Green Day was interviewed by Jello Biafra (of the Dead Kennedys and other projects) for a magazine called Huh (or huH, I guess), in 1996. Jello Biafra is not the usual interviewer, so it’s more like a conversation among punk rock colleagues. To a certain extent, it reflects the issues Biafra is interested in more than it does Green Day’s.
Although they share similar political views and concerns, the members of Green Day and Jello Biafra have very different perspectives. Jello wants to talk with the guys about the evils of major labels, and Green Day are kind of ho-hum about it all. Billie Joe says: “I wanted to live off of what I was fucking doing, and that’s as honest as I can be. I don’t have a diploma, I know how to play music.”
But if Jello comes off as maybe a little whiny, it’s because he really did pave the way for later bands. He says as much, jokingly, in the interview: “You younguns have no idea what we were up against to create a punk scene for you to walk into!” And Billie Joe replies, laughing: “You jaded old bastard!” But when the Dead Kennedys became popular in the early 80s, punk rock really did seem dangerous and threatening to many in the mainstream. Jello was even criminally charged for “distributing harmful matter.”
The interview is so long that there’s a lot of great stuff, like Billie Joe talking about the hospital patients he sang for when he was little, Green Day’s first gig with Crimpshrine and Sewer Trout, the benefit they played for Food Not Bombs, which raised 30 grand, Billie Joe going to Gilman in disguise, and the heavy metal band called Bloodrage that Billie played in when he was 14. Biafra: “Did any of the lyrics make it into Green Day songs?” Billie: “Oh yeah, like fiery graves and bloody bones…”
Continued:
Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10, Page 11,
Page 12, Page 13, Page 14, Page 15.
The magazine is a weird format that didn’t fit on the scanner, so it’s scanned in slightly odd sections.
October 29, 2009 at 12:42 am [ Category: Interviews, Magazine scans, History ]
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Comment from Abbey October 29, 2009, 9:22 am
What an interesting interview! Posting this is an absolute GIFT to us. THANK YOU.
Billie Joe has a serious backbone. He took no cr@p from Jello - and Billie was what, 24 at the time?
“20 years from now, I’m gonna be an ugly pathetic old man…” er, not quite Billie Joe…you’re still rockin those magazine covers 13 YEARS SINCE THAT INTERVIEW…yeah!
Mike is so fuking clever - it was awesome to see his wit shine thru - its gotten sidelined on the BJA media circus.
Like you said, Jello clearly had an agenda to rant about the evils of the major-label but the boys very rationally with great humor countered his statements.
I still cant get over they were in their mid 20s when they did this interview - seems like they have not changed a bit in 13 years.