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
One thing I want to teach my son is sensitivity to other people. I want to teach him not to be this macho freak.
I was on drugs when I wrote some of my songs. It was a rough time for me, but I'm lucky enough to be one of the people who learned from that experience and moved on, where other people just got addicted and more addicted and more addicted until it killed them.
For some young people, their first experience ever hearing punk rock music was playing the Green Bay Packers on 'Madden'.
Controversy What controversy This is reality. What I see is that no matter if you're a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you stand on, this is the reality of the situation - that people's families and their young kids are being affected.
I just want to write good songs that people love, which is a tough thing to do.
The first time that you escape from home or the small town that you live in - there's a reason a small town is called a small town: It's because not many people want to live there.
A lot of people, when they talk to me, I can't wait for them to shut up. Like, shut up. you're a moron. I have nothing to say, you know?
I think the working-class part of me comes out. Sometimes the people who have the loudest mouths are upper-class, upper-middle-class. The quietest are often working-class people, people who are broke. There is a fear of losing whatever it is that you have. I come from that background.
People think we really look good. I think that's the biggest misconception people have.
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'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.
People are so damned afraid that one day they might wake up and discover that they've grown old.
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.