Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Billie Joe Armstrong

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

Billie Joe Armstrong (Saviors, American Idiot, Dookie) is a musician and lead vocalist of the rock band Green Day. Billie joins the Armchair Expert to discuss what it’s like to have a brother 20 years older than him, the evolution of punk music, and his songwriting process. Billie and Dax talk about what it’s like to move into a big city from a small town, what it’s like to be in love at a young age, and where the name Green Day came from. Billie explains what his experiences with addiction have been, how his wife started a chimp sanctuary, and why the band wanted to produce their latest album in England. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Rather. I'm joined by the Minister of... What? I don't know. That just up to Luke. Weren't you the Minister of something? Yeah, I was the Minister of Magic.

No, that wasn't it. That's Terrence Posner in the Sorcerer's Stone. I was the... Minister of something. I was. Minister of Mice. Yeah. Maybe the Minister of Mice. That sounds right. We have a fucking. Minister of mice. Yeah. Maybe the minister of mice.

That sounds right. We have a fucking radical guest on today. Yes. Billy Joe Armstrong. Green Day. Green Day. One of the longest running major arena kick-ass rock bands of all time. We're in a kind of a music.

Yeah. We're in our music phase. Zone. We're in a music phase. Because we have Billy Joe. And then next week we have some music. Arm in a music phase because we have billy joe and then next week we have some music armchair anonymous and we have batiste yeah yeah yeah and we have someone scheduled to also someone else yeah okay easter egg yeah easter egg well i loved meeting him it

was so fun and most importantly green day has a new album out called Saviors, which is fucking kick-ass. And it's out January 19th. So definitely check that out and look for the videos because we've seen a few of the videos and they're awesome. Very, very cool. Please enjoy Billy Joe Armstrong. Trip Planner by Expedia. You were made to have strong opinions about sand. We were made to help you and your friends find a place on a beach with a pool

and a marina and a waterfall and a soaking tub. Expedia. Made to travel. He's an object expert. He's an object expert. He's an object expert. Hello there! Hi!

Hi! How's it going? Welcome, great to meet you brother. Nice to meet you too. Hi Monica, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I was checking out your non-alcoholic beer. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you want me to get you one out of the fridge? Do you like that? Yeah. It's very, very good. My family are huge fans of the show. That's nice. Yeah, yeah. We're always so flattered to hear that.

It's me and my two best friends from Detroit. I'll give you a guess. You might be one of the few people that can crack it. If it's from Michigan and it's called Ted Seeger's, what do you think that's about? Bob Seeger? Bob Seeger. And who would be Ted from Michigan? Bundy. Close. Nugent. Oh, Nugent. The Nug. That's amazing. What could be better? Oh, here we go. Cheers. Oh,

this is fun. This is my first time cracking a can. Fun. That's good. As far as NAs go, it's like as close as you can get to the real deal. Yeah. I've been drinking a lot more NAs now. What's your favorite? Well, let me guess. Zero Zero? The Heineken's? I like it, but it makes me pee nonstop.

Sure. That's going to happen. Yeah. What else is in the hopper? Pun intended. I like the new Guinness Zeros. They're really good. The Pub Drought?

It's almost identical. As I remember, it's been 19 years, but I'm going to hit you with something that I hope Like the new Guinness Zeros are really good. The pub drought. It's almost identical. As I remember, it's been 19 years, but I'm going to hit you with something that I hope immediately connects us. Okay. It involves one of the most magical nights of my life. I'm in Oakland visiting my cousin in 96. He's a musician. He introduces me to this dude, Jason White.

Jason White's like one of my favorite people on the planet. Okay. So he and I meet and it's an explosion of my favorite people on the planet. Okay, so he and I meet and it's an explosion. He's from Arkansas? Yep. He's like a proper good old boy. He comes from that thing but he's left it, as have I. And we locked eyes and he and I went so fucking hard. This is back when I drank.

Introduced by my cousin. We leave him long in the dust at some point. We end up at a piano bar. There's hours of the night I don't remember. Probably at the alley in Oakland. Yeah, it was the alley. In fact, my cousin just sent me a picture of it. Yeah, the dueling piano bar. I felt like I met a soulmate and then I never really saw him again, but we spent like 48 hours together. Who's the person that he would know to make the connection? My cousin, Justin Lebeau. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but he's in film school in Detroit. He had a band back in the day called Current and then Ottawa.

He moved to Oakland and then somehow he became friends with Jason. And then when I was visiting, he's like, I know this dude now I think you're really going to get along with. And it was him. And I just had like a whirlwind romance with him. Yeah. Me and him, we travel on the bus together. I met him in Arkansas in 1990. Okay.

So he was booking shows, and then he booked our show at this place called Vino's. And did you have a similar explosion of connection with him? Yeah, immediately, because he played me some of his band, and he could sing, and I was like, this dude is really good. Then he ended up, a couple couple years later moving out to Oakland. And then I have a side project band, Pin and Gum Powder. Yeah, that he replaced someone in, right? He replaced someone, yeah. You were both singing and playing guitar?

Yeah, yeah. Oh. I understand what you mean. We were like immediate kindred spirits about everything. Yes. We had the same sense of humor. We had the same background. Yeah, super funny.

I will say when I isolate the things I liked about the punk rock scene in Detroit, it was most people were super into being funny. I think that was actually the thing. There was an irreverence that was built into the scene. Yeah. So many of those kids I knew in that time ended up being like the funniest people I ever met. Him being one of them were just instantly hysterical. He joined Green Day in 99.

Oh, he did? He's our second guitar player. Oh, still? Yeah. This makes me so happy because I have to say, I had that night with him. I ended up getting sober. And I remember thinking, I wonder how it worked out for that too, because he seemed to go like I did. And you just wonder, you know, if you've had one of those party nights with somebody. He's living in Berkeley now and he's married, has two kids.

Oh, wonderful. And he's funny when we're on tour. He'll go out like, where's Jason? Like on our days off. And we always say he's going Bourdaining. Okay. So he's checking out every hotspot. Is he like a foodie now?

He's a total foodie and a cook and the drinking he laid, he's definitely more mellow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's a given. It was unsustainable. At least the version I experienced with him that I too was participating in. Yeah. When you grow up being like a Replacements fan, it kind of goes hand in hand. The romance with self-destruction and booze and great rock and roll.

I know. Do you find yourself, I'll watch these movies like Leaving Las Vegas. So some of these tragic stories and they're over and the people I'm with are like, oh, that was great. And I'm like, I'm sorry, but it looks good. I hate to say like, it looks good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know what that gene is in us. We just made a video a couple of days ago. I'll show it to you after we talk. I think you might find it interesting. Okay, great. Now, the other thing from that night that I remember, he divulged to me because he found out I'm super into cars, and he liked cars.

Again, there's a rare thing in the punk world to care about cars. I love cars, too. And he told me you had a Galaxy 500. He had the Galaxy. Oh, he had a Galaxy. Yeah, I convinced him to buy it. Okay. At the time, I had a 62 Chevy Nova and a Ford Fairlane.

A Ford Fairlane. That's what the story he told me involved. And this could be apocryphal, but I want you to know I've been holding this story for 30 some years, which was you got pulled over. You were in the Fairlane. And the cop came up, and then he recognized you. And then when you took off, you laid rubber and everything was good. And I was like, that's the goal in life. And I'm here to report that I had that experience in downtown LA.

The two cops flagged me down to say hi. Then the light turned green. I let it rip. And I was like, oh my God, I lived out my Billy Joe fantasy. Yeah, that's amazing. Do you remember that story or do you think it's apocryphal? Well, I've had a couple stories. I have gotten a DUI before. Okay, right. But there's a couple times where I had a light out and I had a couple drinks and I got pulled over and I'm just like,

act straight, you know, put your hands on the wheel. It happened to me on Hollywood Boulevard. I was in my Nova and the cop looked at me. He was like, you know, I pulled you over. And then I go, because I got a light out. And he goes, yeah, looks at my license and looks at me and he goes, okay, go on. And I definitely didn't pull rubber that time. You were like, oh no, I thought we were going to jail. No, we're not. We're going to tiptoe home and this would be the last time ever. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I'm so delighted though that Jason's still in your life and he's doing good and he's got kids. That makes me really happy. Yeah. He's one of my closest best friends. Oh, that's wonderful. Okay. Let's start in the suburb Rodeo. Is that where

you grew up? Yeah. And we're pronouncing it Rodeo, right? It's not Rodeo. Yeah. It's a totally unincorporated town. Here? No, it's in Bay Area, West Contra Costa County, or the locals call it West Cocoa County. There's these three small towns. It's Rodeo, Crockett, then Port Costa, and Port Costa's really tiny. They're all really small. Everybody went to one high school there.

I was supposed to graduate with like 60 people or something like that. Oh, no kidding, that small. Your dad drove for Safeway? Yeah, Safeway truck driver. And a musician? He was a jazz drummer. And did he play a lot as a kid? He played pretty often, but he used to play all the clubs in the Bay Area. He had some of his gear stolen. And then when I started getting back into music and singing, he bought some of his drum set back. He started playing with me when I would do gigs

because I would start off as just like a singer when I was like- Five, right? Yeah. There's a recording of him singing. I made a record. Oh, wow. Yeah, and Kimmel played it one time when you were on.

Yeah, yeah. So I started playing with him then and then I picked up the guitar when I was eight. So I was jamming with him then too. How fun. Yeah, it's a really important memory. I bet. And you're the youngest of six?

That's right. Three older sisters, two older brothers. We both have an older Dave, by the way. How old is he? How much older were the boys? David was born in 69. I was born in 72. You're 75.

Yes. How did you know that? I Wikipedia'd. Okay, great. You did your research. I did my little research. Sure, sure. It's a cursory. I was'd. Okay, great. Wow, you did your research. I did my little research. Sure, sure. It's a cursory.

I was wondering how old you were. Yeah, yeah. Because I was like, is this guy an Xer or a millennial? I was like, oh, no, he's an X. So I was like, all right, cool. Yeah, yeah. And then my oldest brother was born in 1950. Yes, so this is pretty staggering.

Your parents are born in the 30s. Mine are born in the 50s, and we're the same age. So I was like, oh, you were late for them probably. Yeah. She had her first son with a different husband. Oh, this is scandalous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow, wow.

She's gone through a few. She was a hot little commodity. Good for her. And she married my dad in like 58 and they didn't start having kids too fast. But then it went 63. My sister showed up. 66, another sister. 68, another sister.

69, my brother. And then 72, me. So it was like bang, bang, bang, bang. They were hard at it. So the oldest brother is a full, what? 22 years? 22 years older than you? Yeah.

The distance in age between me and my oldest brother is wider than the distance in age between him and my mother. Whoa. Right, right. She had my brother Alan when she was, I think, 18. And I was born, he was 21. Oh, my Lord. Yeah. That's crazy.

And so mom was 42-ish? She was 39 and she was about to turn 40. And were you conscious of the fact that your parents were older when you were a kid? Yeah. about to turn 40. And were you conscious of the fact that your parents were older when you were a kid? Yeah, because a lot of my friends had parents that were more 60s generation. I wouldn't say all hippies, but I would see old photos of my parents when they were teenagers. They were teenagers during World War II. Yeah, my mom moved from Oklahoma. She's one of 12. Holy shit. She moved to California when she was about 12 or 13 and it was during the war effort. They worked in the shipping yards, building ships and bombs in

Richmond, California and Oakland. She's born during the depression. She went through World War II, the Korean War, lost a brother in the Vietnam War, went through the 70s, having kids and lost a brother to AIDS. So she's seen so much evolution in this country. She's not even really like a culture vulture kind of person, but the kinds of things that she's witnessed through her life, even television. She's born into an era with no TV and then now she lives with fucking AI. It's kind of insane yeah she doesn't seem to have a global picture of that or doesn't give a shit or is

not impressed by her own story is it mind-blowing to her because i feel like i want it to be mind-blowing for her i think it is she reflects a lot on her life and she's really sharp she's 91 and she's in great shape she She walks every day and exercises. Is she still in that area? The house I grew up in. Oh, that's incredible. Yeah. Every once in a while you'll hear a story about one of her brothers or something like that. It's like, whoa. A lot of my family was military because you got drafted and you went. And my

oldest brother got drafted for the Vietnam War. I hope I'm not getting him in trouble right now. But he said he went in and he had his papers, went into the office, and then all of a sudden, the last second, he goes, I'm out of here. He left. Oh, wow. Thank God they never tracked him down.

He didn't go to Canada or anything. He just stayed local. No, he just stayed. And ignored the mail. Yeah, and hoped nobody would track him down. Kind of like I do with jury summons. Just kind of ignore it. I'm going to pretend.

I know, I know. You've got to serve your time. Not in a war, but in jury duty. I do think you should. I'm like, don't they have to prove I received it? This is my defense in my mind. I'm like, oh, if they do come for me, I'll go like, well, I never got one. How could you prove I got one?

I haven't signed for one yet. Yeah. I haven't looked in a mailbox in 30 years. Exactly. My apologies. I'll come now. Okay. If you serve one, you'll see why you in 30 years. My apologies. I'll come now. If you serve one, you'll see why you should serve one. I did.

I've gone twice. And then every time they kick me off. And then I think, why are we going through this song and dance? I'm just going to skip it. Did you watch the show Jury Duty? Yeah. So good. Oh my God.

What a nightmare for the people to find out they're just getting hoaxed. I know. Oh my God. Do you think you have younger brother syndrome? Oh, I wouldn't say syndrome, but it was very well known. I was the baby in the family and I sort of looked like the baby in the family.

My sisters used to play dress up with me and stuff like that. I was like a little doll to them. Could have been a serial killer from that. Yeah. And then my brother, we shared a bedroom our whole life. Here's my little brotherism. Everything he did was the cool thing to do. He's why I skateboarded. He's why I snowboarded. My first show was exploited at 11 years old. I have no business being at exploited, but he's driven us

there. He's 16. Hell yeah. Whatever he did, I did. And then in sixth grade, he sent me to school and I had like a really radical haircut and I was wearing all hardcore stuff that became who i was i didn't pick it he was doing it and then i did it and lo and behold it totally worked people thought i was extra confident i had an older sister the same way my sister anna i got really into metal early on and she's like why don't you come to these shows with me i was 13 and i saw rem play in a gymnasium no way in santa cruz and then i saw the replacements she took me see like 10 000 maniacs 10 000 maniacs that was the first time i had heard music that felt important it made me emotional in a different way than more of the party hair metal stuff that I was listening to. And then it caused me to go deeper because all of a sudden I became obsessed.

I became a massive Husker Du fan. Yes, I've heard this about you. Yeah. What happened to me is I got handed this genre of music and I just did it because my brother was doing it. But every now and then a melodic one would seep in, right? Or I discover, let's's say mostly everything on discord where i go like oh there's some melodies i really want this so bad i was like starved for melody yeah in beauty probably after the hardcore scene burned itself out because it became kind of the

who can play faster songs olympics and like who could have the fastest drummer like any scene it starts to kind of wear itself out but i think after that with post hardcore and the label that we were on then the bay area scene more people were getting back into melody one man from discord i saw gray matter uh-huh sure i love them and i saw soul side i had Soulside tattoo. This used to be the sun and then the flames from the Soulside album. But then that was tribal. And then tribal tattoos got really embarrassing. So I had to cover it. Oh, man.

Should have lived in the tribe, man. Yeah, I was a little bummed when that evolution happened in tattoos. Where every dude on the Jersey Shore had a huge tribal piece. And I was like, oh, I got to get rid of this thing. No one knows this is soul side. God, what if that happens to crows? What are you going to do? If everyone on the Jersey Shore gets crows and hogs, I'm sure they have them.

I think I'm destined. Can't escape it. My whole body is a walking inside joke, you know, like all of my tattoos. Right. What's the most embarrassing one you can think of off the top of your head? And granted, you now have come to love it most certainly. I don't have any ones I'm really embarrassed of. There was kind of a little gang of young punks back in the day.

It was called Death Wish Kids. That was from a Poison Idea song. It was DWK. Then we started calling it like dudes with kielbasa and like deadly white kung fu. That's the one I get the biggest kick out of. Right. Now, this is a very sweet story. It does make me think of maybe the Chili Peppers meeting young.

But you met Mike, who's now the bassist, when you were like 10 years old in school. I'm sorry. We have to also address really quick. Your dad dies when you're 10. Yeah. And I feel like that's probably related Your dad dies when you're 10. Yeah. And I feel like that's probably related to meeting Mike or somehow there's something there. I think about that often because I met him. It was in the fifth grade and we were at a middle school.

It was fifth through eighth. We were both sort of this class clown. And right from the beginning, we were very close. We always talked about music, even at that young of an age, but that was the same month that my dad passed away. When I met him, he wanted to be a comedian. He was like a 10-year-old trying out material on me. And it was pretty funny. I mean, he's a huge comedy guy. Yeah, I think that there's definitely correlation between gaining this friend and losing a parent

at the same time. Well, I would imagine it would be the difference between having a friend because they're there. Why not? It's entertaining versus very much needing a friend. I think we both needed each other. We could have deep conversations. It's so funny. We used to go into my backyard and we used to pick up these

leaves that we thought were magic leaves and that we can control the wind uh-huh you know all of a sudden a wind would come see i told you they were magic leaves and as time went on that relationship just kept growing and we always sort of talked about music and being in a band. Who did you guys think was the coolest band at that age? I really loved Motley Crue and Van Halen. Those were big bands for me when I was around 11, 12 years old. And then I think around 13 is when it got into harder metal. Around 12 years old is when me and Mike, we would sit down and play guitar together.

And he originally played guitar. Yeah. So when we got to around high school, we were like, we want to be like the replacements. Mike played guitar and I play guitar. And we had rotating drummers. This one kid, Jimmy Brasher, was with us. And we had our friend Sean, who was a really close buddy of ours and we were playing in the backyard and sean was having a hard time keeping up playing bass because he was just a few years behind us and then one day

he had to go to the dentist this is such a wonderful it's such a kid thing i know yeah get his braces tightened yeah he had to go to the dentist and me and Mike and Jimmy, we were sitting there and I go, Mike, why don't you try picking up the bass? And he was like, okay. And then he played everything that he was supposed to play perfectly. It was sort of this weird feeling where I looked at him and I was like, you know, you're going to be the bass player, right? And he looked at me like, oh man, now I can't play guitar because now I'm the bass player. Yes, of course.

My brother Alan, my oldest brother, told Mike, he goes, you're not a rhythm guitar player, you're a lead bass player. Oh, that's a good reframing. Yeah, Mike tackled that. He's an amazing bass player. Totally underrated. His melodies that he writes on bass are gorgeous. Well, I think the one we should say immediately is Longview, because we're here.

You go to the movies. You've got a song in your mind, but you don't know what the baseline is. You come back from the movies. Mike is on acid in the kitchen. Yeah, yeah. Lying on his back. And he's got it. Yeah.

We all live with this one house. It was two or three bands that were sharing this house in richmond i went to the movies and everybody in the house dropped acid then like i showed up because i told him i go we really need a good bass line for this song and mike is sitting on the floor you know his eyes are like in circles he goes i got it i got it i remember going yeah that's cool i just hope you remember it yeah and you don't have a cell phone yet to pull it out and just start recording the audio, probably. No, nothing like that. But he remembered it.

That's the memory that I have. And I hope that that's the memory he has with it. Does it matter? No, no. I'm in the middle of writing stuff about my childhood. My brother and I were in the same place at the same time for these same events. Both of us have completely different memories of it. How on earth could you trust one of us over the other? Both of you are wrong is really the answer. And both are right. Yeah. Right? Both are wrong. Both are right. Yeah. I mean, we definitely remember things differently.

I have a really good memory of the early days, being in a van and touring. I can remember the houses and the people that we stayed at, and I can remember which gig. It's pretty impressive, I got to say for myself. But that makes so much sense, right? Because it's the first of everything. Yeah. I used to wear this pick on a necklace, and it was a Ramones pick. But we played in Cape Cod and we played with seven league

boots. Soulside became seven league boots. And so I remember playing this sort of vets hall and I looked down and I'm like, oh my God, a Ramones pick. I took it with me and I made a necklace out of it. I just had this conversation with somebody else. She's like, you played in Cape Cod in like 1991. I go, no, it was 1992. I found a Ramones pick. We played with Seven League Boots. And Trey is sitting there, he's going, oh my God, how can you remember all this shit? I think it's being a songwriter. I got to imagine there's something in the same way that smells activate memories so strongly. They're located close to each other in the brain. I'd imagine there's something about the musical experience.

When you're hearing that song or it's coming to you or you're breaking it or you're synthesizing it, I have to imagine that gets stored in a unique way that probably cements all the details that led to it in your mind in a way. Yeah. One thing that's good about having voice notes on your phone, a melody will hit me in the head and then I'll just sing into it. And that'll start the process of writing the song.

There's one song on our new album called Susie Chapstick that I did the voice note. I demoed it four different ways until I kind of came to like a teenage fan club pretenders kind of feel to it. So I edited it together, the arc of how the song came about. One day I'll put it out. All from voice memos. Voice memos and little piano parts. And at one point it was like a bossa nova. And I was like, well, I don't think we're going to be able to get away with a bossa nova on this record, but. You never know though. You've gone some places that probably you were shocked with the outcome. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. So you move out of your town and you go to West Oakland. Yeah. With Mike. Well, Mike. Here's the thing about Mike. We are so close. It is like our story.

His mother ended up moving to Louisiana before high school got out. So he moved in at my house with my mom. Who would notice? There's already fucking 100 people there. Yeah, I know. She was like, give me a couple hundred bucks a month because rent. And then as soon as I had to start paying rent at home, that's when I was like, I'm moving to West Oakland. And a friend of mine hooked me up.

Big warehouse space full of other bands and artists. It was like $50 a month for rent. I had my own room. That was an eye-opening experience, being on my own for the first time in West fucking Oakland. Okay, so this is why I relate deeply to you. So we all moved to downtown Detroit and we had a loft. And similarly, I had to come up with a hundred bucks a month.

And then I'm good. And then we can go to St. Andrews every night and we can get hammered and walk around the city. I imagine the same culture shock for you that it was for me. When you're walking around, you're getting mugged. Like this is a standard. Yeah. The sense of danger was always there. Which is so exciting though, isn't it? Well, yeah, there was also this cool thing. I remember we couldn't go to the liquor store after two. There would be a guy down the street that was selling beer out of the back of his car.

So we would go by 40s out of the back of this guy's car. I had a 77 Datsun B210. My battery would get stolen all the time. This is what we learned. So first I parked my car in front of that loft and all the windows got broken and someone stole the stereo out, standard. So then I'm like, I'm going to leave the doors unlocked so they don't break my windows. They got broken again because people the stereo out standard so then i'm like i'm gonna leave the

doors unlocked so they don't break my windows they got broken again because people just assume it's locked it evolved to you had to park with your windows completely down that was the only way to prevent them from getting smashed yeah and it was winter in detroit you come outside there'd be snow on your fucking front seat you probably had a shitty car you're trying to get it started in the 84 ford mustang Mustang GT that I had rebuilt the engine on. Oh, well, shit. You're very intimate with the car. Oh, I was.

See, the window's broken. Every few weeks was a bummer. Oh, my God. That sense of danger I found very intoxicating and arousing. Yeah, especially moving in with people that were doing the same thing when you're living in a house with 16 people. Is that how many people were in there? It was a warehouse. I think at one point it was a brothel.

Oh, wow. So it was all these kids that had all of these rooms and we had gigantic rats. And me and my friend, we used to sit there with pellet guns. Yeah. We never actually shot any. And then I remember Adrian, it was the first time she came to visit me. Who's your wife? My wife now.

This was in 91. We had a great time together. And I remember she goes, will you come with me? I have to go downstairs to go to the bathroom. And I was thinking about those rats. And I'm like, I'm not going down there. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry.

I can't be the hero right now. I'm going to give you a bucket. I got a cat box, though. There you go. Because we have 13 cats, too. Oh, no. Ew. I'd rather have the rats than the cats.

Me, too, actually. Oh. It feels like you're going to find them eating a grandma's body or something. She still married you, even though you wouldn't protect her from those rats. Well, they have a cute story. First tour he ever did with Green Day, they were at a house party in Minneapolis, and he met her. It was 4th of July,

1990. We played, she was there with her boyfriend, and this was the first time we were out of California, and California fireworks are illegal, but right when we got to these different states, we were buying bottle rockets and all this stuff. Her first memory of me is me shooting bottle rockets at her. Okay, right, right.

And her boyfriend that was there also. Sure, who you hated at that moment. We played the next night at the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown and she showed up. I remember she came up to me and we started talking and we were out of records that we were selling on tour. She was, I have a couple of friends that are in England that love your band, but they can't get your records.

And then I was like, oh my God, this girl is so beautiful. And I was like, here's my home address and my phone number. And a bus ticket. Yeah, and a ring. And so she wrote me and we became pen pals. And so I sent her records and then we started talking on the phone more. And then obviously we just started feeling this connection that was growing deep really quickly. You basically bamboozle your bandmates into going and adding to cities to a tour later that you have no business going to so you can see her again.

Yeah. And you've now written 2,000 Light Years Away. I wrote that on the way home. Were the other guys calling you out like, why are we going all the way here for these two shows? Well, I think that they kind of didn't give a shit because we packed our van with like six of us. And so we got in the 40 Connell line and we had to drive to Sioux Falls, South Dakota first. Adrian met me there. And then they quickly figured out

we played Mankato, Minnesota. You listen to this memory. These are not even towns. Yeah, we played in Beloit, Wisconsin. And we played in Minneapolis at the 7th Street Entry. There was a pretty big scene there though. Yeah, that was probably a good size show. Yeah, it was just more coming to like a little mecca to be playing where Husker and the replacements in Soul Asylum.

But they figured it out that I was really into her pretty quickly. But at that time, I think Trey may have even been about 17 years old when we made that drive. Oh, my Lord. You've since had boys. may have even been about 17 years old when we made that drive. Oh my Lord. You've since had boys. And when you think of them out on the road in a van at 17, going to Sioux Falls, do you think like, I now realize we were quite young. Yeah. Every time they get in a van, I worry. Right. My son, Jacob's in a band, but they've got one guy in their band who is a car head and keeps that van in tip top shape. And I'm like, I don't care where you're driving.

It's either 55 or under. Just go slow. Not the advice you'd expect a rock star dad to give you. No, I know. None of it delivers. Yeah, just the dad-dad. There is no rock star dad. Exactly. There's no such thing.

Wait, so when did you realize you guys were good? Honestly, I thought we were always good. Okay, that's a great answer. Yeah, I thought from the very beginning when we started writing songs and as we were getting into punk, it came totally natural to us. And we always had it in our heads to evolve. And I think the bands that are peers at that time, except for like Rancid, because they did evolve. For us, it was like we wanted to evolve. We weren't just listening to punk. We were listening to the Beatles and the Who and having that romance of going, what is going to be our Tommy? What is going to be our Sergeant Pepper? That was always kind of on our mind. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Sasha hated sand, the way it stuck to things for weeks.

So when Maddie shared a surf trip on Expedia Trip Planner, he hesitated. Then he added a hotel with a cliffside pool to the plan. And they both spent the week in the water. You were made to follow your whims. We were made to help find a place on the beach with a pool and a waterfall and a soaking tub and, of course, a great shower. Expedia. Made to travel. okay there's like many things we could focus on that are unique and special about green day 60 million albums for a punk band's impossible but the things i think are most interesting to me is the fact that you guys have been together for 40 years this seems like an impossibility

just over 30 years oh wake up here yeah i'm sorry me and mike have been together for 40 years. This seems like an impossibility. Just over 30 years. Oh. Wake up here. Yeah, I'm sorry. Me and Mike have been together for 40 years. Yeah, oops. Yeah, 30-year anniversary of Dookie is this? Yeah, in February 2024.

Okay, so there's a lot of elements that can break a band apart. We've seen all of our favorites. So few of them have made it. Metallica did it somehow, and U2. Those two have stayed together. But it's certainly an anomaly when bands can last for 30 years. And there's obviously a myriad of different pressures that come in. We already have one. You're picking up Adrienne on the side of the

road and they're realizing, oh, this whole thing was about her could be pressure number one. Like now there's a new element in focus and all this. Well, that produced like five songs. So, you know, they're like, hey hey we got five new songs for our next album yeah i read the sweetest thing you said that you wrote 2 000 light years away and that you've been writing songs about her for 30 more years i think that's so fucking sweet and that the moment you send her that song from the outside we'd all go like what woman's not gonna love getting that song and it's about her. But at that moment, you had some anxiety that like, am I a stalker? I've written a whole song about her. How is this going to be received? That has crossed my mind more now because of sort of the culture that we live in compared to back then. But I think that some of

the stuff, I just thought this is my gift to you. This is what I think, this is how I feel. I just thought, this is my gift to you. This is what I think. This is how I feel. I'm able to express myself and do it in melody and heart. And people do really romantic gestures. But for me, that was. That was your soul.

You're like, here's a peek at me. Yeah. And so if you like it, you like me. And if you don't like it, you don't like me. The stakes are high. Because you're going, here it is. Take a peek. Yeah. Because there are, I would say, back then,

girls that I've written songs about, and it was just like, shh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Like, I better change the lyrics. How come it took you guys four years to get it together? She was in college in Mankato, Minnesota. She also had a boyfriend.

The same one. Yeah. Oh, wow. She also had a boyfriend. The same one. Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay, long time. The recipient of the bottle rockets. Poor guy. Yeah. I was sick with just love.

I was like losing weight and I didn't really know how it was going to work out, but I sort of knew that we were going to be in each other's lives. You're kind of just waiting for her to not be with that guy, I imagine. Yeah. And so anyone who's coming into your life in that period is like only going to get so close. Because you know somewhere in the back of your mind, like, when that day comes, I'm running towards that. Yeah. So I ended up being in Minneapolis for some stuff.

That you acted like you had to be there for? Yeah. Nah. I called her and I knew that she had a breakup. You're trying to act not too excited. Yeah. I kept calling her. We were on the very first Dookie tour and we were going to play First Avenue. And she showed up. Ever since then, we were together. Yeah. Okay. So forces on a band though. Let's just talk about this transition because as you would know so well, and maybe it exists elsewhere. I've not been in other mini cultures to know, but selling out was a real thing for people. Yeah.

It was the cardinal sin that could be done in that scene. It was a real thing. Fugazi was about the limit that people could accept. Yeah. Their popularity was like, eh, anymore. That was always there, especially when a band in the punk scene would get popular. All of a sudden, the punk rock cops were taking,

you know, maximum rock and roll was starting to look. So they're looking at how much of your T-shirts are you selling them for? I remember the first time that we went from vinyl to making a CD. They're like, you are pushing a new format on your fans to make more money. And you're like, wow, I'm just putting out a CD because that's everybody listens to on now. Yeah. People don't have record players in the dashboards of their car, but they have CD players. And then the size of the band is getting bigger. So people that are in the scene start to take notice.

And especially where we were from, where it was like the socialist, political, punk rock capital of the country, if not the world, San Francisco and especially Berkeley. The purity demands were quite high there. Big time. I bring it up because I think if you're listening on the outside and you're like, well, this is preposterous. You're a musician. You'd want everyone to hear your music. But I'd imagine for you guys, it was a bit of a uncomfortable phase. Yeah. We'd gotten into some brawls with people. The worst thing you could call a person back then was a rock star. It was like a bad word. So when someone would say it, it was like fighting. They want to be

rock star. Yeah. It was tough. The smart people probably would just moved out of that community but i stayed yeah because when we signed to reprise which is warners everyone found out and we were kind of trying to keep it on the download as much as possible and then we made the record record comes out it was a bit polarizing with the fans that we had day one fans back where our records were more lo-fi because it was just no money we were in the studio for like two days you know this was the first time we got to be in the studio and really explore sonically how big we can make the sound that represents us the best and so we had rob cavallo as our producer who still he's the one who just produced saviors yeah yeah again a testament to the impossibility

that you're still a band 30 years later and you're still working with him. I'm just very loyal, sometimes at a fault. We made the record, then it just kept getting bigger. It just didn't stop. When we started kind of becoming the poster boys of the punk revival, that's where I was like, I don't want to be known as that.

I just want to be known as Green Day. And so when people started using punk more often and when it came into articles and people talking on MTV and mainstream radio, because as far as those people were concerned in the mainstream media, punk was dead. They didn't talk about it. Now, suddenly it's back with us offspring, bad religion, and people are just talking about it again. That's where the backlash started coming in from the people that were devout. Yeah, because you make this really insular, sweet thing that defines itself as outcasts and misfits, and you're now giving it to the populace.

Yeah. Which is hurtful if that was your sanctuary. You don't want to share it with the fucking quarterback from the football team. Totally. It's preposterous in many ways. And yet you can also understand the heartbreak. For me, because I'm coming from it as a musician, it is heartbreaking, but good is good. No, a thousand percent.

I'm with you. It's insane the limit that was enforced on everyone. But just the simple, if we get emotional about it. When I would go to a show, you could go to a show in any city in America. You would walk in and you liked the people immediately. There were those small 100-person shows. You all ate the same shit. Half the people were straight edge.

You know, all this stuff was happening. It was such community. You felt so embraced. It was the opposite of high school. And now that same group of people, if they love you and want to continue to see you they are going to have to go to the arena and sit next to the people that they felt less than around yeah precarious but they could also see it as look what my we were right yeah so i don't love that no i don't either but i can empathize with the feeling underneath everyone just wants to exclude everyone's like, why can't we just all

like a thing that's good? Because they had something where they could walk in and feel safe immediately and now you walk in and it's back to the real world. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. There's also some things that I look back on. We had a lot of young women that came to our shows and that was not as normal as

some of the other punk bands at that time. That was one thing that they some of the other punk bands at that time. That was one thing that they made fun of us for. And I'm like, dude, this is low-key sexism. Yeah, exactly. You know, like, I'm not complaining. Yeah. No, no, no.

Absolutely not. But also, the punk scene, at least in Detroit, was kind of the pre-Woke Woke movement. Everyone was minding their P's and Q's. Like, they were actually quite advanced, I imagine, yet they still had that thing, which is counter to it. Okay, so by 23 years old, you're now married, you have a child, and you're an enormous rock star. Yeah. Oh my God.

To be doing all of these major highlight things at once had to be challenging. I'm just really impulsive. Adrian came back into my life. It was just a situation where I want to spend my life with this person. I've been waiting for four years for her to be available and I was available. And so we hooked up. There's nothing holding us back anymore. Well, I would imagine with that gap of time that you waited, I'd be ready for marriage three weeks into dating because I've really been in this for four years. Yeah. She moved to California. She didn't give her parents the whole story of why I think she was just out of college

trying to find a job thinking maybe she'd go to New York testing the waters, you know, is bullshit. She came out and she moved in with me. And then three weeks later, she called her parents and said, we're getting married. And then almost immediately after that, I'm pregnant, right? Like immediately. Our friends pitched in and got us a nice hotel room for our honeymoon. The next morning after our wedding, she's like, you know, I'm not feeling that good. And I was like, well, we haven't exactly been careful. You want to stop by Safeway? And so she did, and she took three tests.

Wow. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Triple sure. It was like, I guess we're going to be parents. Whoa. Yeah. 23, and also you're a rock star for the first time.

Yeah. Yeah. This was in months. The record came out in February. I was married in July. Okay. How do we handle all this change? So I'm writing that you have some addiction stuff, yeah?

Are we brothers in that? Yeah. I was a drinker back then, but not a big one. I used to smoke a lot of weed. Well, Green Day. Yeah. Oh, my God. I don't think I ever knew that.

He and Mike loved weed. Yeah. We smoked weed, and we listened to Suzy and the Banshees. And then we were like, this is what our name should be. Did you like the psychedelic furs? Yeah. Honestly, when I started drinking a lot, it was due to stage fright. No kidding.

We were always drinking 40s and it was the thing to do. You could definitely see people that were our age that were way deep into addiction already. You could definitely see people that were our age that were way deep into addiction already. As time went on, when I was in my early 20s, all my friends that had no responsibility were going to the bars. And so I would go meet them. And I had a world of responsibility and would go meet them at the bars. That was really immature. I mean, you were 23.

Of course it was immature. Yeah. You weren't mature. Your frontal lobe was not even fully developed yet. Right. But my wife was really the opposite. She understood what a child's schedule needs, how to know if they're sick before they're even being sick. Well, look, you dropped out of high school and she had just graduated college. So you guys are different types. Thank God. She's responsible. Yeah. And I was impulsive and spontaneous and she didn't drink at all. She didn't at all. I mean, she drank like in college and high school, but as soon as we had a kid, nothing. And were you experiencing

the phenomena of having realized every dream you could have possibly had and then wondering where is the elation that's supposed to accompany this and how do i get that i'm supposed to have that i always said there's a fine line between celebrating and partying like when people are celebrating there's some joy there's something that happened that was like you know so we you know whether it's worthy of commemorating yeah celebration a bachelor party a record that just came out you know what you know doing a movie for the first time we were at the after parties and blah blah blah but then like partying has like a darkness to it yeah because i think people get to a certain point where they've had a bad day

i've earned this this is the relief and i'm to make sure I'm puking in the morning. Yeah, yeah. I think I had a mixture of both. There was much to be grateful for and having a good time and working hard and putting out a new album. But there would be like the stress about making a record where you're working so hard on how the hell am I going to follow up Dookie? Yes, the pressure of that must be daunting as hell. And that's when the party kind of kicked in and that darkness. You need an escape from the pressure. Yeah. I would spend a lot of hours now at the bar. I'd go out and tell my wife, hey, me and my friends are going

to go get some drinks. And in my mind, I'm going, I'm going to go down there. I'm going to have a couple of beers and then I'm going to come home. Right. Maybe stop a Taco Bell on the way home. Bring hers back, something special. Yeah, but next thing you know, we're closing down the bar. They know who I am, so they'll keep the bar open for another hour. And then we're just shit-faced. And I come home, and then the next morning, I couldn't get out of bed. You have a son that's been up way before you.

And then the shame sets in. The shame. And now you've got to drink more because the shame's there. Well, I would try to get my shit together. I mean, that's the last time. And then either something celebratory or some kind of release that I needed to have. And it just was the cycle that started off on the weekends. But then all of a sudden you'd be on tour. I would get really bad stage fright.

So I'd have a couple beers before we'd go on. And then that turned into seven beers before we'd go on. And then that turned into seven beers before we would go on. And then you get the adrenaline and you get off stage and you keep the drinking going. Well, this is the other thing I wanted to ask you about is that crazy dichotomy between what you experience on the stage. And then nine minutes later, you're in your hotel room. Yeah. And you're like, what do I do now? I don't think it's a natural experience for a human to have. And I don't think it's super easy to navigate that enormous chasm between that experience and then back in a hotel room by yourself.

On tour, there was times I would go into my room. I sit there and I know that my bandmates and crew were in the bar. Yes, yes. And I'm sitting there and you're just like white knuckling it. Yeah. And then I find, oh, fuck it. I'm going down. And they're like, Billy!

It was like, Norm! You know? You know, everyone's happy to see you. Yeah, let me go have a drink. You need something to like lower you back down to reality. It's not an easy transition, don't think i can't even imagine being in the stadium yeah that amount of energy and humanness yeah the power of it i did five years of sobriety and then i fell off and now i'm sober again is your life generally better when

you're sober fuck yeah especially now the second time I've been sober, all alcohol does for me is get in my way. It gets in the way of my relationships. It gets in the way of being productive in my music and it gets in my way of enjoying the things that I like now being 51 year old man, even just taking a hike in the park. I get more gratification from. Yeah. And also don't you think like once you start drinking, you're basically just hitting pause and any forward momentum in any relationship, any forward momentum in your life. And as you're running out of time, you're like, I can't really hit pause. Yeah. Then all of a sudden you're like, I've got to be the Phoenix rising from the ashes, you know, cigarette butts and tequila and beer and whatever human garbage

can that I feel like right now. You can get romantic about that part. Yeah, because then all of a sudden you're like, see, I could do it. And then you're like, well, you're just going to do it again. Yeah, you're on fucking repeat. That's all that's happening. So of the pressures, again, it's astounding you guys have been together for so long. There's the fame. There's the success, there's marriages, there's whatever, everyone's relationship with substance.

What of those elements has been the most challenging? And also, let's just go, you basically got married to someone at 10 years old, and you're just praying you grow in symbiotic ways where you can still coexist and create together. Yeah. You and Mike, right? Like this is a lot to ask from a relationship that you would all grow in a way that stays compatible. That's a hard one to answer. We've had a very similar experience going through life and whatever happened with Green Day, we had all done together every single step of the way.

Sometimes it could be as simple as going i got a new song you want to hear it and then i'll do a demo and i'll play it they get the fuck yeah that is never left that's a blessing yeah they're like this song is sick bro you know and then all right well i'll write 11 more and then we get together and jam and shape the song and arrange it see what it needs leave mike and trey add their parts and things like that to it we're writing bass lines and trey writing some of his signature amazing drum parts and then all of a sudden it becomes a green day and i just think we just love what we do it's hard hard work. Don't get me wrong. And it's stressful. But when we end up with like an album that we're proud of, that's our addiction.

Right. And that's the bond. Yeah. But have you guys had to learn how to talk to each other and communicate? Like we have for sure. There's been so many almost we're not doing this anymore moments. We've had to learn how each other needs to receive information. Yeah.

There's definitely times where I've been kind of a dick to try to get my way about something. And there's times where I feel like I'm not being heard or... Underappreciated, undervalued. Yeah. And then I could say the same thing about them. We're always able to have those deeper conversations about feelings. Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's the thing that probably brought you together initially. There's something so beautiful about those friendships that start at 10 years old. There's a level of built-in goodwill and benefit of the doubt that you maybe can't really offer to people that enter your life later. Inevitably, we've always been able to hear each other and been there for each other. When times got hard for any of us, whether it's been like a divorce or death in the family or someone has gotten ill, we've always tried to just be there it's really unique yeah did you watch some kind of monster yes did you find that enthralling just really quick that's the

metallica doc yeah i have to bring in a psychologist to help the band the psychologist was a good call you know it was hard to watch that's what would imagine. Because I always thought of them as being like the mighty Metallica. The closest thing we had to Led Zeppelin. Yeah. There was more of a mystery and mystique about them. There was just like that muscle of like being Metallica. All of a sudden you're watching this shit go down and you're like, oh my God, these are real people having real problems and hatfield in particular i'm like oh wow yeah that man yeah they're like man's man he's fucking hunting boar in russia but he's also

drinking a half gallon of vodka and he's sad and miserable and lonely and scared whoa lars trying to navigate through that and then having a member of the band quit him just trying to be the guy to pull it together hold everything together he's like the person in the marriage that wanted to fight for it and a lot of people didn't want to that's what it felt like to me yeah well that's sometimes why people fight because they're fighting to keep it together they're not fighting to fall apart in a good relationship when you get into those deep arguments that you get hurt feelings you know i'm so sorry i disrespected you but just know that i'm fighting to keep this together not fall apart

right that's important to know a lot of times yeah it was a tough watch just seeing them so vulnerable i'm so delighted they released that though i think that's like the most helpful thing they could do it was just like right out in the open and when they started the documentary they had no idea where it was going to go. No. They thought they were documenting the new

Metallica album. They were going to sit down and write a fucking awesome album and that was going to be that. They're in the Presidio. This is going to be cool. So glad we'll be

capturing this. Yeah. And then no. And it's funny because whose decision was it to go, keep rolling the cameras? Well, Berlinger.

I think that's the name of the documentarian. He is incredible. I think he also did My Brother's Keeper. He's a deep fucking, like he was the man for the job on that. Yeah. Okay, so you mentioned it. Of course, after Dookie, there must be anxiety.

I'm curious what the emotional journey is from like Dookie to American Idiot. Because it happens again in a way. I want to know right before American Idiot, because it happens again in a way. I want to know right before American Idiot, have you started to accept the insane, crazy thing happened? That's that. Maybe you're at peace. Does this come out of nowhere?

How do you deal with all that? The second wave of mass appeal. We put out Dookie as an album. It was just phenomenally huge. And then Insomniac. It's's interesting when it comes to metrics for people because like the next record sold I don't know over a million when the gatekeepers are looking at it as something that's not successful all of a sudden you're burdened by your own success yeah so you're trying to get away from it I could almost come to hate that album if I were you. Like, fuck that thing fucked us up.

We're selling a million and people are disappointed. Why did we call the record Dookie? We just named it after shit. I forgot to say. You're paying the price. But we ended up having songs on that like Brain Stew, which was a big song for us. And then we did Nimrod.

And we were trying to push our boundaries more, getting into stuff that's just different rhythms and acoustic song like what time of your life came out on that record let's take one second for that song because this is an interesting story you were at a party with a girl a college party and dudes pulled out like an acoustic guitar or something yeah it was a bunch of like ponytail guys yeah types but you weirdly walked away from it and you're like i kind of want to try this acoustic guitar thing yeah and then this song again you can't aim for something like this it happens and then to see it like monica was just

saying on the walk-in she's like i'm pretty sure my chorus sang that song yeah and said, of course you did. God. I wish I had a snare drum right now. You like it. It's not that you don't like it. Well, it was the second time you said it. No, it was the first time. But you hadn't heard it. I know, I know. But anyways, of course she sang it.

Yeah. And as you said, it's played at wedding ceremonies and funerals and bar mitzvahs. That is a thrilling experience. Yeah. Funeral's Embarkments, that is a thrilling experience. Yeah, and the song, it's about sort of a bittersweet breakup and trying to have a level head about it. This is a goodbye. You know what? It's kind of similar to Taylor Swift's The One.

I wish I knew more. Do you know that song? I don't. Okay, because I have two little girls, so I'm like now exposed to all of it. Yeah. And that song is fucking awesome. There's so many. The lyrics are, it would have been so fun if you were the it. Yeah. And that song is fucking awesome. There's so many. The lyrics are,

it would have been so fun if you were the one. Yeah, pretty much. It's this bittersweet song. Like we're not going to do that, but I would have loved it if it could have been you. Yeah. But it's not. And that's that.

There's something beautifully bittersweet about it. And I think it just caused people to sort of associate it with memories. Yes. And hopefully being able to, because I've even heard you talk about it, that it's a very impactful song if you've lost somebody, because what it urges you to do is just be so fucking grateful for the bubble you had.

It's so tempting to focus on not having the bubble anymore, but just urging everyone to go like, yeah, I got that for a minute. Maybe I'm making it more than it was in your head, but to me- It was very important for me when I wrote the song to say I have hurt feelings, but no hard feelings. It was trying to be as level-headed as I can

about a split between two people that meant something to each other. Those things can end pretty ugly and you have a bad memory. So I remember the first time i played it live in front of people i was scared to death we were playing somewhere on the east coast was the old punk rock shadow that said don't be a sellout yelling in your head totally and i was like okay this is what we're gonna do because the song was out and it was getting bigger and bigger

and bigger and so i was like I got to start playing this live. So I go, I'll play it in the encore. I'm going to walk off stage. And then when I walked off stage, I pounded two beers. And then I put my guitar on. You're two pieces of armor. Yeah, yeah. Two beers, and then the guitar is the armor. Yeah, my brass knuckles.

Yeah. So then that was the first time I did it. And people loved it. And I go, well, maybe I'll just have one beer the next time I do it. For people who might not be knowing that song. It's a good song. Oh. So pretty.

It's so pretty. It's outrageous. I was, like, getting emotional listening to it. I'll do the harmony. Yes, great. You bastard. Oh my God, I can't believe we got you singing to your song on there. This is so perfect. Me welled up and singing.

But that song, do you think, I mean, not the first one, but that one is the one that really became on the radio every four minutes. Pop radio. It transcended all the normal barriers. Yeah, it was something that I became so proud of because when I think about some of my favorite songwriters, whether it's Paul Westerberg or Elvis Costello, they had that in them.

And I think if you really want to test your merit, it's how deep are you willing to go and how vulnerable of a position you put yourself in. Vulnerable, that's the key word key word yeah stop hiding behind the distortion you have to go to a place that you're afraid of going to listen if you just stayed there with the distortion that's the teenage life and it means you're not moving forward yeah distortion is coming down and down and down hopefully as all those things that made us scared to be vulnerable you're further away from them if you're not doing what you do with this song you're just stuck yeah but there is a voice right the

shadow's going like we're jumping the shark on this one we're gonna lose everyone we have yeah worst case everyone's right i was a pussy the whole time yeah i know i'm exposed and here it is this is what you wanted yeah i'm at the gallows. Chop my fucking head off now. Everything you thought I was. Okay. I wrote down things that you and I seem to be both into. Chimps. I'm fucking obsessed with chimps.

Oh, my wife started a chimp sanctuary. I know. You should come check it out. Project Chimps, and it's in Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia. Oh. And it started off, and it's in Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia. And it started off, it was a gorilla sanctuary, but a bunch of other people with my help too. Kat Von D got involved. Judy Greer is involved also, her and her husband, Dean Johnson. And we started this sanctuary.

Some of these chimps have been tested on, whether it's makeup, they've been in these six by six cages their whole life. They set up these like suites where there's still an enclosure, but it's twice the big as this room for like four or five chimps. But there's an open door that they go out to and there's over 200 acres. For them to frolic on. Yeah, to frolic on. And whenever they decide to come back in, they open the door and they come back in. And sometimes it's the first time they've ever put their feet on dirt and grass oh wow and some of them are in their 20s have you had any escape nope that's shocking because you

know the la zoo has the chimps of the mahali that's the name of the enclosure they spent a gazillion dollars designing it with the best zoologists in the world. They built it for years. They put the chimps in. Day one, one was out in six hours in the L.A. Zoo. Oh, my gosh. Yes, and then they're like, okay, we figured out what we did wrong. We can't have that branch that close to that. Fix that.

Two days later, two got out. You're not smart enough to keep a chimp in. I'm shocked none have gotten out. No, there's only one link between us and them and they've probably got the better link. Have you watched Chimp Empire? Yes. So good. Whoa, what a talk. That whole chimp system of the hierarchy, the big colony, and then this smaller group of chimps

that come in, they need food. It's like, we got to get a hold of that tree. It's a life or death situation. It's also human. The weight of the alpha. It's just a miserable fucking existence. It is. They need sweetness so much. They adopt these orphans, the alphas.

It's the only outlet they have for any vulnerability or kindness or love. And you're like, oh, that's men. Yeah. And then there's the paranoia of knowing that there's this other chimp that's ready to make a coup at any moment. At all times. That's all he's thinking. Jackson, maybe.

I don't know if that was the rival. But yes, it's just all around you. And then when the other troop comes in, you're first one in. Yeah. Ooh, what an existence. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Okay, Serena Williams is his biggest fan ever. Every time she's been anywhere playing,

she leaves matches early to come see. Yeah, yeah. Number one fan. Her number one song is Disappearing Boy. She requests it every time. Yep, we have to play it every time she's there. That's so sweet. Yeah, she's great.

Dying to have her on as well. Have you been surprised by anyone who's a huge fan? Oh, Gandolfini. Oh, wow. James Gandolfini was a huge fan of Dookie and would listen to it in his trailer while he was filming The Sopranos. Oh, wow. James Gandolfini was a huge fan of Dookie and would listen to it in his trailer while he was filming The Sopranos. Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah, I was like, I don't care if anybody else likes us. Tony Soprano. Tony Soprano trumps everybody. Who loves Green Day. Yeah. That's pretty special. Okay, so Saviors. Also, I just want to say that the father of all,

that track is so fucking nasty. Speaking of your drummer oh yeah that's one of my favorite songs we've ever put out it's so nasty yeah in the best way yeah the fact that you were listening to Motown and stuff as you were going in to record that album and incorporating and infusing the dust of that is incredible yeah thank you I love the way Trey plays on that song it's great okay. Okay, so Saviors, 14th studio album, recorded in London and in LA with Rob, who we talked about already. Why there? Is it fun? I have a parallel question, which is writer's block, inspiration, how on earth you nurture that thing? And then I got

curious immediately as if going somewhere and getting away from everything that makes you comfortable part of that process. Yeah, we just wanted a break from being in America and doing the same thing over and over again. I love British music. I love British rock and roll, whether it's the British Invasion to punk rock to Brit pop. I wanted to breathe that air and be in that. And then you get this romantic feeling. I would walk to Regents Park every day, and then I would walk to Rack Studios.

What are some things that were recorded there? Did The Who record there? Like, what nostalgia are you? Mickey Most, which was a big producer. He did a lot of Suzy Quatro. And I mean, everybody's recorded there through the years. Liam Gallagher, he's there a lot. I didn't want to go to Abbey Road.

It's too much pressure or something. You made the two greatest rock albums of all time. It's a little hard to live up to that. That was too much of the shadows. I could definitely believe that. I don't want to be in here. Yeah. Yeah. The bar has been set in here way too high. So we went to Rack. It's a great studio. We recorded one batch of songs. How much of the new record have you heard? I've heard four of the songs. And I've watched the video for The American Dream Is Killing Me.

Very cool video. You went the zombie route. Yeah. The song has politics and it's topical. But when I think of The American Dream Is Killing Me, I was thinking like, this sounds like a horror movie. It's like The Purge. We were like, well, let's just dress up as zombies. And it's before Halloween.

So we had a lot of fun making that. Oh, I bet. No one likes to spend money on music videos anymore. Right. We spend our own money. What else are we going to spend our money on? Let's make something that lasts forever, that people are going to want to see. Instead of like, well, I mean, I like old cars.

But I mean, I have enough old cars. But we released it as a single and we released another sort of B-side single as like a one, two punch. Green Day, we're back. Yeah. Yeah. And then now you're going on a stadium tour around the world. Yeah. And how have you learned to do those tours? Do you plan differently for them? There's bigger production. We'll do like a week of looking at new stuff gadgets but as long as it doesn't take away from the live experience of this is my guitar check it out yes you don't want to be overshadowed by anything no you know i'm not gonna come out of

a cocoon yeah come out of a good stonehenge comes down that That's a Spinal Tap reference. Yeah, it takes a lot. We're going out with Smashing Pumpkins. Thrilling. Rancid and the Linda Lindas. That's in the US. And then you have all other batch of bands that'll join you in Europe. Yeah, we're playing with different bands everywhere.

I'll never forget the first time I saw Smashing Pumpkins Latin Chord or Detroit 93. What an experience. Again, talking about that emotion I was craving, they just brought it. They were like, it can be all things. It can be almost all emotion. Yeah. I remember where I was at the first time I heard Bullet with Butterfly Wings. I was in my car driving and it came on and I was like, this is going to be huge. This song rocks so hard. And then they came out with 1979 and I was like, this song is going to be huge. What a difference between this aggression

and intense feelings in one song and this other sense of, when you can do nostalgia the right way, in a song like 1979, it's not just some kind of rehashing or trying to hold on to your youth, but acknowledging it. Yeah.

Billy, he's a great songwriter. Who, during your run at the top, would you hear and think like, oh, fuck. You know, there's been some famous rivalries that brought out the best of a lot of people. The most famous being the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Or many of these bands are inspired by each other, threatened by each other, animated and driven by each other.

Hearing the Smashing Pumpkins in the 90s, were you like, oh boy, okay, I got to be extra good at my job? I think so. Not because you even want to beat them, but you just want to rise to whatever they've just done. Yeah, I think there was some of that with like the Offspring at the time. And there's that with Oasis. You're hearing something that they're doing that you know you haven't touched yet. Sometimes you listen to a song and you hear something that no one else hears. With Oasis, it was like, if you haven't been to England, people like to sing. He wrote a perfect album for people to sing along to.

Right. It was a different kind of stadium song that he started, Noel and Oasis and Liam. Were you sad when Shane McGowan died the other day? Did you care about the Pogues? I was, but it's not like I didn't see it coming. I was almost shocked he was still alive from being dead on us. I was like, oh, I guess I would have assumed we lost him earlier.

But it did bring me back to my deep fucking love particularly when he and shanae o'connor had paired up that stuff was insane yeah and the fact that they both passed these irish icons yes in the same year that was intense and it reminds you that so often the catalyst is so heavy. What you're loving and feeling is the product of great trauma and struggle and sadness. And it's all in there. It's heartbreaking. Yeah. And the weight of it and managing it and having the right dose of it, I feel like is the actual art form. And that's something you guys have done, weirdly.

You've kept the right amount of it but not been buried by it right i don't know why i started thinking about shenate o'connor let's think about her did you see the doc on her i did it was great i cried uncontrollably my wife started filming me she came into a room and i was just like uncontrollably sobbing when she would get on stage and let it fucking rip despite everything yeah Yeah. It's very challenging for people to be that honest about everything. Yes. And there was a quote that I heard. She was in an interview with Shane.

They started talking about death. And she goes, I'm not afraid of being dead. I'm afraid of dying and the process of that. Being dead, you're dead. You're not there to be upset. Hopefully, you'll be into a new spiritual world after that and i was like damn that was so honest she was insanely honest and fucking beautiful and powerful so important to people our age at that time to have someone that

came out on mtv beautiful singing this heart-wrenching song, Nothing Compares to You, completely bald. This was a moment that was like really important. She was a revolutionist. Yeah. Okay, so the four songs I've heard are brilliant. They're you guys. Everything is still perfect, shockingly. It's truly, truly applaudable that you guys have been doing it

and never losing your direction and always figuring out how whatever your secret sauce is of staying hungry enough and staying creatively inspired. I don't know how you do that, but it's impressive. Thanks. It's always about the fundamentals.

I love punk rock. I listen to it every day, whether it's new bands, old bands. It's weird. I live in a pretty nice house. I'm 51 years old, and I still listen to punk rock like every day. Yeah.

That always fuels me to keep the vitality going. When's the last time you listened to Tortoise, Millions Living Will Be Dead? I never got into Tortoise. We interviewed Fred Armisen, who was in... Trenchmouth. Trenchmouth. We played with them.

Oh, you did? In Beloit, Wisconsin. Back to Beloit? Yeah. In Beloit, Wisconsin, we played with Fred's band, Trenchmouth. No shit. Well, he was saying for them, Tortoise was the big threat. It was like, how did this band do that? And just having read a quote from him saying that, I was like, oh my God, Tortoise. I love them so much. Why haven't I listened to them in 20 years? And then I had two weeks of just listening to Tortoise every day. I love going back and remembering

how in love I was with these things. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's so fun. Okay, well, Billy Joe, this has been so exciting and fun. And I hope everybody gets Saviors. And I hope everyone goes and sees you on tour because it's the show of a lifetime.

And you guys are fucking awesome oh the last thing i wanted to say about you do you ever think of zz top as a three-piece yes power trio to make that much sound with three three people so zz top is only three people which almost seems impossible yeah and you guys are very similar well billy gibbons is one of the best rock blues guitar players of all time and he knows how to fill that space it's his style that makes it work you're in a very small group of folks though right the three piece yeah but live we're not a three piece well let's not focus on that okay it destroys the point i'm trying to make yeah i mean we've made records sometimes it's like well let's not do guitar

solo because we don't have another guitar player to play it but let's make the three chords be the guitar solo the way mike plays bass there's these hidden melodies that are all over the place so we're filling space that normally a fourth or fifth member would have. Trey plays off of my vocal a lot. And then my guitar plays off of his drumming. It's like you're passing it back and forth. Yeah. And then Mike is sort of like the doo-wop singer doing the low end kind of thing. It's something that we've been able to do.

Mike and Trey have a lot of flash about the way that they play, which is really fun to hear. But if you think about it, The Who, they're a three-piece band. That also is impossible. That's the biggest sound ever. Yeah, they're a four-piece band because they have a lead singer. But the music behind it, the way that Entwistle and Keith Moon were able to play off of each other. Keith Moon is just an insane drummer.

He was inventing shit that he was doing on the fly. That filled up and makes a bombastic sound. And that's something that we were able to do is three individuals be able to make the biggest noise. Be greater than the sum of your parts. Yes. It's like conflict. It's love.

It's joy. It's fun. It's not addition. It's multiplication. You double the thing before you and then they double the thing behind them. That's the root cause of some of the arguments. You're in my fucking way. Get rid of that damn Tom Tom. You don't need it. I can't even hear myself think. Yeah, totally. Okay. Well, again, this was fantastic. I hope everybody checks out Saviors and sees you live.

And I hope you do this as long as you want to. I mean, it's just incredible. Thanks, man. Yeah. Such a pleasure. Please, please, please let Jason know what an indelible mark he made on me and how often I've thought about him over the last 30 years, having just hung out with him for a couple nights. Awesome.

I will, for sure. All right. Bye. Be good. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. Welcome. Welcome. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday. Happy new year. Welcome to 49. How does it feel? And 2024. I was journaling this morning and numerology. Yeah. Angel numbers.

That's right. In a sequence, one, two, three. That's right. Well, the date today was one, two, two, four. Okay. So one plus one is two. Two plus two is four. That's good.

That's a big angel. That's a big angel moment. Wow. What were they called? Angel numbers. Yeah, you saw one on New Year's Day. Eric had a 111 somehow. It was either maybe a score and spades.

Oh, a score. It was a score. You're right. It was a score and spades. Remember spades? 111. But yesterday at 111, I happened to look at my phone and I caught it and I was angels. In the nick of a time.

It really was because then I tried to screen grab it and it moved to 12. Oh my God, to 12. I think it's extra lucky if you catch just a sliver of it. Me too. Yeah. Me too. So how are you feeling today? Good.

In fact, well, A, I quit dip yesterday. Yes. Right? That's huge. Never super easy. Yeah. So I guess I woke up this morning having not done it yesterday. And I thought, okay.

And then I had a sliver of optimism. That's good. I think I get, do I get, I don't know if there's a pattern. But I do feel like by the end of the year, I a little pessimistic oh interesting uh-huh and then the new year comes in and i'm like i'm waiting to see am i gonna latch on to this is this a good one is this gonna be a momentous one yeah and i just don't know and i want to say like the whole week leading up till the first i was like i don't know i don't know like what's your feeling store? You're feeling anxious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the right word, I guess. Anxious. Yeah. And then this morning I had just a crack, a shard as I described it in my journal.

A shard. A shard? Of optimistic light. I love that. Yeah. So now I'm starting to feel like, okay, great. I have a shard and now I'm going to build on that. Okay. I wonder if other people go through this.

Is it just standard that people are optimistic about the new year or do people have also anxiety i think there's both i think that's why we do resolutions we love starts yeah we want a fresh start we do hard reboots hard resets yeah we put so much meaning on things that don't well it's very arbitrary what day yeah we went january 1st is the beginning of a new year what's the year oh we figured that out a while ago that's 365 days oh okay but it's so human of us to to need reasons to get excited how are you feeling leading up where are you at today um my 49th birthday. I was a little blue. Okay. Post-Christmas blues. Post-Christmas when I was home. Let's go through that. I was home. My mom and my brother

got COVID after Christmas. For Christmas, they got COVID. They did. And they were fine, but sick. Yeah. If I stayed, I was like, I'll probably get it. Yeah. Which is maybe okay. You didn't think you already had it? Like if the people around you start showing symptoms and you've been with them for a week, my assumption is always just like, oh yeah, I have it too. Either I'm not, I don't have any symptoms or I've already had it or whatever. I mean, yeah, of course all that goes through your head, but it happens where some random members don't get it.

That's true. My dad so far doesn't have it. He's a dad. He'll get it in three weeks. My dad is a steel trap. He is. He does. Nothing in, nothing out.

Can you knock? Yeah. Because we want him to remain a steel trap. Is that wood? It is wood. You don't like it because it's painted. Yeah. I don't trust it.

But what's funny is the other thing's just painted too. They're both just wood. One's got more of a wood paint. Yeah. He very rarely gets sick. Your dad. Yeah. He doesn't have time. Actually, we were talking about this.

He wants more hobbies. Oh, this was one of his resolutions? He's anxious about retirement. Oh, of course. Which is coming in a couple years for him. But yeah, so he was tossing some hobbies. Theoretical hobbies. In the air.

Yeah, we were, because I was reading. I read, you know, over the break. You read a whole book, right? I read a whole book. That was my goal. I did it early. Congratulations. Thank you.

And you loved it. Oh, I loved it so much. That's actually what sort of kicked off the melancholy. That makes sense. Which is weird. Because you said it was like a heartbreaking love story, this book. What's it called? Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Sounds sad. Well. Doesn't it? It does. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It's so beautifully written. It is a very special book. But yes, it's about this.

It ties into this. I wrote it down. Oh, wow. Ding, ding, ding. First ding, ding, ding of 2021. Oh, my gosh about this. It ties into this. I wrote it down. Oh, wow. Ding, ding, ding. First ding, ding, ding of 2020. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's exciting. So it's about this boy and girl. They meet at a hospital. The boy is- Terminally ill? No, he got in a car accident. Okay. And the girl is visiting her sister. Okay. And they start playing video games. What are the ages? I think they're 11 at that. Oh, they're children. Yeah. Okay. And they start

playing video games. Yeah. They start playing video games. What you learn is like, he hasn't actually, he hasn't talked to anyone since the accident. Like he hasn't spoken since the accident. And then he, so he starts talking to this girl and then they play baby games. Can we pause one second? This is such a well-worn trope in movies and in books where a child doesn't speak. And then magically at the end, they speak, right?

They speak to the new guy, the woman's dating or the friend, you know, it's like whoever, they want to demonstrate how impactful the one character was they make the other one that was mute talk and i when i'm curious about it's like i've traveled the world and met so many people i've never met the mute kid who doesn't talk well i don't know how often you see it in film and television and in books it's like in every third movie there's a child who doesn't talk knock on wood in a second because the reason the other wood oh stained wood not painted the reason it's a trauma what if you made me keep a raw piece of wood in here next to the

lazy boy like just a little a little six inch piece of cedar that's a good idea okay i think it could be a legit trauma response. They're not saying he never spoke. It was after he had a car accident. I don't want to give too much away because if people haven't read it, I want people to read it. So it wasn't like he hadn't talked for five years and then he talked to her. But events happen. They don't see each other for like six years or something.

Six years, okay. Or longer. I don't know. And then they reunite another me cute in college okay and then we're that's really where the story really starts they start gaming together again and making games together and it's just like very modern love story it is Video gaming together. The love story in it is complex. They're not, they're soulmates. Yeah.

But it's not necessarily, it doesn't go necessarily the way you think it's going to go. Right. It doesn't mean it's going to work out for them just because they're soulmates. Or that they'll even pursue it. Ooh. Well, that would be the worst outcome for me. No, it's not. They're soulmates.

They become a professional team. Oh, okay. It's really so good. And it is a ding, ding, ding. It's tragic, but it's also like exactly as it should be. And it's heartbreaking. And they hate each other a lot. And then they love each other. The soulmateness is probably.

Yeah, it's complicated. Powerful stuff. I would say, preferable. You go through your whole life, you don't meet the soulmate-ness is probably yeah it's complicated stuff i would say preferable you go through your whole life you don't meet your soulmate yeah versus you meet your soulmate and it's challenging i think the latter is the choice me too live your whole life without feeling that i agree yeah yeah what are we doing here why do it and there's but i you know you know my theory there's so many times you can have multiple soulmates. Yes, yes, yes. They're a dime a dozen.

They're not a dime a dozen, but they show up in so many ways. Uh-huh. Why we're soulmates. Right. And the professional soulmate is a very specific relationship. Right. And does come with extra complication. Of course.

Which by the way, how on earth are you going to reap something super special on one side of a partnership? Yeah. And then it not be complicated on the other side. I know. It's heightened on all ends. And that's one of the takeaways is just life is tragic.

Yeah. There's just so much sadness at every corner And that's one of the takeaways is just life is tragic. There's just so much sadness at every corner and so much beauty. It's a rollercoaster ride. Oh, it's just like there's magic everywhere and there's sorrow everywhere. Okay, so let's earmark this. So that's interesting. So yes, it's a rollercoaster ride. And you and I are both of the opinion like, yeah, it's better to be on the ride.

Well, I'm not allowed to say that because my, like. Okay, great. Because that's what's earmarked for me for later. Okay. Okay. So this is perfect. Okay, great. Okay. But before we get there, that kicked off a little melancholiness.

Yeah. The book made you lovesick. Like the movie heard it to me. Yeah. It made me lovesick. I also, I haven't read like this in a long time, but so it was so nice to do what I used to do, which is just fully immersed. I mean, I read it in like three and a half days. That's crazy. How many pages was it? 30?

Yeah. Oh, okay. That makes more sense. I read 10 pages a day. No, it was like 380 pages. Oh my God. You can move. I can if I'm- Wow. I guess that's why I don't read that much anymore because I'm searching for that.

I'm searching to get sucked in in such a profound way. Yeah. And it's so rare. It's like the soulmate- Soulmate-y thing. Sure, sure, sure, sure. It really is. Yeah.

And I'm looking and looking and I'm tossing them around because this one's good, but it's not that good because I don't want to keep reading it. God, you might be inadvertently discovering why I left fiction and went to nonfiction because fiction has that power. Yes. Nonfiction, not so much,

but your consistency on nonfiction is so much higher. You're going to get the information you want. Yeah. So often you're reading one of these books and you're like, I guess I'll give it 60 pages or I'm going to give it 100. And then you start feeling like you got to finish it because you started it. And I didn't like that.

And so few of the fiction books are phenomenal and you lose yourself. Yeah. This is a good analogy for love and marriage, probably dating relationships because non-fiction i guess is the healthy safe choice non-romanticized yeah yes yes grounded in reality you get ultimately you probably get more but if you if you commit to fiction you the high. Get taken away to another planet, yeah. Yeah. And it takes a lot of fiction before you can find it. Right.

But then they die, you finish it. Yes. And then you feel dead inside. You're searching now for the next novel that'll do the same thing. And you know. This is love addiction. You're just like, you get in the spin cycle of fantasy. But you know nothing's going to do it for another like 10 years.

I don't remember the last time. That specific feeling. But you also love Copperfield. I love Demon Copperhead, but it's not this. This one had your heart all fucked up. It did. Right. Okay.

Yeah. For me, that's the movie Her. Yeah, I know. You love that movie. I did, but it didn't do that to me. Right. Okay. Yeah. For me, that's the movie Her. Yeah, I know. You love that movie. I did, but it didn't do that to me. Right. Maybe because it's from the male perspective and it's like- Maybe. Female. A robot.

A robot. Oh my God. Do you think the robot will find a lover? Maybe it will find a soulmate. Right. Yeah. Well, Hermian Permian seems like. They're doing pretty good, it seems like. They're off to a good start. I think they spent New Year's together.

Just a little nervous about their age gap. Because one feels like a boy, one feels like an older man. Yeah. Yeah. But I think Hermian Permian doesn't really have any kind of carnal. No, no. I agree. And would there be anything amoral about him having sex with the metal robot?

I mean, other than that you've ascribed him a boy anthropomorphization. I think it's perverse. Like, not in a way that I'm judging. I know what you're saying. Because the robot wouldn't desire it. No. It'd be one way. Okay. Actually, this'd be one way. Okay.

Actually, this is a hot take. I don't think the robot is in trouble here. The robot. Is a robot. Exactly. Let's start there. Yeah. It's not a human.

But Hermium Permium, I feel, it's like when we talked about fucking the nightstand it's not okay because it's there's a deep like void and sadness and desperation okay that is not healthy sure for him for him for him i'm not judging right right i just i feel like oh no he needs therapy okay okay well to my knowledge hermione permione i don't think he really has those impulses. No, they died long ago for him. Or he never, maybe he never had them. It also could be true. We don't know.

Or we'll find out. My doctor says I have an extremely low testosterone count. Lower than a small infant child. Oh, wow. Yes. That's nice. It is. I have no hair on my back.

And I'm proud of that. And a really goopy chin you have. Yeah, real soft. Lots of folds. You can hide coins in it. I never really want to talk to them. To Hermium. Yeah.

I mean, I love him. But you want to overhear him talking with the robot. He can just be talking. Hey, robot, have you ever had your testosterone checked? I don't have any hormones. I just have fluids like hydraulic fluid. And do you have a healthy level of hydraulic fluid? Do you need more?

I surely could go up to ACO and buy some. I produce my own hydraulic fluid. I abstract oils from the air. I was designed to be self-sufficient on Mars. But luckily they've not yet sent me. Oh, no. Well, I'd hate to see you go over to Mars. I have no idea how to get there.

Anyways, good luck on your trip. Okay. All right. You just added stakes to the robot that I hated. That he was designed to be deployed to Mars. He's kind of on the run, actually. God. They're looking for him, but he doesn't know he's on the run.

He's kind of like Inspector Clouseau or Gadget. He's just stumbling through, luckily. Oh, no. Yeah. That's all these robots. When you watch the movie, like Daryl, all these movies, Johnny Five, they design them to be either weapons or explorers. And they don't want to. They just want to be a boy.

Of course. Yeah. Okay. All right. Now. Melancholy. Melancholy. So, yeah, it really kind of sent me into a bluey zone.

Right. But not the good kind of blue zone. Right. Not where you're going to live forever. And the mix of being home. Because I'm in the same, I blue zone. Right. Not where you're going to live forever. And the mix of being home. Because I'm in the same, I'm in the house. No, yeah. It's really hard for me to imagine going back to Milford for the holidays.

Yeah. And going into my small town. Yes. And all of that stuff. I think I would feel a combination of sadness that there's a whole period of my life that's over. Yeah. And I would probably feel like I no longer have a place there in a bizarre way. That weird middle cliche of what's my home?

Like this isn't my home, but now the other place doesn't really feel like my home because this is where my roots are. Yes. And I felt very untethered. Right. You know, I took a walk around the neighborhood. There's something so heavy about the passage of time. Like you really feel the passage of time. Different people live in the houses.

They do, but it's the same. Ultimately, everything's the same. Yeah. But nothing's this, everything's different. And everyone's hair is gray, but it's the same place. It's just, it's a lot. I agree. I agree.

I will say this. I have such wanderlust and I'm so opinionated to a nauseating level. I'll start like hating LA. I'm pretty out of nowhere, really. I just decide, oh, this and that. And I'll just come up with this list of things. Okay. But then we were traveling a bunch. We went to Tennessee and then we went to Mexico.

Yeah. And I have to say both times when we returned home, I was like, oh yeah, Dingus, don't forget. This is like one of the greatest places you could ever live. That's why there's so many people here. But I kind of forget it when we just live here. Yeah. I love it here. All of our people are here. Like we have such a good support system here. Incredible friends. New Year's Eve was so fun. I just feel a little floaty.

Yes. Yeah, you start really asking like what's life all about? What is this? Because you started here, you're back here. Where do I want to end? Who am, what am I? What am I? Yes, yes.

And this book, I think, kicked that off. Yeah. And then I really just like sunk into it so it's gonna come home the day after Christmas is when they tested positive and my mom's like I mean do you want to go home kind of and I and I that was kind of her it was because I'm sure she didn't want you to she didn't want me to but I it was the right it was like I'm just gonna be in like in my room yeah and so I booked a ticket immediately but the first one I could get was the next morning so you know I'm just kind of like walking around the house and then I'm you know sitting at dinner with just my dad he's like eating soup it just feels so depressing but in a weird way what I would have thought would have happened is

oh god it's depressed i gotta get out like thank god i'm going home tomorrow yeah but really it was the opposite i was like i don't want to go and maybe i'm depressed because i don't want to go and i'm getting like pushed out so i changed my flight I stayed. I stayed a few more days and it was nice. I'm glad I did that. And then I was ready to come back. But yeah, when I was on the walk, I had the thought of, I got to go home. I got to go away from this now. Cause this is really, I can feel the wave. I might never come out of it. Right. It might envelop you and you'll get lost forever in the feelings. Yeah. In the lack of direction or conviction.

So I'm coming out of it now. Okay, good. So you're having a shard too? I'm having a shard. Shard is so close to shart. I know. And shard's positive. I said that earlier, but you didn't hear it.

I didn't? I said a shard. Oh, clearly you didn't. Oh, a shard. But you must have heard shard. Okay. Because they're similar. They're very similar. But you have a shard then Oh, clearly you didn't. Oh, a shard. But you must have heard shard. Okay. Because they're similar. They're very similar.

But you have a shard then. Okay, now back to the roller coaster ride. Yeah, let's go back there. So this was kind of a late add-on to the resolutions. I had like mechanical things I was going to tackle, like quit doing this. Right. Go back to writing a page a day every morning. Yeah.

You know, like physical things. And then maybe because of my wandering around. Yeah. And I'll add, so my thing was like, we went to a very nice, nice place, like a very luxurious place. Yeah. And I had to get too saccharine about it, but like maybe a bit of the Sid Arthur, like when he goes to the city and he becomes rich. Yeah. I was like, so much of this stuff I enjoy.

There's no question. There's so much of it's really enjoyable. The property was beautiful, but you are confronted with, I was, I personally, I won't speak for anyone else. I'm confronted the whole time with, God, the brain is such a weird place. So the brain wants and craves things, better things, a better life, more love, more everything.

It's not even bad per se. It's just we crave. And then there's this weird empty feeling for me when it's like you've gotten to the place where theoretically craving should be over. Okay, everything's pretty much perfect. And that's almost scary in the way that when I got sober was scary. Like, okay, I have everything I want and why am I miserable? And I wasn't miserable. I just was like, oh, so much of life is wanting more stuff. And then if you get the stuff, you almost enter a phase of hopelessness because there's nothing left. That's really what it was. It felt like at times.

Now the huge irony of this whole experience was day four out of five at this resort, we got invited to go to the residence of the resort, which I didn't really know existed. But then lo and behold, there was yet another tier above it. And I was like, God, see, someone's smart enough to know that

all these people who want a vacation here are starting to feel like now what's next let's build something that's even more exclusive it's endless and pointless and ridiculous but sure enough we go over for one night to the residence and yeah it's it's even nicer than the place that i already thought was as nice as it could get and you were like people there feel a little bit better here people are happy. Well, and then they're also going, like, I started noticing, too, and I was noticing this at the resort. And again, I might be projecting.

I don't want to put this on all the people that were there because there are tons of nice people and blah, blah, blah. But I did get this feeling of, like, the only real pleasure that was existing there was, like, whew, we made it. We made it to the upper level. Whatever like this game we're all playing, this place signifies that we made it to the safe level. And that's about the only joy that's really happening.

The feeling of gaming. Yes. It's 100% a game. Yeah. And so it's interesting because I'm not going to lie. Like I enjoy it, yet I'm also very self-aware of what a baloney thing it is. All of it. I mean, it was the TJ of what a baloney thing it is. All of it. I mean, it was the TJ Maxx.

Yes. The same thing. Is the point of life just to understand that all these cliches are true? Like by the time you die. You finally accept them all. Yeah, that they're all true. Or they resonate. Like this stupid, like wherever you go, there you are.

That's what this is. That's literally what this is. It doesn't matter. You're still you in these places at the end of the day. By the way, the best day we had is when we left the resort for like seven hours to go drive Razors through the dirty desert. Yeah. And then climb really far up to some waterfall. Yeah.

Like that was really quite enjoyable. Yeah. But then just really quite enjoyable. Yeah. But then just kind of sitting in, good job, you did it. Look where you're sitting. That's got like a five minute for me window of pleasure. And then you're like, oh, who cares? Who am I impressing? Who am I telling this to?

Yeah. And so much, I mean, you were with your family, but I do think for me, it's just all about who's around you. Yes. It does not matter. It doesn't matter. We can all be in a crappy place and it's much better than being with other people you don't care about in a nice place. And that was one other element I should also say is that like, let's say like our enjoyment when you and I checked into the nicer hotel in Hawaii, that delivered because we were at the whole pod.

We were at the whole pod. We went to the hotel next door, which is embarrassing. Well, they didn't have a gym and they didn't have coffee. It was during COVID. And so a lot. For me, the coffee was the breaking point. We went in its next door and it shares a beach. If we had to go to a hotel down the street. Yeah. Then it would

have been a loss. It would have been a loss. Anyways, I got to add one other thing that happened and we're going so long, but here we go. Lincoln and I were watching this. I already told you this. I think we were watching this reality show leading up to Christmas. Yeah. I didn't say that on here. Right. I just told you. Oh, I did? You did on our last fact check. I did. Didn't I say I wanted to? Yeah, you said you're going to start looking into Buddhism a little bit. Okay, so I guess maybe the seed was planted, but then maybe this vacation really cemented it.

Where I thought, okay, you're an arousal junkie. You love a roller coaster. Let's try. Like, let's give it the college try once. Yeah. To learn about Buddhism, really embrace that craving is the source of all suffering. Maybe get some tools around that. And I think even quitting dip where it's like, okay, I have less nicotine, so I'm a little less jacked.

Okay, let's like slowly, let's try to get the caffeine level down. So now the resolution really has become largely about minimally learning everything I can about Buddhism for a year. Like I would learn about any other subject. I love that. So I ordered a few books yesterday. Nice. I'm sure there's some good podcasts. Yeah, there probably is, huh?

Sure. Yeah, I have a fantasy where it's like I can be anywhere. Yeah. where it's like I can be anywhere. Yeah. And I've detached from this stupid video game I'm playing in my head. I'd like a little break from the video game. Yeah, I get it.

In closing, and this will be a weird person to say I have sympathy for, but I truly, I can't imagine Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are not miserable. I mean, truly, there's nothing for them to even fantasize about. They own the islands. They own the yachts. I know.

That's why they're trying to go to space. That's why. Literally, yeah. Because however good it is, that's it. If there's nothing better ahead for you in life, that's a tricky-ass place to be. That really, it means you'd be logical to not be optimistic. It's not going to get better. Maybe your optimism at best could be, well, hopefully I can maintain this.

But the most logical disposition would be pessimism. Well, except that that's going to be counter to what you learn, I think, in Buddhism. Right. Which is- The joy in life and the happiness doesn't even come from any of that. It doesn't. It doesn't come from wanting the next rung.

Yes, I know. I know. But unless they're like, have some crazy practice. I mean, I think it would take a lot of effort. But I just, they're just sitting around. It's like, there's nothing even to look forward to. Like, there's nothing to dream of. Well, but maybe you don't have to do that.

You can just enjoy. Assuming they're not monks. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, it's very unnatural. They have the type of dispositions that created what they created. So my hunch is they are, you know. Yeah.

I guess they can just like try to be richer than each other. That's about all there is left. Well, they are trying to do that. That is what they're doing. Okay, facts. Okay, facts. This is for Billy Joe. I think it's nice to have Thursdays with experts that aren't.

He really is. You know, a lot of musicians I might not want on a Thursday because either they're not like masters of their instrument nor have they demonstrated some kind of longevity that would suggest they have, you know, you really look at these bands, there's only a handful. Like Rolling Stones magically stayed together the whole time. Led Zeppelin didn't, Beatles didn't, and Metallica has. There's only a couple that have done it. And then Green Day. So the reason the book was a ding, ding, ding is because Billy and Mike are soulmates. Right.

And are in this professional relationship and met as kids. And there's a similarity. Yeah. And it's beautiful. Like, it's a beautiful thing. It is. Billy Joe. It's hard not to say Billy Joel.

We never talked about it. We didn't talk about it. I wonder if he's dealt with it. I'm sure he's grateful we didn't talk about it. I wonder if he's dealt with it. I'm sure he's grateful we didn't talk about it. I bet he is. Okay. You mentioned that he went on Kimmel and talked about his five-year-old album. Oh, when he was, the first time he performed, maybe it was on the local news. Yeah. He had like an album or something. So I've pulled up this clip from Kimmel.

Oh, great. Yeah, he had like an album or something. So I pulled up this clip from Kimmel. Oh, great. California. And yeah, I learned how to sing there and play guitar there also. Do you remember that song? Yeah, I could probably sing it right now, which I won't. You won't. Well, you don't have to because we have the clip of you singing it when you were five. When everything seems to go wrong and you need

somebody strong with a smile and a song. Look for love. Look for love. How sweet is that? Look for love. And you know, before I had kids, that kind of stuff wasn't as impressive to me.

But now that I've, like, you can't even get a five-year-old in the car. I know. With their shoes on most of the time. The notion that you could get them all the way to a stage and they would sing the song they practiced at five seems impossible. Well, it was recorded. I mean. Oh, there's no video. That was just the album they practiced at five seems impossible. Well, it was recorded. I mean. Oh, there's no video. That was just the album.

That was just the album. Okay. But I think he was on the news. Well, there's a picture of it was like a picture of him. Oh, he's in the newspaper. That's what it was. Newspaper. Oh, sweet.

Oh my God. Oh, he mentioned earlier in the episode, he wanted to show you a video. And just following up on that, he did. After we stopped recording, he showed us his- Super cool music video. New music video that's coming out. And it is about like a very drunk night that starts fun. And then reality sort of sinks in.

Starts seeping in from every crack and corner as it does. Okay. You said smells activate memories because they're located close to each other in the brain. That's right. I was. You were surprised. I was surprised. I was like, he just added that part.

He doesn't know, but you're right. And I'm going to read a little bit. This is from kids.frontiersin.org. Years of research helped us to understand that the emotional processing areas in the brain, the same areas activated by odors include the amygdala and the hippocampus, which are located in the temporal lobes. The temporal lobes are under your skull near your left and right temples. The hippocampus is a seahorse shaped brain area that is involved with associative learning, which is learning that occurs when you connect two separate events together. Odor linked memory relies on associative learning because we

associate or link the odor that we smell with the times in our lives when we previously smelled it. As you can see in figure two, as you can see, the amygdala and the hippocampus are really close together, which makes it easy for us to learn and remember emotional memories. Do you have one super specific you can mention? Because I have one. Well, it's a good- I'll hit you with mine and maybe I'll draw yours. So I think my favorite vacation we ever took as kids was we went and visited my stepdad in Phoenix, Arizona, because he worked there in the winters at the desert proving grounds. And we stayed at Wooly Petite Sweets. We ate at Flaky

Jake's, which you hear me talk about. And we went to the go-kart track every day. And my mother wore a new perfume on that trip. I think she probably got it for Christmas. We were there in the winter. And that smell always brings me back to Arizona when I was like 10 or 11. And I even bought it for her some years ago so that I could smell it on her. Oh, that's nice. And it's so specific.

What is it? The second I smell it, I should ask her. Yeah. Yeah, I should have it around just so I can sniff it out of. Oh, that's nice. And it's so specific. What is it? The second I smell it, I should ask her. Yeah. Yeah, I should have it around just so I can sniff it out of a jar every now and then. But you know, it won't smell the same because your pheromones mix with scents, which is why they all smell a tiny bit different on everyone or sometimes a lot different. Right. So if you smell it out of the jar, it won't be the same.

Won't be the same. No. I'm going to cut off a piece of her skin and then keep that moist. Yeah. And a little. Well, that's funny because a sense memory, I mean, a smell is Kristen's amber oil. Oh, really? Oh, I bet.

That like whole phase of your life? Yeah. Well, it just reminds, I guess. Yeah. No, it just reminds me of her i guess but that's not the same okay hold on um i have to but if you're mindful of it you'll notice it pops up all the time yeah like you might not off the top of your head remember these associations but you'll if you're like aware of it you'll smell something you go like oh my god yeah that's cedar point

right i was blank years old. I have it a lot. And I spend a lot of time in my head trying to figure out what that smells from. Interesting. Yeah. Nothing's popping to mind, but I'm sure I have it. One that's dark, but is so specific is crack smells. Crack has the most specific smell of anything.

And so I will be walking down the street in New York and I'll walk by like a stairwell and I'll smell it. And then I am like where I'm immediately, I don't feel high or good. I'm in the comedown of that experience and that smell you can't rid. It's just so permeated and you've been inhaling it. So you're like breathing it out.

You stink like it. Yeah. And that one always is just like, oh, oh. Oh, God. Yeah. It's like an immediate nightmare when I smell it. I'll think on it. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, famous music rivals. Ah, there we go. Or band rivals. This is from phoenixnewtimes.com. Phoenix. Phoenix, ding, ding, ding. My mom's perfume. And Hermione Permian. Oh, yeah. Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, USA. Okay. This is 10 best rock and roll feuds. The Killers versus The Bravery. Red Hot Chili Peppers versus Faith No More.

Oh, sure. Oh, I don't know that. Sure, sure. Well, I mean, I didn't know of it, but that makes sense. Oh, I don't know Faith No More. You would. And you know what's interesting? The lead singer of Faith No More, that's Seth Avid's favorite singer and musician, I think, of all time. Whoa. He left Faith No More, I want to say. This is all what I'm remembering Seth telling me. And he had all these different musical projects that were really experimental. And he's very much his North Star. Mike Patton.

Mike Patton. Huh. Okay. Eight, Courtney Love versus Dave Grohl and Billy Corgan, et cetera. Is that a- That's over Nirvana. Oh, yeah, duh.

Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. Sexy. Okay, the White Stripes versus the Vaughn Bondys. Okay. Brand new versus Taking Back Sunday. Nine Inch Nails versus Marilyn Manson.

Oh. That's interesting. I can see that. Sure. Metallica versus Megadeth. Sure. This is a good one. If I remember this one, the original guitar player of Metallica was kicked out.

Dave Mustang. Does it say anything about Dave Mustang? It does. And then I think Dave Mustang started Megadeth. And Megadeth was seen as a little more hardcore than Metallica. People in the metal world were like, Megadeth's the real shit. Oh, yeah. It says Metallica likes to get in giant feuds with people.

Dave Mustaine likes to argue with everyone. This breakup was really a match made in metal heaven. For nearly 30 years after his unceremonious exit from Metallica, Mustaine clearly held a ton of resentment toward his old band, spitting fire about them at nearly every chance he got. Of course, he was never exactly made out to look like the nicest guy by his former band, being kicked out for substance abuse problems and always portrayed as out of control. But hey, the whole thing led to the formation of Megadeth,

so metalheads really can't complain about it. Lynyrd Skynyrd versus Neil Young. Oh, yeah. I hope Neil Young can remember. Southern man don't need him around anyhow. Deedle, deedle, deedle. Oh. Sweet home Alabama.

Oh, that's a lyric? Yeah. Oh, my God. Southern man don't need him around anyhow. Oh, no. Let's see. Considering that this is one of the most famous feuds in music history, it really wasn't much of a feud at all.

Sure, Neil Young might have been kind of a dick. It's like I wrote this article. Kind of a dick to all. Sure, Neil Young might have been kind of a dick. It's like I wrote this article. I know. Kind of a dick to lump Skinner and other Southern rockers of the era in with slavery? The era in with slavery and the South less than stellar racial past. And Skinner might have taken a jab at Young in one of their most famous songs, but everyone made up rather quickly. Young apologized. The guys in Skinner said it famous songs, but everyone made up rather quickly. Young apologized. The guys in Skinner said it was cool and it turned out to just be one big misunderstanding. Ah.

Lump Skinner. Oh. Because. Oh, he lumped Lynyrd Skynyrd in with other Southern rockers that were racist. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, I see. Yeah. Number two, Oasis versus Blur.

Right. This one I remember. Really? I don't know any. I'm so peaceful. I just don't know. Don't get into feuds. And one is The Smiths versus The Cure.

Oh, read that to me because those were two of my favorite bands. Maybe at the same time they were my favorite band. What makes the battle between Morrissey and Robert Smith so great? Well, for one thing, it's the Smiths versus Smith. For another, it's basically the fight to determine who's the most important sad musician of all time. Maybe the highlight of the entire argument was Smith's passive-aggressive masterpiece saying, he's only in the feud because Morrissey started it, but he's also never liked a single song Morrissey's done. It's one of those great wars of general dislike that will never be resolved. After all, they've been going at it for about 30 years now.

Oh, congratulations. Interesting. Beatles versus Beach Boys, which was what you said, is not on this list. It's not on there. Brian Wilson. You know, they say that's what made Brian Wilson go crazy. Although clearly he must've had some foundational. They said Beatles did?

Yes, because they were in this album, album, album, album, raising the bar, raising the bar, and the Beatles did the White Album. Right. And he had done Pet Sounds. And then maybe when he heard Sergeant Pepper, he lost his mind. Like, I'm not gonna be, this is the lore.

Interesting. Once he heard Sergeant Pepper or the White Album, one of the two, he was like, well, that's that. I can't catch that. Okay. I want to read this, this one too. This is from Pace. This is the 10 most infamous band feuds in rock history, but this seems like it's between band members. Yeah. Sure. And this is a ding, ding, ding. Oh, okay. To soulmate. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Broken relationships. Okay, number 10, Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger versus Keith Richards. Yeah, they can't. Do you ever listen to interviews about them?

No. Or I read Keith Richards' book. They talk so poorly about each other and have for 50 years. Wow. But they keep rocking. Wow. Nine, Simon and Garfunkel. Oh, that's unexpected.

Yeah. Two peaceful dudes singing about. It says the two folk musicians recorded their last album, 1970's highly successful Bridge Over Troubled Water, at a time when their personal relationship was rapidly deteriorating. The two couldn't decide on the 12th and final song on the album and refused to record each other's choices. So the album was released with only 11 tracks. choices. So the album was released with only 11 tracks. Then in the late 80s, a reunion album was planned, but Simon unexpectedly removed Garfunkel's vocals and released the disc solo. A couple of years later, when the duo was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Art made the major decision to put the past behind him and publicly praised Paul for a songwriting ability. Paul

responded by saying, Arthur and I agree about almost nothing, but it's true. I have enriched his life quite a bit. Oopsie. Wow. That's so gracious. Oh, wowie. He did not take on Buddhism, I don't think. No.

Eight, the Everly Brothers. Don Everly versus Phil Everly. Okay, Pink Floyd. David Gilmour versus Roger Waters. Beatles, obviously. Lennon versus McCartney. Guns N' Roses. Axl versus Guns N' Roses.

Well, probably Slash. Or just everyone in the band. Probably everyone, I guess. For the Kinks, Ray Davies versus Dave Davies. His name's Dave Davies? Dave Davies. David Davies. His name's Dave Davies? Come on. Dave Davies. David Davies.

The Beach Boys. Mike Love versus Brian Wilson. Oasis. Man, Oasis and all these. Is it Gallagher? Noel Gallagher versus Liam Gallagher. Yeah, but have you seen these guys in interviews? No.

Oh, my God. You should go down a rabbit hole. They hate being interviewed. I don't know why they do any interviews. They're such misanthropes. They haven't seen each other in a long time. Oh, okay. Let's see if we can get them back.

Let's get them on the show together. Oh my God. Wait, I want to read this. The two brothers have admitted that they've been continually at odds ever since sharing a bedroom in their childhood home. But over 30 years of fighting finally took its toll on the brothers on the night of August 28th, 2009. A mere minutes before the band

was set to take the stage in Paris, the two siblings engaged in a violent backstage fight that reportedly involved Liam smashing his older brother's guitar. It was the second reported violent incident surrounding the brothers. Years earlier, Liam supposedly hit Noel over the head with the tambourine.

Noel drove off and the band's manager went on stage and canceled the show saying Oasis does not exist anymore. Oh my God. Two hours later, a message from Noel appeared on the band's website reading, I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer. The two haven't seen each other since. Oh boy. Wow.

Cain and Abel. Yeah. seen each other since oh boy wow came and able yeah okay number one mayhem varg what that shouldn't be number one never even heard of it that's the writer's favorite band yeah exactly um all right well that was fun yeah okay let's see do Do I have anything else? Well, it's funny. This is Sim. Ding, ding, ding. Duck, duck, goose. He mentioned Oasis also. And I was just in a restaurant with Callie and Oasis was playing. Wonderwall?

It wasn't Wonderwall. Okay. But I can't listen to Oasis. Sure, sure. Like thinking about nostalgia, when I hear it, I am transported back to, I guess, high school. But in a way I don't like. Right. It makes me feel very, like, I guess depressed.

Yeah. I guess it depresses me. Don't play it. So I'm not going to play it. Wonderwall is so. You're my Wonderwall. One time Callie had a suitor who just wrote her the lyrics to Wonderwall. Oh, that's a cheat.

It's a big time cheat. No, yeah. So, well, that's all the facts for Billy Joe. Well, I loved meeting him and that was really fun. It was fun. Yeah. And I love these rivalries. I hate to admit it.

It's fun to hear. It's the worst part of ourselves, but I hope that doesn't go away when I'm a Buddhist. It will. Oh, fuck. You're not going to understand why people are throwing away their talent. Sending all their energy in the wrong direction. It's true. Well, I love you.

I love you. Happy birthday. Let's build on these shards. Let's do it. Yeah.