Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong Recalls “Heavy Experience” of Meeting Eddie Van Halen

Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong recently opened up about meeting the late rock icon Eddie Van Halen for the first time. A huge fan of of Van Halen, Armstrong finally got to meet his idol during a backstage meeting.

Armstrong’s first concert was actually Van Halen in 1984. The musician’s influence on Armstrong proved to be crucial to his own career.

“It’s like his guitar playing came from a different place. He reinvented how to play guitar. But they also wrote great songs, that’s the main thing that I took away from Van Halen. The songs were just so f–king great,” Armstrong said on The Howard Stern Show.

“It was right when Van Halen got back together with David Lee Roth,” Armstrong said. “Me and a bunch of friends got on a plane and we went to go see them in Kansas City. We didn’t want to do it in California because we knew it was going to be a s–t show.”

[See Green Day Perform in Concert]

For Armstrong, Kansas City stood as the “heart of where rock fans are.” At the show, he ended up getting the chance to meet Van Halen.

“It was kind of an emotional thing,” he said. “First, we went back and I met [Wolfgang Van Halen], who’s super cool … [Eddie’s] back there, he’s got his guitar on, he’s plugged in and it’s like he’s talking to me and shredding at the same time. And I’m just like, ‘Oh my God.’”

Eddie Van Halen Got Emotional with Billie Joe Armstrong

Things took an emotional turn with Van Halen getting tears in his eyes. According to Armstrong, Van Halen saw a kindred spirit in the Green Day frontman. He told Armstrong that he understood him as a musician and was thankful.

“He kind of started crying and he looked at me and put his hand behind my neck and he goes, ‘You’re the only one that understands me,’” Armstrong said. “And he just had tears coming down his eyes and I was like — I didn’t really know what to say — I was like, ‘Man, you have no idea how much you’ve meant to me as a musician and as a songwriter.’ He said, ‘People think I’m an alien because of the way I play,’ and I’m like, ‘It’s all about your songs.’ And he goes, ‘Exactly. Exactly.’ It was really this kind of heavy experience.”

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[Photo by Barry Brecheisen/Getty Images for Harley-Davidson]