Courtesy of BillboardGreen Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong, Weezer‘s Rivers Cuomo and Fall Out Boy‘s Pete Wentz break down the origins of their massive summer 2020 Hella Mega tour in the cover story of the new issue of Billboard.
“When I was 13, Guns N’ Roses and Metallica went on a big stadium tour, and my parents wouldn’t let me go,” Wentz remembers. “There’s a part of me that’s still trapped in that moment.”
He adds, “If there’s not a couple riots on this tour, was it really a success?”
Armstrong explains that the idea for the tour first came about a year ago, and was conceived as a modern version of the 1988 Monsters of Rock tour, which featured Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica and Dokken.
“We were like, ‘Who’s that in our era?'” Armstrong says, adding, “This is the most excited I have been in a long time. It’s the biggest rock event that’s going to happen for over a year.”
Armstrong is particularly excited because Green Day also has a new album, Father of All…, due out February 7. He describes the record, which consists of 10 songs packed into 26 minutes, as “very high energy.”
“We wanted to create a dance groove with space between the drums and vocals [inspired by] the way [rapper] Kendrick Lamar does things or old-school Motown music, where it’s leading with the rhythm,” Armstrong explains.
Though Green Day is known for being a political band, Armstrong says Father of All… won’t deal directly with the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
“I can’t think of anything that’s less inspiring than trying to write about Donald Trump,” he says. “It grosses me out. Everybody knows the way I feel about these things. I like to feel some sense of joy, living through the chaos of the era.”
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