Green Day have explained how their new album reflects the current political climate and specifically the “fear” and “anger” surrounding Donald Trump’s candidacy.
The pop-punk band announced their new album ‘Revolution Radio‘ yesterday for an October release, as well as sharing lead single ‘Bang Bang’.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said: “This is the most chaos I’ve ever seen in an election. It’s just so freaky. I don’t want to add more of the outrage or anger. I’d just try to reflect it. This is the first time that this election has preyed on fear and anger. And I think with both of those, we’re sort of in this fight-or-flight mode. Everybody’s freaked out. Neither side, nobody can rationalise with each other because everybody is stuck in fear and in anger, and there’s nothing in between. In a nutshell, that is what the record reflects. But I’m trying to also look at myself as part of the problem.”
SEE MORE: Green Day fans react to new track ‘Bang Bang’
“It’s interesting,” he continued. “These songs were written before this presidential election. I use a lot of metaphor, and I blow things out, as any good punk rocker should. And it was interesting to see how songs like ‘Bang Bang’ and ‘Say Goodbye’ went from metaphor to literal, and that’s the part that was tripping me out. It was almost, kind of like, predicting the future, in a way.”
However, Armstrong went on to say that he still feels “optimistic” about the future. “A lot of what people cover on sort of the corporate news outlets is the shit show. And it’s the reality TV show of like, ‘Look at what this election has turned into.’ But look at the other things and movements that are happening.”
“I think Bernie Sanders broke new ground, not just as a protest candidate, but he broke into the inside of Washington. I think that getting these young people to start voting and down-balloting, and running for office in their own towns… I think that the next 10 years is going to be a big game-changer.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Armstrong revealed how their new single ‘Bang Bang’ was “about the culture of mass shootings that happen in America, mixed with narcissistic social media. There’s this rage happening, but it’s also now being filmed, and we all have ourselves under surveillance. To me, that’s so twisted.”
Speaking about trying to personify a killer, Armstrong said: “To get into the brain of someone like that was freaky. After I wrote ‘Bang Bang’, all I wanted to do was get that out of my brain, because it just freaked me out. I wouldn’t even say I was trying to understand it, I was just trying to figure out the character. Without sounding pretentious, it’s also meant to reflect the culture a little bit.”
READ MORE: Green Day Are Angry And Political On Mass Shooting-Inspired Comeback Single ‘Bang Bang’