LaunchDaily
6/22/2012
One of Green Day's three new albums, Tre!, features a song called "99 Revolutions" that makes references to the Occupy movement and the "99 percenters." But when asked by Rolling Stone if he and the band got involved with Occupy protests in their hometown of Oakland, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said, "Um, yes and no . . . we wanted to be part of it in some way. I thought it was about working people and where we come from. But Oakland got really complicated when the anarchists started coming in. I'm not into that -- smashing the windows in a small business."
As for whether, as a wealthy rock star, he's part of the "one percent" -- the richest people in the country -- or the ''99 percent," Armstrong replied, "I feel like a 99, but technically I'm a one . . . I know that's where I come from -- the 99 -- even though I can afford for my kids to go to a good college. It's interesting: Cops are 99 percenters. Firemen are 99 percenters. That's where the anarchists are confused. This is much broader than you think it is."
Another new song, called "Kill The DJ," is taken from the Uno! album and is about, according to Armstrong, "static and noise." He explained, "This government cannot, will not, agree with itself. They refuse to make it work. Right, left -- it doesn't matter. It blows your mind and pisses you off. It's a song about being drunk, going through this chaos, feeling f***ed up and all you want to do is get more drunk."
Uno! arrives on September 25th, with Dos! set for release on November 13th and Tre! bringing it all to a close on January 15th, 2013.
Armstrong said that the daring triple release was "just a crazy idea that happens to be working really well." He described the music on the albums as "somewhere between AC/DC and the early Beatles."
The veteran punk trio was forced to cancel a "secret" show it was planning to play this Friday (June 22nd) in Burbank, California when the city decided to deny the necessary permits due to crowd control concerns.
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