Green Day Rock Under Watchful Eyes in "Know Your Enemy" Video

Green Day's "Know Your Enemy" is a straightforward rock & roll call to arms, a plea for revolution that declares "Silence is the enemy against your urgency." The NoCal trio's new video for the song off their upcoming 21st Century Breakdown is similarly direct: nobody stars in the clip aside from the band, who rock on an urban rooftop, but they're far from alone — they're under the constant watchful eye of surveillance cameras, helicopters and satellites in a Big Brother trope that recalls Nine Inch Nails' clip for "Survivalism." Like many Green Day songs, the power of the video is its deceptive simplicity.

The clip's director calls "Know Your Enemy" "definitely the biggest video I've ever done. It has a lot of really big visuals, because I was trying to match the song, which is huge," Mathew Cullen told MTV. Rather than rely on characters or narrative like the clips from the band's prior album, American Idiot, "Know Your Enemy" utilizes a host of camera tricks. There's closed-circuit camera footage, night vision and also a split-second moment when the lens is mounted to Mike Dirnt's bass. The most powerful visuals are reserved for the 2:40 mark, however, as Green Day launch into the final chorus in front of columns of towering flames.

21st Century Breakdown is due out Friday, May 15th, and the band's tour begins July 3rd in Seattle. Rolling Stone's David Fricke recently caught one of the trio's Oakland, California warm-up gigs, where the band introduced Breakdown and even provided lyric sheets for the concertgoers. As Fricke noted in his review, "21st Century Breakdown is a rock opera in which the rock always comes first."

Related Stories: • Photos: Inside Green Day's Hometown Throwdown
• Green Day Swing for the Fences on 21st Century Breakdown
• Green Day's Build Up to the "Breakdown": A Look Back at the Punk Trio's Career

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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.”

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