Green Day Ready "Idiot"

Green Day will release their next album, American Idiot this fall. The follow-up to 2000's Warning finds the punk pop trio again working with longtime producer Rob Cavallo.

Idiot is culled from thirty-five songs that the group assembled and recorded earlier this year. "It's a lot of material," frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told Rolling Stone earlier this year. "We're trying to get one theme throughout the album, because we're in the album business, not in the business of making singles. We're really excited about it."

Though Warning is nearly four years old, Green Day have hardly been idle since its release. The group issued a compilation, International Superhits! in 2001 and the odds and ends collection Shenanigans in 2002. Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool are also believed to be responsible a synth pop album released last year under the moniker the Network.

The trio has lined up some international dates, but nothing yet in the States. On August 7th and 8th, Green Day will play in Tokyo, before heading to the U.K. for the Reading and Leeds Festivals, set for August 27-29.

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

More Song Stories entries »

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