SXSW 2013: Green Day Blast Back With a Supercharged Billie Joe Armstrong

Green Day perform at ACL Live in Austin, Texas on March 15th, 2013.Griffin Lotz for RollingStone.comIn his recent Rolling Stone interview about addiction, meltdown and hard-won recovery, Green Day singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong recalled a show in Austin, Texas in the late Nineties when he decided to stop worrying about his punk credibility and finally act like a rock & roll star onstage: to give his band and songs the showmanship they deserved in concert. It took liquid courage, he admitted – a step with distant, ultimately disastrous consequences. On March 15th, a newly sober, supercharged Armstrong was back in Austin with bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool for a special SXSW appearance at the Moody Theater – a show that started with Armstrong bolting across the stage as if shot from a cannon, into the incendiary challenge of "99 Revolutions," then demanding that his audience respond in kind. "This is not a fucking party, this is not a first date, it's not a bar mitzvah – it's a celebration!" Armstrong yelled soon after, during an extended instrumental breakdown in "Letterbomb," accenting his impatience with rock-god action and comic relief: punctuating Cool's explosive downbeats with Pete Townshend-style leaps from a riser; playing part of his guitar solo in "Know Your Enemy" perched on one leg as if he'd suddenly become a member of Jethro Tull.

Billie Joe Armstrong Opens Up About Substance Abuse

But there was no missing the gratitude in that agitation, in those antics. "Ah, welcome back," Armstrong said in a deep, exhaling voice, at one point during the Big Country-style bagpipe-guitar charge of "Stay the Night." He was addressing the loving, frenzied crowd, mostly comprised of local fans and ticket-lottery winners. He could have just as easily been talking to himself.

Green Day were at SXSW – with guitarist Jason White, in sextet formation – to promote two documentaries that premiered at the festival earlier that day: Cuatro!, about the making of the group's recent trilogy of LPs, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!; and Broadway Idiot, which follows the musical-theater production of the 2004 album, American Idiot. The band also had a point to prove at this media-saturated festival, after Armstrong's physical and emotional collapse onstage last fall at the I Heart Radio festival in Las Vegas: that Green Day still have a career and their frontman is healthy and energized.

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day performs at ACL Live in Austin, Texas on March 15th, 2013.Griffin Lotz for RollingStone.com They did that by opening and closing with a focus on songs from those three albums, which suffered from the loss of touring and promo during Armstrong's rehab. "Brutal Love," from ¡Tré!, was a surprising, effective final encore, minus the strings on the record but with a compensating pathos in the guitars and Armstrong's wrenched vocal.  "Stop When the Red Lights Flash," from ¡Dos!, was great hard-fuzz candy, played at avenging speed with a sweetly nagging chorus ("I'll make you surrender" – and you do).

The center of the show was loaded with hits that now double as allusions to peril and Armstrong's passage out of crisis, such as "Burnout" and "Basket Case" from 1994's Dookie. It was hard not to miss the fiction made real in "St. Jimmy" from American Idiot – and the extra irony in Armstrong's spell on Broadway playing the goth-imp dealer. And it was surely no accident that one of the cover fragments in the wind-out from "Coming Clean" was AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."

Q&A: Green Day's Mike Dirnt on Billie Joe Armstrong's Recovery

Another new song, "X-Kid," came next to last in the set. As Armstrong noted in the Rolling Stone interview, it is about someone who was very close to the band: an old punk comrade who never figured out how to grow old with the ideals forged in outlaw youth and died of the same bad habits that triggered Armstrong's crisis. But Green Day closed with a reliable, affirming antidote, "Minority," from 2000's Warning. The song has been a featured climax of the band's shows for years. There was something new, though – invigorating and determined – in the band's crisp strut and the way Armstrong sang the pride and refusal in the title lyric.

His healing and vigilance have just begun. But just seven months after he fell, spectacularly, into classic rock-star darkness, Armstrong is back onstage with the band that has been his life since he was a teenager – eager to prove that he still belongs there and will never take it for granted again.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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SXSW 2013: Green Day Blast Back With a Supercharged Billie Joe Armstrong

Green Day perform at ACL Live in Austin, Texas on March 15th, 2013.Griffin Lotz for RollingStone.comIn his recent Rolling Stone interview about addiction, meltdown and hard-won recovery, Green Day singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong recalled a show in Austin, Texas in the late Nineties when he decided to stop worrying about his punk credibility and finally act like a rock & roll star onstage: to give his band and songs the showmanship they deserved in concert. It took liquid courage, he admitted – a step with distant, ultimately disastrous consequences. On March 15th, a newly sober, supercharged Armstrong was back in Austin with bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool for a special SXSW appearance at the Moody Theater – a show that started with Armstrong bolting across the stage as if shot from a cannon, into the incendiary challenge of "99 Revolutions," then demanding that his audience respond in kind. "This is not a fucking party, this is not a first date, it's not a bar mitzvah – it's a celebration!" Armstrong yelled soon after, during an extended instrumental breakdown in "Letterbomb," accenting his impatience with rock-god action and comic relief: punctuating Cool's explosive downbeats with Pete Townshend-style leaps from a riser; playing part of his guitar solo in "Know Your Enemy" perched on one leg as if he'd suddenly become a member of Jethro Tull.

Billie Joe Armstrong Opens Up About Substance Abuse

But there was no missing the gratitude in that agitation, in those antics. "Ah, welcome back," Armstrong said in a deep, exhaling voice, at one point during the Big Country-style bagpipe-guitar charge of "Stay the Night." He was addressing the loving, frenzied crowd, mostly comprised of local fans and ticket-lottery winners. He could have just as easily been talking to himself.

Green Day were at SXSW – with guitarist Jason White, in sextet formation – to promote two documentaries that premiered at the festival earlier that day: Cuatro!, about the making of the group's recent trilogy of LPs, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré!; and Broadway Idiot, which follows the musical-theater production of the 2004 album, American Idiot. The band also had a point to prove at this media-saturated festival, after Armstrong's physical and emotional collapse onstage last fall at the I Heart Radio festival in Las Vegas: that Green Day still have a career and their frontman is healthy and energized.

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day performs at ACL Live in Austin, Texas on March 15th, 2013.Griffin Lotz for RollingStone.com They did that by opening and closing with a focus on songs from those three albums, which suffered from the loss of touring and promo during Armstrong's rehab. "Brutal Love," from ¡Tré!, was a surprising, effective final encore, minus the strings on the record but with a compensating pathos in the guitars and Armstrong's wrenched vocal.  "Stop When the Red Lights Flash," from ¡Dos!, was great hard-fuzz candy, played at avenging speed with a sweetly nagging chorus ("I'll make you surrender" – and you do).

The center of the show was loaded with hits that now double as allusions to peril and Armstrong's passage out of crisis, such as "Burnout" and "Basket Case" from 1994's Dookie. It was hard not to miss the fiction made real in "St. Jimmy" from American Idiot – and the extra irony in Armstrong's spell on Broadway playing the goth-imp dealer. And it was surely no accident that one of the cover fragments in the wind-out from "Coming Clean" was AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."

Q&A: Green Day's Mike Dirnt on Billie Joe Armstrong's Recovery

Another new song, "X-Kid," came next to last in the set. As Armstrong noted in the Rolling Stone interview, it is about someone who was very close to the band: an old punk comrade who never figured out how to grow old with the ideals forged in outlaw youth and died of the same bad habits that triggered Armstrong's crisis. But Green Day closed with a reliable, affirming antidote, "Minority," from 2000's Warning. The song has been a featured climax of the band's shows for years. There was something new, though – invigorating and determined – in the band's crisp strut and the way Armstrong sang the pride and refusal in the title lyric.

His healing and vigilance have just begun. But just seven months after he fell, spectacularly, into classic rock-star darkness, Armstrong is back onstage with the band that has been his life since he was a teenager – eager to prove that he still belongs there and will never take it for granted again.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Punk Mogul Larry Livermore Recalls Meeting a Teen Billie Joe Armstrong in New Memoir

'Spy Rock Memories' by Larry Livermore

In 1988, Lookout! Records co-founder Larry Livermore walked into 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California and caught his first glimpse of Green Day. Billie Joe Armstrong was just 16 at the time and they were still playing under the name Sweet Children, but Livermore saw the potential and he added them to his label. The signing of Green Day is just one anecdote in Livermore's new book Spy Rock Memories, due out on June 4th via indie punk label Don Giovanni. It traces Livermore's whole life story, from battling hippies and rattlesnakes to putting Operation Ivy and Screeching Weasel on the map. Below is an exclusive preview of the book, in which Livermore describes his early days with Green Day.

Photos: Green Day Through the Years

In mid-January, David Hayes and I set up a table at the back of Gilman Street and put Lookout Records' first four seven-inch releases on sale.  I was amazed at how much excitement they generated, considering how reluctant punks are to show enthusiasm about anything, especially things they actually like.

I'd been hoping to sell a couple hundred copies of each release, which was how it had worked with the Lookouts LP.  In that case, we – I should say "I," since I was the one who'd put up the cash for this operation – wouldn't lose too much money.  My definition of success going into the project had been to break even; the idea of making even a small profit existed only in my wildest dreams.

****

I watched from the back, only half paying attention at first.  But before they'd finished even one song, I was absolutely riveted.  I'd seen this level of performance before, but only in giant, packed arenas or stadiums, delivered by bands at the peak of their careers.  16-year-old Billie Joe exuded the casual self-confidence of a superstar, offset slightly but not entirely by a shy, self-effacing humility. 

Stopping every few songs to thank his minuscule audience, he sang and played as though he'd been doing this all his life – which, I would learn, wasn't far from the truth.  Walking up to me afterward, he offhandedly asked, "What did you think?"

"I want to make a record with you guys," was all I could say.

They were barely getting started – this might have been their third or fourth show ever – but I'd seen and heard all I needed to.  They were like a modern, updated, punk rock version of the Beatles.  They could seriously be that big, I caught myself thinking.  Crazy talk?  Of course.  Yet at that moment it made perfect, undeniable sense.

The Lookouts never played that night; by the time Sweet Children finished, it was midnight and our "audience," worried they'd get in trouble with their parents, said goodbye and headed home.  On the long drive back to Spy Rock, twisting the radio dial in search of an audible signal and thankful for my aging truck's slightly more than adequate heater, I had barely an inkling of how the night's events were about to change my life forever.

And everything did change, not all at once, not in obvious, visible ways at first, but the wheels were in motion. Life on Spy Rock unfolded peacefully and quietly through the rest of 1988 and into 1989.  I barely noticed winter that year; spring was bright and full of promise. 

The Sweet Children record was nearly done.  They'd gone into the studio at the end of the year, and by March we had everything in place for a four-song EP.  Just as I was about to print the covers and labels, they casually informed me that they'd decided to change their name to Green Day. 

I blew a gasket.  It was too late, I told them; there was no time to redo all the artwork.  On top of that, I demanded, how was I supposed to sell a record by a band no one had heard of?  "Green Day?" I sneered.  "What's it even supposed to mean?"

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Punk Mogul Larry Livermore Recalls Meeting a Teen Billie Joe Armstrong in New Memoir

'Spy Rock Memories' by Larry Livermore

In 1988, Lookout! Records co-founder Larry Livermore walked into 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California and caught his first glimpse of Green Day. Billie Joe Armstrong was just 16 at the time and they were still playing under the name Sweet Children, but Livermore saw the potential and he added them to his label. The signing of Green Day is just one anecdote in Livermore's new book Spy Rock Memories, due out on June 4th via indie punk label Don Giovanni. It traces Livermore's whole life story, from battling hippies and rattlesnakes to putting Operation Ivy and Screeching Weasel on the map. Below is an exclusive preview of the book, in which Livermore describes his early days with Green Day.

Photos: Green Day Through the Years

In mid-January, David Hayes and I set up a table at the back of Gilman Street and put Lookout Records' first four seven-inch releases on sale.  I was amazed at how much excitement they generated, considering how reluctant punks are to show enthusiasm about anything, especially things they actually like.

I'd been hoping to sell a couple hundred copies of each release, which was how it had worked with the Lookouts LP.  In that case, we – I should say "I," since I was the one who'd put up the cash for this operation – wouldn't lose too much money.  My definition of success going into the project had been to break even; the idea of making even a small profit existed only in my wildest dreams.

****

I watched from the back, only half paying attention at first.  But before they'd finished even one song, I was absolutely riveted.  I'd seen this level of performance before, but only in giant, packed arenas or stadiums, delivered by bands at the peak of their careers.  16-year-old Billie Joe exuded the casual self-confidence of a superstar, offset slightly but not entirely by a shy, self-effacing humility. 

Stopping every few songs to thank his minuscule audience, he sang and played as though he'd been doing this all his life – which, I would learn, wasn't far from the truth.  Walking up to me afterward, he offhandedly asked, "What did you think?"

"I want to make a record with you guys," was all I could say.

They were barely getting started – this might have been their third or fourth show ever – but I'd seen and heard all I needed to.  They were like a modern, updated, punk rock version of the Beatles.  They could seriously be that big, I caught myself thinking.  Crazy talk?  Of course.  Yet at that moment it made perfect, undeniable sense.

The Lookouts never played that night; by the time Sweet Children finished, it was midnight and our "audience," worried they'd get in trouble with their parents, said goodbye and headed home.  On the long drive back to Spy Rock, twisting the radio dial in search of an audible signal and thankful for my aging truck's slightly more than adequate heater, I had barely an inkling of how the night's events were about to change my life forever.

And everything did change, not all at once, not in obvious, visible ways at first, but the wheels were in motion. Life on Spy Rock unfolded peacefully and quietly through the rest of 1988 and into 1989.  I barely noticed winter that year; spring was bright and full of promise. 

The Sweet Children record was nearly done.  They'd gone into the studio at the end of the year, and by March we had everything in place for a four-song EP.  Just as I was about to print the covers and labels, they casually informed me that they'd decided to change their name to Green Day. 

I blew a gasket.  It was too late, I told them; there was no time to redo all the artwork.  On top of that, I demanded, how was I supposed to sell a record by a band no one had heard of?  "Green Day?" I sneered.  "What's it even supposed to mean?"

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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