Billie Joe Armstrong has revealed that he almost gave a Green Day fan favourite track to 5 Seconds Of Summer.
Armstrong spoke to People magazine about Green Day’s biggest hits throughout their career ahead of the release of upcoming album, ‘Saviors’. When the interview approached their 2016 full-length ‘Revolution Radio’, Armstrong spoke about ‘Still Breathing’, which he admitted was a song originally written for Australian pop rock band 5 Seconds Of Summer.
“There’s a band called 5 Seconds of Summer who wanted me to write a song for them,” he stated. “All of a sudden I was writing the lyrics, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s no fucking way I’m giving these guys this song.’ There’s all those [lyrics] where it’s the last moment of someone’s life — it’s so intense. It’s just a song [‘Revolution Radio’] about being a survivor.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Armstrong touched on songs including ‘Basket Case’, ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ and ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’. On ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’, he touched on the song’s themes of loneliness, stating: “It’s just about loneliness. Anytime that I would be writing songs for a record, you feel like a sense of isolation.”
“At that time, I went to New York by myself. I was staying in an apartment, and I was there for quite some time — over a couple months — and I was just trying to focus on writing [2004’s American Idiot] with no distractions. There can be all of this chaos going on around you, but ultimately you can find yourself pretty alone in the world.”
‘Saviors’ releases tomorrow (January 19), and will mark the band’s 14th studio album. It has been previewed by four singles, namely ‘The American Dream Is Killing Me’, ‘Look Ma, No Brains’, the mental health-themed ‘Dilemma’ and ‘One-Eyed Bastard’. Armstrong previously stated that ‘Saviors’ will “bridge the gap” between their 1994 breakout ‘Dookie’ and their theatrical 2004 full-length ‘American Idiot’.
In an interview, he expressed: “[It’s] the 30 years of experience that we have, kind of come together. Whether it’s something from ‘Dookie’ or American Idiot’, I think somehow we were able to bridge the gap in making something that is like an essential record for us.” Notably, ‘Dookie’, ‘American Idiot’ and ‘Saviors’ will all be released 10 years apart from each other.
NME has awarded ‘Saviors’ four stars. In his review, Andrew Trendell affirming Armstrong’s description of the album, writing: “There’s also some serendipity in the band hitting the road to celebrate 30 years of ‘Dookie’ and 20 years of ‘American Idiot’ later this summer. Not only does ‘Saviors’ spiritually bridge the gap between the two, but it uses the palette of the best of the band to tell us something else.”