Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong has said it’s “fucking cool” that people see him as “a bisexual icon”.
Armstrong has long been outspoken on homophobia, transphobia and other forms of discrimination, recently saying that the moral panic over trans issues is “fucking close-minded”.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Armstrong – who first came out as bisexual in 1995 – said: “I think it’s fucking cool that someone calls me a bisexual icon. I’ve seen that before. I’m like, ‘Fuck, yeah!’”.
He added: “Being a Gen X-er, I feel like there was a seed that got planted where it was the era in the 1990s that we came up, where men were discovering more of being with other men and being more bisexual, and coming out with that, whether it was someone like Kurt Cobain or what I was saying.
“It’s way more complex now, as far as sexuality. You’re like, ‘Wow, we’ve really come a long way.’ Even though it’s still kind of looked at as being taboo, I think people now are a lot more brave than they’ve ever been. I think people are way more open now”.
Discussing his relationship with his wife in relation to his sexuality, he added: “Sexuality is always so much more than what the standard, nuclear-family type of way of looking at things.
“But I have been married — there’s this other side of me that’s very conventional when it comes to my 30-year marriage to my wife. But I just look at sexuality: It’s not one way or the other. And if anybody ever tries to say that, I don’t think they’re really being honest with themselves”.
On ‘Bobby Sox’, a song from new album ‘Saviors’, Armstrong discusses sexuality and said: “It’s the ’90s song that we never wrote. It started out being a song I wrote for my wife but as it materialised, I wanted to switch it up and added, ‘Do you wanna be my boyfriend?’ on top of ‘Do you wanna be girlfriend’… So the song becomes a kind of universal anthem.”
The verse in question sees Armstrong sing: “Do you want to be my best friend? / You can drive me crazy all over again / And I’ll bore you to death / Doesn’t matter when we are in love / You’re not just any type of girl / My one true love and you’re my world / Do you wanna be my girlfriend? / Do you wanna be my boyfriend?”
Speaking to the LA Times, Armstrong recalled playing ‘Bobby Sox’ to a friend, who is a similar age to him. “And it brought a tear to his eye when he heard the second verse,” Armstrong said of the song’s lyrics, which explore gender fluidity.
Of ‘Bobby Sox’, Armstrong added: “Nowadays it’s more common for kids to be LGBTQ, and there’s more support. But for us, back in the day,” he continued, referring to the late ’80s and early ’90s, “that was like the beginning of when people were able to openly say things like that.”