Green Day recently released their 14th studio album, Saviors, which became a bridge between the band’s iconic albums Dookie and American Idiot. When speaking of his favorite song they’ve ever done, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong chose a surprising track not from Dookie, American Idiot, or even Saviors. It comes from the previous album, Father of All Motherfuckers.
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“I love that record,” Armstrong said in a conversation with Kerrang! in mid-January. “We played ‘Graffitia’ [live for the first time in October 2023], which is one of my favorite songs that we’ve ever had.”
He continued, “The pandemic sort of pulled the rug out from underneath it. So to actually be able to go up and play it live in front of people and get the response … because we didn’t know what people actually thought. You’re gonna get people online that argue about it – ‘This doesn’t sound like this, and this should be more like this. Why are they doing this? Blah, blah, this sucks.’ But, actually, when you get in front of people – real people – and you hear an entire crowd singing it, it’s like, ‘Alright, that’s the truth, right there.’”
Billie Joe Armstrong on His Favorite Green Day Song and Being a Bisexual Icon
“Graffitia” is an interesting departure from Green Day’s usual sound, which may be part of why Armstrong loves it. Listening to the studio version, it’s easy to imagine how fun it would be to perform in front of fans. There’s a communal element to it—clapping and overlapping voices—that lends itself to being played live. Hopefully, the song will make it to the setlist on Green Day’s massive Saviors Tour. There, they’ll be playing Dookie and American Idiot in their entirety.
Armstrong also recently discussed being named a bisexual icon and how that influenced the track “Bobby Sox” from Saviors. When asked about his thoughts on being named an icon, he said it was “f—ing cool.”
“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,” said Armstrong. He continued, “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.”
Featured Image by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM
