock is not going to be in the mainstream. It's below the radar. The beauty of it is that you're not supposed to always know. It's subterranean.
That's where all good music comes from, I think - anything that's likely to have an impact on pop culture comes from a point where there's no expectation of it becoming anything other than personal.
We've been a band for 16 years. This is what you dream about.
Thats what Green Day is-there are no rules.
A guy walks up to me and asks, "What's Punk?". So I kick over a garbage can and say. "That's punk!". So he kicks over the garbage can and says, "That's Punk?", and I say, "No that's trendy!