Green Day open up on why they recorded new album in complete secrecy
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Green Day drummer Tre Cool spoke about the band’s state of mind while recording their upcoming album, Revolution Radio.
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While recording, Green Day kept the sessions top secret. “We didn’t tell anybody that we were recording, except our wives,” Cool tells EW. “We gave ourselves enough time and we weren’t watching the clock. [That] took the pressure off.”
This is their 12th studio album and the first they’ve recorded without a producer since 1992’s Kerplunk.
In the interview, Cool also addressed frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s struggles with substance abuse that led to a stint in rehab in 2012. “All those health issues are behind us,” he says. “We’re going into this record cycle with a lot of gratitude, a lot of humility.”
The album’s lead single, “Bang Bang,” is written from the perspective of a mass shooter. “The song is dangerous, and it captures the spirit of the new record,” Cool shares. “I think the world is ready for big guitars and big drums — and the truth.”
And while the album contains politically charged and topical songs, Cool says Armstrong wrote many of the lyrics before all the hoopla of this year’s presidential election. “I wish we could take credit for being supergeniuses and having crystal balls,” he says. “But our balls are normal, like everyone else’s.”
You can read the full interview here.
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